We weren’t rich when we moved off the grid. There are many off grid dewellers out there who are in it for kicks, who have successful businesses and are financially set and are moving off the grid for fun, or because it’s all the rage. But that wasn’t us. We weren’t even well off. We were a single income, homeschooling family of four living close to Toronto in a three story townhouse with two cars when we decided we were going to move off the grid in a tiny house and live off the land.
Read more about why we moved off the grid and how we did it debt free HERE
Our financial struggle is what made us shift our mindset of a typical societal lifestyle. We lost our only full time income during the holidays as an $800 electric bill dropped the mailbox. Out of desperation we came up with a plan and a dream to make a life off grid a reality for our family. We lived paycheque to paycheque, sold all our belongings and drastically downsized to make it happen.
Get our 16x20 cabin building plans, click here!
After paying off all our debt we found ourselves in a position where we could take the plunge to buy land to start our off grid homestead. But we needed to ensure we could continue forward on the build to completion and not accumulate any debt along the way so we could live off the land and not have to seek employment away from the homestead. Our life goal had become to simply live off the land and raise our children and having to find employment off the homestead meant that we failed but it was also a step in the wrong direction. We did everything we could to reduce the cost of our cabin build and here is how we did it.
We examined our building plans under a microscope
There were nearly 6 years between when we decided to move off the grid to when we actually bought our forested property. I had every evening my children were sleeping for years to research everything about homesteading, delivering a baby goat to building a house so I had the time to make a detailed lumber list for our cabin.
I went through our cabin plans with a fine toothed comb to list all our supplies needed. Each piece of lumber, every stud, every piece of sheathing was added up to ensure we were ordering exactly what we needed for lumber. I even calculated the square footage of house wrap to ensure we only needed to purchase one roll to completely cover the exterior, it was close, it only over lapped by a couple of inches. We even used the trimmed ends of our rafters to build a ladder to the loft. I needed to ensure we weren’t overspending on lumber because we simply didn't have the extra cash laying around to do so.
Price checking and quoting
Once I had the lumber list of exactly what we needed for the cabin, we started price matching the lumber suppliers. It would have been ideal to purchase from the nearby lumber mill that supplies much of the US with Canadian lumber but dealing with local shoppers was something they just didn’t do. I grabbed my lumber list and shopping list and we started with a local hardware store, then took that quote to another building centre, and that quote to another lumber supplier who was able to price match the already price matched quote AND give us an extra 10% off as a contractor discount. This ensured we were getting the absolute best prices on lumber, they were also the most affordable for delivery.
Get our 16x20 cabin building plans, click here!
Please note, we built our home in 2018, one year before the world changed and the cost of lumber skyrocketed. I’m so grateful we leaped when we did because I’m unsure we would be here today if we hadn’t jumped when we did.
Window shopping and finding freebies
I am homeschooling mom. I had never built anything before and I am no contractor but I knew I wasn’t paying $400 for a window. We scoured surplus building centres, reuse centres or thrift stores but for building materials, and shopped online classifieds. I even visited a window factory with my children in tow and asked for contractor pricing for a standard sized window and they gave me a quote for $90 a window. That was pretty good!
Get our 16x20 cabin building plans, click here!
It would have been a great price on windows but all the gently used windows and doors we used in our cabin build were free, from a friends backyard and the side of the road, with the exception of the front door which we purchased new. This saved us thousands of dollars! Finding almost new windows for free is unlikely, but even if we found less desirable windows for free they still would have worked until we could afford to replace them. Our goal was to be in the cabin before we needed extra warmth over night.
Even I can build a house, apparently
It was essential we build our own home not only for the novelty to say I built that wall, but because we couldn’t afford to pay someone three times what the house was going to cost in materials, to build it. We had a great set of building plans that I had been examining for years, they were easy to understand and with the help of YouTube, we were capable and able to build our cabin and in just a couple of weeks, we were moved in!
This homeschooling mom built the main floor of the cabin herself. I can’t count the number of times we jokingly told each other ‘that’ll probably be fine' while second guessing ourselves but It was totally fine. We built a very strong, warm, beautiful home, and didn't have to pay someone else to build it.
Get our 16x20 cabin building plans, click here!
I hope this is helpful for your cabin build and I hope you save thousands. If I can build my own house, you can, too.
