I hope to get started on a deer lease cabin next week. Its a little late but the best I can do. I plan to build a 24x24 with a front porch. Any do or donts? I would like to avoid as many mistakes as possiable. I am workin a lot now so I have hired a place called amazing buildings from the Dallas area? thanks for your help in advance.

We have a 20'x30'. My advice is stretch and build it just a tad bigger. Put in a couple enclosed bedrooms. Our place is just one big room except for the enclosed bathroom. It's fine when it is just the guys, but makes it really hard to bring the family if someone else will be there. I would really like to add a 20'x10' addtion to ours and frame out two 10'x10' bedrooms.

Consider building a half-loft on one side for storage and an extra bed.

Think about installing a floor drain in the bathroom and kitchen. If you forget to cut the water off, a water line breaks, and you are 200 miles away you don't want to flood the whole place (ask me how I know).

Extend your roof line off one side or off the back for a built-in carport. That could come in handy for parking ATVs or vehicles under.

Thats the kind of thing I am looking for!!Thanks I will look at each suggestion carefully thanks again. Anyone else?

My cabin has a porch all the way across the front and faces due east - we always have afternoon shade and a cool breeze.

Build as big as can afford...I have a 30 x 30 - shotgun shack style, plenty of room for family of 5. It has 2 bedrooms separated by bath on back half, Kitchen and LR split across the front. Wish I has a rock/brick fireplace...

Insulate the floor, walls and ceiling/roof. It will make it much more comfortable. Also remember if you lease that if you move you have to be able to move it back out or leave it on the lease. Might consider that in your build also. I bought on of these to live in for a year while I was getting a home built.
I bought the Angler model with it completely finished, delivered and setup except for fridge and heat pump.
http://morgancabins.com/

One more thing: If you can work it in, put a wood-buring stove in the common area. Build a stone heart about 18" high, and put the stove on that. Pipe the chimney out the wall. Those old stoves will heat the whole place better and use alot less wood than an open fireplace. The good ones also won't draft any smoke at all into the cabin. You can also cook on top of them if you want to.

Ranch, if I could ask, what did something like that run?

Around $24k or bit over delivered, setup and with taxes.

30 x 30 - shotgun shack style? what is that? It would be square but the shotgun shack i dont get?

I purchased an old wood frame house built in the 40's or 50's and had it moved to our property to use as a cabin. The old man who moved it called it a shotgun shack style, so that's what we always call it. Never really thought about why - basically ours is an old 30 x 30 frame house that sit up on blocks.

I suppose a real shotgun shack is rectangular & narrow.

Shotgun shack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_house

I was always told by my grandparents that it meant you could shoot a shotgun through the front door out the back door and not hit anything!

Look at some of the portable building places. You can get them in all sizes, and they can move them if you leave that lease. I would even think about 2 units, and then build a covered screened in common area between the 2 units. Kind of like the old motor courts used to have a parking area in between units. Basic protection from the bugs and inclement weather.

the widest one they want to build and move is 16 ft if I do that and get very long like a 16x40 it looks like a trailer house to me. I own the place so I am not worried about moving it. I want it to look like it belongs there rustic I guess

You might look around for some old houses to move if you are not in a big hurry + and can do some work yourself. We paid about $5K for the house, it was structurally sound but needed work. We took the old attached garage too, it was an extra $2K to move it. The move cost about $7K. Central Air, plumbing redo and electrical redo + added a front porch & we are all in for about $35K which was a lot less than anything else I could find at the time...I notice them for sale now and then.

[img][IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/darnold01/IMG_5662.jpg[/img][/img]

Good luck

Mine is 24 x 32 with two bedrooms and bathroom (equipped with washer/dryer/freezer area in bathroom). I made mine with 9' ceilings and put a garage door that goes to the living room. When I leave, the UTV and ATV get parked inside and lock it down. This also makes my cabin a garage and I don't get taxed like it is a house (which it really is). I also didn't hook up to county water, so this also helps it not qualify for a house. I did ad my own water tank with pump and the water works just as well.

If you own the place the sky is the limit, my choice would be 2 bedrooms, one on both ends with a large 24x24 living room kitchen, and dining area in between them. With a connected bathroom to each bedroom. We hunted on place that was like that, 2 families, we each had our end of the house with everything community in between. The front faced south and had full porch about 10 foot wide and about 50 foot long. Across the back was also a full porch, about 6 foot deep.

Each end was a bedroom with a bath that was a total of about 12x24. One of the baths had old claw foot tubs in it, the other was modern, but okay.

That old house was awesome, but it burned to the ground one summer, after that we didn't want the lease anymore. We went and picked up our junk and never looked back.

I would also make sure the front door/porch faces East so it is shaded in the evening.