We are building a summer house. How to build a garden house with your own hands

The dacha is an outlet, a favorite hobby for people living in the city. The construction of garden houses is not only a technological process, but also a special ritual for which they carefully prepare.

Project of a finished frame garden house with a veranda

More often than not, a house needs to be placed on a limited area, so compactness, convenience, and a thoughtful approach to all details play a significant role when choosing a project.

Based on an analysis of customer wishes for country houses, designers have developed many standard projects. The line includes inexpensive options just like change houses. , for placement on small, frame, panel buildings.

Design and layout of the first floor and attic of a typical wooden building for a summer cottage

For suburban garden areas with a larger area, cottage projects from 100 to 200 sq. m., including attic type.

But before choosing a project and adapting it to the site, you need to take into account the legal norms for the construction of country houses. Formally, permission to build a garden house in a partnership with the intended use is not required. But if you need to register a building, get an address, that is, transfer it to the status of individual housing construction, difficulties will arise.

Sample application form for obtaining permission to build a garden building

Construction of a frame and panel house

The high speed of construction and good performance of frame buildings have made them popular.

Their main advantages:

The supporting structure of the frame garden building is made of wood.

Construction sequence

They start by preparing the site. It is leveled, cleared of debris, and plants are uprooted. Then they make a bedding out of sand and crushed stone and compact it.

They install the foundation and lower covering of the house. , roofing felt will do. Install vertical posts, starting from the corners of the building.

They are secured with an upper strap. The structure is reinforced with bevels.

The process of assembling a frame for panel garden housing

Then install it step by step:

The last stage is assembly and.
All wooden elements of the frame structure are made only from dry wood (within 12% humidity).

They are impregnated with agents that prevent the penetration of moisture, antiseptics.

Construction of a house from timber

Somewhat more expensive. Their advantage is that they do not require additional external finishing. Timber is an environmentally friendly material.
There are three types of timber:

The installation diagram and sequence are similar. The installation of the walls is different. Numbered beams are elements of a wooden house constructor. Wall crowns are laid out from them sequentially. They are connected to each other by wooden fasteners (dowels). In parallel with the assembly of the outer walls, the inner walls are assembled by inserting the partition elements into the grooves of the outer structures.

Scheme for connecting timber using dowels

Since you are reading this article, holidays outside the city on your own site are attractive to you. A country house is, of course, necessary for this. It is highly desirable to build it simple, cheap and. For the sake of saving not only money and your labor, but also land area. In this publication you will find information on how to build a country house with your own hands as simply, quickly, easily and cheaper as possible. It is also desirable that the ergonomics of the house allow you to wait out long periods of bad weather in it without experiencing discomfort, and that the design of the building makes it possible to use various design solutions for its external and internal design.

Where to start

The first question that needs to be resolved when planning to build a country house is what to build it from? Where is already known, the site cannot be transported anywhere. Based on the material, soil at the construction site and weather conditions, the design of the house is selected, a ready-made project is developed or selected for it, and then - estimates, purchases, and off to work. We will start with the choice of material.

What to build from?

Since we are interested in options that are easy to implement, log houses are also excluded from consideration: building them yourself is very difficult. In addition, such houses are sensitive to seasonal movements of the soil and therefore require a foundation no less reliable than a full-depth strip foundation (from 0.6 m below the standard freezing depth of the NGP, counting along the base of the strip). A fully buried foundation must be able to withstand its own shrinkage from at least the end of summer until the full warmth of spring next year. Insulated slab foundations require the same endurance, for example. Swedish stove. There is, however, a type of foundation for wooden houses that does not require a technological break (see below), but the timber or log structure itself must be allowed to shrink for a year before it is ready for finishing. That's why a log or log house will be disproportionately expensive (from approx. 12,000 rubles/sq. m) and difficult to build independently.

The same situation arises with brick houses and. Ultimately, the construction of a small country house made of brick, foam block or timber turns out to be advisable only on very small areas, when an extremely compact structure is required. In this case, the house is built with 2 floors; brick and timber technologies allow an untrained, but attentive and careful builder to build a 2-story house. Examples of the layout of a compact 2-story brick and timber house are given in the figure:

Note: It is easier for a novice builder to build a foam block house than a brick, timber or log house. Building a country house from foam/gas blocks makes sense if the country house is visited all year round - no additional insulation is needed and heating costs will be lower.

The simplest and fastest ways to build a small house is to assemble it from a ready-made panel house kit or structural insulated panels (SIP). A prefabricated panel house 20x20 feet (6x6 m) is erected within a week by a pair of chimpanzees of average mental abilities trained according to the instructions for the kit. It’s no joke, there were such experiences. But, alas, the cost of construction. At current prices, somewhere from 18,000 rubles/sq. m. Without foundation.

A house made of SIP will cost less, approx. from 15,000 rub./sq. m with a foundation on geoscrews (see below). However, SIP structures are held together with locks between the panels. For a SIP house to be completely reliable, it must have quite a lot of internal partitions made from the same SIPs with locks. Since there are few or no partitions in a compact house, we also do not touch SIP as a material for it.

So, we come to the conclusion: to build a country house quickly, simply and inexpensively from wood. With one small but very significant exception, see below.

Project

It is better to build an inexpensive garden and/or compact country house according to a standard design; For significant construction details, see below. A ready-made free project for a country house is quite easy to find using any search engine. Or for a fee - a detailed standard design of a garden house for 300 rubles. can actually be found on the relevant sites.

How to choose easier and cheaper

However, when going through projects, you need to take into account some significant circumstances, namely the cost, duration and complexity of the zero cycle, i.e. excavation and foundation laying. The problem is frost heaving of the soil. During seasonal movements, the ground under the house does not shake and does not roll in waves. Dacha plots are cut out on diverse soils, but with one common property - sufficient self-connectivity, otherwise no one needs such a dacha. Therefore, within a certain space on the surface, frost heaving of the soil is reduced mainly to the raising/reverse subsidence of its surface with a slight tilt.

On the other hand, a small country house has excessive rigidity and elasticity. The square-cube law, well known in technology (and stubbornly unnoticed by amateurs), applies here. It’s easy to test it experimentally: glue together cubes with sides of 2 and 10 cm from ordinary writing paper and try to crumple both. The third factor is the soil’s own cohesion is inextricably linked with its mechanical properties.

Without going into further details, we will immediately report the conclusion: if a small wooden country house fits into a circle of a certain diameter in the plan, then on ordinary garden soils it can be built on a shallow foundation, which is much faster, simpler and cheaper. In which circle should the design of a wooden house fit into the plan, so that it can be built on a shallow foundation on soils up to and including medium heaving, is shown in Fig. Here everything depends, as we see, on the proportions of the structure: the more “square” the house is, the better it copes with seasonal ground movements. Therefore, it is better to build “tram” houses for narrow areas, without looking closely, on a foundation of normal depth. But if the ratio of the “sticks” of a T-shaped house lies within 1

Note: the veranda/terrace is included in the projection of the house if it is rigidly connected to its structure. Verandas that do not have a mechanical connection with the house or an articulated connection with it are excluded from the plan projection of the house.

Foundation

We will assume that we have decided on the foundation. Let us only remind you that under a brick, timber or log house on all soils except non-heaving soils, you need to lay a normally buried TISE strip or foundation. A slab foundation with insulation “settles” on the ground for 2-3 years; this is enough for a timber or log house to begin to crack. Under a house made of timber or foam blocks on slightly heaving soil, you can lay a foundation using geoscrews (see below) with a steel grillage.

Non-buried

The easiest and cheapest way to assemble a non-buried foundation for a compact country house is a columnar one from ready-made concrete blocks 200x200x400. The blocks are laid out on cement-sand mortar from M150, two in a row; the top ones cross the bottom ones. Thus, the column is 400x400 mm in plan.

The pits for the posts are dug to a depth of 0.5 m; of which 15+15 cm is made up of an anti-heavy sand and crushed stone cushion. There is no point in deepening the pillars of blocks by more than 20 cm: the ligation of the seams is weak, and the horizontal components of the forces of frost heaving will tear the pillars. The number of rows of blocks in a column is made more than 2, if the house needs to be raised above the ground by more than 20 cm. The maintenance break after installing a columnar foundation made of blocks is required to be minimal, for hardening of the masonry mortar, this is approx. week.

Recessed

The buried foundation of a compact house is often made, following the example of large buildings, on bored piles in soft roofing felt formwork. If the house is on a slope, asbestos-cement pipes are placed on the shell of the piles, which makes it possible to compensate for the difference in height along the slope of up to 1.7 m or more. With regard to fast, small-scale construction, the disadvantage of these foundations is the same as that of the tape - they must stand and settle at least from autumn to spring.

Note: There is no point in laying a TISE foundation for a light compact house - the “caps” of TISE piles work normally in the ground only under sufficient weight load from the building. Of small-sized houses, only a 2-story brick or concrete one can create one.

Geoscrews

The best option for a buried foundation for a compact house is with geoscrews. Geoscrews are a type of shortened screw piles specifically for light buildings. Unlike conventional ones, geoscrews are not designed for muddy, loose and floating soils. A foundation with geoscrews for a large house will cost significantly more than a homemade strip foundation, because... Geoscrews themselves are not cheap, but for a small house this is not so bad, since few screws are required.

The geoscrew for low- and medium-density soils, by the principle of holding it in the ground, is somewhat similar to a confirmed furniture screw and also looks like it in appearance, see fig.:

The smooth head of geoscrews for dense soils is uniformly cylindrical. Both geoscrews can be used on soils up to excessive heaving. You can either lay the wooden bottom frame of a building on the heads of geoscrews or mount a steel grillage. For information on how a wooden house is built on screw piles, see, for example. track. video:

Video: installing a frame house

The advantages of geoscrews for quick construction on a small site in cramped conditions are enormous:

No preliminary geological surveys are required.
Geoscrews can be wrapped in fairly heavily clogged soil: a cobblestone or piece of concrete the size of a child’s head will push the screw to the side.
There is no need for special equipment or access roads for it: 2 people use a crowbar or a homemade collar from a piece of pipe to wrap up to 10 or more geoscrews in a day.
No preparatory excavation work is required: the screw is simply placed with the end into the hole on the bayonet of the shovel and twisted. It is leveled vertically when the pointed tip enters the ground by a third to half.
Screwed geoscrews can be turned/unscrewed to align the heads to the horizon.
There is no need for a technical break to settle the foundation - construction can continue as soon as the last screw is screwed in.
An incorrectly screwed screw can be unscrewed and screwed back in close to the previous hole.

Note: If you are building according to a ready-made project, which indicates the type and characteristics of the foundation, then you need to follow the recommendations of the designers, or consult with them on whether such and such a foundation is suitable on such and such soil.

What kind of house should I build?

Let's get to the point: what kind of simple country house will be cheaper and more likely to be built? In order of increasing cost, complexity and construction time, as well as potential aesthetic qualities (suitability for design and decoration), the options are arranged as follows. way:

House from a military kung;
Hut house;
Bungalow house;
Frame house.

When there is no time for excesses

KUNG is an abbreviation for Unified Body of Normal (Zero) Dimensions. In the USSR, unified closed bodies for cars appeared after the Second World War, and thanks to their convenience, the name kung soon became a household name. A country house made of kung, most importantly, is very cheap: a decommissioned kung cabin from ZIL-131 can be found for 30,000 rubles. And the construction comes down to bringing it and placing it on posts, concrete supports for grape trellises, etc., laid on a crushed stone bed (so that weeds do not sprout and annoying living creatures do not appear). A foundation for a kung is not needed on any ground in any climate - the kung is designed for off-road driving and overturning of the carrier vehicle.

The kung as a country house has only one drawback: its utilitarian appearance, which any design efforts only stick out. But there are a lot of advantages:

Excellent insulation - a stove the size of a desktop computer system unit heats the kung from the most severe frost.
The price is more than an order of magnitude less than that of a construction shed, a residential container or a section of a modular country house.
High resistance to external influences - warehouses, change houses and utility rooms made of kungs have stood practically without maintenance for more than 50 years, and they are not in sight of demolition.
Fire safety is built into the design.
Built-in electrical wiring or channels for it, electrical input panel (ISB) and terminals for grounding connections.
Wide possibilities for redevelopment, internal equipment and finishing (see below).
No legislation or installation permission is required. Bought - brought - installed - live.

It is better to look for a kung for a country house from a ZIL-131 or GAZ-66 car (see figure): they have a flat floor and it is easier to place them on posts due to the small or absence of recesses for the wheel arches. You need 6 pillars (you can use dry stacked brick ones): in the corners in the middle of the long sides. Among other things, kungs from ZIL-131 and GAZ-66 are cheaper and can be converted into housing easier than Ural and KAMAZ ones.

Note: Don’t take non-standardized “booths” from ancient ZiSs and GAZ-51-53, their frames are highly susceptible to corrosion and the insulation is no good.

The width of the kung is standard according to zero vehicle dimensions (2.4 m), and the length can be in the range of 3.5-8.5 m. If your site is long and narrow, then a “tram” house made from a kung on it is practically the only way to do without laying a buried foundation.

For a country house, it is preferable to look for a two-compartment kung (double-compartment), on the left in Fig. But any other empty one turns out to be surprisingly spacious, in the center. The kung cabin (top left and right in the figure) already provides normal habitability for 3-4 people, but it would be even better to look for a kung cabin from old communication hardware. There are also sleeping places for a crew of 3-4 people, and after some effort, such a kung turns out not to be a house, but a piece of candy, below right in the figure. It is better to remove the right (looking from the entrance) compartment for the autonomous power supply unit (BEA): in its place is a mini-toilet with a shower. By removing half of the shelves above the left compartment of the BEA, we get space for a gas stove with 1-2 burners and a small cutting table. The BEA compartment itself is purposely designed for gardening tools, planting material, etc., with access also from the outside, through a wide hatch. In addition, communication equipment shelters have side windows, which cannot be said about all military shelters.

Chalet

Chalet means hut, but what changes the meaning of this word has undergone with the development of architecture is another matter. The country hut house is almost as durable as a kung, because... its load-bearing trusses are triangular. A small hut house (up to approximately 4x6 m) can be placed on a shallow foundation on any soil except excessively heaving soil. A hut house requires 1.5-2 times less materials than a bungalow or frame house, and it is easier to build it without experience and with a minimal set of tools. The hut house has one more advantage, inherited from its ancestors: it fits perfectly with almost any decoration into any landscape, see fig.:

There are few disadvantages to the chalet house. The hut house retains all its advantages up to a size of approx. 6x9 m, then it becomes more complex and material-intensive than traditional ones. Even in a small hut house, one of the sleeping places has to be equipped in the attic, where you have to climb a vertical ladder, that’s all.

In America and Canada, single-occupancy hut houses are quite widespread - shelters for hunters, fishermen, beekeepers, seasonal tenants and sharecroppers (this is the same as the Soviet hectare owner, who remembers), left and center in the figure:

Construction of a single house hut - shelter and a 3-bed country house

But the hut house, only 3x3 m in plan, can also be a country house for 2-3 people, on the right. Heating costs in both cases are small, because the relative heat loss area of the hut house is smaller and it warms up faster due to more active air circulation. If your dacha is commercially inhabited from the first warmth of spring until the winter cold, then a hut house is optimal for you. After the kung, if you manage to buy it, who knows, they know the real price of the kung.

How to build a chalet

The construction of a hut house measuring up to 6x4 m in plan is carried out step by step. way (this is the so-called airship technology developed by the Germans to build their zeppelins):

Lay a columnar or pile screw (on geoscrews) foundation;
The load-bearing A-shaped frames of the frame are assembled from boards (130...150)x40 lying on the plaza - any sufficiently hard, flat surface;
The assembled frames are stacked in order to check for distortion and size; for a hut house this is extremely important;
The calibrated frames are transferred one by one to the foundation and laid flat with the sole in place;
Each frame transferred to the foundation is lifted with a rope, aligned vertically and fixed with temporary jibs;
When all the frames are in place as they should, fix the frame in the corners - at the bottom with cornice boards (see below), at the top with a ridge purlin, also made of a pair of boards;
When building a house more than 3x4 m, the frame is reinforced with additional longitudinal ties;
At the level of the tie (transverse tie of the A-frame) the ceiling is assembled, without it the house will not be strong;
The floor of the house is assembled using the usual technology for wooden houses;
The wings of the frame are sheathed with 40 mm boards lengthwise, preferably tongue-and-groove;
Assemble window and door frames;
Facades are sheathed;
Carry out the remaining required construction work.

The hut house will be strong enough and durable only if the work on its construction is carried out in the specified sequence. This is probably the reason that few people build hut houses - it’s easier to work on the principle of “take more, throw further.”

Drawings of a hut house 3x3 m for two or three are given in the figure:

The inset at the top left shows the design of facade frames for a house up to 4x6 m. The material, like the intermediate frames, is 150x75 timber. Firstly, on facade frames, 2 ties are added to the tie (intermediate frames without them). Secondly, instead of a ridge girder, a ridge beam of the same cross-section is used. Thirdly, the frames, except at the corners, are fastened with middle and top strapping (longitudinal stiffening links) made of the same timber. Longitudinal and transverse connections are connected by a half-tree insert. Those. Using the example of a 4x6 m house, you can already see how the complexity of construction and the material consumption of a hut house increase with its size.

Note: On the bottom screed, 2 more ends of the 100x75 timber are visible on the sides of the window. The internal partitions rest on them. The door frame on the other façade extends up to the tightening and is made of 75x150 timber; The lower screed of this facade is split. If the house does not have a base, the window frame is made in a similar way.

Bungalows and... bungalows

In the general concept, a bungalow is an unheated one-room country house with an extensive covered veranda, which is structurally integral to it. For a weekend summer cottage in fairly warm regions, the “generally accepted” bungalow house is optimal, because... spacious, well ventilated, not overheated by the Sun, and the construction is no more complicated than a frame house, but less material-intensive.

However, little is known to construction specialists outside the tropics these days that bungalows are also a type of construction technology. The bungalow huts built on it (another name is hakale) can still be found in the forest wilds of Russia, the northern United States and all of Canada. Some of them are over 200 years old, but most of them are still suitable for habitation. The house, built using bungalow technology, is easily recognizable by its 2-layer cladding made of vertical boards; the outer row is intermittent, see fig. right.

The bungalow as a wooden construction technology combines elements of half-timbered and frame structures with working cladding. Compared to both, bungalow technology has a trace. advantages:

In wooded areas with developed logging, it is cheaper, despite the increased consumption of material for cladding, because unseasoned low-quality materials are suitable for it (cladding), including unedged boards and waste in the form of slabs.
The bungalow house is quite simple and can be built on a shallow foundation on soils up to and including highly heaving.
In damp places, houses built using bungalow technology are very durable due to the fact that the paths of penetration of atmospheric moisture into the skin are minimized: the upper ends of the boards are covered with roof overhangs.

The disadvantages of construction using bungalow technology are, firstly, increased requirements for the experience and accuracy of the worker (see below). Secondly, there is some complexity in the design of the openings: the outer cladding boards need to be cut in place to fit the platbands, otherwise pockets will form - moisture traps.

Bungalow like a bungalow

Bungalows as shelter houses are generally more popular than hut houses due to their better habitability. In a bungalow, you don’t have to climb up to sleep and stick out to eat lunch.

The structure of a bungalow-type shelter house is shown in the figure:

Drawings of a mini bungalow house - shelter

The foundation, of course, is not necessarily a strip foundation (in this case, a non-buried strip foundation, NZLF), but any one suitable for local conditions. If it is columnar or pile, then you need 12 supports: 3 on the sides along the veranda and 4 (under each vertical post) on the others. This house can be extended up to 3-3.5 m in length. Then, if you do not extend it accordingly. veranda, you can fence off the toilet, and the attic in any case remains free for property and supplies.

A “real” bungalow for outdoor recreation measuring 4x5.875 m in plan is, of course, more complex (see next figure), just like a frame house (see below). There is no attic (this is a characteristic feature of “real” recreational bungalows). The requirements for the foundation are the same, but for soils up to and including medium heaving; prev This option also works well on heavily heaving soils.

Bungalow as technology

The main features of the bungalow as a construction technology are indicated above. In addition: the power frame is assembled from timber from 150x150 without jibs. Yes, yes! The rigidity of the structure is provided by cladding made of vertical boards. Plywood and OSB are of little use because... Under each joint of the sheets, backing posts and lengths are needed.

Bungalow construction diagrams are shown in the figure:

The rafter floor structures are not shown, they are ordinary. Please note, on the left in the figure: the triple corners of the frame are assembled by cutting into half a tree and into a tenon, and the tenons of the racks are located on the inside of the corners. This is an indispensable condition for the strength of the structure: the elements of the load-bearing frame must cling to each other at the corners without steel fasteners. Although it is necessary, see the corner reinforcement diagram in the center of Fig. The use of steel corners, overlays and other innovations in this case is unacceptable! You have to pay for the Old Testament “stupidity” with labor.

The sheathing boards need to be oriented with “humps” (convexities of the annual layers) as shown on the right in the figure: internal inward, external outward. The outer boards should be slightly narrower than the inner ones, then in the process of warping the wood, the sheathing will compact and compress the frame. With any other arrangement of the “humps” it will split and the whole house will weaken.

All boards are attached to the frame along the short (end) edges with triplets (not pairs!) of nails or self-tapping screws. The edge boards are also attached along the long edges to the corner posts with the same fasteners in a row or in a snake (zigzag) with a pitch of 100-120 mm. The outer boards are attached to the inner boards along the short edges with pairs of fasteners; along the long ones - in a row with the same step.

Assembling the bungalow's load-bearing frame is a very important stage of work. And labor-intensive, because You can’t hammer in staples with a carpenter’s hammer, and you can’t tighten 12x300 self-tapping screws with a screwdriver. In old designs, instead of self-tapping screws, oak dowels were installed using wedging. The frame of the house is assembled using bungalow technology. order:

Assemble the lower frame on the foundation;
The racks are installed, aligned vertically and fixed with temporary braces;
Assemble the upper frame on the racks;
Drill pioneer holes for the staples (marking with the staples themselves at an angle of 45 degrees). The depth of the pioneer holes is 2/3 of the length of the staple bar, the diameter is 3/4 of the diameter of the bar;
Choose grooves for the shelves of brackets, because staples must be recessed into the wood;
The staples are fastened with a hammer;
Once again check the verticality of the racks and install the upper steel fasteners;
They hammer in the staples with a sledgehammer;
Produce wall cladding;
Remove the temporary braces and carry out the rest of the work.

Frames

A frame mini-house does not have any special features compared to a large residential one; a diagram of its device is shown in Fig.:

The construction procedure is described in detail and with illustrations in many sources. You can also watch a video about the construction of a “classic” frame house 6x4 m:

Video: 4x6 country house using frame technology

The complexity and cost of building a frame house is higher than all those described above. The attention, knowledge and accuracy required to build a hut and bungalow do not count: they do not require costs and do not take up time. But the frame mini-house also has an undeniable advantage: its simple shape with vertical walls and smooth cladding make it suitable for a wide variety of design delights, see fig.

Also, the design of a frame house is very flexible. On the one hand, it forgives the rather serious mistakes of novice builders. On the other hand, it gives creative amateurs some scope for experimentation. See, for example, a video about building a small frame shelter house:

Video: DIY mini frame house

To this story we only need to add that the viewers’ comments about insulation are fair. Since it is impossible to “drive” the dew point out once and for all, and there are no massive walls where it could “walk”, insulating materials in such structures must be used that do not allow condensation to form in the insulation layer and further inside: EPS or cellulose insulation (ecowool) .

In conclusion about the roof

The roof beam (all as it is, its supporting structure) of a small house also has a peculiarity. It is determined by its small size, and, as a consequence, by the excessive rigidity of the structure, as well as the lack of a load-bearing partition (internal capital wall) in it (excuse the bureaucracy). To support the latter, a fully connected foundation is required; at a minimum - a tape of normal depth.

Rafter structures (in this case, this is the same roof crossbar) are, as is known, hanging (pos. 1a in the figure) and layered (pos. 1b):

In the first, the truss rack rests on a transverse beam-screed, and in the layered version on a load-bearing partition; split screed. It is technically possible to make a load-bearing partition in a small house, but it is not justified in any sense, including ergonomic - habitability. Therefore, the trusses of small houses are made only hanging. As for the methods of assembling the truss structure of a small house, they can be any of the known poses. 3 and 4. Choose whatever you like based on your skill, availability of materials and desire. The minimum standard size of boards for a house up to 6x6 m is 40x130, ridge beams - 100x75 and mauerlat - from 150x75. In a bungalow house and a frame mauerlat, the timber of the top frame can serve directly.

Communication with the natural environment, the presence of a country or country house has become an absolute necessity for any modern city dweller. People today are tired of the bustle, noise, offices, huge stores, in a word, of urbanization. They dream of getting out, at least for a weekend, closer to nature, admiring colorfully flowering vegetation, and listening to songbirds. The best warrant for this is your own dacha. If the budget for making your dream come true is modest, it doesn’t matter; today building a country house with your own hands is not at all a problem. Arranging terraces, various flower beds, alpine slides, verandas and other dacha attributes near your home will bring you closer to the surrounding landscape, returning you to nature, a natural and organic environment for humans.

The procedure and stages of construction of a country house

Building a country house with your own hands, even if it’s very small, at first glance it may seem like a very simple matter, not requiring close attention and lengthy preparation. But if you want to create a small, but durable and cozy family nest, you should take the matter seriously.

Before starting all purchases and construction work, you need to decide at a family council what the purpose of your house is: do you want to garden, or just arrange a recreation area and come for the weekend, will you be at the dacha in the cold season, and will you you receive guests.

Country house project 10×8

Country house projects and photos of which are presented in the article will differ from a country house only in that they first of all provide for a single connection with a vegetable garden, garden or flower garden, even if the latter is completely small.

Construction Basics

First of all, it is worth thinking carefully about the entire layout of the available space; very often, every piece of land counts with summer residents, so it should be used wisely and efficiently.
It is very important that the minimum permissible distances to your neighbors on the site and to the roadway are observed. The distance to the neighbor's plot is three meters, and the distance to the street is five meters.
Places where there are depressions are not suitable for building a house, since water will accumulate there after rains. The ideal option is the highest available location on the northern or northwestern side of the plot allocated to you.
Next, you should decide in general terms what you are going to build the house from. Possible options are listed below, but you need to take into account ground conditions, weather conditions, budget, transportation costs and labor availability.

Note! After the construction site has been determined, the desired design of the country house for which it is being developed is selected, or a ready-made beautiful project is selected.

Choosing a turnkey country house project (photo)

The first thing you need to think about after discussing the issues listed above is the project. Very often, future gardeners who want to quickly build a country house on their plot go to private construction companies, where managers often offer them expensive “luxury” projects. However, in order to build a small garden house with your own hands, you can limit yourself to much less.

An inexpensive and quite decent garden (or country) house can be built according to a typical standard project. Individuality and uniqueness can be given to it with the help of exterior decoration and plants surrounding it.

Nowadays, it is easy to find a ready-made turnkey country house project on the Internet. But when going through such proposals, you should also take into account some very significant aspects, for example:

full estimated cost of the house box;
duration and quality of construction;
labor intensity of excavation work;
range of services for foundation construction.

Note! Even small garden houses should have utility rooms for storing garden tools, take such things into account as well.

Foundation options for a country house

Concrete base (foundation) - serves as a kind of support for any house. It must withstand the loads created by the house, both during construction and after it is put into operation.

Important! A good foundation must be strong, frost-resistant, and waterproof, since the structure is affected by groundwater and active elements.

The foundation of a garden house is designed to ensure the complete stability of the structure under construction, as well as the reliability of its future operation. The most correct in a particular case (country house) will be the types of foundations listed below.

Strip foundation type - This is a structure made of a monolithic concrete strip, which is formed along the entire perimeter of the future house. This design is very often used in the construction of two-story houses; it is stable and wear-resistant, and is also suitable for brick houses. It should be taken into account that such a foundation will not be cheap, and it will not be done so quickly.
Columnar foundation- more economical, it consists of pillars that are recessed and installed in all corners of the future building, at the joints of all walls, as well as inside, in place of the planned partitions. It is good for small one-story houses that will weigh a little, for example, frame or panel houses.
Pile type foundation– consists of groups of piles that are sunk directly into the ground and joined together by reinforced concrete. If your dacha is located in a place prone to waterlogging, then you will have to make just such a foundation. By the way, it is piles that are used in the construction of the foundations of small cottages, brick buildings, large frame-type houses and classic wooden log houses.
Monolithic slab foundation– is a monolithic slab, which is made of reinforced concrete; it also serves as the floor in the house; insulation, boards, and other coverings are placed on it. Such a foundation is worth choosing if your site is located on stable soil; it can be the basis for both a one-story house and a two-story one.

Budget country house is a thing of the future

Modern traditional summer cottages are so diverse, sometimes interesting in their design, that it is not easy to make a worthy choice of the ideal option for your family. However, try to put aside your emotions and soberly weigh the pros and cons.

Modular house

The most affordable, simplest, and fastest methods of building a small house are assembling the structure from a ready-made panel kit. This group also includes houses made of structural externally insulated panels.

This also includes various module options, as well as small country houses made from container blocks. Their obvious advantage is the ease of installation work, because you actually only need to properly prepare the base (foundation) and then install the finished structure on it.

Among the obvious disadvantages of this “construction” method, one can clearly highlight both high prices for modules and a small number of possible variations. However, the purchase of a so-called construction kit makes it possible for even beginners without prior experience in this field to build a country house with their own hands.

In addition, in such a house, as a rule, the manufacturers have already installed all the communications necessary for life. Due to this, it is possible to avoid traditional mistakes, which are often made due to inexperience.

Country houses-huts

The small house in the form of a hut, which vaguely resembles a real “chalet,” has obvious shortcomings. It fits perfectly into the natural environment and looks very elegant and organic.

A hut house usually retains all its advantages when it is made no more than 6x9 meters in size, after which it automatically becomes somewhat difficult to construct. In addition, the construction of a large hut will require a lot of building materials.

In a small house in the form of a hut, one sleeping place will have to be arranged in the attic. You will need to climb there using an ordinary vertical ladder, but this is quite possible for the younger generation.

In the American states and in the forested part of Canada, such single-occupancy houses are ubiquitous. Not only hunters, fishermen and beekeepers find shelter in them, but also seasonal tenants who want to live in the natural environment during the warm season.

For a small family of two or three people, a 3x3 meter hut house could well become a summer cottage for seasonal living. It will be possible to come to the house in spring, summer, late autumn, since heating costs will be low, and it heats up much faster.

Note! If you are going to come to your dacha all year round, but don’t want to spend a lot of money on construction, then such a hut house will be the best choice.

Real bungalow

In the traditional sense, a bungalow is a one-room summer house without heating. As a rule, it is equipped with a large open space, which is structurally connected to the house.

For a traditional dacha, to which a family living in a relatively warm climate plans to visit only on weekends, such a bungalow-type house is optimal because it is spacious, well ventilated, and not too hot from the sun.

There are not many materials needed for the construction of such a house; it is made of wood. The bungalow house is very durable; it can be built on a not very deep foundation, on soils that are not very stable, including in areas prone to waterlogging.

Moreover, in damp areas, houses that are built in the form of bungalows are very durable, due to the fact that all the upper ends of the boards are usually covered with roof overhangs traditional for such a building.

Frame country house

Frame houses are becoming more and more popular, although wood is a traditional building material for our region. The environmental friendliness of such a structure is obvious, and the house, if built correctly, retains heat perfectly.

A frame-type country house should be built in the traditional style of wooden house-building, approximately the same way our ancestors did. It is desirable that it be one-story, or, in extreme cases, have an attic. Living in such a house will be cozy and comfortable all year round, and its construction will not scare you with its scale and costs.

Which country house is better: one-story or two-story?

A one-story garden house is a certain philosophy, worldview. Such a dwelling is much more comfortable, because it does not have a door leading to the second floor. Of course, for young people, rushing to the top is not a problem, however, in older years this option will definitely be less convenient.

A one-story house is also safe for children. Many summer residents who have chosen housing on two floors leave reviews that after a few years running up the stairs becomes very boring, and the statistics of injuries to people on the steps of stairs speaks for itself.

Perhaps you have decided to build a house from aerated concrete at your dacha, and are going to do it yourself. This is a great idea if you have some construction experience.

The same goes for a brick country house. Masonry is a complex process and requires experience. But the obvious advantage of such a dacha is that it will serve its owners for many years and will be inherited by the children.

Most residents of megacities have been dreaming for many years about a small beautiful house, entwined with climbing roses in a picturesque area, where they can always hide from the sweltering heat and take a break from the hustle and bustle. Make your dream come true, because a do-it-yourself country house is quite possible!

A suburban area is not only land with a vegetable garden and plantings. Many city residents come there for a good rest, so it is necessary to have a house on the site. Not all summer residents have the opportunity to build a comfortable house on six acres. Many people get out of this situation by choosing the option of building an economy class house.

Inexperienced and novice summer residents are faced with the question of choosing cheap materials for construction. Below are examples of inexpensive and cozy country houses with visual photos.

Where to start construction

Any construction begins with a plan on paper. The house outside the city is not intended for year-round living, but for the sake of comfort it requires familiarization with the standard project.

Among the projects of country houses, the ones with an attic or attic are in the lead. This option allows you to avoid building outbuildings on the site. All equipment and work tools are stored in the attic. In addition to such a house, you can add a veranda or terrace that serves as a dining room.

Strip foundation requires more time and costs. The positive side of it is that it allows you to use the room under the floor as a basement.

The next stage of preparation is the material of the “box” of the future building. There are several types of inexpensive and reliable building materials:

Frame-panel structures

The frame is mounted using timber and sheathed with wooden boards of fiberboard or chipboard. Expanded polystyrene, glass wool or polystyrene are used as insulation. The result is a house with minimal costs that can be used all year round.

A house made of timber is distinguished by its durability. Construction work will cost more. When using cheap timber, you are likely to encounter the problem of building shrinkage. As a result, cracks and gaps appear. The cobbled house will also have to be insulated.

A clay house is the cheapest and easiest construction option. Construction materials are right under your feet. The construction technique is similar to clay sculpting.

The downside is that the construction process is too time consuming. It will take several seasons to build a clay dwelling.

The trailer is common among new summer residents. The best option for living in the summer or during the construction of a comfortable house.

Construction of frame structure

Frame construction belongs to the low-budget category. Building a country house with your own hands without the help of specialists will not be difficult. If all the necessary materials are ready, the work will last several weeks.

To build a house you will need:

beams for the frame;
screws and corners;
wooden chipboard or fiberboard;
insulation;
piles for the foundation.

Stages of building a frame house

At the marked places, piles are driven in the corners. Install concrete or brick supports under the joints of the walls. Then they are covered with waterproofing material and tied with a channel.

A lattice of beams is laid around the entire perimeter. Wooden logs are placed on top of it at a distance of 50-60 cm from each other. All parts are secured with corners and self-tapping screws.

Next, vertical racks are mounted, firmly resting on the lattice grille. The finished frame is tied and attic logs are placed on top of it. Next comes the work of covering the frame with wooden slabs. At this stage, holes are left for windows and doors.

Now you need to decide on the choice of roof for your country house. Most summer residents choose gable and pitched roofs. To save money, the second option deserves more attention. When building a roof, do not forget about vapor barrier. The roof will be inexpensive sheets of corrugated board or ondulin.

External cladding is done using siding. Before this, the outer walls are insulated with special materials. Instead of plastic windows, ordinary wooden ones without double-glazed windows are installed. This approach will significantly reduce the cost of construction.

With the help of simple and simple tips, your country house will be ready for use in less than a month. Those who do not have enough time for construction can contact a construction company, which will offer to build a turnkey cottage for an affordable price.

A few words about the interior

No matter how the house looks from the outside, the inside of the country house must meet all the requirements of modern times. Gone are the days when dacha dwellings were used for cooking and sleeping.

Relaxing at the dacha means, first of all, comfort and organization inside the house. There are many budget-friendly ways to satisfy your most desired interior design needs.

Country - rustic style in the interior. Here you can’t do without cabinets and shelves covered with curtains with embroidery. Crocheted napkins, tablecloths and rugs made from old clothes will look good.

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Today, construction technologies offer the construction of garden houses not only from classic materials (logs, cinder blocks, bricks), but also to use plywood sheets, OSB, aerated concrete blocks, foam blocks, timber, etc. as the main building materials.

But it is garden houses made of plywood that have excellent soundproofing and thermal insulation characteristics, along with ease of work and inexpensive construction costs.

Another advantage of this construction is the opportunity to make a house out of plywood with your own hands. This allows you to significantly reduce the cost of hiring professional teams. But it must be kept in mind that garden houses made of timber and plywood have some disadvantages, for example, the latter’s vulnerability to aggressive actions of the external environment. Accordingly, additional measures must be taken to protect this building material, and this, in turn, increases costs.

Plywood is also an unsafe building material for home residents in terms of penetration by intruders. Therefore, when building a garden house from timber and plywood, external finishing work is required, for example, siding, which, in addition to decoration, also hides the main material used in construction from prying eyes.

Country houses are built using frame technology, which is gaining increasing popularity in many countries around the world. This explained by its main advantages:

But the wood that is used to build a house (boards for roof sheathing, bars for wall frames) must be dry, and plywood sheets must have a minimum of chips at the edges. In addition, all wood materials must be additionally treated with special compounds that can provide the required fire safety and also protect against moisture.

Construction of a frame plywood house is possible divided into the following stages:

foundation construction;
construction of wall frames and plywood cladding;
roof installation;
insulation;
finishing works (internal and external).

Gallery: garden house (25 photos)

Tools

To build a house you you will need the following tools:

Laying the foundation

A massive foundation for a frame small garden house is not required, but for this the house must be made with strict adherence to all technologies. Reinforced concrete foundation blocks, strip foundations with a recess, cast-in-place piles - all these types of foundations are suitable for starting the construction of a frame house. As a rule, a strip foundation is used.

When there are significant differences in terrain, it is best to use a pile foundation. This will make it possible to level the structure of the house and avoid distortions with minimal consumption of building materials and normal strength of the base.

Materials required for organizing the foundation of a plywood house:

crushed stone, sand;
concrete (ready-made or its components: fine crushed stone, cement, sand);
pipe for floor ventilation;
reinforcing bars.

Before starting construction, you need to mark the territory yourself and use pegs and rope to mark the boundaries of the future structure. It is best that the place where the house will be installed is level. A trench with a width of no more than 60 cm with a depth of 70 cm. This depth is quite enough to ensure the required reliability and strength for a frame house. The bottom of the trench is compacted, then covered with a layer of sand and compacted again.

Then a layer of fine crushed stone is poured in and compacted. Such a pillow will distribute the load evenly and can provide waterproofing of the lower layer of the base. To improve the density of the cushion, a small amount of water is used when compacting crushed stone and sand. Then you need to construct formwork, which can be made from boards, securing them to each other with jumpers on nails. You can prevent concrete leaks while pouring the foundation by using plywood sheets 7-8 mm thick as formwork.

After the foundation dries and the formwork is removed, these sheets can be used again. The height above ground level of the strip foundation should be approximately 45-50 cm. To ensure that the formwork does not lose its shape during concrete pouring, the upper elements are connected to each other by transverse slats.

The reinforcement is laid both across the formwork and along it. Moreover, you need to leave the ends of the reinforcing bars above the level of the foundation for subsequent fastening of the frame. In several areas, a pipe is inserted into the formwork, the length of which is equal to the width of the foundation. This creates sufficient ventilation for the floor.

Then the foundation is poured with a ready-made concrete composition or crushed stone, sand, cement are mixed into proportions 2:3:1 with water. During pouring, you need to compact the solution a little to prevent voids from appearing. The surface must be smoothed with a trowel or a rule so that the top layer of the base is as smooth as possible. Once the foundation has hardened (approximately one week, depending on depth and weather conditions), further construction can begin.

Frame and cladding

Then, to build a plywood country house with your own hands, you need to assemble a frame. Frame construction represents a step-by-step implementation of the following stages of work:

Insulation

Options for insulating a DIY garden house.

In-wall

Foam coat

Polystyrene foam grade C25 or more used for external wall decoration.

The polystyrene foam is fixed with cement glue, and the adhesive beacons can compensate for the unevenness of the wall surface. For additional fastening of the slabs, plastic dowel umbrellas are used.
The same cement glue is applied on top of the foam plastic with a wide spatula, then reinforcement is embedded into it - fiberglass mesh with a cell size of 3x3 mm and a density of at least 170 g/m2. The mesh is glued with the strips overlapping by 70-80 mm.
Then the mesh is covered with a layer of glue so as to hide its texture.

Subsequent finishing is at the discretion of the owner of the house. As a rule, the walls are finished with decorative plaster or painted with facade paint. Instead of polystyrene foam, glued mineral wool slabs can be used. At the same time, they are much safer in terms of fire spread, however, they will cost much more.

Ventilated facade

If the vapor permeability of the walls is most important, then a ventilated façade is made:

A sheathing is constructed on the walls (using a galvanized profile or timber).
Mineral wool slabs are inserted into the spacer between the sheathing elements or under it, secured with dowel umbrellas.
The top of the insulation is covered with a windproof membrane.
Afterwards, the facade is covered with siding along the sheathing.

Roof

For frame houses, lightweight roofing materials are used: corrugated sheets or soft tiles.

To the top sheathing rafter beams are attached, which are placed according to the level and are additionally fixed with jibs. The step between the beams should be no more than a meter. Then they make the sheathing with boards. The distance between the boards will depend on what roofing material is chosen. When using soft tiles, the step between the sheathing boards is small.

Then, when the sheathing is done, you need to lay a waterproofing layer. For which roofing felt is quite suitable, which is laid overlapping, the joints are fastened perpendicular to the sheathing and the roofing material is laid.

Finishing

Since the main material for the construction of a frame house is plywood, then interior and exterior decoration necessary. The best choice for exterior finishing material is siding, which does not weigh down the walls of the house much and is easy to install. The variety of textures and colors also speaks in its favor. In addition to siding, you can use wooden or plastic lining for external work.

For interior decoration, materials can be decorative plaster, wallpaper, paint, tiles. But to apply certain finishes you will need to install plasterboard sheets.

The presence of a garden house on a country plot allows it to be used for permanent or temporary residence, storage of various accessories, or full-fledged reception of guests. He can also serve as a base room for a construction team in the case of constructing a large cottage. And the most important thing is that you can do it yourself without the involvement of specialists, you only need attention, patience and compliance with all recommendations.