Today is the second of three days that it took us to frame the off grid cabin walls.

It took my father and I just three days to frame in all the the cabin walls, windows, doors, and even start on the second story loft floor joists.

In fact, we built the entire cabin from start to finish in just 15 days.

We also covered a quick “How To: Framing 101” class to help situate newcomers to the framing terminology.

Feel free to open this page up in a separate window and follow along with the terminology.

We started by framing the exterior wall at one end of the cabin.

The wall went up quickly.

We also finished half of the front and back walls as well.

They are build in halves to reduce the lifting weight and also to accommodate building the loft floor joist.

To frame the second floor loft joist we used 16 foot long 2″ X 6″s spaced 16″ O.C.

We’ll use 7/16″ 4′ X 8′ OSB for the sub-floor.

Over all dimensions of the loft floor are 16ft X 12ft.

There will be an opening for a folding staircase.

Here’s a sneak peek to understand where the folding access ladder will go.

Using a attic access style folding staircase allows for much more room on the main floor.

The ladder can be folded up out of the way when we need more room in the main floor and when the loft isn’t in use.

The upstairs loft will also have a westward facing window to watch the sunset at night right from the bed!

The walls of the loft will be angled at 45 degrees providing plenty of standing headroom.

We will also utilize the lower portion of the walls (where the loft wall meets the floor) to store the solar system battery bank as well as the winter fresh water supply (all covered in upcoming posts).

We’ll also have an access hatch going from the inside of the loft into the crawl space located above the deck.

Measuring out and cutting the 16 foot loft floor joists.

In the photo above you can see our wood stove protected in plastic.

We’re going with the Drolet Pyropak as it’s the smallest wood-stove available that has the all important glass door.

This is a 40,000 BTU wood-stove with a 1000 sq ft capacity.

Our cabin has an overall square footage of 512 sq ft so this will more than do during even our coldest Canadian winters. 

Once we get up on the second floor that lake in the distance is going to look amazing!