Building Hunt Camp - The Beginning

Building a place to call hunt camp means many things to many people. It is both geographical and generational. Southern hunters often gather in old farm houses or barns and convert them into a "hunt cabin". Some utilize older mobile homes or campers and circle the wagons in some configuration at a designated location for their camp.

Ridge proud of his work
setting poles on out cabin

I opted for something different. My land was barren of old farm buildings so that option was out, and being somewhat frugal (some of my friends would say cheap) I wanted to build a nice cabin as inexpensively as possible. Thus we have in progress the re-purposed or scavenged cabin. Over the next couple of weeks I will cover the step by step process of building this cabin. In cast some of you are looking for a great off season project, this one will fit the bill.

Ridge pouring concrete
around poles

Interestingly enough it was fairly simple, scouring through want ads and craigslist I searched for old buildings that people wanted torn down. Before I found one, my brother happened upon one that the owner said we could have if we tore it down. So we gathered and began dismantling the old metal garage and transported it to my land for reconstruction.

The best part of building a cabin is you can design it however you like. The garage we dismantled was 20x30 with a 10 ft section closed in and the remainder open bays. After some consideration we built the current cabin 20x24 with it completely closed in. The width was fixed due to the length of the trusses, simple math showed how big we could build the cabin using the existing metal to cover the entire building.

The re-purposed garage come with the metal sides, 4 trusses, one metal man door, and the nailing strips and posts. When we began reconstruction I replaced all posts with new treated posts and sifted through the nailing strips (2x6) and replaced the ones that needed to be replaced. Then construction began on my re-purposed pole building/hunting cabin

Step one: Layout - this part is so critical i cannot stress it enough  - I say that because I made a mistake and it has proven costly in effort and expense. Make sure when you layout your building it is completely square (Actually it can be a rectangle but it needs to be equal in all measurements) believe me one half inch can make things very difficult.

Step two: Setting posts - Here you need to make sure the posts are set perfectly plumb and at a sufficient depth. (I hesitate to say how deep because it can depend on your soil quality - plus I do not want to be liable) Pour concrete around each post and let set. Sufficient bracing is needed to hold the posts plumb during the concrete setting process. I would allow the posts to set several days before continuing.

Next we will pick up at putting the bands in place and setting your trusses.