Full Build of a Tiny Home Cabin

About two years ago I purchased some property on the South Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It's always been a long-standing dream of mine to build a house from the ground up and be very involved in the construction process. The best way to learn something like this is just to do it yourself and I learned so much in this process. Looking at the land and the features of the land, I decided to build a small one-bedroom loft cabin that is oriented towards the ocean, has lots of glass, and takes advantage of the views. And we set out to build this cabin as quickly as possible. We got it done in three and a half months, which actually exceeded my own expectations. We worked six days a week, 11 hours a day, and while it was exhausting, it was one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done. Hey, I wanted to jump in here really quick and say that if you guys like this design and you want to recreate this wherever you are in the world, the architecture plans are actually for sale in the link in the description below. It could save you thousands of dollars and months in the design process because I've already gone through all of this. And at the end, if you like the product and you want to recreate this, you can. It's got architecture drawings, construction drawings, foundational plans, MEP, your electrical, your plumbing, and even the drawings where the furniture goes. Basically everything that you need to pass this on to your contractor, engineer, and then eventually the permitting. Or if you want to build it yourself just like I did, that's also an option, of course. Now, without further ado, let's get on to the video. So a few minutes from my land, there's this festival called Envision Fest, and they actually just ended yesterday. I talked to somebody on the infrastructure team and they said that they have this huge organic pile and things like framing out the concrete work. You don't need nice wood for that. I didn't want to buy it new. So I'm going to save a few hundred dollars right now just going through this wood pile. I'm super stoked. Now, before construction can start, I did some preparation work before the crew came on. I went and found a wood distributor who specializes in pressure treated pine specifically for the Costa Rican environment. This pine is pressure treated in these huge blue cylinders, and it gets injected with various chemicals to help preserve through the humidity and mold and termites. Also, before we could start construction, of course, we had to clear the building site of all brush and debris. The first thing we did was build what is called a bodega. This structure will be used to house the materials during the build to make sure it stays out of the weather. We used old recycled bamboo and just corrugated metal. Next, we needed to decide where the house was actually going to go. So this is where we squared and staked it and made sure that all the stakes were level using this hose and water. A very primitive but a very effective technique. Here we're digging a trench for the water line and covering it up. The cabin foundation is going to be on pillars, so we dug nine holes that were one meter by one meter and one meter deep. This was to ensure that the cabin had proper footing for all the weight that it's going to bear. In this time, we also had deliveries of crushed rock that was used to coat the bottom of the foundation holes to add more rigidity. During this first week, we also were running electric lines. The electrical meter box is about 180 meters away, so we had to dig a very long trench and get these lines in so that we could have power at the job site and use power tools. Of course, the concrete columns needed rebar for reinforcement, so we bent all of the rebar to the right size and tied together for reinforcement. We also started digging a hole for the septic tank and drainage fields. After we bent the rebar and tied them all together into the appropriate shapes, we placed them into the foundation holes and filled that up with about 30 centimeters of cement mix. While we waited for the concrete to dry, we applied several layers of protection onto the metal that will be used for the floor framing. The next day, we came back and the concrete footings were dry enough that we could build the wooden column forms that were used to give shape to the columns. Once those were done, we mixed up another batch of cement and started filling up those forms. Once the cement dried and you remove the forms, you now have nine concrete pillars that will serve as the foundation of the house. The next move was to attach sill plates. This is to distribute the load and also have something to weld the metal to. With all the sill plates attached, we are ready to start welding together the frame. The frame is made from 4x4 metal, which is equivalent to 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters. That is the perimeter frame and the crossbars. The floor joists are 2x4 or 5 centimeters by 10 centimeters. Now, I'm not sure how it's done in other parts of the world, but here in Costa Rica, it is very common to use this corrugated metal, which is usually used for roofing, as a way to hold the cement while it dries. So here we're putting down the corrugated metal covering everything on the frame and we put rebar down and built a frame around the entire perimeter and got everything ready for the cement pour. Now, before we did the concrete pour, we actually decided to build the framing of the second floor. The front half of the cabin that's supporting all the windows is 4x6 metal and in the back half of the cabin, the framing is 4x4 with the floor joists of the mezzanine being 2x4. After our one-day weekend, we came back and ran the piping for the utility lines that will be going under the floor. Finally, the day of the cement pour was on us and it was going to be a very big long day. We started in the morning and we had one person who was manning the cement mixer and three of us were running loads back and forth with wheelbarrows dropping off the cement and one person was screeing it and flattening it out. I did a rough calculation on the distance covered that the three of us who are running wheelbarrows back and forth covered that day. Now, because the job site and the prep site weren't right next to each other, we actually ended up covering about a mile and a half each or about two and a half kilometers with fully loaded wheelbarrows. Needless to say, I was pretty darn sore for a few days after that. The first layer we put down was a slab and it was a cement gravel mix. However, of course, it is very rough. After it set up for a bit, Jose and Pablo came back and added a thin layer of cement and sand mix as a smooth top coat that would fill out any imperfections in the gravel aggregate. And in the middle of all this, our wood delivery arrived from the wood distributor. And when the cement dried, it was time to start building up again. Here, we're adding three cross members to the roof so the rafters have something to rest on. The purlings that we purchased from the hardware store were not quite long enough, so we had to weld some end to end here to add just a little bit of length that we were missing. And this is where we were about four weeks into the build. We were just finishing up the roof framing with the rafters and the purlings. Once I was done, we put down this roll of reflective insulating layer as the corrugated metal roof can get quite hot. Next, it was time to attach the metal roofing and this was a really exciting part of the build because it meant that any time now moving forward that we were going to be working on things inside the house, at least we'd be doing it in the shade. I mentioned that we took delivery of the wood in the previous week and as the guys were putting together the roof, I was staining and sealing the wood and I was using this stain that turned the wood slightly more red. While I had the painting momentum going, I turned my attention to the fascia boards and first put down a layer of primer and then painted them black. The next step in the process was to frame everything with metal studs. We went with metal for a few reasons. The first is that in Costa Rica, wood is actually not that cheap. It's surprisingly expensive and so it's about cost parity with metal. And the second is durability. The Costa Rican environment is pretty harsh on materials and the humidity and rot and termites can just cause problems if it's behind the wall. However, because there were metal studs and we were going to attach wood to the exterior, we had to attach a wooden lattice on the outside so the wood would have something to nail into. And using the same one by twos that we used to build the lattice for the walls, we also built one for the ceiling so that the wooden ceiling would have something to attach to as well. We only did a small section of the ceiling first and that was just the eaves around the outside. The rest of it was going to go in later when we had the walls up. We finished up the studs upstairs and added lattices and then it was time to put on the exterior cladding. This is such a rewarding part of the build because from the outside, it actually started to look like a house. After we finished one exterior wall, we moved on to the floor of the mezzanine. This was the exact same cut of pine that was in the ceiling. And then we used dowel tips to cover the holes and sand it smooth. With that done, we moved back outside to finish the exterior cladding for the other two sides of the house. Going against convention, we ran the exterior cladding vertically. I did this because I wanted to give the cabin a taller and more grandiose feel. We added another layer of insulation in the ceiling. Here we're using one inch thick styrofoam. It might seem like we're doing this out of order and that's because we were. This is a bit of a mess up for me because I thought that the reflective roll that we installed earlier would have been enough but having worked under the roof for a little while, it was clear that a lot of radiant heat was coming through. So I decided to throw in another layer of insulation. Now it's time to run the wires. I had an electrician come through and run all the wires before we closed up the walls and the ceiling. With the wires run, we could turn our attention to the ceiling. This was just the same process as the eaves. We just lined things up and nail gunned them in. This was another really rewarding part of the build because now the inside of the house also started to look like a proper house. Another truck arrived from the hardware store delivering materials and in this load we got our drywall. In managing this project, I found that one of the most important parts of my job was to make sure that everything arrived on time. If things were late or we didn't have materials and we're at a point in the job that we needed them, we were just burning time and money. Now that we had the materials, it was time to start cutting and hanging the drywall. The bathroom is the only room in the house that has a drywall ceiling. Everything else is wood. After all the boards were hung, it was time to start plastering up the walls. We used a product called Moroseco 125 which is a drywall plaster. Now I wanted this brushed concrete look and after doing a whole bunch of research, I found a product in the area called Acobato 460. It only comes in white so I added some black dye to get the right shade of gray. After applying two layers, we had to do a whole lot of sanding and I mean a lot, a lot of sanding. This was to get the wall really smooth but also when you sand with a super fine grit, you get this amazing sheen and the wall really comes alive. With the walls and the mezzanine finished, it was time to move downstairs and repeat the whole process over again. And for these walls, I decided to go with a lighter stone color and that was just a matter of switching up the dyes. That has two coats on it, that's done. That's slightly more gray up there to kind of give contrast to the ceiling. Down here is going to be this sand color and the floor is going to be a little bit darker of a gray. For the bathroom wall finish, I decided to add even more dye to the finishing and this came out really, really cool. I don't know why but I was just attracted to a dark bathroom look and what I discovered is that the darker the finish, the more texture you get in the walls which is really cool. And when all the walls were done, it was time to seal them up. We used two different types of sealers, one for the bathroom that was a heavier duty acrylic based one and for the main house, we used a product called Duralife that went on clear when it dried. We installed a 1,100 liter septic tank which is enough for two people of medium use or four people of light use. Because this is a one-bedroom cabin, only meant for two people, this system should be plenty. The last thing we needed to do before I could move in upstairs was one last job that was going to be really dusty and really dirty which was to sand the concrete floor downstairs. This was to knock down any high points and get the floor ready for a micro cement layer that is going to go on in the near future. And when the dust settled, it was time to move the mattress in and move into this half-finished construction site that had no sinks, no shower, no windows, and no doors. Despite that, it felt absolutely incredible to move in. It was just such a magical experience to be able to sleep in this structure that just a couple weeks ago didn't exist. And then all of a sudden sleeping there and laying down and watching the sun set over the ocean. Hearing the howler monkeys and hearing the toucans and just generally being really close to nature. This was such an important milestone in this project because it gave me so much motivation to finish it. I was using a ladder to access the loft but it was about time to build a staircase. This was a super simple design. We just took a piece of 4x4 and welded it to the bottom of the loft frame and then attached it to a metal plate in the floor. We then welded on these horizontal pieces of metal for the steps and then we came back later and added wood for the finishing. We also made a really simple hand railing that just consisted of welding metal to the frame of the loft. We also started work on the bodega which is a storage area and laundry room. This is going to be underneath the house and because this house is on a slope, we chose one of the downhill quadrants to make this. So here we're just pouring in the concrete foundation and then we built up some wall with some cement block and then we used some leftover metal to make the frame of the door and then we had this really big sheet of eighth inch metal that we just cut into the shape of the door. Now it was finally time to move our attention to the deck. This is another really exciting part of the build because it really makes the house look a lot more complete and also I'll be able to push out some of this construction equipment to declutter the house as I'm living there. We made three columns for the deck and just repeated the same process that we used for the nine columns for the house. We then attached the sill plates and built a frame for the deck. Very similar to the house, the deck frame is four by four metal with the floor joists being two by four. Once that was done, it was time to give everything its last coat of fresh black paint. Now it was time to screw in the boards. These boards are also the pressure treated pine from the same wood distributor that we got all of the other wood. These are obviously thicker pieces of wood and we applied three layers of outdoor protectorate. Now with the deck done, it was time to move to another extremely important part of the finishing. This is the flooring. We started by cleaning the floor multiple times to make sure that there's absolutely no debris. We're putting down micro cement which needs to form a really strong bond with the substrate. Now I found it impossible to find micro cement in Costa Rica which means I had to import cement which was an extremely expensive endeavor. In the U.S. these bags usually cost about forty dollars a bag. Here I had to pay two hundred dollars per bag all said and done. This means that there was very little room for error for two reasons. One, it was extremely expensive and two, if we made a mistake it would take weeks for new bags to arrive. And we ended up making some mistakes. On the first try we mixed up a whole bag but we found that it started to set up before we could lay it all down. To counteract this we added more water to the bucket but we found that this created pretty large color differences. On the second attempt we got closer and we mixed up smaller batches but we found that tiny differences in the dye that was added resulted in pretty large differences in the color. However we did have enough to do one more attempt so we mixed up smaller batches and were very very precise with the coloring and we ended up having just enough to cover the entire floor and it all came out the same color. Our glass subcontractor arrived and he installed the glass for the shower partition as well as the windows. For the windows that were going to be fixed in place rather than using aluminum which is more expensive down in Costa Rica, I just decided to use little pieces of half inch by half inch metal. You would tack in one side of the frame, put the glass into place, and then tack weld in the other side of the frame. Coming into the final week of the build we only had a few things left to do. We still had to make an area where you can pull up your car and park. So I had an excavator team come in and they cut in a new road from the existing road and flattened out an area where you could park and turn around a car. We then of course had to make some steps that led from the house up to the parking area and we used these old paper stones that a friend of mine had used for a previous project and had bought too many. So I bought some of them off of him and loaded them up, took them to the job site, and we made these really really cool steps. Now you might have noticed in some of the previous clips that the downstairs glass is missing. That's because the aluminum for the door of the downstairs was backordered and I actually went on a trip before it was completely finished. I got this video message from him after the parts arrived and after he had installed it showing off the accordion doors and how amazing it is when it opens up fully. My furniture guy was a bit late but that's all right because he was ready to deliver when I got back from my trip and the house was fully ready to receive the furniture. And here we are with the finished cabin. I have to give a huge shout out to my build crew Jose, Felix, and Pablo. They were absolutely amazing through this entire process and taught me so much through their experience. I could not have asked for a better team and this would not have been possible without them. This project came at a very important part of my life where I was seeking purpose and accomplishment and this is exactly what I needed. I can't tell you how rewarding it is to set a goal and then pour your heart and soul and hard work and dedication into something and then achieving it. And now I have my own little hideaway cabin in the jungle. Thank you guys so much for sticking around to the end of this video. I know it was long but also I know that I watched so many of these types of videos before I undertook this project and watched people build their own houses and it was so inspiring and really broke down that wall of what I thought was possible or what I thought I could do. So I hope it served the same purpose for you. As a reminder the architecture drawings for this cabin are for sale in the link in the description below. If you just want to kind of shortcut it and rebuild this thing wherever you are it's kind of just like an instruction manual on how to put this thing together and it could save you a lot of time and a lot of money. Also I don't know when in the future you guys are watching this but if you like my designs and intention that I put into it I have upcoming projects both in Costa Rica and in Bali, Indonesia and if you're interested in one of those projects just get in touch in the website in the link in the description below. Finally if you enjoyed this video and found it useful consider dropping a like it'd be super helpful. It took a lot of time to both film and edit this video and also if you vibe with me and what I'm doing consider subscribing. If you don't that's totally fine YouTube's a big place I totally get it but again thank you guys so much and I'll see you next time.