This is not a showcase, award winning home, however. Looking it over you'll immediately notice the generic T1-11 siding and low cost windows and doors. Inside are plywood floors and open shelf cabinetry. Many late model mobil homes are trimmed out nicer. But a cabin needs to be basic in design and a little rough upon closer scrutiny, eschewing bright varnish and fancy scrollwork.

I like simple functional things that are sturdily made, but not so glossy you don't want to use them. Things that take wear and abuse with grace, that ages well. With this cabin I wanted functionality over style, efficiency before fashion. I focused on a few important aspects, namely thermal ability and simplicity at all levels, and let rest be just a notch above proletarian standards.

When we started this whole deal I was relatively new to the building trade. I had mingled a bit with people involved in fringe projects like strawbale and earth shelters, but regular framed construction was all fresh. An unwarranted amount of anxiety was present in the early stages of building this cabin. Could we pull it off? In retrospect it has become clear that a project of this magnitude is rather simple, construction wise. The challenges lie in interfacing the building with the variety of systems we need to exist, i.e. warmth, water, and waste plus electricity and potentially propane.

We knew from owning and renting several very diverse houses that size mattered to us in the opposite way of the norm. The smaller the better. So much was clear. We were encumbered with excessive heating bills, acres of dusty carpets, weekends spent on boring upkeep instead of climbing, all the hallmarks of 'too big'. There were rooms I visited only once a month, mostly just in passing while searching for lost objects.

And the multitude of complex systems adorning these homes constantly broke down. Plumbing disasters of all kinds, gas leaks, faulty appliances. Rodents had a free backstage pass thru hundreds of uncharted cavities, ducts and passages. Rancid food items of unspecified origin hid in the corners of cavernous cabinets, while a forest of toxic cleaning containers stuck to petrified muck deep under the sink.

These experiences directly translated into this cabin. Not everything we created here works well or are as simple as we wanted them to be. The overall result, though, is far superior to any home we've lived in or visited. It is uniquely ours (to the point of being virtually unsellable anytime before industrial collapse!) and we love it!