Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's that friend who can't sit at a
Speaker 1: diner table without making modular sculptures with the half and
Speaker 1: half creamers. Can't not do it. Ali warret back with
Speaker 1: another episode of Homologies. Okay, great news, kiddos, I got
Speaker 1: some news for you. You ready, This episode is not about ticks? Yes?
Speaker 1: Are you stoked now that we have covered some basic
Speaker 1: health and safety ie me just reminding you check those crevices.
Speaker 1: Kind of like a flight attendant demonstrating an inflatable vest.
Speaker 1: But now you know, let's get the summer show on
Speaker 1: the road. There are sprinklers to run through, there's some
Speaker 1: campfire smoke to dodge, some sandal tans to get, barbecues, reunions. Okay,
Speaker 1: but before we hit the road, let's make a pit
Speaker 1: stop at thank Youville to say thanks to all the
Speaker 1: folks supporting this podcast on Patreon. I literally could not
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Speaker 1: you know I do like a lady creep, and then
Speaker 1: I read you one aloud, such as this fresh one
Speaker 1: from Crazy Dog Mom twelve twenty seven, who compared me
Speaker 1: to a gently excited Richard Simmons, but for science instead
Speaker 1: of high kicks, and said that I'll teach you about
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, especially things that you didn't think
Speaker 1: you'd find interesting. Here's looking at you, ticks, they say. Also,
Speaker 1: thank you fabulous with four a's for the review. You
Speaker 1: have my permission to cry in the car now on
Speaker 1: the way to work. Okay, cabinology who howboy howdy? Let
Speaker 1: me say right now, I love cabins. I think I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with them, like I look for cheap deals to
Speaker 1: rent them. I have dreams about them. I pinterest them.
Speaker 1: I don't pinterest anything. I covet them. I admire them.
Speaker 1: And in fact, this past week I found a photo
Speaker 1: in my phone from five years ago. I took of
Speaker 1: one of this guest's books, without even knowing who he
Speaker 1: was or that I would meet him. I follow so
Speaker 1: many hashtag cabin porn instagrams, which has everything to do
Speaker 1: with cabins, literally nothing to do with naked people. I
Speaker 1: see pictures of cabins that I want to hug too hard,
Speaker 1: like something cute that you'd squeeze to the point of peril.
Speaker 1: So let's dive into a subject I could not be
Speaker 1: more excited about. Okay. So the word cabin comes from
Speaker 1: the Latin for hut and ps cabana is related. How
Speaker 1: did I never realize that? Duh wow? Okay. So cabinology
Speaker 1: is a relatively new but established term. It was coined
Speaker 1: in relation to this ologist's work and career. I first
Speaker 1: became aware of this ology blissfully enough, actually, while in
Speaker 1: a lodge in the wilds of Montana. It was the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty seventeen. I was surrounded by my huge,
Speaker 1: weird family that I love. In side note, my dad
Speaker 1: is one of eleven kids, and so the Ward family
Speaker 1: reunions the roughly half the size of like a summer
Speaker 1: music festival theraugh party. And I was drinking an evening
Speaker 1: margarita out of a Chick coffee mug and the sounds
Speaker 1: of my elders crushing each other in a pinacle game.
Speaker 1: Two tables over I thumbed through this outdoorsy magazine. I
Speaker 1: saw the byline of this very guest tounting himself as
Speaker 1: a cabinologist. It's like hot damn. I vowed to myself,
Speaker 1: I will find this cabinologist when I finally launched that
Speaker 1: ologies podcast in my future, and I will interview him.
Speaker 1: And so indeed I did, and you're about to listen
Speaker 1: to it. The stuff dreams are made of. So this
Speaker 1: spring I made my way to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where his
Speaker 1: headquarters of his architecture from art. It's Salah, which he
Speaker 1: said means special room in Italian, and it also stands
Speaker 1: for the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. So I
Speaker 1: went up some breezy stairs to his crisp downtown office
Speaker 1: filled with light wood and clean lines, high ceilings, a
Speaker 1: lot of airy white, and we cabin chatted. So we
Speaker 1: cover what is a cabin? When does a cabin just
Speaker 1: become a house, and why are they so cozy? And
Speaker 1: what makes cabins horror flick flodder? How does a summer
Speaker 1: cabin visit than a winter one? How do you build one?
Speaker 1: What about those weird franking cabins built out of old
Speaker 1: stuff from a bunch of different buildings. How big should
Speaker 1: the windows be and which way should they face? How
Speaker 1: do you even design a cabin? And in all caps
Speaker 1: bold italics, why are cabins the best? So come watch
Speaker 1: the sunset, drag chair to the fire pit, pour a
Speaker 1: mug of whatever's handy, and breathe. In an episode with architect,
Speaker 1: author expert and a warm, bright lantern of a person,
Speaker 1: cabinologist Dale Mulfinger, and I might make you scooch into
Speaker 1: this just a little bit more. These are like stage mics,
Speaker 1: so they're like, get on up in it. I know
Speaker 1: you are a cabinologist.
Speaker 2: I am a cabinologist. It was anointed upon me by
Speaker 2: an external person, actually a radio personality, who, upon hearing
Speaker 2: that I was researching cabins with students at the university,
Speaker 2: he announced on the radio that I must be a cabinologist.
Speaker 2: So I consider myself having an instantaneous PhD.
Speaker 1: How long ago is it?
Speaker 2: That was probably about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: Were you like, well, I'm changing my business cards.
Speaker 2: That's it. Yeah. I adopted it immediately and I've been
Speaker 2: using it since. And I wrote a book called Cabinology
Speaker 2: after it. And I always credit this person who you know,
Speaker 2: who gave me that name. I didn't invent it for myself.
Speaker 1: Quick aside credit goes to Minnesota Garage Logic radio host
Speaker 1: Joe Sachery for dropping that C word so so many
Speaker 1: years ago. Now. As for Dale's bibliography, it's extensive. So
Speaker 1: between designing cabins, he's also managed to churn out a
Speaker 1: bunch of books, including The Cabin Inspiration for the Classic
Speaker 1: American Getaway, The Getaway Home, Family Cabin Inspiration for Camps, Cottages,
Speaker 1: and Cabins Cabinology, A Handbook to your Private Hideaway. So
Speaker 1: in his author bio he is credited as a cabinologist.
Speaker 1: The dude has earned it. You've been a cabinologist for
Speaker 1: at least fifteen years, But how long have you been
Speaker 1: a cabinologist in practice, not just in title?
Speaker 2: Well, probably about thirty years ago. As a part of
Speaker 2: my architectural practice, which we design residential homes, I was
Speaker 2: asked to do my first cabin design. And I realized
Speaker 2: then that I didn't grow up. Although I grew up
Speaker 2: in cabin world, I'm Minnesota and Wisconsin, I didn't grow
Speaker 2: up with a cabin of my family background, so I
Speaker 2: had not spent much time I'm there, And, as I
Speaker 2: might often do, when I get asked to design something
Speaker 2: I'm not used to, I try and do some research
Speaker 2: and in this instance, I thought, well, it would be
Speaker 2: fun to do some research with my students at the university.
Speaker 2: So I hustled a few students over to do a
Speaker 2: summer class. And the essence of the summer class was, well,
Speaker 2: let's go out into cabin land and every student and
Speaker 2: myself included, would have to document ten cabins, and out
Speaker 2: of that ten cabins, we would say which cabin feels
Speaker 2: more cabin like than any of the rest and why
Speaker 2: and so as I was telling them, search for the
Speaker 2: quintessential cabin. So we did that, and we I think
Speaker 2: learned a little bit along that process. And a good
Speaker 2: friend of mine, who had was editor of a local magazine, said, well,
Speaker 2: if you find anything interesting in this process, why don't
Speaker 2: you write an article in my magi. So I wrote
Speaker 2: my first article, and then I wrote my second article,
Speaker 2: in third, and fourth and ultimately seventy two articles.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: For twelve years. Yeah, always researching. And so these were
Speaker 2: little brief vignettes about some cabin that interested me for
Speaker 2: some reason. So vertical log. We're all familiar with horizontal
Speaker 2: log cabins, but all of a sudden there I noticed
Speaker 2: some that I have vertical logs, which turns out that
Speaker 2: it's an old French trappers method. So coming into Minnesota,
Speaker 2: in the northern part of the country, in northern Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: you have French trappers who made quick cabins and the
Speaker 2: vertical log technique allowed them essentially single handedly to make
Speaker 2: a simple shelter.
Speaker 1: Okay, so signe note I looked these up and apparently
Speaker 1: vertical log cabins are also easier to build because you
Speaker 1: can use a bunch of ten foot tall logs up
Speaker 1: and down instead of having to find and drag perfect
Speaker 1: lee straight twenty to forty foot logs to lay horizontally. Now,
Speaker 1: in addition to vertical logs just being more slimming than
Speaker 1: horizontal logs, they were also tested by time. So before
Speaker 1: the French fur trappers trooped about harvesting beavers and such,
Speaker 1: indigenous folks like the Yerik tribes and the Chinook people's
Speaker 1: had been building vertical plank houses out of cedar in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years.
Speaker 2: They knew what was up and that tradition sustained itself
Speaker 2: for a while. So you know, finding out why for
Speaker 2: vertical log who did it that? You know, all those
Speaker 2: things are fun. It's fun to see somebody turn a
Speaker 2: building that you wouldn't expect to be a cabin into
Speaker 2: a cabin. A church or a you know, a small
Speaker 2: church or a school or whatever, a box car, train car,
Speaker 2: a caboose, you know. So that so a lot of
Speaker 2: cabins are inventive, as to somebody, he's got a crazy idea,
Speaker 2: and they said, oh, that'd be fun as a cabin,
Speaker 2: and so they just try it. Metal containers, buildings.
Speaker 1: So Dale explained two things that separate cabins from houses
Speaker 1: or one. Cabins typically don't have garages, and the master
Speaker 1: bedrooms don't usually have own suite bathrooms. So rather than
Speaker 1: hide away in your big bedroom using your toilet away
Speaker 1: from the rest of the family, all the bedrooms tend
Speaker 1: to branch off a main living space, so people can
Speaker 1: spend this time in nature, bonding together and being lovingly
Speaker 1: in each other's business.
Speaker 2: So privacy is now a particularly big issue in a cabin.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about square footage. Can you
Speaker 1: have a two thousand square foot cabin? Yes, okay, you
Speaker 1: get sure. So what makes it a cabin?
Speaker 2: I think what makes it a cabin are some of
Speaker 2: its attributes? How it flows, whether it captures views or
Speaker 2: things that are important to the land that you're connected to. Yes,
Speaker 2: you can have a larger structure that is a cabin,
Speaker 2: maybe because you're gathering a lot of people there. So
Speaker 2: my last book that I wrote was called The Family Cabin,
Speaker 2: and it probably has projects in it that range from
Speaker 2: four hundred square feet to twenty five hundred square feet practically.
Speaker 2: And some cabins are created for extended family. So I
Speaker 2: have one for two sisters. They're each married, so they
Speaker 2: have husbands. They each have four kids. So now we're
Speaker 2: talking about whatever that is. Twelve people, Graham and Grandpa
Speaker 2: show up, there's fourteen. You can't do that in a
Speaker 2: four hundred square foot structure. So you need more space,
Speaker 2: more place for the activities of those youth as they're
Speaker 2: growing and changing and they're eventually bringing the boy Scout
Speaker 2: troupe with them or whatever. So, yes, cabins can be
Speaker 2: of quite a variety of sizes. At some point, when
Speaker 2: they get too large, we might call them a lodge.
Speaker 1: Oh thought about that, the family lodge. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's a logology out there.
Speaker 2: There, You got it, somebody's gonna have to step into
Speaker 2: the void.
Speaker 1: Okay, side note, I found one record for logology from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, and I wanted to tell you about it.
Speaker 1: It's from the University of Montana, when the student union
Speaker 1: gathering center was called the Lodge, and logology was deemed
Speaker 1: by students the most popular course in sport on campus.
Speaker 1: One student said the most popular phases of the logology
Speaker 1: course are smoking one a one and advanced time killing
Speaker 1: two to one, which I suppose nowadays, I guess would
Speaker 1: be upgraded to introduction to vaping, perhaps extra credit. Fixing
Speaker 1: the cultural and climatological mess we have inherited. Not to
Speaker 1: get too dark anyway, Enough of lodges. Where are cabins now?
Speaker 1: In terms of the culture of cabins in this part
Speaker 1: of the country, because there are more lakes, are there
Speaker 1: more cabins? Is this the best place to be a cabinologist?
Speaker 2: I think this is one of the premier places to
Speaker 2: be a cabinologist, because we really really do have an
Speaker 2: incredible cabin culture here, particularly in the Twin Cities, and
Speaker 2: we go out to the lakes of Minnesota and or
Speaker 2: the Lakes of Wisconsin, because although we may be better
Speaker 2: known for our lakes, Wisconsin actually has quite a numberment
Speaker 2: as well, so we probably have more cabin users per
Speaker 2: capita than any other part of the country. And part
Speaker 2: of that is that when you're on the coast, for instance,
Speaker 2: where there certainly are getaway places. Often when you have
Speaker 2: a place on the coast, it might be referred to
Speaker 2: as a cottage seaside cottage rather than a cabin.
Speaker 1: Cabins plus etymology. I'm dying right now. If you can't
Speaker 1: hear this in my voice, I was like starry eyed,
Speaker 1: floating in a cloud this entire interview. Dale Mulfinger is
Speaker 1: like the Beyonce of cabin designers.
Speaker 2: There are some names that cabin competes with, and if
Speaker 2: you go into the Adora or in upper New England,
Speaker 2: you will come across the name camp, which is commonly
Speaker 2: used for what we we here in the Midwest End
Speaker 2: or further west might refer to as a cabin. And
Speaker 2: the name camp shows up again down in the Bayos
Speaker 2: of Louisiana. I'm not quite sure of the origins of that,
Speaker 2: other than I think a lot of cabins in there
Speaker 2: in the early days in New England were created as
Speaker 2: a part of an ensemble of many structures and we're
Speaker 2: part of what we might think of as a camp environment.
Speaker 1: Oh look, maybe there's a main lodge and then some outbuildings.
Speaker 1: There are the camps.
Speaker 2: Right, And also the name cottage shows up. So you
Speaker 2: can take the same structure and slide it. First out
Speaker 2: of Minnesota, it might be called a cabin in Minnesota,
Speaker 2: but head for the east and get to Michigan, it
Speaker 2: might be called a cottage, particularly if it's along Lake Michigan.
Speaker 2: And then if you hit the adiron decks, it'll be
Speaker 2: a camp. And then if you slide it all the
Speaker 2: way to the coast of Maine, it'll be back to
Speaker 2: being a cottage again.
Speaker 1: And what are some of your favorite style Cain, a frame, log, cabin, modern.
Speaker 2: All of the above, all of the above. I really
Speaker 2: am fascinated by the variety, so no one singular thing
Speaker 2: stands out. I'm as fascinated with an a frame or
Speaker 2: a log cabin, or a very contemporary structure or one
Speaker 2: made out of containers. Yeah, they all interest me, and
Speaker 2: I love designing all of them. So it's not just
Speaker 2: a matter of recording what others have done, but also
Speaker 2: being faced with a challenge of design and trying to
Speaker 2: trying to determine with my clients what seems most applicable
Speaker 2: for them and their situation.
Speaker 1: So he likes to freestyle as well as harkback to
Speaker 1: traditional designs of your Now speaking of history, Dale grew
Speaker 1: up on a dairy farm, and according to a twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen article in the Star Tribune, he had said about
Speaker 1: dairy farming that when he was a kid and his
Speaker 1: blue ribbon yearling died, he knew that he didn't want
Speaker 1: to be a farmer, but he was great at drafting,
Speaker 1: so he enrolled in the Institute of Technology at the
Speaker 1: University of Minnesota. In a time when you had to
Speaker 1: be really good at rulers and pencils and precision. There
Speaker 1: was no command z.
Speaker 2: There's no undew buttons.
Speaker 1: And getting to your design career. When did you start
Speaker 1: an architecture? When did you know that you were an architect?
Speaker 2: I went into the university wondering what I might be doing,
Speaker 2: But I had excelled in drafting in high school, and
Speaker 2: so started into architecture at the university and gradually got
Speaker 2: to enjoy it more and more and more, and did
Speaker 2: quite well by the time I was exiting school. Not
Speaker 2: so well when I started and then I worked for
Speaker 2: the first decade actually in urban design, so nothing to
Speaker 2: do with small little buildings, but rather city planning and
Speaker 2: large scale structures. And then probably in about ten years
Speaker 2: out into my working career, I started grabb to work
Speaker 2: on smaller things. When I got to houses, I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed being invited to dinner after you were all done there.
Speaker 2: So out of that came a firm which is now
Speaker 2: Sala and an initial partner, Sarah Susenka, who wrote a
Speaker 2: book called The Not So Big House, which made her
Speaker 2: kind of famous, and so we had a pretty swift
Speaker 2: start as a career in her and I and creating
Speaker 2: a firm that does houses and out of houses neither
Speaker 2: the possibility of doing a second home for someone, which
Speaker 2: then led me to cabin World.
Speaker 1: Okay, so quick side note. I was wondering how many
Speaker 1: people have a second home though it's so hard to
Speaker 1: get just one. So I looked it up and according
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen stats, nine point three million Americans live
Speaker 1: in a house that has a second home, so a
Speaker 1: very limp percentage. But I did some digging and one
Speaker 1: figure estimated that folks in the state of Minnesota are
Speaker 1: three times more likely to own in a cabin or
Speaker 1: a lake house than the rest of Americans. But the
Speaker 1: average age of cabin ownership is sixty eight, and no
Speaker 1: one's quite sure what's going to happen. Are millennials going
Speaker 1: to take over the cabins? Are they going to sell them?
Speaker 1: Who knows? But Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of shoreline to cozy up to. So
Speaker 1: Dale's in the right place. But what about the rest
Speaker 1: of the country or world. Are there places in the
Speaker 1: country where it's more common to have at a house
Speaker 1: that you would go enjoy the seasons in? Is there
Speaker 1: something maybe about the cold weather that you really appreciate
Speaker 1: the snow or really appreciate this spring or summer.
Speaker 2: Well, I think people who appreciate being outdoors in the snow,
Speaker 2: whether you're cross country skiing, downhill skiing, or ice skating
Speaker 2: or whatever, those people enjoy their cabin year round, or
Speaker 2: if they just enjoy sitting by the fire reading a
Speaker 2: book when the snow is falling outside. Obviously, if you
Speaker 2: have a cabin in the rocky mountains, it might be
Speaker 2: because you really enjoy skiing, and therefore you've chosen the
Speaker 2: location next to sky, you know, or something like that.
Speaker 2: Here in the Midwest, people seem to vary. Either they
Speaker 2: are truly just one season cabin goers or they actually
Speaker 2: enjoy going year round as I do. I love the
Speaker 2: solitude of winter and some cross country skiing even though
Speaker 2: it might be minus twenty degrees out to I.
Speaker 1: Know, I don't know how you guys. I literally don't
Speaker 1: know how you survive as a California And I'm like
Speaker 1: the amount of layers. If I could grow a beard, though,
Speaker 1: I think I would give.
Speaker 2: That's helpful. Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite cabin that you've designed. I
Speaker 1: know it's got to be so hard, but something that's
Speaker 1: really memorable or was a challenge?
Speaker 2: The next one? The next one, I think one that
Speaker 2: I did up on Madeline Island where people wanted a
Speaker 2: unique retreat and one of the couples said, I want
Speaker 2: something quite unique for me, and I designed one hundred
Speaker 2: foot long wall with a portal in the middle, and
Speaker 2: after you pass through the wall, you step into a
Speaker 2: glass pavilion and look out over Lake Superior. And then
Speaker 2: if you want to go into a private space, you
Speaker 2: walk down inside the wall to a blue box where
Speaker 2: you have a private sleeping area. It's a very unconventional
Speaker 2: structure and it probably still stands out in my repertoire
Speaker 2: of work as a very unique structure. And it's all
Speaker 2: about the notion of a retreat, having a phenomenal place
Speaker 2: of a retreat that leaves the other world behind. And
Speaker 2: I think that's that's one of the things that when
Speaker 2: you say can a cabin be a your round house?
Speaker 2: One of the challenges of that is cabins often work
Speaker 2: best when they are the other world that when they're
Speaker 2: not the every.
Speaker 1: Day they're kind of like the mistress of the house world.
Speaker 2: I guess so, yes, sweetie, it's a sweep piece.
Speaker 1: And does a cabin have to have a fireplace?
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't, And in fact, woodstoves can be an
Speaker 2: economical way of having fire without having the cost of
Speaker 2: a fireplace, and wood stoves are very effective in terms
Speaker 2: of really heating space. Do they have to have fire? No,
Speaker 2: I mean a cabin. We did. We've done cabins without
Speaker 2: any fire in them, and it helps with the insurance rates.
Speaker 1: If you do that. And what do you think about
Speaker 1: you know, in the last few years, the tiny house
Speaker 1: movements and tinier spaces. Where do you feel like cabins
Speaker 1: fit in with that or is it a completely different thing.
Speaker 2: Well, there's an overlap between tiny houses and cabins. I
Speaker 2: think the tiny house movement is a fleeting movement and
Speaker 2: it'll disappear as fast as it arrive because I think
Speaker 2: resale on it is challenging so much like dome homes
Speaker 2: and other fads that we jump into every once in
Speaker 2: a while. I think this one will leave, but I
Speaker 2: think cabins will remain, and having a tiny structure via
Speaker 2: cabin will still be out there. So I and I
Speaker 2: think tiny homes as far as as actually being one's
Speaker 2: home and at living in at thirty six, three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty five days a year, you know, it'll be
Speaker 2: questionable whether people do that in the long haul or
Speaker 2: whether it'll just be for two years of their life
Speaker 2: or a segment of their life and then they'll move
Speaker 2: on to whatever.
Speaker 1: I will say. In researching tiny home living, a little
Speaker 1: abode tends to cost between twenty to thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: on average to build, and in looking this up, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I stumbled upon an article about a woman
Speaker 1: who built a one hundred and ninety six square foot
Speaker 1: tiny house out of an old five hundred dollars RV,
Speaker 1: some upcycled wood palettes. Very resourceful. But then she adopted
Speaker 1: a great Dane, a one hundred and fifty pound great Dane,
Speaker 1: to live in it with her. Oh, then she got
Speaker 1: married and then they had a kid. And I had
Speaker 1: to stop reading in the middle of this article and
Speaker 1: just pace the floor and do like a meditation, because woman.
Speaker 1: What So sometimes life throws curveballs in the form of
Speaker 1: quadruple the number of people living in a space the
Speaker 1: size of a kitchen. Also, I asked Dale about this
Speaker 1: Danish concept that's all about cozy living all year round.
Speaker 1: But I had to ask my Swedish friend Simon Yetch
Speaker 1: aka the Gismology episode Gismologist aka the host of Shitty Robots. Also,
Speaker 1: she just turned her Tesla Model three into a truck
Speaker 1: and named it Truckla. It's glorious. I had to ask
Speaker 1: her how to pronounce this word that looks like haiggey.
Speaker 1: She helped me out, so it's pronounced get he get.
Speaker 1: I know that you have talked about cabins and huga,
Speaker 1: and I would love to know a little bit about
Speaker 1: that concept and how you think it relates to the
Speaker 1: feeling of a cabin, not just the architecture, but the
Speaker 1: emotions of being in that kind of retreat.
Speaker 2: Well, I think Huga comes from comes from Scandinavia, and
Speaker 2: it's been common in Scandinavia to live in small space.
Speaker 2: They don't really need luxurious houses in Scandinavia haven't felt
Speaker 2: they've needed it, so they have defined ways of using
Speaker 2: space that are effective. And therefore the notion of who
Speaker 2: go overlaps with the notion of cabins as we understand them.
Speaker 2: So how you use that space and how you not
Speaker 2: say over decorated, over fill it with too many things?
Speaker 2: I think there is some common overlap. I must confess
Speaker 2: that I'm rather new to the term who got, and
Speaker 2: so I've been been playing with it, if you will,
Speaker 2: and doing a little writing about it, but I'm probably
Speaker 2: not as well aversed in it as others might be
Speaker 2: in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I came across it pretty recently myself. I have
Speaker 1: a friend who who married a Norwegian woman and so
Speaker 1: their instagram is just rife who got in the winter,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like learning about what it is, but
Speaker 1: just shout out here to the Lapidopterology episodes, Butterfly Expert
Speaker 1: Filter and his charming and kind new bride Cilia Danielson
Speaker 1: just get all up in their instagrams for some breezy
Speaker 1: summer living, some really high quality cozy winterness. They got
Speaker 1: it on lock. Okay, speaking of how do you feel
Speaker 1: that social media culture or instagram culture has maybe changed
Speaker 1: the way we appreciate these remote buildings or structures or retreats.
Speaker 2: Well, one big difference is that we now can rent
Speaker 2: structures everywhere, and part of that is made accessible through
Speaker 2: social media. So we can now not just have, say,
Speaker 2: our own cabin, but we can rent anybody on everybody
Speaker 2: else's cabin almost anywhere in the world. And I think
Speaker 2: that's really changed. And then we can immediately share that
Speaker 2: experience with an innumerable number of people. So you know,
Speaker 2: those are probably the big things that have changed through
Speaker 2: the media as we understand it today.
Speaker 1: Are you okay? Are you okay with that with cabin sharing?
Speaker 1: And are you sure? No?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? In fact, I think one of the phenomena about
Speaker 2: cabins is that we feel much more comfortable with sharing
Speaker 2: our cabin with others than we, say, to our home.
Speaker 2: So we're less likely to offer up our home as
Speaker 2: a place for strangers to stay in, whereas cabins traditionally
Speaker 2: were places where maybe we weren't a lot, we weren't
Speaker 2: accommodating strangers, but we were accommodating Uncle Harry and cousin
Speaker 2: Beth and the colleague we work with, you know, so
Speaker 2: we've often shared our cabin with diverse people.
Speaker 1: Do you have any memories of being in a cabin
Speaker 1: that are some of your favorites?
Speaker 2: Well, I think snowfalling and sitting quietly reading a book
Speaker 2: with a fire crackling and my wife's good cooking smells
Speaker 2: in the background is probably one of my best experiences.
Speaker 2: Or looking out the window and seeing the five or
Speaker 2: six deer that are eating the corn just set out there.
Speaker 2: You know, those are some of the best. And I
Speaker 2: think then I've had an opportunity to gather larger family
Speaker 2: groups together, not necessarily in my cabin because mike cabin
Speaker 2: is a bit too small for that, but through the
Speaker 2: borrowing of friends cabins or renting the friends cabin, I've
Speaker 2: been able to gather say, sixteen of my wife's family
Speaker 2: members together. That made for a special occasion.
Speaker 1: Okay, quick aside. I made you a list of things
Speaker 1: you can do in a cabin this summer. You can
Speaker 1: play dominoes. You can read a book. You can gossip.
Speaker 1: You can ask older people important questions about their lives.
Speaker 1: You can carve spoons. You can learn to needle point.
Speaker 1: You can roast marshmallows. You can write a list of
Speaker 1: all the things you want to do in your life.
Speaker 1: You can make your friends all tell stories about how
Speaker 1: they met each other. You can enjoy a poem. You
Speaker 1: can bake a pie. You can sip coffee out of
Speaker 1: one of those metal enamel mugs that they sell in
Speaker 1: camping stores. You can write a short story. You could
Speaker 1: learn to fry a fish nap. You can throw your
Speaker 1: phone into the lake. You can quit your job. You
Speaker 1: can disappear from the internet. You can live off the
Speaker 1: land like that Walden throw guy. Hope you don't get arrested.
Speaker 1: You could wish on a shooting star. I also like
Speaker 1: playing Rummy Cube. Okay, now let's say you want a
Speaker 1: taste of that cabin life, but maybe a little closer.
Speaker 1: You could fashion a garbin, which sounds like a portmanteau
Speaker 1: for garbage and bin, but it's actually a cabin you
Speaker 1: fashion in the rafters above a garage, a garbin. Now,
Speaker 1: what about a straight up cabin in your backyard? Is that?
Speaker 2: Okay? I've certainly recorded cabins that occur in the backyard
Speaker 2: of somebody's home. Now they might think of that cabin
Speaker 2: as a man cave to escape to, or her writing
Speaker 2: in a place that she can retreat to for writing.
Speaker 2: We call that a scriptorium.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I've heard it, called it she shed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said, so. I think that's not uncommon, and
Speaker 2: I've recorded a few of those in books I've done
Speaker 2: and in articles I've written.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess a cabin is kind of like our
Speaker 1: childhood version of a fort, but realized and with.
Speaker 2: Plumbing, yes, well, you know, and some not with plumbing
Speaker 2: or the outhouse or whatever nearby. But yeah, it might
Speaker 2: have some monicum of plumbing in it, some way to
Speaker 2: heat it up, which may be our little fort when
Speaker 2: we were kidneys either those.
Speaker 1: Did you have a treehouse or a fort when you
Speaker 1: were growing up.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a farm, and a fort might
Speaker 2: be a few bales of hay thrown together with a
Speaker 2: tarp over it, or something quite temporal. And there were
Speaker 2: lots of places to go build in the forest nearby,
Speaker 2: and so yes, I had all kinds of inventions of
Speaker 2: space that that were getaways to hide out so I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have to do the chores.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's something about the mindset of a
Speaker 1: cabin or a shed or anything that we get out
Speaker 1: of our normal space to go to a new space.
Speaker 1: Do you think that makes people more creative? Do you
Speaker 1: think it freezes us up emotionally?
Speaker 2: Well? I think when these environments are small enough, we
Speaker 2: imagine that maybe we can have a hand in making them,
Speaker 2: because it's not a super task to do that. I'm
Speaker 2: always amazed as I drive to my cabin and I
Speaker 2: pull up behind a pickup truck loaded with things that
Speaker 2: are going to in someone's cabin, whether it's a door
Speaker 2: they just pulled out of the church remodeling or and
Speaker 2: I'm often tailgating and my wife is complaining that I'm
Speaker 2: too close to the back of the pickup truck because
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out how the heck are they
Speaker 2: going to put that thing in their cabin. So I
Speaker 2: think cabins have some freedom of personal expression attached to
Speaker 2: them that makes them special places. So you're inclined in
Speaker 2: a cabin to say, cut the notches of the height
Speaker 2: of your children as they're growing, you know, to score
Speaker 2: that in the in the doorframe. Do that in your house,
Speaker 2: you know that would be that would be defacing your
Speaker 2: house in a way you wouldn't accept. And a cabin
Speaker 2: you're willing to do that.
Speaker 1: See, cabins are casual. They are the taking off your
Speaker 1: pants as soon as you walk in the door vibe
Speaker 1: of the architecture world. They allow us to dream of
Speaker 1: a life with fewer restrictions. Perhaps this is because there
Speaker 1: were fewer judging neighbors in the middle of the woods.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. Do you ever dream about cabins?
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't dream very much about cabins. No,
Speaker 2: it's not not a pervasive dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just wondering, I wonder if I have
Speaker 1: this dream. Okay, tell me if you've ever had this
Speaker 1: where you're in your house or you're in some house
Speaker 1: that you live in or whatever, and then you realize
Speaker 1: that there's a door or a cabinet that you've never
Speaker 1: noticed before, and then there's another room or another area
Speaker 1: that you've never realized that you've had have you ever
Speaker 1: had that dream?
Speaker 2: No, but I think we should talk about your dream
Speaker 2: for a while because it's it's gonna tell a lot
Speaker 2: about you. You know, there's this place you're trying to
Speaker 2: escape to. A You're just trying to escape to one
Speaker 2: of my cabins.
Speaker 1: I know, I just really want a cabin. Okay, I
Speaker 1: look this up. Virtually every decoding dream website seems to
Speaker 1: just plagiarize directly off each other verbatim. But apparently this
Speaker 1: is really really common dream. It means that we're discovering
Speaker 1: new abilities and strengths within ourselves. Okay, so let's say
Speaker 1: this is not flim flam and has some kind of
Speaker 1: psychological merit. I just decided to stare out the window
Speaker 1: for a minute and think, Okay, what part of me
Speaker 1: am I neglecting? Truly, Like, let's get honest with myself.
Speaker 1: And the main thing that came to mind was just
Speaker 1: general grooming. But I think I also had these dreams
Speaker 1: more when I was working from home. It just living
Speaker 1: in a studio apartment, which isn't quite like Great Dane's
Speaker 1: spouse and baby level cramped, but it was a little tight.
Speaker 1: Any usal dreams windows to your gross soul. Now, speaking
Speaker 1: of windows, when you are designing a cabin, do you
Speaker 1: decide to face the windows a certain way or is
Speaker 1: it different for every oh where do the windows go?
Speaker 2: That pends on the view, depends in the sunlight. So
Speaker 2: if you told me, well, I really like waking up
Speaker 2: in the morning with sun coming in where I'm going
Speaker 2: to have my morning coffee, Well that's the east and
Speaker 2: or you know, or there are trees over here that
Speaker 2: are going to block you know, this kind of sun
Speaker 2: or whatever. So yes, windows, window locations are extremely important.
Speaker 2: And here in the Midwest, we are putting our cabins
Speaker 2: quite often at lake on lakes, and I have to
Speaker 2: remind my clients that lakes are a horizontal view on
Speaker 2: a vertical view. So we see a lot of people
Speaker 2: building cabins with very tall windows, climbing up under the
Speaker 2: roof for what to see more and more and more sky,
Speaker 2: not more and more and more lakes. So horizontally banding
Speaker 2: windows here is great. I don't know. If I'm in
Speaker 2: the Rocky Mountains, their views are often very vertical, looking
Speaker 2: up trying to catch the mountain peak. And then then
Speaker 2: a different kind of architecture evolves out of it.
Speaker 1: Huh, that's so brilliant. That's so interesting to know anything
Speaker 1: in pop culture, any cabins that you've loved in movies
Speaker 1: or TV or maybe like a cabin in the woods
Speaker 1: is always a scene for a horror setting.
Speaker 4: Oh it's a cabin in the woods.
Speaker 2: We need to go out over there.
Speaker 4: Oh man, I'm not going in there. Reminds me of
Speaker 4: a horror movie. I wants saw what a horrible the
Speaker 4: one with the cabin in the woods.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about how we see cabins.
Speaker 2: Well, oftentimes, I think cabins are connected to some of
Speaker 2: the horror films. You know that they're out in that
Speaker 2: dark wilderness of heavy forest and or they're next to
Speaker 2: a lake and some somebody drowns or whatever. So they
Speaker 2: are often attached to that genre of movie in a way.
Speaker 2: There's certainly exceptions to that, where the cabin is seen
Speaker 2: as a tranquil place of escape. I don't think I
Speaker 2: have any singular cabin or the singular movie that jumps
Speaker 2: out at me. And you know, on Golden Pond.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's going to be what I mentioned. Okay, So
Speaker 1: on Golden Pond is a classic nineteen eighty one Academy
Speaker 1: Award Darling starring Peter Fonda, Katherine Hepburn and Jane Fonda,
Speaker 1: and involves a lot of sun shimmer on a lake,
Speaker 1: a lot of soft focus filters, some difficult family relationships
Speaker 1: or some emotional reflection, some struggle. There's some trout, some growth.
Speaker 1: Also Katherine Hepburn wailing in ecstasy multiple times about loons.
Speaker 3: The wound and welcoming us back.
Speaker 1: I get a cat wounds are tits, which, yes, is
Speaker 1: an egregious ornithology pun. What about myths about cabins? What
Speaker 1: about something people misunderstand about cabins that you'd well, I.
Speaker 2: Think they they think they're not going to be high maintenance.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: They do require levels of maintenance depending on what you
Speaker 2: want to be there when you show up. They're not
Speaker 2: inexpensive to make, even though you might think, well, shouldn't
Speaker 2: something primitive and shouldn't I be able to find labors
Speaker 2: in remote places that are going to work for dirt cheap. No.
Speaker 2: You know, almost anywhere today you're going to pay pretty
Speaker 2: much the same price for a decent window, and you're
Speaker 2: probably going to pay as much per hour for a
Speaker 2: craftsman in the woods as you would for a craftsman
Speaker 2: in the metropolitan area. So yeah, those are probably a
Speaker 2: few of the myths.
Speaker 1: And is there an easiest type of cabin to make?
Speaker 1: Is it a log cabin? Is it a shed type
Speaker 1: of cabin? If someone is like, I'm desperate for a cabin,
Speaker 1: maybe don't have all the resources, what would you say,
Speaker 1: is like an entry level setup.
Speaker 2: Creating a cabin that only has four corners rather than
Speaker 2: twenty is a good start. Log construction is a possibility,
Speaker 2: and certainly homeowners have educated themselves on how to do
Speaker 2: log construction and done it for themselves. It is a
Speaker 2: lot of unique attributes that people don't think about. It
Speaker 2: looks more attainable than it is, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: to learn about the nature of what happens to a
Speaker 2: tree after you cut it down, and how it shrinks
Speaker 2: shrinks in diameter, not in length, And so you set
Speaker 2: log upon log upon log, they're all shrinking in diameter,
Speaker 2: which means your wall is starting to drop and it
Speaker 2: will crush the top of the door, the top of
Speaker 2: the window if you haven't designed it to take it.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of nuance to log that people
Speaker 2: don't fully understand, you know, a little kid might have
Speaker 2: a Lincoln log set and think, well, that's a really
Speaker 2: easy way to build, But it's probably much more complicated
Speaker 2: than just a standard frame wall made at a two
Speaker 2: by fours.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that PBS? Well it was on PBS,
Speaker 1: But did you ever see is a Dale were Nicky's
Speaker 1: cabin in the woods?
Speaker 4: It was good be back in the wilderness again where
Speaker 4: everything seems at peace.
Speaker 1: I was alone, just me and the animals. Oh man,
Speaker 1: Oh side note, Oops, I meant Dick Pernicky, not Dale
Speaker 1: were Nicki? Who's Dale or Niki? I don't even know where?
Speaker 1: What the hell ward? Also thanks to Jared Sleepers very
Speaker 1: on brand gift of this DVD set a few years ago.
Speaker 1: I own this in its entirety, and it's been a
Speaker 1: dream of mine to host like a screening party with
Speaker 1: a mandatory flannel dress code. Friends all just hanging out,
Speaker 1: maybe silently whittling as we watch. But if you need
Speaker 1: some Dick Pernicki asap, a quick Google will bring you
Speaker 1: to a YouTube clip of Alone in the Wilderness, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, has eleven million views. So apparently we
Speaker 1: are just united in our lust for solitude. He's just
Speaker 1: filming himself on like an eight millimeters or six just
Speaker 1: hand hewing. Oh my god, how is he doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's to actually do logs and do them well
Speaker 2: so they're going to last. Is a skill that you
Speaker 2: don't get overnight. And I've certainly known plenty of people
Speaker 2: who have done their own log cabin. But I've also
Speaker 2: known that a lot of people who might have done
Speaker 2: their own log cabin that had a lot of problems
Speaker 2: with it later because they didn't really understand some of
Speaker 2: the nuances. And on the other hand, in many of
Speaker 2: the areas of cabin world, there are log vendors who
Speaker 2: will do these things for you, and they will build
Speaker 2: the log cabin at their what they call their yard,
Speaker 2: which is where they work in their place, and they
Speaker 2: dismantle the cabin and number the logs as they're dismantling them,
Speaker 2: and then they reassemble it on your.
Speaker 1: Site like a puzzle exactly.
Speaker 2: So it may take them five months to make the
Speaker 2: cabin in their yard, but then only three days to
Speaker 2: reassemble it on your site. Oh wow, And they'll bring
Speaker 2: it all there in a big truck.
Speaker 1: And is there a cabin that you have on like
Speaker 1: a lifelong goal list? That you really want to see
Speaker 1: some cabin on a cliff in Iceland or.
Speaker 2: Now not a singular cabin. I mean, I love the
Speaker 2: cabin experience. One of the fun things about being a
Speaker 2: cabinologist or someone who designs cabins is I haven't get
Speaker 2: to stay in the cabins that I've created for others.
Speaker 2: So it's pretty easy to ask a cabin owner for
Speaker 2: whom we've done a cabin to say, can I use
Speaker 2: this some weekend when you're not there? And I prefer
Speaker 2: the weekends when they're not there because I like bringing
Speaker 2: my wife along and she's one of my toughest critics,
Speaker 2: of course, as spouses will be, and you know, but
Speaker 2: I like waking up in the morning and saying, how
Speaker 2: does this thing really work? Is the sun coming in
Speaker 2: where I thought it was going to come in? And
Speaker 2: you know, how does it feel with the wind outside?
Speaker 2: So that's been a nice opportunity in this line of work.
Speaker 1: Oh man lesson design things you want to use for yourself.
Speaker 1: It's sneaky and I like it, and can I ask
Speaker 1: you some a couple of page questions? Okay, great, great, okay,
Speaker 1: but before we get to your Patreon submitted questions. We'll
Speaker 1: take a break and chat about some sponsors I really like.
Speaker 1: But before that, the sponsors make it possible to donate
Speaker 1: a portion of the ad proceeds to a charity of
Speaker 1: theologists choosing. And this week Dale would like the episode
Speaker 1: to support the Clarence Wiganton Fund at the American Institute
Speaker 1: of Architects of Minnesota. So the Clarence Wiganton Minority Architectural
Speaker 1: Scholarship recognizes the extraordinary professional and civic accomplishments of the
Speaker 1: first African American municipal architect in the United States. He
Speaker 1: was also the first licensed African American architect in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: So the Clarence Wiganton Fund supports racial ethnic minority students
Speaker 1: who have a specific interest in pursuing professional architecture degrees.
Speaker 1: And Dale adds that it's really well administered and it
Speaker 1: assigns mentors to each recipient. So thank you Dale for that.
Speaker 1: And there's a link to find out more about that
Speaker 1: organization in the show notes. That's the Clarence Wiganton Fund
Speaker 1: at the AIA of Minnesota. Okay, so some ads from sponsors. Apologies, Mom,
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Speaker 1: Okay, so back to your questions. Now, this first one
Speaker 1: that think about falling asleep. It's summer. You're hearing crickets
Speaker 1: and water maybe lapping somewhere, maybe a windows open, a
Speaker 1: little breeze, but you're under one of those heavy quilts
Speaker 1: that your aunt made in the late eighties out of
Speaker 1: Old Denham when she is going through divorce. Okay, ginger
Speaker 1: Nut wants to know why do wood cabins seem like
Speaker 1: the coziest thing ever. What is it about wood that
Speaker 1: makes us feel cozy?
Speaker 2: Well, I think wood. It has variety built into it.
Speaker 2: It also feels like it's connecting us to the forest
Speaker 2: that might be right around it, around us, so it
Speaker 2: might be a local wood. And it has a nice
Speaker 2: auditory characteristic, So it's a softening. It softens the sounds,
Speaker 2: whether the sound is crackling fire or the chatter, the
Speaker 2: quiet chatter of the friend dere with. And it's something
Speaker 2: pretty to look at, so it creates a nice background
Speaker 2: to a warm, welcoming environment.
Speaker 1: Let's repeat that because it's like peak huga cabinology vibes.
Speaker 2: So it's a softening. It softens the sounds, whether the
Speaker 2: sound is crackling fire or the chatter, the quiet chatter
Speaker 2: of the friend dere with.
Speaker 1: Cydney Bound wants to know. Do cabin maker still utilize
Speaker 1: techniques at homesteaders used back in the day.
Speaker 2: Somewhat yes. Obviously, the log building was common to homesteaders.
Speaker 2: I have a log cabin on my property that I
Speaker 2: use as a guest cabin, and I'm quite certain that
Speaker 2: its original life was that of a settler's cabin. I
Speaker 2: don't think it actually was originally on my property. I
Speaker 2: think was put on you know. Was one of the
Speaker 2: things about logs is you can dismantle a log cabin
Speaker 2: and reassemble in another location. And I think that happened
Speaker 2: with a lot of settler, early settler cabins. So in
Speaker 2: this area where there was a preponderance of wood available
Speaker 2: within arms reach practically of where settlers were coming in,
Speaker 2: they often built log structures. And some of our earliest
Speaker 2: cabins that we associate with getting away to kind of
Speaker 2: places were the recreation or actually the reuse of those
Speaker 2: early settler cabins.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay, Now a quick aside here,
Speaker 1: because for all all of the history of North American settlers,
Speaker 1: there's also the history of indigenous displacement and resource exhaustion
Speaker 1: and architecture borrowed from Native customs. So that narrative is
Speaker 1: a huge part of American history. It can't be ignored.
Speaker 1: I was doing a little more research. I just found
Speaker 1: a book through the University of the Tennessee Press called
Speaker 1: Native American Log Cabins in the Southeast, which was published
Speaker 1: no joke last week. I looked at the publication date
Speaker 1: and I was like June twenty nineteen on, so good
Speaker 1: timing there. And it tracks the origins of Native American
Speaker 1: cabins and building traditions. They look at the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw,
Speaker 1: and Katamwa peoples. It also really interestingly looks at elements
Speaker 1: introduced by Africans and African Americans, and the Smithsonian National
Speaker 1: Museum of African American History and Culture has relocated plantation
Speaker 1: cabins used as slave quarters for exhibit as a reminder
Speaker 1: of our countries not too distant history. Also, speaking of
Speaker 1: not so great things, where do cabins factor in the apocalypse?
Speaker 1: Mike Monakowski wants to know what's the biggest obstacle of
Speaker 1: going off the grid if one wanted to do that.
Speaker 2: Water. What's your access to water? If you're off gridded,
Speaker 2: you're going to be willing to have a say, a
Speaker 2: hand well or somehow treat water that you're getting out
Speaker 2: of a lake or stream. So that's probably one of
Speaker 2: the bigger challenge. A toilet tree. You know, what are
Speaker 2: you going to do about a bathroom or you're going
Speaker 2: to accept having an outhouse and then bathing? A lot
Speaker 2: of people who are off grid. In other words, they
Speaker 2: don't have power to run a well. Therefore they're not
Speaker 2: going to have a bathroom in the same sense, and
Speaker 2: they will often use a sauna as a form of bathing.
Speaker 1: Ps. If you're in Minnesota or around a finished person,
Speaker 1: don't you dare say sauna? Just say sawana. Just say
Speaker 1: it with me, sauna. You're going to feel like a fraud,
Speaker 1: but you will avoid a lecture or correction. Also, many
Speaker 1: high fives to my sweet and gentle Innovation Nation producer
Speaker 1: Stephanie Jimngo for teaching me about how much fans dig
Speaker 1: saunas winter summer. You just go sweat it out in
Speaker 1: this wooden box. You beat yourself with a birch branch
Speaker 1: and jump in a lake. So into it anyway.
Speaker 2: So they all have a modicum of water available somehow
Speaker 2: they bring it with them and that may be enough
Speaker 2: to take a steam, you know, a steam sona And
Speaker 2: that's so the sauna is really their form of bathing
Speaker 2: and cleanliness.
Speaker 1: And are there a lot of those up here in
Speaker 1: this Yes, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a for a number of off grade
Speaker 2: We did one just recently, an off grade cabin and
Speaker 2: it has a sna and it has an outhouse and
Speaker 2: it has a hand pump.
Speaker 1: Well, oh what a dream. And jen Anathys wants to
Speaker 1: know what eco friendly, upcycled or non traditional materials other
Speaker 1: than wood can cabins be made out of. And I
Speaker 1: guess we did actually kind of cover this because we
Speaker 1: talked about anything from containers.
Speaker 2: Right, it can be made out of many, many different things,
Speaker 2: from straw bales to and again, these are probably best
Speaker 2: if they're materials that are readily available to that region
Speaker 2: or area. So containers aren't the best product if you're
Speaker 2: building say high in a mountain cliff and Montana, because
Speaker 2: they're heavy and you have to have a big crane
Speaker 2: to lift them into place. But you can buy them
Speaker 2: dirt cheap. You know, for a thousand dollars, you can
Speaker 2: have a twenty by four twenty by eight foot by
Speaker 2: eight foot container. Well, to get it on your property
Speaker 2: might cost you another fifty thousands, so and then you
Speaker 2: need a welding torch to open up a window in it.
Speaker 1: Good point. Hey, hi, I look this up for you,
Speaker 1: and you can buy a used forty foot shipping container
Speaker 1: for less than the value of my two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven prias, which, if you must know, according to Kelly Bluebook,
Speaker 1: is less than five thousand dollars. So soup up that
Speaker 1: container house maybe twenty thousand dollars later you can live
Speaker 1: in it. Just don't adopt a Great Dane, or if
Speaker 1: you do, just don't tell me about it, because I
Speaker 1: can't handle that stress right now. And Carolyn Butler wants
Speaker 1: to know. Do you believe that cabins should a be
Speaker 1: a minimalist escape from the modern world, or be that
Speaker 1: they can include most, if not all, of the features
Speaker 1: of a modern home in a more compact form, so
Speaker 1: minimalist or I.
Speaker 2: Think they can be either, and really has to do
Speaker 2: with your proclivity for what you want there, what you
Speaker 2: need there, what you feel comfortable with. They certainly can
Speaker 2: be primitive if particularly if you enjoy the out of
Speaker 2: doors and all you're really looking for is shelter up.
Speaker 2: You know that will warm me up a little bit
Speaker 2: and provide you a place to store a few articles
Speaker 2: and maybe some food. Then you really don't need much.
Speaker 2: But a lot of early cabins really are just that.
Speaker 2: That is to say, they are just shelter. And it
Speaker 2: was kind of common to imagine you're going to be
Speaker 2: outdoors to snip the beans, You're going to be outdoors
Speaker 2: to chop the wood. So you're going to be outdoors
Speaker 2: a lot, and you're really just sleeping and maybe putting
Speaker 2: together a little bit of the food indoors, but you
Speaker 2: might actually be doing in front of the cooking outdoors.
Speaker 2: So that was common with settlers houses, where settler's houses
Speaker 2: were primitive shelter, but a lot of their food prep
Speaker 2: and even some of the eating all occurred out of doors.
Speaker 2: So if you're going to be indoors a lot, if
Speaker 2: you're gonna use it in the winter a lot, then
Speaker 2: you probably need a few more facilities, maybe a bathroom,
Speaker 2: a proper kitchen.
Speaker 1: What have we learned sauntering into the summer? Tiny pants,
Speaker 1: armpits out. Just check your crevices. Also, the next question
Speaker 1: is about offsetting the energy you use by way of
Speaker 1: generating renewable energy. Jay cw wants to know is it
Speaker 1: financially worth it to build net zero energy cabins, which
Speaker 1: I don't really know what that is.
Speaker 2: Well, that depends on how you what kind of dollars
Speaker 2: you have upfront. It's going to cost you more to
Speaker 2: build net zero, but think of it as money that
Speaker 2: you're putting in upfront that you will save down line,
Speaker 2: But you have to have that money upfront available to you.
Speaker 2: So uh, as I say, it depends on how you
Speaker 2: get your money as to whether or not you can
Speaker 2: afford to build the extra do the extra finances upfront
Speaker 2: versus putting them into mortgage and paying them off over time.
Speaker 2: And yeah, if you have the money you can you
Speaker 2: can build net zero and save those dollars down line.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, I guess yeah, Just what do you have
Speaker 1: in your pockets?
Speaker 2: And I think it might have to do with your
Speaker 2: lifestyle of a lot of saving energy has to do
Speaker 2: with making sure that you have a hands on approach
Speaker 2: to being a participant in how you use energy in
Speaker 2: your dwelling. You may think of it as passive energy,
Speaker 2: but it's maybe active in terms of your the need
Speaker 2: for you to participate in that, whether it's for you
Speaker 2: to chop the wood or for you to manage the
Speaker 2: thermostat through your iPhone or whatever, in order for you
Speaker 2: to keep tabs on just how energy is performing in
Speaker 2: that structure.
Speaker 1: So you can't just build it and then let it
Speaker 1: do the work. You have to be Actually, it.
Speaker 2: Can do some of that work, Like the extra insulation
Speaker 2: you put on. It's like putting on a warm You
Speaker 2: know you can leave it on and you know all
Speaker 2: you have to is button it up. Some of the
Speaker 2: needs you have for energy performance, such as for solar
Speaker 2: panels that have battery storage and something like that, do
Speaker 2: require maintenance.
Speaker 1: Okay, just a little heads up. Your grandpa Dad sent
Speaker 1: me an article a few days ago about an Irish
Speaker 1: team of researchers who are using carbon nanotubes in batteries
Speaker 1: to increase energy storage capacity by two point five times.
Speaker 1: Everyone is just as hell about this. This is like
Speaker 1: a huge major leap. Hell yeah, nanotechnologists Filaria Nicolosi and
Speaker 1: chemical physicist Jonathan Coleman working on that. We all want
Speaker 1: better batteries. I owe you a margarita and a mug
Speaker 1: or a perfectly toasted marshmallow for that work. I think
Speaker 1: we covered a lot of these things already, So I'll
Speaker 1: ask the last two questions. I always ask, what is
Speaker 1: the most annoying thing about your job? Is there anything
Speaker 1: about Well, I have to.
Speaker 2: Do a lot of driving. Oh, I mean, I enjoyed driving,
Speaker 2: but it is a lot of driving. So I put
Speaker 2: a fair amount of miles in my car, and I
Speaker 2: certainly know the Midwest extremely well because of all that driving, So,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes having to drive four hours five hours
Speaker 2: to a cabin site, and I never want to design
Speaker 2: anything where I don't see the land. You know, people
Speaker 2: will bring you pictures and they say, oh, we don't
Speaker 2: want to pay for you to go all that distance,
Speaker 2: and I'm sorry. Yeah, land talks to me and I
Speaker 2: more than you, the owner. The land tells me a
Speaker 2: lot about what it is I need to do here,
Speaker 2: so I always want to go see land.
Speaker 1: Do you listen to audio books? No.
Speaker 2: I listened to local radio stations a lot and a
Speaker 2: lot of public radio in various locales. And even though
Speaker 2: I'm I would consider myself a liberal politically, I sometimes
Speaker 2: the one and only time I'll listen to conservative talk
Speaker 2: radio is when I'm driving, and I'd like to hear
Speaker 2: what the other side is talking about and how they
Speaker 2: say it, so whereas I'm not likely to listen to
Speaker 2: that at work or in my home.
Speaker 1: When you get your cabin, then I guess you can
Speaker 1: decomprise if it's been upsetting to you, right, Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite thing about cabins, or about what
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 2: Well. I really enjoy the act of creating something out
Speaker 2: of nothing. Standing in a piece of land, whether it's
Speaker 2: in the Rocky Mountains or in New England or here
Speaker 2: in the Midwest, and using only one's imagination while you're
Speaker 2: standing there trying to figure out, well, how should I
Speaker 2: create this thing? Standing there just daydreaming about or doodling
Speaker 2: or pacing off, saying, well, it could be in this direction,
Speaker 2: be about this big and you know, I need to
Speaker 2: borrow a ladder and climb up this tree so I
Speaker 2: can see what the views like on the second floor.
Speaker 2: And that's to me the most fun part is that
Speaker 2: very initial, as I say, going from nothing to something
Speaker 2: imagination and then trying to record it on a sketch
Speaker 2: work or something so that you can start to manipulate
Speaker 2: that idea when you get back to your office or
Speaker 2: sometimes sitting at the local coffee shop not far from
Speaker 2: the cabin and doing all ones doodles, you know, recording
Speaker 2: what you were thinking about when you were out in
Speaker 2: the land. I'm more likely to do that, to record
Speaker 2: it quickly before I even get back to my home
Speaker 2: or office.
Speaker 1: Do you give the cabin owners those sketches.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I usually have nothing against giving it to them.
Speaker 2: I sometimes forget about giving it to them, but most
Speaker 2: of them certainly appreciate when you do it. And then
Speaker 2: fairly early on I make little cardboard models, and that's
Speaker 2: many of my cabin owners now have those models sitting
Speaker 2: in their cabin somewhere.
Speaker 1: I think it would be great to have that too
Speaker 1: at your desk at work, just so you have that
Speaker 1: to think of.
Speaker 2: I yeah, we make a lot of models in their office,
Speaker 2: and it's usually the designer themselves who makes the models,
Speaker 2: and not like we we're not hiring, say, student interns
Speaker 2: to make models. Where you, models are are like our doodles.
Speaker 2: They're a form of our own artistic expression.
Speaker 1: This has been such a dream, Thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: To work.
Speaker 2: So I was wondering if you like one of my books.
Speaker 1: Oh, I would start crying.
Speaker 3: I would love it.
Speaker 2: Well, oh my god, it's all yours. And if you
Speaker 2: want me to sign it, I'll do that too. Duh.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, this is so exciting. Thank you so so
Speaker 1: so much. What a dream. So get yourself in the
Speaker 1: presence of an expert and then ask smart people giddy
Speaker 1: stupid questions all you want, and then maybe go in
Speaker 1: with some pals, save up for a night or two
Speaker 1: away if you can, Or you can crash a friend's
Speaker 1: family reunion if there are enough relatives, they may not
Speaker 1: even notice. That would happen at mine. So to learn
Speaker 1: more about Dale Mulfinger, go find his wonderful books. Just
Speaker 1: google Cabinology. It's going to lead you down a little sunny,
Speaker 1: leafy path right to them. So his architecture firm is
Speaker 1: Sala and they're on Instagram at Sala Architects and I'll
Speaker 1: link that in the show notes along with all the
Speaker 1: sponsor and donation links, and there are more links up
Speaker 1: at aliward dot com, slash ologies, slash cabinology. We are
Speaker 1: at ologies on Instagram and Twitter, and I'm at ali
Speaker 1: Ward with one L on both. You can do follow
Speaker 1: say hi. This week, especially, I get to reunite with
Speaker 1: toothologist Sarah macannulty from the Squid episode and coloniologist aka
Speaker 1: sirtle expert Cameron Allen for a science trip to Hawaii
Speaker 1: with Atlas Obscura. So you're gonna find some fun posts
Speaker 1: this week, including some nighttime bobtail squid doves on my
Speaker 1: Instagram and on the Ologies Instagram, so do go there
Speaker 1: if you please. I'm also naturally taking my recording equipment
Speaker 1: to hopefully get a few episodes in one and there.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch of the
Speaker 1: podcast You Are That for managing ologiesmerch dot com, where
Speaker 1: you can get summer bathing suits with the Ologies logo
Speaker 1: on you butt and T shirts and steaf. Thank you
Speaker 1: to Aaron Talbert and Hannelipover, I had menting the Facebook
Speaker 1: Ologies group. Thank you Jared Sleeper for supporting my love
Speaker 1: of cabins and for doing assistant editing on this. And
Speaker 1: to editor The Hearthstone Steven Ray Morris for stitching together
Speaker 1: all these sound clips. Every week. Nick Thorburn wrote and
Speaker 1: performed the theme music. And now if you listen through
Speaker 1: to the credits, you know I tell you a secret
Speaker 1: at the end, and this week's secret is number one.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a secret. I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: have a secret for this week. I'm trying to think,
Speaker 1: But now I have one. So I decided to record
Speaker 1: this in a different closet because I moved. And so
Speaker 1: I'm in this little closet with some recording equipment and
Speaker 1: some foam up on the wall, like in not a
Speaker 1: permanent way, and I was like, this would be great,
Speaker 1: and I started recording this. I'm sweating so hardcore right now.
Speaker 1: This might not be a good idea. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. It's very warm in here. Please
Speaker 1: cross your fingers. I find a better solution. Okay, that
Speaker 1: is all. Go out, have fun, toast a marshmallow, tell
Speaker 1: some secrets, and have a good summer. All I. We'll
Speaker 1: be back next week with a new episode. Okay, we're right, pacadermytologyology,
Speaker 1: doo zoology, lithology is now, zerology, meteorology, pathology, tathology, ceriology, goology.
Speaker 1: Friday the thirteenth.
Speaker 4: No, the one with the cabin in the woods Jaxas
Speaker 4: Chainsaw Massacre. No, the one with the cabin in the
Speaker 4: woods right uh, the one with the cabin in the.
Speaker 2: Woods Blair Waits Project, No.
Speaker 4: Man, the one with the cabin in the woods, the
Speaker 4: monsters that wasn't in the woods, that wasn't even a
Speaker 4: damn movie.
Speaker 2: Look man, we ain't got time for this ship right now.
Speaker 1: We need to get you that cabin in the woods.