I purchased land in the North Cascades area (Methow Valley, about 3 hours Northeast of Index where these guys built) in 2007 with the intention of building a weekend home myself. I prepped the property myself and ran the main power. It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made. My wife and I moved into the home full time in 2011 and have lived in the valley ever since.
We quit our jobs to build a cabin
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Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#12They got the property for 3,000 and sold for 115,000 (with cabin) Where can you buy so low for so much land?
Index WA is meth central and incredibly dark and dank in the winter so that might explain the cost.
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#13It ended up costing ~$50k (not counting labor) and took a year to build, and they sold it for $115k. The cabin looks phenomenal. I wonder how a tinyhome would compare in cost and features?
Your Q reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House. The client, Pope, had challenged the famous architect, who to date had built mansions for the super wealthy, to design an affordable house for the everyday American:
"Dear Mr. Wright, There are certain things a man wants during life, and of life. Material things and things of the spirit. The writer has one fervent wish that includes both. It is a house created by you."
Wright delivered. It's a beautiful and simple design, initially estimated to cost $5,000 but ended up costing $7,000 (1941) dollars.
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#14[deleted]
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#15They got the property for 3,000 and sold for 115,000 (with cabin) Where can you buy so low for so much land?
You can easily get cheap empty land in the American West so long as it's farther from the nearest city than your average Javascript crapping baboon is willing to drive with his family in the car for a weekend getaway and the parcel is too small for any commercial use. The east coast is similar but all the numbers are smaller and the baboons shit under-performing pharmaceuticals and financial products instead of Javas…
> your average Javascript crapping baboon
Funny that describes some of my (almost ex) colleagues... :-)
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#16It sounds like the purpose is the process. Of course you can pay people, but that is less satisfying.
It's cool he is becoming a woodworker now.
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#17It ended up costing ~$50k (not counting labor) and took a year to build, and they sold it for $115k. The cabin looks phenomenal. I wonder how a tinyhome would compare in cost and features?
Your Q reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House . The client, Pope, had challenged the famous architect, who to date had built mansions for the super wealthy, to design an affordable house for the everyday American: "Dear Mr. Wright, There are certain things a man wants during life, and of life. Material things and things of the spirit. The writer has one fervent wish that includes both. It is a house c…
That works out to about $123,000 after inflation, for anyone else wondering.
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#18I purchased land in the North Cascades area (Methow Valley, about 3 hours Northeast of Index where these guys built) in 2007 with the intention of building a weekend home myself. I prepped the property myself and ran the main power. It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made. My wife a…
> It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job.
I feel personally attacked. Really though, I wonder how many things are on my 'Someday Maybe' list, that really I should just make more money to accomplish and/or find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic.
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#19They got the property for 3,000 and sold for 115,000 (with cabin) Where can you buy so low for so much land?
The land is a quarter acre, which isn't that much (that's 1,000 square metres), off-grid, in the middle of nowhere in Washington State.
I've Googled this and here (England, sure completely different country, but also quite crowded) 'poor livestock land' (which I think their land would qualify as) is worth on average £5,000 an acre, which is about $1,625 for a quarter acre. In Scotland it goes down to £2,000 per acre.
I can therefore imagine that $3,000 was not such an impossibly low offer, not least if the seller accepted immediately.
Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin
#20It ended up costing ~$50k (not counting labor) and took a year to build, and they sold it for $115k. The cabin looks phenomenal. I wonder how a tinyhome would compare in cost and features?
I built a tiny house on wheels. My house totaled about $55K, due to my preference for premium materials and contracting out work that I did not feel comfortable doing myself (e.g. wiring a 50amp power box).
My house was built to be on grid and could be parked in any trailer park. I could connect to city power, water, natural gas, and sewage.
Off-grid homes are more expensive due to the need to install solar panels, drill wells, bury a giant propane tank, and purchase land.
$50K is honestly one of the cheapest builds I've seen for an off-grid cabin. Their house looks amazing.