Goat Ranch Cabin with Kitchenette Cabinets and Appliances
I’ve neglected building out the interior of the cabin for many years. It’s rustic…very rough. It has air conditioning and, obviously, electricity but no plumbing or any special accommodations. I’ve done maintenance on it and worked on it a little bit but my focus has been on large projects here at home.
The large projects at home are pretty much wrapped up so, for Christmas last year, Wendy asked to have the cabin buildout completed. Slowly I’m creaking into motion on that project. I’m getting some traction on it mainly in planning and design.
Yesterday I took an opportunity to go to the cabin and I modeled the whole thing in Sketchup. All the framing and decking and structure of the cabin is now a 3D model I can work on in Sketchup. I can make all the measurements I need for design and fit them with appliances in the 3D space.
There is a bedroom (a have the walls framed already), a loft (where kids sleep), and soon a bathroom (shower only…outhouse is down the trail), and a kitchenette (shown in the image above). It will be designed on Tiny House design principles and it’s our goal to keep it simple and low-maintenance. It’s our place to get away, let the kids roam and play in the woods and not worry about constant housekeeping.
With the cabinets designed (the brown objects in the image above) it looks like I need to get moving on the other things holding up their installation…like the wood flooring. It’ll be really nice to have a place to go and stay for extended periods; almost camping, but not quite.
8-Drawer Small Parts Cabinet
I came across an article about using an airline beverage cart for a storage solution for hot glue and paint. After hunting online for quite a while, I became frustrated by the condition of the used carts and the price of the new carts. So, as usual, I decided I could do a better job at getting what I want at the level of quality I want and maybe save some money in the process.
The downside to buying used equipment online is that, when you need another piece, you may not be able to match what you already have. By building your own equipment you can customize it to your needs and build as many items as you need with consistent quality.
A quick search online gave me the dimensions of the cart and drawers. Using that information I went to Sketchup and began to design the small parts drawers (shown in image above) for all my gun parts and gunsmith tools. In the design I used stainless steel, spring loaded latches and UHMW plastic rails for the drawer slides. I have all the baltic birch plywood in my workshop and the hardware & rails are ordered from McMaster-Carr.
Once the design was complete in Sketchup I exported it to Layout (included with Sketchup Pro) to make the build drawings. The cabinet will work well on a stationary base as well as it would on casters. Below are some download links for the model and drawings on this project.
- Sketchup 3D Model via 3D Warehouse
- Build Drawings (PDF)
