Cabin Framing, More Mistakes Were Made

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's not being good as things.  But given my delightfully blinding optimism, I plunge on ahead anyway, learning a ton with each monumental goof.

You remember the cabin framing looked like this. That's more or less an eight foot wall, with maybe 1 foot 8 inches below the deck of the hull.  The height was chosen more or less arbitrarily, based I think on having 8 foot two-by stock to work with for the framing.

At this point I'm thinking all the great and rare 1x12 redwood we pulled from the decommissioned chicken coop was not going to be enough wood, and was gong to be too brittle, too bug eaten or rotten, and too heavy.  So I was pricing new redwood, though this was not my ideal.

When I got down to thinking about (and pricing) the redwood siding, I realized I'd made a small but critical blunder. About 2-1/2 inches of blunder.

Had I made the walls a tiny tiny bit shorter, I could have used 6 foot long boards for the siding. This made a huge difference in the pricing since 1x12 or 1x10 redwood is already expensive, but longer lengths are even more so. With 6 foot lengths, I could easily cut 12' lumber in half, but the next common step up is 16' lengths, which were much more spendy and wasteful.

Well, the cabin already looked ridiculously tall, and I wasn't yet committed to the height, so I decided to do something crazy...

I cut the walls down 2-1/2 inches. I clamped my carpenter's square to each stud to serve as a guide for my skillsaw and cut a few inches off of each stud.

Considering that everything was glued and screwed (or nailed), it wasn't easy. I had to remove the little stud nubs and glue and nail the top plate to the new tops of the studs.

It only took most of a morning to fix the height of the cabin.  Now the walls measure exactly six foot from the deck to the top of the walls.

As a consolation for my troubles (and perhaps reward for conscientiously correcting my mistake), I had a beautiful visitor that day.

Cabin Wall Framing. Finally.

Whew, finally. We get to constructing the cabin walls. This is the fun part for me. As a former carpenter, framing construction is well-within my comfort zone.

Initially, it looked like it would be easy as pie. I planned to simplify the standard stud construction to reduce weight: (single) sole plate + studs + (single) top plate + simplified door and window openings.

But as I started planning out the end walls, I realized I needed access to the space under the decks, and so the end walls had to work around that.

The side walls were a little simpler and more conventional.

I was using all recycled Doug Fir 2x4s from the salvage pile at the dump, ripped from 3-1/2 inches to 3 inches.

Looking one more time at my wall detail, you see that the coaming (labeled "edgeboard") is cut into the wall studs.  So I had to dado a sizable groove into each of my studs to accept the coaming.

Real woodworkers have tools for this, but I had to resort to some deft skillsaw work. And without a working wood chisel, I was sadly using a flat head screwdriver.  Embarrassing. But it worked reasonably well.

Next, I assembled the walls on the floor of the barn, and then awkwardly personhandled them solo into place in the boat.  Every connection was adhered with construction adhesive and nailed.

In the boat, the wall framing was glued and screwed.

Two walls.

Three.

With window framing and blocking added.

And finally four finished walls. In this last photo, you can see the doorframe to the head on the right.

A big day, for sure. Time for a cigar.  Next up, more mistakes were made.

Thinking About Cabin Construction

Now that the boat is ready to be flipped, I'm thinking again about the cabin.  Here's the plan, in general, for the completed shantyboat.

I'd been giving some thought earlier to the cabin layout, but finally sat down and planned everything out using real measurement.

In clockwise order from top left:

1. Small galley with 2-burner stove and sink
2. Couch with resident dog and cat
3. Bucket shitter (entered from the aft deck)
4. Aft stairs
5. Lounge chair
6. Woodburning stove
7. Table / chairs
8. Fore stairs

Now lets get down to brass tacks:  Looking at wall construction.

This is the side wall, first a sketchy sketch, then a more accurate one.  Pretty simple really.

It took some thought to place the windows in a vertical position that felt right. The expected window position of the inside and the outside are kind of at odds since the floor of the cabin is dropped nearly two feet below the level of the deck. From the inside, I want the windows to be more or less at eye level and not too high. And from the outside, where the cabin appears to sit on the deck, I want the windows to be a little above the midpoint of the cabin.

I decided on slightly tall windows at 3 ft which resolves the issue to some degree.  Three foot or so from the floor inside and just above the midpoint of the cabin outside.

The original cabin plans call for 2x3 structural members turned parallel to the wall. I originally considered using perpendicular 2x4s in standard frame construction so I'd have natural nooks and crannies between the studs that would be easy to turn into storage.

So I'm kinda confounded on which method I should choose.  I'm trying to measure the pros and cons of each.

2x2 Wall Construction
Pro: Lighter Takes less space Less material Easy to connect	Con: Harder to diagonal brace No nooks between studs	Note: Recommended by pretty much everyone in the boat community, but feels flimsy to me.
2x4s Parallel with Wall
Pro: Takes up less space	Con: Heavier Harder to connect No nooks between studs Harder to diagonal brace	Note: Makes thinner walls and weirder window openings.
2x4s Perpendicular with Wall (standard framing)
Pro: Natural Nooks between studs Conventional technique Easy to connect	Con: Heavier Takes more space	Note: Standard construction, typical window framing, including sills.
2x3s Perpendicular with Wall (compromise)
Pro: Natural (smaller) Nooks Like conventional technique Easy to connect Lighter than full studs	Con: A little heaver than 2x2	Note: This might be a good compromise. Solid framing with reduced weight.

Hopefully, you'll weigh in with your expert and experienced opinion. Or maybe you'll weigh in with your totally inexperienced pet theory, that's fine too.

After we flip the boat and add the front and rear decks, we'll be coming up on building the cabin pretty quick here.