FOREWORD
Every Westerner wants a “vacation home”! Perhaps it is the nearness to pioneer days that makes us so alive to mountain forests and ocean sands. Sunset’s Cabin Plan Book is primarily for those who are still in the “talking stage.” However, there is much valuable information in its pages for those who already are enjoying the pleasures of a “second home,” where they spend week-ends and vacation days, living comfortably though simply at any time of the year, while enjoying our Western heritage of the great outdoors.
The planning of a mountain cabin or beach cottage deserves just as careful and thoughtful consideration as the planning of a real home, though the actual construction is likely to be on a fairly simple scale.
The size of the cabin, whether it is built of logs, stone or finished lumber, depends upon what you intend to use it for—a week-end cottage for yourself and your family, a hunting lodge, a vacation home, or a little place where you can go off and examine the state of your soul in the quiet of the woods. You should consider the number in the family and the number of guests likely to be included, for “week-end cabin” should not be a synonym for active discomfort. Crowding may be jolly for a few hours or possibly for one night, but seldom longer than that.
The collection of cabin plans in this book is representative of what we believe to be the best in Western vacation-home designing. The floor plans embody features that may be shifted from one to another, since these are not necessarily working plans, but suggestions around which you and your architect or contractor-builder can create a cabin to fill your own needs. The same holds true of the cabin sketches themselves. You need not sheathe your cabin in bevel siding just because it’s that way in the picture. The same plan can be used for a shingle house or one of board and batten.
No attempt has been made to set down detailed instructions for building any particular cabin, since no two are exactly alike, but we have tried to present the information needed by an amateur who wants to build his own place or oversee the work of a crew of country laborers. In addition to the cabin plans and visualizations there are numerous pages of cabin lore gathered from many sources as well as from the practical experiences of the Sunset Staff.
Cost estimates have been omitted purposely, as there are so many factors affecting the price of materials, labor, and transportation in various localities. Figures based on one locality would not hold good in another. The distance from sources of supply is also an influence, because materials hauled only a few miles would cost far less than if they were shipped a hundred miles and then transported by truck to the cabin site. Really, the only satisfactory answer to the cost problem is to take your plans to a builder in the neighborhood of your locality and get his figures. Or if you plan to do some of the work yourself with local labor, your lumberman may be able to help you with cost estimates. If you want an individual and specialized design, the services of an architect should be seriously considered.
We hope the ideas in this Cabin Plan Book not only be inspiring but also so practical and usable.
Note: Working drawings of the cabin plans are not available. This is in keeping with the publisher’s policy to furnish ideas but not an architectural service.