Dreaming of your own A-Frame cabin rental? Lyndsay and Mike's experience building their short-term rental in Rangeley, Maine using DEN cabin plans offers a thoughtful and encouraging roadmap for aspiring cabin owners. From the moment they discovered DEN's modern cabin plans, they were hooked on the brand's aesthetic — clean lines, expansive windows, and rustic-meets-luxury appeal.
Now that their first guests have stayed at the Cattail Cabin, they're already considering a second project — this time on the river or ocean. They candidly discuss costs, builder relationships, and lessons learned, especially the importance of budgeting for high-end finishes like floor-to-ceiling glass. If you're hoping to build a cabin that stands out in the crowded vacation rental market, their advice is simple: invest in great design, choose a builder you trust, and lean into the details that make your space unforgettable.
Meet the Builders: A Portland Couple Who Built DEN's Cabin Plans in Rangeley, Maine
Mike: Let's first start with who you are and where you built a DEN.
Lyndsay: Sure. I am Lyndsay Hastings. My fiancé, Mike McInnes, is on the call as well. We are based in the Portland, Maine area, but built our DEN A-Frame in Rangeley, Maine, which is kind of like the northwestern mountain region of Maine.
Mike: Awesome. Which DEN A-Frame did you build?
Lyndsay: We selected the A-Frame Retreat.
Why They Chose the DEN A‑Frame Retreat for Their Lakefront Cabin
Mike: What about the A-Frame Retreat caught your eye?
Lyndsay: I had actually joined a short-term rental investment Facebook group called Robuilt. I had seen a few other members within the group that had purchased DEN plans. We were drawn towards an A-Frame and just kind of liked the clean lines and the cabin look. For a lake house in the mountain region, going for an A-Frame was like the quintessential Maine vibe we were looking for. But what drew me specifically to DEN was just the Scandinavian minimalist modern look to it. So it was — for us — the perfect balance of country home mixed with modern aesthetic.
Mike: Awesome. I'm guessing you're the Cattail Cabin, is that correct?
Lyndsay: Yes, we're Cattail Cabin.
Mike: What a great looking build.
Lyndsay: Yeah, thank you. So we obviously had to revise our plans slightly from the initial build just to kind of accommodate our needs. We wanted just a little bit more space than what the original plans allowed for. But overall we tried to stick to the plan as closely as possible and are really pleased.
Customizing DEN's Cabin Floor Plans
Mike: Did you do those customizations with us or with a local partner?
Lyndsay: With our builder — he's kind of like a one-man show up in the Rangeley area. As he was reviewing the plans, he was like, 'I really think because of the land you purchased — it's on a gradual sloping hill heading right down to the lake — I think you'd benefit from a walkout basement.'
Lyndsay: And once we started to really think about the space — and how many people could comfortably sleep there — we tended to agree that it made most sense to add a walkout basement. It gave us an extra bedroom, an extra bath, and then kind of like a full additional living space bonus area.
To be honest, I didn't even know that we could have gone through DEN for the plan revision. That didn't even occur to me. So our builder went rogue.
Mike: Yeah. In all fairness, we may not have had that service up and running when you decided to do this. We bought the plan back in 2022, right? Just this past year, we launched an online home building platform where you can annotate the plans and request customizations all through the browser.
Lyndsay: Oh, awesome. Yeah, our project predates that, so.
Mike: It's all good that the builder supported you. So how many homes have you built before this one?
Lyndsay: We built our primary residence, but this is our first short-term rental. This is our first investment property, if you will.
Customized A-Frame Floor Plans vs. Buying an Existing Cabin
Mike: What made you decide to build something new instead of just buying something and renovating it?
Lyndsay: To be honest, we were kind of looking at both scenarios. We have friends that live out in California and have a short-term rental in Mammoth that we had the opportunity to ski at back in maybe 2021 or 2022. And they were just saying like, 'listen, we get to enjoy it, but we're actually making really great profit off of this. It's become like a great revenue stream for us.' So I left that being like, 'Mike, we can do this. We can definitely do this.'
Why Their Cabin Floor Plans Needed the Right Lot
Lyndsay: We had identified two areas. One was the Carrabassett Valley/Kingfield area of Maine, which is where Sugarloaf mountain is. And then the other area was Rangeley, where Saddleback mountain is.
We had looked at a few properties, but nothing that really felt like it was speaking to us. Then we kind of pivoted and started looking at land. What really spoke to us was something more on the lake so that we could get more of a four-season rental opportunity. It ended up being one piece of land that we found that just spoke to us and felt like, okay, this is right.
Lyndsay: So we purchased the land. The original plan actually was to go with a tiny home — a pre-fab modular build. But when we submitted the building plans to the town, they got denied because it was too small. They needed something above 450 square feet. So we ended up pivoting, and that was when I was part of this investment group and a few other folks within the group had purchased DEN plans and had been posting these beautiful homes. And I was like, 'you know what, this is speaking to me.' So that's kind of how we landed on the land and then landed on the project.
From Cabin Plans to Construction
Mike: That's awesome. When you finally bought the plans and took a look at them and the buying guide and all of the other stuff we offer alongside the plans themselves — what were your thoughts?
Lyndsay: Thoughts again were like, the look I was going for was more of that clean Scandinavian aesthetic. So that was what initially spoke to me. I'm not an architect, so I looked at the plans and I was like, 'this is speaking a foreign language,' basically. But overall, I felt like the process was really smooth. You get a zip file of one big package of all of the tools you need. That was exactly what we passed off to the planning board and the code inspection officers, and it got approved very easily. And then once our builder took a look, he gave it the check. The biggest callout was just the suggestion to do the addition of a walkout basement, which I'm so glad we did.
Executing Modern Cabin Floor Plans Without a Structural Engineer
Mike: With your project, did you have to seek the counsel of a structural engineer or engineering firm, or did you just use the plans as is?
Lyndsay: We used the plans just as is. I will say it was a long process. We bought the land and then once we had the plans, it took a little bit to find a builder, then to get into the builder's schedule. He's a one-man show, so he was literally doing everything on his own. All in, it was a couple of years. We just had our first renters in last week for the new year, and everything went great.
Mike: Oh, awesome.
First Guests in the A-Frame: Feedback & Family Fun
Mike: Wow. So you welcomed your first renters just now. What was their feedback? What did they think?
Lyndsay: They were thrilled. We wanted everything to be kind of automated so we could control it from our phones. In the beginning, I think there was a little bit of a hiccup with getting the heating adjusted — it was really hot and for some reason they couldn't figure out how to fix it. But they were thrilled overall with the A-Frame. At least the response we got from the property manager was that they were really happy. It's dog friendly, so they were able to bring their pet.
They had two small children. We have one room that's kid friendly with bunk beds, and we've added certain amenities like a shuffleboard table, an old-school Nintendo, and we provide snowshoes and toboggans for people to use. So overall, they used all of it and they were really happy.
Modern Cabin Plans in Action: Glass Walls, Lake Views, and Cozy Lofts
Mike: As you guys have seen the building take shape and walked through the layout and the different rooms — what's your favorite part of the design, as you stand in it?
Lyndsay: Good question. Mine is probably the loft. To me, it just feels really cozy up there.
Lyndsay: You get great natural light. Obviously those super-high pitch and vaulted ceilings. But we added a pony wall so that it gives a little bit more privacy up there, but it still feels open and airy. We were able to salvage some beams from a barn that was being torn down, circa 1800s, that we repurposed as more like decorative exposed beams. So you have that right above you as you're sleeping. I would say mine is probably the loft. I have a feeling Mike's probably going to go with the deck.
Mike McInnes: Yeah, I would go with — I love the look of the glass on the front. Like Lynds was saying, we felt like we hit the lottery with the land.
Mike McInnes: We kind of got a tip on the land and got in early. The fact that it faces this quiet little cove — obviously it's named Cattail Cabin because of the cattails out in front there, just a lazy little cove of the lake. It's really quiet, but that glass is perfectly placed. From the loft, just looking down — we got a spiral staircase going down, so just kind of perched up top of that spiral staircase — it feels so tall, but looking out at the lake, there's just nothing better than that for me.
Lyndsay: Yeah, good call. The windows are kind of like the money shot for photos — looking out at the lake or looking in at the cabin. Everyone always comments on the glass and just how impactful and impressive it looks. And that was 100% the DEN plans. We didn't make any adjustments to that. So that was a huge win.
Lessons from Building with DEN A-Frame Plans: Tips for Future Builders
Mike: How did the plans help you set up a successful relationship with your builder, or help you get to pricing for the project?
Lyndsay: I thought the pricing for the actual plans was completely reasonable and realistic. We had one figure in mind of what we thought the labor costs would be. And then obviously building this right through the midst of COVID, the number that the builder gave us, we were like, 'Holy moly.' But that's okay — it just means we've got to rent it out a little bit more in the first couple years to make some money back.
The builder was able to work with the plans very easily. He had a couple small questions just about some of the configuration, like where would laundry hookups go. Ultimately that problem was solved when we finished off the basement and were able to have a large laundry area. But I would say the plans overall were pretty easy to navigate for the builder.
Mike McInnes: Yeah, we feel like he's kind of a genius because we were so hands off. A lot of what I got from him was that he wanted to make sure it breathed okay. The pitch of the roof — he picked up the pitch a little bit where the soffits coming out could breathe more, and he was concerned about snow runoff. And then we've got a split level going down, so it was kind of like, 'all right, how do we work this into the landscape?' I think we started out with a 30x28, and he made a perfect square of 30x30. So I know that's obviously a big change, and sort of everything would cascade from there. But in terms of specifics, it was something he muscled through and we didn't really hear much about. I would take that as a good thing — plans that were easy to move pieces around in.
"Builders like your project, and they find the plans easy to interpret and easy to modify where they feel like they need to. Like your experience, you guys found a really great builder who you didn't really need to manage strictly — which is amazing to hear." — Mike (DEN)
Lyndsay: Yeah. And I think part of it is we're about two and a half hours south of where our project was being built. So we had to put the complete trust in our builder. Any little manipulations he made to the plan — we didn't really know about it. So to Mike's point, I think that's probably a good thing.
Future Cabin Plans: Lessons, Dreams & What's Next
Mike: So if you had a friend who was thinking about getting into the short-term rental game and wanted to build a DEN, what advice would you give them?
Lyndsay: I think it's worth it. I'm already chomping at the bit to build our second. The next one I want either on the ocean or on the river in Maine. I'm ready for my next project. I'm more of like the dreamer and Mike's the realist, who's like 'pump the brakes — we got to see if this can make money first.' I would recommend it for sure. DEN has a very specific aesthetic. If that aesthetic appeals to that specific friend, I would say go for it.
Mike McInnes: Yeah, I would just echo that. I mean, we really felt like we needed a professional — somebody that could interpret the plans and make adaptations. The one variable that everyone's going to have is that they all have a different piece of property. It's all sitting on different elements of the earth. Being able to kind of take a punch and roll with it — we had an exceptional builder for that. There's a reason why we chose DEN: we just love the look of it. Kind of going for that ski/lake combo, that four-season look. Got a bit of rustic, but a bit of sexy appeal to it as well. We're super happy with the end product.
Lyndsay: The only other thing I would say to a friend is — just because the nature of an A-Frame is that there is so much glass, which is beautiful and is one of the huge selling features for us — it's expensive. So maybe price it out before committing. The glass was definitely one of the bigger expenses for us.
"The glass is the selling feature. So we don't want to do away with it. It just, it was like the timing of when we were choosing to build. If we had done it in 2019, it would have been probably a fraction of the cost." — Lyndsay
Mike McInnes: One thing I didn't really consider beforehand was the lighting and how to accentuate that glass, especially at night. We did a lot of recessed lighting and soffit lighting to point right at that glass. We've got natural wood in that soffit area and in the overhangs. And just lighting that up — looking from the lake to the glass part — that's our money shot right there.
Mike: Awesome. And I just wanted to also let you guys know that your project is included on our Book a Stay section on our website. So yeah, if you click on 'experience a DEN' in the navigation, you guys are the fifth one on the list. Hopefully we'll send you some bookings. And if there's any content that you guys want us to share on Instagram, just hit us up. Thanks for spending some time with me and with DEN today, and I wish you a ton of luck in reservations this upcoming year.
Lyndsay: Cool. Thank you, Mike. So much.
Mike McInnes: Yeah. Thanks, Mike. That's so great.
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