We quit our jobs to build a cabin • Hacker News Board

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#221

Post by evandev » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

krn wrote: post #41

julienchastang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rural American Midwest can also be quite inexpensive. Of course, you have to put up with harsh winters, hot and humid summers, poor secondary education, living 3 hours away from the nearest natural grocer (though maybe you can raise your own chickens and grow organic food) and conservative politics. I do find the bucolic landscapes and slower pace of life appealing at some level, however.

> and conservative politics A European here. Does such a thing as a liberal rural state exist in the US? Could Colorado be considered as such? Edit: I forgot about Vermont, which looks and sounds[1] a lot like Northern Europe to me. But can rural lifestyle and liberal politics be combined with warmer climate in the US? Maybe rural California? Edit 2: After reading all the responses, it seems that I should be looking…

Even in Vermont, a lot of the rural area is conservative. Consider that ~1/3 of the population lives in the Burlington Metro area, add in a bunch of other small college towns that are more liberal and you can see why Vermont votes more liberal. Indeed the rural parts are probably more liberal than other parts of the country, but you'll still see quite a few trump signs and places the vote strictly Republican/More Conservative. Even our Governor is Republican (although rather left for a republican). Take a look at how towns voted in the last Presidential Election: https://electionarchive.vermont.gov/elections/view/82048/

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#222

Post by dleslie » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:44 PM UTC

vitaflo wrote: post #201

dleslie wrote: post #105

My family owns multiple cabins, mostly built by family members with the occasional framing and finishing work by friends of the family and/or a local contractor. The one my father owns was framed and roofed by contractors, but the closing, finishing, deck and float construction, and 30 years of repairs and renovations were done by himself and us kids. It sits on a steep hill, so putting a 60x20ft deck on 15ft stilts…

Agreed. My father is a carpenter and I helped him build our family cabin when I was a pre-teen. We did mostly all of the building except putting up the trusses and finishing the roof. My dad was smart enough to farm out that work. Now I write software and I work with a lot of people who dream of going off in the woods and building a cabin, as though it's the same as building software. I have to remind them that "ther…

> My dad was smart enough to farm out that work.

What I find curious is that this viewpoint, while widely shared in trades, is not a universally shared value in tech. Many in our industry will prefer to write something themselves, or rewrite an existing project, rather than farm that work out to an expert or adapt to what they already have.

Particularly in my segment, video games: it's all well and good to write a game engine for fun, but _so many_ indie studios spend enormous amounts of their time, effort and cash on developing new engines afresh.

I can only imagine what the housing industry would be like if sub-contracting weren't as popular as it is.

> I think a lot of white collar workers see what blue collar workers do as perhaps difficult physically, but not mentally.

Aye, this is what I was alluding to as snobbish.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#223

Post by sleepybrett » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

My parents put together a little half a-frame cabin in the 1970s down on the slopes of ranier near greenwater. I was just a baby and don't know what the initial imputes was. I still assume it was because my dad and my aunt on my mother's side both loved to ski and it is within about 30m of the crystal mountain resort.

I think the initial foundation, framing, roofing and siding was done by contractors. The cabin community it's in has water and power and septic was installed. But every year until I was about 13 we'd spend weeks up there doing finishing work. All the plumbing and electrical was done by the family or friends. All the interior finishing as well. About 15 years back we ripped out the original wood burning stove for a pellet stove when my dad and I both got sick of harvesting trees left behind by the logging crews. And then about 5 years ago we ripped that out and replaced it with propane.

It's getting to the point where I'm considering buying it from them and moving up there full time. There are some issues with getting fast enough internet without paying a small fortune, but every year it's a little cheaper, a little easier.

I was just up there last week, and while I love Seattle I think I moved a step closer to the move while working out on the front porch and looking up to find a small herd of elk chewing on some of the underbrush just a few feet away.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#224

Post by dkn775 » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

kossTKR wrote: post #192

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well my youtube recommendations have certainly gone that way too, but I think it is a reflection of my growing hatred for IT as an industry and my desire to leave it behind forever.

I feel the same way. If i am going to continue in this business it's going to be "very freelance", "very on my own terms" whatever that means. I am in my thirties, and a career shift seems more and more inevitable. I seem to have swallowed several blackpills about various industrial complexes and see no bright future of the internet/tech in general, rather the opposite. What's your age and what is you plan? I am acti…

Go into government and use your expertise to ensure vendors aren’t misleading the government about capabilities, that contracts have the right technical provisions to benefit the people, orgs aren’t employing nefarious technologies, ensuring they are using good methodology to track data, etc. IMO just being a person who can bring up the concerns makes a huge difference and eventually you’ll be able to move into a more policy focused realm.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#225

Post by dencodev » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

spanhandler wrote: post #52

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get the tiny home fixation some people have. If it's a move towards minimalism, fine, but I don't think it's a practical cost cutting measure if we're talking about rural properties. The reason I say this most of the costs in rural homes have little to do with house size. My septic, well, electricity, tractor + attachments, mower, etc. and the piles of tools I need are all fixed costs that have little…

Best I can tell, tiny homes are mostly just very expensive, more-instragrammable Mobile homes, kit-prefabs (A-frames, say), or RVs (depending on how they're built) for people whose class-self-image would be threatened by living in a Mobile home, RV, or prefab. It's not about cost-cutting.

There's a lot of sanity saving aspects of living in a tiny house versus a travel trailer. However a lot of people would in fact be better served living in a fifth wheel trailer, both in terms of space, cost, time investment, and ability to transport/park it places.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#226

Post by crdrost » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

Fiahil wrote: post #171

crdrost wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's a lot there to learn, too. My plan to build a custom shelf unit for our kitchen went over-time and over-budget (in the small). Reason: once it was made it became apparent that it lacked strength against skewing deformations, which would not happen ‘laterally’ given where it was sitting but would happen ‘dorsoventrally.’ (Apologies for the anatomical language—it could wiggle side-to-side along its width…

I am amazed at the amount of knowledge you have acquired by doing it yourself! That's also my main motivation for building my own stuff (+ it's really fun when you take your time). I built a small balcony garden off a few pine planks. Many mistakes were made along the way, some were corrected (how do you cut in straight lines with a jigsaw ? Use a maconnery ruler and a few clips), some were compensated by the overall…

Hey that sounds awesome! Don't know what a maconnery ruler is, but I feel your pain about straight cuts with a jigsaw. Lots of clamping on a chunk of spare wood as a "guide" and even when you do that, if you try to push the saw through the wood like it always warps on the free end, so you have to just be patient and do thick boards slowly -- which means that you need another chunk of spare wood for the saw to sit on as you are starting out the cut. (Or only cut through thin wood so that you never notice the warp.) I think you could make a case that the most versatile and powerful tool any woodworker has at her disposal is her clamps.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#227

Post by dencodev » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

nekochanwork wrote: post #106

petargyurov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could connect to city power, water, natural gas, and sewage How?

I planned to park my house in a trailer park, and purposefully built my house to have the same kind of hookups as an RV or manufactured home. For power, I installed a 50amp RV-style power inlet to my house. I ran a 50-amp cable from from the power pole to my house. For water, I was able to connect a standard drinking-water hose from the water line to the inlet into my house. For natural gas, I ran copper flex tubing…

I thought a lot of trailer parks wouldn't allow something that wasn't built by a certified builder?

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#228

Post by tstrimple » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

vitaflo wrote: post #201

dleslie wrote: post #105

My family owns multiple cabins, mostly built by family members with the occasional framing and finishing work by friends of the family and/or a local contractor. The one my father owns was framed and roofed by contractors, but the closing, finishing, deck and float construction, and 30 years of repairs and renovations were done by himself and us kids. It sits on a steep hill, so putting a 60x20ft deck on 15ft stilts…

Agreed. My father is a carpenter and I helped him build our family cabin when I was a pre-teen. We did mostly all of the building except putting up the trusses and finishing the roof. My dad was smart enough to farm out that work. Now I write software and I work with a lot of people who dream of going off in the woods and building a cabin, as though it's the same as building software. I have to remind them that "ther…

> You can't refactor your cabin half way through building.

Actually you can. And with the similar ramifications to the project budget and timeline.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#229

Post by dencodev » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #15

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... :-)

I might be one of your ex colleagues

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#230

Post by dencodev » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

d_burfoot wrote: post #149

There should be a consulting service for people who want to Do Something Different. Like a guy who listens to your plan, and tells you how realistic it is, and all the pain and frustration you're going to encounter. Maybe he also puts you in touch with other people who've done similar things.

My plan is to live until I'm 80.

It's going to involve a lot of pain and frustration.