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The architect behind the cabin modification overcame a couple of issues they had been dealing with: one was that the creek that runs outside the mountain cabin in the forest couldn’t really be seen from the cabin.

The architect, Amy A Alper, designed a double-height living room addition and added this to the original structure by wrapping it around it. If you look in the window in the photo above, you can probably see the shingle siding of the original structure inside this cabin. An idea you don’t come across every day, I think you might agree?

It even kept the period windows from the old structure.

To build a cabin addition ecologically, they used reclaimed beams to tie the old and new cabin parts together. They tried to harmonize the look of the cabin addition to the woods that surround it.

This building idea was the work of architect Amy A Alper of Alper Archiect (visit her click here).

House Buyers Should See This Prefab Home Interior

For all you house buyers out there, and even house sellers, you might want to take a look at this custom prefb home interior… and exterior. House buyers regularly turn to the idea of buy and sell, real estate listing or speaking to professionals such as William Pitt to get advice on the best way of purchasing a home and checking for new houses for sale. Although some people also think about buying property and building a house on it. One option for building a home is to look into prefab houses, these homes become even more valuable with some smart home features provided by companies similar to Crestron.

This prefabricated building looks like a tiny home, and might be a little cold if used as a winter cabin, but as a summer vacation home (or vacation rental — I think these are called “chalet rentals”) it might be something to look at. It’s a regular timber frame constructed house, but it has a small frame.

It’s built by prefab house builders FabCab (visit them click here). They use mostly Douglas Fir timberframe construction and also focus on a high level of finish in their small houses.

This prefab home interior is 550 square feet. It’s called a “TimberFab” by its builders. This particular prefab cabin is located on Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, and it was assembled by the Seel Valley Construction company.

Prefabricated house building experts may know the term “SIP”. It means structurally insulated panel, and that’s the kind of walls used here in this prefab. This modular home construction method allows house builders to reduce the time it takes them to assemble the prefab on the building site and this results in lower ecological footprints in general because there is less construction travel and assembly material. Prefab houses often come with a prefab garage too, since they look so great together.

Looking at the interior and the above photo of the exterior of this prefabricated home, you can see that they have designed this prefab cabin with a quite “open” sense, spatially. Take a look (house interior photos look best on a large screen).

Ultimate Toy Hauler

For those RVers who need more than a motorhome or fifth wheel to sleep in and do some recreating or cooking, some turn to buying toy hauler RVs. A toy hauler is really a motorhome or fifth wheel that has a section of the unit dedicated to storing and transporting toys.

Toy haulers and another customized motorhome-like large vehicle, horse carriers, are things we featured here before, but now we’re going to look at the limits of toy haulers. What is the biggest one?

According to RVs AxleGeeks, the longest fifth wheel toy hauler is around 44 feet, and its the Jayco Seismic. It’s actually 44 feet, 2 inches, and has a MSRP of around $80K. That’s production though. You might have seen some of the modifications even longer.

And for motorhome-style? The longest I’ve seen is probably motorhomes that tow a trailer, especially the ones made by Powerhouse coach, which over the years they’ve been building so many different types of custom motorhomes and other RVs, they’ve come out with some VERY long ones (here’s one).

There’s also some interesting ways of bringing toys and secondary vehicles (besides towing). Here (click here) is a bus with a compartment underneath it for a car, and a platform slides out to park on, then slides in and tucks the car away.

If you want to go by what others have rated for “the ultimate,” or by price, these are probably both the same: Shane Guirdy’s 2014 Prevost with toy trailer, which cost $2.8 mil (he had another 2.something mil one before that as well, which he gave to his son when he got this one). And, for those interested in the toy hauler pictured above, its from Double Trailers (click here).

The Voltage Fifth Wheel

This luxury toy hauler fifth wheel company we’re looking at is called Dutchmen, and they’re selling a line of first class travel toy haulers they call “Voltage”.

This travel trailer has a number of features, such as the several stock features like central vacuum, convectio microwave, fridge (in 12 or 18 cubic foot four-door packages), thermostat, tank heater, entertainment center, auto-leveling system, pin box, awnings, power bunk, and nitrogen filled tires.

People can also order upgrade-type packages, such as the “Epic V”, “Voltage Luxury Interior Package,” “Exterior Package”, and “Garage Package” depending on what part of the fifth wheel is most important to the RV buyer. Of course, they probably do customizations on any package, but the advantage of a package is they throw in a number of things at a more economical price for RV buyers.

To get at an ATV or bike in the back, the rear door folds down to the ground to form a ramp, and fences can be raised on both sides of that ramp, but they come out from the body of the toy hauler rather than folding up from the ramp. It’s called the MORryde Zero Gravity Ramp Door, and it has no exterior latches or visible springs, but does have an electronic key lock, dual auto style latches, light finger touch operation, and its easy to open and close, according to Dutchmen.

The rear door also forms a patio, called the “Park and Play” patio system, which suspends from the body of the fifth wheel trailer back.

These come in a number of lengths, from the 26-foot 3,200 (which has a 3,174-pound cargo capacity, and which weighs 13,236) to the Triton 3451 (interior photos below), which has a 5,505-pound capacity and is 37.8 feet long. Visit Dutchmen fifth wheels (click here).

Never Seen a Motorhome Like This Motorhome!

Have you ever seen a motorhome like this motorhome? We certainly hadn’t before this picture came to us. If you ever find yourself in possession of a beast like this, you’ll probably want to check out something like One Sure Insurance so that if anything (god forbid) happened to it, you would be appropriately covered. Since we’ve been looking a lot at Prevosts and other North American luxury coaches, we haven’t seen any that look like this. That’s because this is a European truck made by Scania. If you’re the owner of a motorhome you’re going to want to make sure that regular maintenance is carried out. I’d suggest getting a Certified RV Repair & Service Specialists, so you know your motorhome/ RV is in excellent condition all year round.

This article has moved to WheelsList.

“Crusader” Big Truck Design

Just a quick note on this concept “Suburban”-based big truck, which was designed by amateur vehicle designer Jonathan Markowski some time back. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like his website is being updated anymore and his email has expired, so we couldn’t find out more about the truck design, but what do you think?

It looks like a basic heavy duty truck, but with a huge spoiler on the top, which would, conceivably, improve aerodynamics.

This concept was part of his “Gas Guzzlers” series, based on big vehicles like the Suburban and Escalade.

Elsewhere I’ve seen this design referred to as the “Crusader.”

It’s designed for America, “the land of the Suburban,” but Markowski meant is more as a joke than anything, partly due to the amount of fuel that would be required for this truck.

He did point out that Suburbans can have a lot of power though. You can outfit them with engines that fall short only of the Viper, with 8.1 liters, according to the designer.

Custom Built House Near Yellowstone

This custom house was built for a World Resources Institute board member, Todd and Melissa Thomson, by Dan Joseph Architects. That nature you see surrounding the custom built home is the countryside of near Yellowstone National Park.

The custom cabin is called “Headwaters Camp” — the style of it I mean — was recognized by the US Green Building Council for its environmental and sustainability features — the third house in Montana to get the Platinum certification.

In building this custom house, the Thomsons also worked with Highline Partners and Kath Williams and Associates, besides DJA, all working toward, in addition to other goals such as architectural aesthetics and comfort, innovation in minimizing effects of a house on the environment around it.

They did this by — Dan Joseph Architects part — designing with efficient materials and building in mind. You could probably learn more about efficient heating from professionals similar to heating Franklin lakes nj if you were interested by the way, but I digress. They used local and reclaimed construction materials, cut down on the wastes often associated with building a house, and used modern energy-reducing home technologies (such as ground-source heat pumps, on-demand water heating, special insulation, windows that were triple glazed, passive solar considerations, dual flush toilets, and more. Building a new house similar to these homes take a lot of time and expertise, especially if you are interested in building your dream home, luckily there are companies similar to Trappers Crossing who may be able to to help you to achieve this goal. These would seem to fit in with the ideas of the architeccts behind the custom country house:

“Carefully blending a world defined by orderly needs of program and the random artistry of nature in the extreme” is the moto of (click here), who operate out of Big Sky, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The Most Unusual Looking Truck Out There Maybe

Harnessing the power of steam (once again), this diesel/electric future semi tractor cuts waste — both fuel and space! How? First off, the power comes from a combustion turbine coupled with an electric generator to charge a battery. Thermal energy from the combustion turbine also produces power by making steam throughout the cooling system (and that cooling system also reduces the need for large engine ventilation, and therefore aerodynamic drag).

Second off, to maximize space for the owner-operator or driver who drives this vehicle — called the “Atropos” by designer Peter Azzouni — because the cab converts between a cab and a sleeper by tilting its position. When tilted, storage compartments and a dresser are also revealed.

The bed is a memory foam matress created by the seats folding down.

And yes, that cab is entirely glass, so be careful driving this one. On the plus side, the glass is ionized so it can tint according to the darkness that suits the driver.

Unusual shape? Well, that’s for aerodynamics, and its based on the shape of locomotives and DTM race cars.