Natalie wants to live solo, close to nature. So, she built a lovely, tiny log cabin amongst the trees.
With only $5,000 in her budget, she bought inexpensive building materials, such as logs from her area and salvaged materials.
With the help of her friends, they were able to build a two-story log cabin, which is less than 400 square feet, perfect for a single person.
Natalie said that building with round logs is quite challenging and especially when you get round meets square.
A few years later, however, her partner moved in, and she gave birth to her daughter.
Natalie made a smart move and built her home with expansion in mind. From under 400-square-foot home, she expanded her tiny log cabin to a roughly 700-square-foot family home.
She carefully designed their home, ensuring every space was functional, taking advantage of what nature offers. Going inside the log cabin, you’ll go straight to her kitchen, where Natalie spends most of her time.
Her sink is made of soapstone that she crafted with the help of her friend.
The windowsill at her sink is also made of soapstone, facing south, so during winter and the leaves are out, the sun heats the windowsill, which heats the sink and releases the heat into the room.
The kitchen has a big wood cook stove with a firebox and a good size oven. The wood cook stove has copper pipes connected to a coil in the firebox where water flows for heating.
The heated water will then go up to the water tank, and the cooler water comes back to be heated back, which is very useful during the winter.
Her kitchen also features a cabinet that they made from scratch using spruce and black walnut. It also has jar storage which she designed to fit pint jars at the top shelf, quart jars at the second and third, and half-gallon and gallon jars at the bottom.
In the living room on the other side of the cabin’s first level is a small door going to her daughter’s room, which she designed to make her child feel like she’s in a magical place.
The building materials she chose for the wall are traditional plaster on a wooden log with wool insulation. It also has lath and lime plaster on top.
Her daughter’s room features a playhouse where she can climb up and jump into her bed.
For bathing, the cabin has a room with a bathtub in a corner sitting in a tile corral to keep the surroundings dry, and the toilet is in an outhouse.
Upstairs is her office, where she has a desk with drawers made from cherry and spruce.
She uses old slate roofing as wall paneling to heat the room using sunlight during winter.
On the other side of the room is a bed near the water heater and a bare pipe that can heat the room during winter.
Outside, the cabin has a porch for outdoor eating where you can enjoy a fantastic view of nature. A little further is a greenhouse for her plants.
It also has an outdoor and cozy reading area where her books add to the charm of the place.
Natalie said that she doesn’t want to be sleeping inside, so they are using the back porch as their outside bedroom, which is one of the best features of their log cabin. She also said that she only sleeps inside during winter.
“It is so much cheaper to build spaces that are not insulated, and it enhances your quality of life,” she said, stating that she recommends building lots of outdoor spaces and making the outdoor spaces bigger than indoor spaces.
Natalie plans to stay in her log cabin forever as she wants to live in a space she built.
“It was a lot of work to build and a lot of work to add on to it, truly a labor of love, and so I’m planning on milking that work as long as I possibly can,” Natalie said.
Having a fantastic house doesn’t mean putting in all the expensive building materials.
Creativity in design to make everything functional, incorporated with things you love, and a wise choice in building materials often create a wonderful house.
See more of this lovely log cabin by watching the video below by Tiny House Giant Journey: