Planning Cabin Construction
Things are really happening.
Building an off-grid cabin on our property on Bogus Lake near Grand Marais has been a dream for a long time. While we didn’t build in 2023 as originally hoped, we’ve made a lot of progress and this may finally be the year.
Back in 2020 we made the decision to get serious about cabin plans. We looked at a number of design options and chose a dramatic cantilevered structure over a cliff with sweeping views to the North and East. In 2021 we built a road almost to the site to allow better access and planning, then in 2022 we completed the road, cleared the site, excavated down to bedrock in the foundation area, and dug a well for water.
Those 2022 activities were intended to de-risk some of the planning and construction activities by making sure we would have access to water and there were no surprises lurking underground. As a bonus, the site clearing revealed an even more dramatic vista than we’d expected: forest and fen amid rolling hills with Lake Superior and Isle Royale in the distance. The Brule River, while not directly visible, often fills its valley with fog in the early mornings leading to dramatic cloudscapes at dawn.
October sunrise from our building site. Lake Superior and Isle Royale are on the horizon near where the sun will shortly rise; the fog bank in the middle distance marks the Brule River Valley.
At the end of 2022 we were about ready to commit to 2023 construction when interest rates shot up and dramatically increased the cost of financing. At the same time, a more refined cost estimate wound up being substantially higher than we had originally planned. So we decided to press pause.
A few developments over the past year have moved our cabin from “it’s looking expensive” to “let’s go.”
After our price shock in late 2022, we did some soul-searching about our use cases. We had the idea we would need four bedrooms (three of which had murphy beds and could convert to offices or other purposes) and four bathrooms so we could host our kids and their future families for vacations and celebrations. But on reflection, we decided that those “full house” events were likely to be rare, so we really should focus on our own enjoyment of the property with perhaps one other family visiting. That allowed us to shrink the design to two bedrooms and two bathrooms while still allowing us to host the occasional guest and have a remote office space.
The other big change we made was the decision to build the project in stages rather than all at once. We’re planning to build the shell of the building this year, and complete the plumbing, electrical, and interior work in 2025. That doesn’t directly save much money, but it allows us to spread the expenditure over two years and cover a lot more of it out directly from our incomes, saving financing cost. It also gives us a chance to at least attempt to DIY some of the easier interior work. Since many of the tradespeople will have to drive two hours to get to the site, even saving a few hours of their labor can cut thousands from the project if it avoids a trip.
The biggest unknown now is the weather. Ideally we want a short winter with not too much snow and a dry summer to give us the longest possible construction season with minimal disruptions and rescheduling. And so far it’s shaping up to be an unusually warm winter, giving me hope that construction can begin on time or even a little early.
We’ve started putting down deposits for building materials and having weekly meetings with the project team to get blueprints finalized so key parts can be fabricated over the next few months. The shell will mostly be built from prefabricated structural panels, lots of windows, and a modest amount of structural steel. All these will be fabricated offsite, with the onsite work being mostly final assembly. All this should result in a high-performance building which minimizes the number of on-site workers and time.
And if all goes well, construction begins in four months.