Super Study and Chill Out Room

Tony tells us about his fantastic new Keops Classic multi purpose log cabin!

My cabin is a great success, and as promised, I am now ready to provide you with pictures and feedback on how things have gone over the last 3 months since the Rick and his team built the cabin.

I have learned a lot when decorating and fitting out the cabin, which I have done entirely myself. I guess everyone taking on such a project goes through a learning curve, and that’s part of the fun. But I will mention a few points which may help you when advising future customers with their projects, and hopefully increase their satisfaction:

The cabin fulfilled my wish for a spacious, high quality, multi purpose room with facilities for an office with built-in shelves, work surface (even a fridge!), TV and hifi, seating, and outlook onto decking and a sunny corner of the garden. The 56mm log walls give the cabin a feel of solid quality, and the extra log in the walls creates useful interior headroom. The high precision of the factory machined timbers is amazing, giving a high quality finish to the walls, corners, ceiling and roof.

The extra 440mm overhang of the side eaves works well in appearance and gives the walls more protection. However, this increases the effective footprint of the cabin, which is something to be aware of, e.g. when planning paths to avoid passing under the eaves or under the corner of the canopy.

Sikkens Novatech and Novatop wood stain used outside and inside for the floor and ceiling: Excellent, well worth the additional cost, enhances the grain, and available in a wide range of mix-to-order colours.

Outside of the cabin showing extra deep fascias and side overhangs

It was great to install wiring “tails” in the roof and under the floor, plus take the option of the box skirting. Fortunately I had worked out where the lighting and power points would go in advance, and bought the correct wire and cable clips, so installing the tails did not take too long on the day of the build. Regarding minimising the clutter of wiring to light switches: The light switches are mounted on the walls next to the door (behind the curtains). The related wiring runs over the top of the doors/windows concealed in a shelf (made from left over timber), entering the ceiling in the corners of the cabin. Hence there is no surface wiring visible except where cables emerge behind the purlins for immediate connection to light fittings.

The fan installed centrally works well for both cooling, and for stirring the air when heating (with reverse fan direction). The fan looks right in the high area of the room.

Painting the interior walls white (a few coats of B&Q primer/undercoat) provides a light spacious feel, and looks attractive when lit in the evening. Ikea white roller blinds and curtains blend into the white walls.

Ricks’s building team were fantastic! The timber base and decking were built in one day to high precision. The cabin itself was erected in one further day. Where planks were cut to size, box skirting installed, etc, everything fitted precisely. A problem of a missing window frame was solved on the day, and couriered to the site.

The wider facia board over the canopy and the rear is perhaps a bit wider than I had expected, but I think looks better than the default narrow facia.