We spent a few weeks looking at A-frame plans online before we found Den Outdoors. Their A-Frame Bunk A-frame was the one — 14 × 14 feet at the base, 21 feet to the peak, a full glass front wall, a loft sleeping two, a small kitchen, french doors. Clean geometry, good proportions, nothing overcomplicated. We ordered the building package, printed the plans, and spread them across the kitchen table.
Anaïs studied them like a client brief. Bolo started a spreadsheet.
The plan gave us the structure. Everything else was our call — orientation, materials, how the A-frame would sit on the existing slab, how the garden would wrap around it. Den’s design is made for the woods. We made it work for the Caribbean.
The decision to go with Wapa for the cladding came later, but it made sense from the start. Wapa is a Guyanese hardwood — dense, naturally rot-resistant, and it weathers beautifully in the tropics. Cedar shingles would have been the easy choice. Wapa was the right one.
We didn’t hire a general contractor. Anaïs managed the site. Her training as a landscape architect meant she understood materials, drainage, orientation — the A-frame had to sit with the land, not on top of it. The terrace faces the hills. The front opens to catch the breeze from the south. The garden wraps around it.
It took two years. We built most of it ourselves, with help from friends when the big pieces needed more than two pairs of hands.
We have no regrets about doing it the slow way.
