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

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#181

Post by wincy » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

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…

I do think I could build a house. First one might not be great, but like software or any skill iteration matters. The patience to spend years learning to build something and doing it badly several times is probably the factor that prevents people from just building a house for themselves. It takes years to grok a complex software system, this is not transferable to grokking a house. It takes similar years to grok a modern home for sure.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#182

Post by janee » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

sushshshsh wrote: post #146

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #119

I knew a real estate agent who specialized in cabins and mountain properties. He had a constant inventory of what he called "Divorce Cabins". They were half-finished DIY cabin builds or renovations that turned out to be way more stress and work than the couples expected. This tended to lead to divorce, which lead to a forced sale of the property. Experienced contractors would pick them up at a discount, finish the wo…

And yet there are people who have built cabins in Alaska with nothing but some metal and a lot of ingenuity and muscle. I think that if you have to build a cabin that conforms to certain building guidelines, bank standards, codes, mainstream retail expectations.... then for sure you are going to encounter expenses and risk. But I really hate this notion of "just pay someone to do it correctly", because this propositi…

> And yet there are people who have built cabins in Alaska with nothing but some metal and a lot of ingenuity and muscle.

You're forgetting time. Not sure if you've seen "Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG3fUIoXQ5A).

It's a great watch, and a good example of what I think you're referring to overall...that said it looked like an extremely hard way to build and from personal experience helping my sister build their holiday home, also not an approach I would recommend to anyone that doesn't have a very strong conviction and/or passion to see a self build through.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#183

Post by ghaff » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #142

turtlebits wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it is being off-grid. No $300 bi-monthly water/sewer bills (that's base charge w/o using any water). $7k - 10k in property taxes yearly. Huge heating and cooling costs for large living spaces. I do not especially like tiny houses on wheels, but I think I could live comfortably in an 800sf small house on a rural piece of land.

I can you that the amortized cost of a septic system could easily work out to $300 bi-monthly over a decade or two. Managing your own sewer is not trivial or inexpensive. For me, the tank plus installation was almost $10k CAD, and then the septic field itself would probably run between $30k and $50k CAD. So to be generous we could say $50k total for the full install. So that's about 8 years at $300 bimonthly just to…

Yeah, septic and well are definitely not something you do to save money. They're things to do because you can't get water or septic at a location.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#184

Post by at_a_remove » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #124

look_lookatme wrote: post #63

It does not surprise me that these guys are writers. This reads very much like a project intended to produce a content product as much as a cabin. It's romantic and they have plenty of meticulously framed videos and photos. Maybe they did some youtube videos with dramatic moments -- maybe even the moment they open the piece with -- anger, violence, frustration boiling over. But now they are taking woodworking courses…

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.

If I may add something: I became dissatisfied with "IT as an industry" in the sense that, despite where I was working (a tiny shop, with tiny projects, flyover state, nothing is ever going to go viral or hit big), some people were apparently prepping for FAANG careers and generally trying to turn things into some Agile megashop with dozens of layers of technology, on and on, for some rinky-dink projects. I liked doing the rinky-dink projects but all of the overhead of play-acting like we needed to scale like Cloudflare was wearying.

I took up with some TechShop stuff -- before it folded -- and enjoyed my work on laser engravers, and the CNC machines, and the lathes, and whatnot. My educational background and IT experience were certainly a help, and I thought, "Dang, it sure is nice to construct a physical object at the end of the day instead of an arrangement of magnetic fields that will simply be blown away when some high muckety-muck notices whatever fad has changed."

I jumped ship for something adjacent where I use my IT skill constantly. Programming wasn't in the job description, but my ability to program brings a certain level of power. All of my decades of IT experience is very helpful here and I still feel like I am doing something with an actual concrete output and utility.

So, I sympathize with the urge to pull the ripcord on some kind of jetpack and blast far away into the sky, but there are plenty of places that are not what HackerNews thinks of when they think IT that need all of your skills. Perhaps I like being a medium-sized fish in a smaller pond, it could be that, but it does feel fairly nice.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#185

Post by abnercoimbre » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

nostoc wrote: post #155

nwallin wrote: post #135

> The first thing he did was host a long-weekend work party to fix it up. I flew up from my home in Oakland, California. With a group of friends, we tore out exposed nails, cladded interior walls, built a deck and an outhouse, and hung shingles. At night, covered in sawdust and grime, we drank too much and huddled around a propane stove to keep warm, eventually falling asleep and breathing in noxious fumes all night…

Type II fun is just fine, as long as it doesn't veer into type III fun.

I want details.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#186

Post by huntilio » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

look_lookatme wrote: post #63

It does not surprise me that these guys are writers. This reads very much like a project intended to produce a content product as much as a cabin. It's romantic and they have plenty of meticulously framed videos and photos. Maybe they did some youtube videos with dramatic moments -- maybe even the moment they open the piece with -- anger, violence, frustration boiling over. But now they are taking woodworking courses…

There's nothing left to worship, so you're seeing a confluence of 2 forms of modern worship: a return to nature / primitive living (where we can imagine away the distractions of modern living), and worship of the self / fame, where we create these myths of ourselves and tell that story / get a bunch of people to be interested. I suspect neither one is very fulfilling, but I understand the impulse (especially the first one).

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#187

Post by ornornor » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

lowdose wrote: post #85

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic. I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". Downhill extreme mountain biking is really cool. And fun to watch. And expensive. And requires much more physical fitness than I've got. And dangerous (esp. given my physical fitness…

You underestimate your bodies strength. There are people of 98 years that do a full triathlon, so there is no excuse for you not to able to do that. You can do anything when you put your 10k hours in, but not on the first try. If mountain biking is your dream buy a Trek with electric motor in it. They can give you extra lift till you accelerate to 75 km/hour with a dongle of $120. Instant pro biking experience withou…

For those curious about tweaking your ebike, I found this: https://www.electricbiketuning.com/

I doubt you’ll hit 75kph with a 36V Motor though. My 52V mid drive would get me to around 40–50kph on a good day, flat terrain, no wind, and pedaling hard. I put it back to 25kph max because riding so fast on a bicycle was too dangerous in my opinion... cars don’t expect you to come so fast, and I was getting too dangerously confident. I was also worried about the consequences should I get in a crash and the bike is investigated to see whether it was legal.

For those interested in diy, the tsdz2 mid drive is a pretty good motor that has a torque sensor and that you can add to most bicycles. There is also an open source alternative firmware for it that’s pretty good. See https://github.com/OpenSource-EBike-firmware/TSDZ2_wiki/wiki

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#188

Post by endymi0n » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

sushshshsh wrote: post #146

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #119

I knew a real estate agent who specialized in cabins and mountain properties. He had a constant inventory of what he called "Divorce Cabins". They were half-finished DIY cabin builds or renovations that turned out to be way more stress and work than the couples expected. This tended to lead to divorce, which lead to a forced sale of the property. Experienced contractors would pick them up at a discount, finish the wo…

And yet there are people who have built cabins in Alaska with nothing but some metal and a lot of ingenuity and muscle. I think that if you have to build a cabin that conforms to certain building guidelines, bank standards, codes, mainstream retail expectations.... then for sure you are going to encounter expenses and risk. But I really hate this notion of "just pay someone to do it correctly", because this propositi…

I can clearly see both sides by now. I've built a high sleeper in my old apartment from scratch (which is kind of an understatement as it was effectively half a floor on top of a whole room including real stairs as a concession to my then-pregnant wife).

After 3 months of advance planning, I finally realized the gravity of my mistake when the delivery truck lifted half a ton of wood onto the sidewalk and drove away. For me, it was just enough of a project to seriously endanger our relationship and get me to my mental and physical limits, but hell, it turned out great.

There's really something to physical work and woodworking in particular that is haptic and makes you proud inside which you don't get at all in software engineering.

Would I do it again? Absolutely not, that was nuts. But I'm still glad I did and I enjoy doing some woodworking from time to time (like that bottle rocket launch pad for my daughter lately).

In the end I'm also pretty glad I'm in a job without breaking my back before I'm 60.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#189

Post by drdeadringer » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

kyleblarson wrote: post #11

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 a…

> pay pros to do the job

On one hand is taking pride in doing something yourself.

On the other hand is paying the expert to do it.

I know my limitations. In-bounds, I'll do it. Out-of-bounds, I pay the expert. I've learned my lessons and I have no regrets.

I say this from a family known for "inherited" stubbornness, cheapness, and generational Great Depression learning.

Re: We quit our jobs to build a cabin

#190

Post by matdehaast » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

nwallin wrote: post #135

> The first thing he did was host a long-weekend work party to fix it up. I flew up from my home in Oakland, California. With a group of friends, we tore out exposed nails, cladded interior walls, built a deck and an outhouse, and hung shingles. At night, covered in sawdust and grime, we drank too much and huddled around a propane stove to keep warm, eventually falling asleep and breathing in noxious fumes all night…

Ultra running is definitely Type II fun. It’s not that enjoyable at the time but somehow in that suffering you find pleasure afterwards