Has reading our blogs about 14-ers, snowshoeing, and more made you start dreaming of owning a cabin in the mountains? Do you dream of waking up and just seeing trees and peaks outside your cabin window in a rustic cabin, with wood from a wood-burning stove crackling, or do you dream of a spacious cabin with the same view, but with every amenity possible for a cabin, a vacation home? Whatever the dream for your cabin is, we at TerraSlate want to help you achieve that dream with the help of our waterproof paper, but first, let’s discuss the basics of making the dream of a cabin a reality.
Location
Whether you have the whole cabin mapped out in your head or you just know you want a bear-skin rug near a vintage-looking wood-burning stove, the first step to making your cabin a reality is to dream and start planning. One important step in the dreaming process is to figure out where you want your cabin: Location will affect design, and design will affect location. What is your priority? Do you have a particular location that you simply have to have? Then investigate what kind of cabin will fit in that location. Some places have limited accessibility and won’t allow for certain amenities or your cabin will cost more because of the difficulty of that location.
Dream
Found your location, but still unsure what you want or can even have in a cabin? Look at cabin building magazines, websites, and even Pinterest! To organize your ideas, create a list of what is important to you, collect visual ideas of what you want, and either keep a digital document or Pinterest board of what you want or even create a physical “dream board” with all your favorite images glued to the board. Making a visual list of the aspects of your cabin that are most important will help as you continue on to the next step of the process: Design.
Design
Once you’ve figured out what you want your cabin to look like, it’s time to design it! Depending on your background you can design your own or hire someone. Companies have created “cabin kits,” pre-designed plans with all the logs needed to make your kit possible, available for purchase. Many will deliver it right to your location or to another place nearby. Some companies will even modify their plans to fit your needs, and there are also contractors to help you make sure that you have a design that is everything that you want as well as something that is structurally sound; you can even try building most of the cabin, with the help of the contractor for the difficult construction elements.
Organize
Once you’ve decided on your dream cabin plan, it’s time to get organized. First, print all important documents on TerraSlate waterproof paper to protect them from the elements: No matter if you or a contractor will build your cabin, you will need your documents to last the entire time that you are working on the project, and through all the elements that the mountains, more or less unexpectedly throw at you such as rain, sleet, snow, and the cold.
Decide
Another part of organizing is deciding how you are going to start the dream cabin-building process: Will you build it or will someone else? Also, when will you start building? Depending on the location of your cabin, you will have to work with the mountain’s short seasons that can be temperamental. Part of working with the mountain’s seasonal schedule is to know how to protect the structure of your incomplete cabin during the winter and other months of extreme weather.
TerraSlate Wants to Help Make Your Dream a Reality!
These are the very basic first steps to building your dream cabin in the mountains. At TerraSlate, we are all about going above and beyond, pushing our limits to experience something we’ve never experienced before. Whether you decide to build your dream cabin through your own blood sweat and tears or hire a professional, we highly encourage you to use our waterproof paper to keep your documents safe. We manufacture and print all documents, with longevity in mind!