#Building a rustic cabin full

'Bigger, bigger, bigger - that's what we're seeing, and more amenities,' Gastineau says. Lynn Gastineau, owner of Gastineau Log Homes, has also noticed that camp and cabin designs are more elaborate. Now these places are four-season homes you can visit anytime of the year you want.' 'You don't want to take a $300,000 piece of property and set a $50,000 house down on it. 'People want a return on their investment,' Folker says. The camps and cabins of today are more like cottages with all the amenities.'įeatures like a dishwasher, refrigerator, granite countertops, plush carpeting, a stocked bar for entertaining, expansive glass and outdoor cooking and preparation areas are becoming more common. 'In the past, they were nothing more than large bunkhouses. 'Camps and cabins have really turned the corner,' Folker says. Today, the designs are bigger than ever, with some homeowners envisioning such structures eventually becoming retirement homes. The old log cabin isn't what it used to be. 'There's often a common area with a glass wall of some sort,' Breit says. More often than not, these structures have a lot of glazing to view the natural wonders of their property, like meadows or lakes or the woods. What a lot of camps and cabins have in common is a porch or a deck for spending time outside. If they do, it's usually a one-car garage or a storage unit for a boat and other toys. Instead of big fireplaces, camps and cabins usually have woodburning stoves or smaller fireplace collections.Ī lot of camps and cabins don't have garages.

The heating and cooling systems are often seasonable, so many of these places are not four-season structures.

#Building a rustic cabin full

Often, camps and cabins are built on piers or slabs, as opposed to having full basements.

Open design concepts can be popular with main homes, too, but you don't see it all the time like you do with camps and cabins.' All the rooms open up to each other, with the exception of the bathroom. 'If you need more places to sleep, the loft layout may be sleeping quarters. 'Typically, these are two-bedroom places,' Breit says. 'They have simple roof lines, although some may have shed roofs or gable roofs.' That simplicity extends to the interior, which features a lot of wood in the walls. 'Architecturally, they're usually very simple,' Breit says. The designs often aren't very complicated. Still, the basic architectural features haven't changed all that much. Many of today's cabins and camps resemble primary homes. By definition, a cabin is a small, roughly built house and sometimes a camp isn't much more than a shack. We all know what a cabin or camp is when we see it. 'People don't want to sacrifice the conveniences they have at home.' 'What used to be very rustic, very basic structures have become filled with amenities you'd find in primary residences,' he says. 'Nobody's roughing it anymore.' Joe Folker, director of network services for Kuhns Bros. 'The ones we all grew up with, the ones your grandma and grandpa used to own that had indoor plumbing if you were lucky, those are gone for the most part,' says Brian Breit, national sales manager for Wilderness Log Homes. And instead of using the campfire to cook and reading by candlelight, a lot of cabins have a stove to make gourmet meals and enough electric light to keep you from going blind. That woodburning stove that barely pumped out enough heat to keep you from freezing now has help in the form of a furnace to keep its owners warm. Remember that smelly old outhouse back in the trees? It's gone, replaced by indoor plumbing.