You Can Build This Tiny A-Frame Cabin With $3,000 and One Weekend

In August of 2020, a wildfire ripped through Jeff Waldman and Molly Fiffer’s 10-acre retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains, burning down everything the couple had painstakingly built by hand on their land—an outhouse, a wood-fired hot tub, picnic tables, and most devastating of all, a dreamy DIY cabin the two crafted out of locally sourced redwood. 

After the fire, the two knew that they wanted to rebuild what Waldman described as an "adult summer camp," but they didn’t want to invest too much time and money into something that might not last another fire season. "This all might burn down again," Waldman noted. "California is getting drier, the West is going more and more into a drought."

Enter their latest project: a sleek, airy, 10x12-foot A-frame mini-cabin, which the couple built earlier this year over a period of two weekends, and all out of easily sourced materials. The cost? A relatively miniscule $2,500. On their website Elevated Spaces, which the couple launched shortly after the 2020 fire, Waldman and Fiffer are selling plans to enable even a DIY novice to build their own version of the A-frame cabin. 

All of the materials, from the galvanized metal sheets that make up the cleverly designed roof to the plywood interior to the front door, are readily available from farm and feed stores or big-box retailers like Lowe’s and Home Depot. "The entire design was informed from the place of cost, aesthetics, and ease of building," he said. As just one example, Waldman designed the A-frame to utilize standard 12-foot sheets of plywood, to require as little cutting as possible. And rather than buying and installing windows, the pair decided to clad the back of the roof with clear polycarbonate panels, which not only let in ample amounts of light but also mimic the corrugated pattern of the metal sheets that comprise the rest of the roofing.

The goal, Waldman said, was to hit the sweet spot of "approachable and achievable." Keeping with the minimal but warm look the couple is known for, the result turns humble materials into a space that’s cozy but unfussy—perfect for glamping lovers, as well as anyone who wants a separate space for guests but doesn’t have an endless budget. "We want things to be aesthetically pleasing. We want it to be something where you walk in, and it feels cheery, and it kind of draws you in," he said. 

And don’t worry if your home-building expertise begins and ends at knowing how to hammer a nail into a wall. Waldman designed the A-frame to be a project that anyone with some basic power tools and a willingness to watch some YouTube videos could put together over a period of several days.

"If you’ve never operated a saw before, I think that this A-frame is still an achievable goal," he said. The guide they have compiled includes 40-pages of step-by-step instructions. "If you just look down, and put one foot in front of the other, it becomes a lot more approachable."

Waldman and Fiffer built the A-frame themselves largely over one weekend in January, with the help of a group of friends. By the second weekend, the cabin was largely finished, and they spent the time building the bed frame and side tables. 

 But you don’t need a team of handy friends to make the A-frame a reality. "It’s not a six-person job, it’s a two-person job," Waldman said. "Keep it in perspective that this is basically a hard-wall tent. You can screw it up a little bit, but also you can’t really screw it up that much." 

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