Andrew Szeto is a Coast Guard employee and woodworking tinkerer living in Ottawa, Ontario. When he decided he wanted to build on his burgeoning woodworking skills to construct his own A-Frame, he leaned heavily on the Ottawa City Woodshop, a community space where people learn how to work with wood, together. A friend he met there knows cabins, and the two decided Szeto was ready to make his own.
Szeto heard of an acre of land for sale in a small Quebec town nearby, so he snatched it up for $6,000 Canadian (about $4,500 in US dollars) and got to planning his dream shack. A month of hard work later, and, well, look at that. A gorgeous little A-Frame all his own.
His cabin is roughly 10 feet by 10 feet. He built in a climbing wall, which makes perfect sense with those vertical walls. Szeto also worked in a sweet little outhouse. He does have some tiny regrets about the build, though. For one, he wishes it was larger. And he didn’t prepare the ground as well as he should gave, he realized in retrospect. He expects some shifting with the freeze and thaw cycle. But, as he told Field Mag, “to see a thing you built come to life is the greatest gift you can give yourself.”
Oh, right, the cost. All the materials were purchased for $8,012. The material cost includes climbing holds, a generator, transportation, and even food he ate during the construction. Add in the land, and you have a serious bargain A-Frame, built by its owner over the course of a month of work. You can watch a timelapse of the build at the bottom of this post.
Weekend Cabin isn’t necessarily about the weekend, or cabins. It’s about the longing for a sense of place, for shelter set in a landscape…for something that speaks to refuge and distance from the everyday. Nostalgic and wistful, it’s about how people create structure in ways to consider the earth and sky and their place in them. It’s not concerned with ownership or real estate, but what people build to fulfill their dreams of escape. The very time-shortened notion of “weekend” reminds that it’s a temporary respite.
Check out Szeto’s photography, here.
Good on him. I do find these prices to be, not only subjective to the person and their talent level, personal connections and luck but also location in the country. Price is misleading considering each location has different permitting structure, zoning and sanitation requirements.
Can someone email me the plans??
Jrwhitehead23 @ g mail
This story has given me courage to build my own. Thank you.
I m more impressed you found a municipality that accept building something with a ground surface < 500sqm
And buying land on nearby unorganized municipalities is unlikely so what's your trick? 🙂
Ugly
I think that this is something to think about doing to live in temporary while building a much bigger one.
I really like it!!!
THANK-YOU for sharing.
If you wanted to expand it to a have another A-frame attached to it at a right angle in the back to form an L-shape what would you do in advance on the first one knowing you were going to do such an expansion later?
The thing is where are you going to shower or use the restroom . Do you have to build the other a frame to accomplish that . If you’re in the south where temperatures reach a hundred in the summer time , how much insulation do you nee? So if you need two cabins for a bathroom and shower . Spending
I’m wanting to understand what is limiting your imagination to accomplish these objectives. I am a visionary person and have some remodeling experience but don’t see anything that would prevent accomplishing any of what you brought up.
Can you help me expand in the critical thinking area?
For something that speaks to refuge and distance from the everyday
I am blessed to have built by my own hands a log cabin in the mountains of Colorado. One of the most meaningfull and transformative experiences of my life
do it without overthinking it.