Bach/Sleepout
My family owns a small bit of land over on
Banks Peninsula. We bought it
about 10 years ago, and for quite some time just used it as a place to go camping over the
summer. It's about a kilometre from the beach, and a short walk to the local shop &
playground. About 5 years ago we decided it was time to put something more permanent on
there. We already had a shed, which we stashed some of our camping gear in, but it was all
still basically camping. So I drew up some rough plans on the computer, passed them around
the various interested parties, and eventually we decided on a simple little sleep out that
we could build.
Plans
The building is pretty straight forward - a single 6m x 4.2m room. French doors on one side, a
single front door on another. A few windows. That's about it. The plans I drew up can be found
here.
Foundations
Because the area is a flood zone we had to elevate the floor level. This means the house sits
on roughly 1 metre tall pile foundations.
Building
We did all of the construction ourselves, apart from the electrical work.
Deck
Since this is a bach, it is basically only used during summer. So we had always intended to
have a huge outdoor area. We've now added on a great big deck, with a small covered area. This
is where we spend most of the time during the day, lounging on chairs on the deck, or eating
our breakfast, lunch & dinner outside.