Last year (2016) Jordan and I completed the first major project out at the camp we have at Firehill Lake. Actually it was two projects but the venue was the same!
As we enjoy guests and like sharing our "wilderness experience" with all who come to visit (hint hint if you ever find your way to our neck of the woods) I decided what was needed was a sleep camp or "bunky" as they are sometimes regionally known. In simple terms just a simple accommodation building for guests who wish to spend the night, especially since our camp is not very large.
In practicing how to use the sawmill that I bought through my company a few years back I had accumulated enough lumber to build a basic structure. A single room building 16' square and utilising wherever possible recycled materials left over from our house renovation, such as a door and windows.
Work began by leveling out an area close to the main camp but still out of the way. Then holes were dug into the clay, down about 5' and round cement forms put in place, backfilled and then filled with cement. This is where I made the one goof of the whole project; I set the forms 8 feet on centre when in fact it should have been 7'7" (I used 10" diameter tubes and should have measured from outside edge in). As a result I had to use two sets of 6'x6' square timbers to bring the outside edges in for the floor, each with tapered ends so that the bottom is fully supported by the posts but the area supported by the top of the beams measures 16' by 16'.
In the long term I want the sleep camp to be insulated so it can be made comfortable come winter time use. In addition I did not want critters having easy access to the under floor insulation. So the floor was built as two panels: 8' by 16' using 2" by 8" boards. Once framed and squared they were covered with thin plywood to both reinforce but more importantly seal the bottom side. The panels were then flipped over, shifted into place and then attached to one another. Then the cavity was filled with fibreglass insulation, covered with heavy plastic vapour barrier and then covered with 5/8" tongue and groove sub-floor.
With the floor now done the next task was to build the walls, this time using 2' by 6" lumber from my stock pile. Once they were squared they were covered with plywood and then lifted up into place and then secured. With all four walls up and a top plate installed engineered roof trusses were put in place followed by a plywood roof deck (while chip board is cheaper it is less structurally sound nor can it stand up to weather like plywood).
As described in a previous post my siblings and I had redone the roof of the house our mother lives in several years back using steel panels. That was a great learning experience in that while the steel panels are about 30% more expensive than high quality shingles installation time is far less and the panels will literally last a lifetime. So I got enough steel roofing panels to do the roof of the bunkie as well as replace the roofing of the main camp and the large storage building, both of which the asphalt shingles were very close to end of life. Replacing the roofing on the camp and the storage building was the second project by the way!
Once the roofing was done then we put up soffit and facia, installed the windows and the door plus flashing around the door and all windows. Jordan then applied a solid wood stain to the outside wood surfaces. We then built steps to gain access, installed some basic furniture and then were ready for our first guests, Peter and Karen Gobeil!
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