The Art of Manliness - #647： What Happened When Two Friends Left Their Jobs to Build a Cabin Together

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast it's a thought

00:00:11.380 that's crossed many a desk jockey's mind man i'd love to get out of this office get out from under

00:00:16.160 the fluorescent lighting get outside and do something with my hands like maybe build a cabin

00:00:20.260 in the woods well my guest had these thoughts and unlike most they actually pulled the trigger on

00:00:24.760 their long-standing daydream the names are brian schatz and patrick hutchinson in today's episode

00:00:28.880 they share the experience they had as a result in which they wrote about in a recent article for

00:00:32.500 outside magazine we begin our conversation with how the idea of quitting their respective jobs as a

00:00:36.700 reporter and copywriter to build a cabin together in the cascades began as a joke between these two

00:00:41.100 then burned out 30 something friends and how it slowly became a real it's still sketchy plan to

00:00:45.820 make it happen brian and pat share the idyllic way they thought the project would go and when the

00:00:49.840 reality of how much harder would be set in we discuss the unexpected challenges that arose how

00:00:54.360 the tensions of constantly working together affected the relationship and how they kept an income

00:00:58.140 coming in while on hiatus from full-time employment we get into how long the cabin which they originally

00:01:02.720 thought would just take two months to build actually took to finish the extent to which they went over

00:01:06.800 budget and how they finally felt when it was done and what they ultimately decided to do with the

00:01:10.480 cabin in the end we enter conversation with what despite everything that went wrong brian and pat

00:01:14.160 gained from the experience and what they plan to do next after the show's over check out our show

00:01:17.800 notes at aom.is cabin build all right brian schatz pat hutchinson welcome to the show thanks for having

00:01:33.260 us yeah thanks brett all right so for people who you know our podcast listeners who read the art of

00:01:39.100 mailings and have been reading it for a long time they're probably familiar with your names because both

00:01:44.420 of you well pat you're a regular contributor right now you've been doing stuff for us on the site

00:01:48.940 since 2016 and we were introduced to you by brian who did some guests some articles for us back in 2010

00:01:58.340 i was looking at this brian i think one of the things did for us was you did a primer on muay thai

00:02:03.240 and your experience in thailand to learn muay thai and that was 2010 so we're coming up on 10 years

00:02:10.560 that you did that wow such a long time ago that was fun it was fun well the reason i brought you

00:02:17.300 on the show because i read an article on outside online about a crazy project that you guys did

00:02:24.460 together because you guys are friends that i think a lot of guys have thought about you know when one

00:02:30.040 of those it's one of those conversations you have when you're having drinks and you're like wouldn't

00:02:33.400 it be cool if we built a cabin in the middle of nowhere and you guys had this conversation and you

00:02:40.160 actually took action and decided to build a cabin in the woods let's talk about the background of it

00:02:46.300 when did you guys start floating this idea of building your own cabin so i actually had to go

00:02:52.640 back and look through old messages between brian and i and kind of thinking about you know where it

00:02:57.960 all started and it had started when shortly after we had met brian and i were both trying to become

00:03:03.540 sort of adventure journalists of some sort and i had an idea to build a cob house which is like a

00:03:11.420 house made out of hay and mud and that brian would help me build it and with the ultimate goal of writing

00:03:17.900 a story about it and then you know i think as the years went on it became more and more about just

00:03:25.320 building some kind of small cabin and less and less about writing a story about it i think in part

00:03:32.340 because the reason to build it became more and more about not writing anymore and did it start

00:03:40.160 kind of off like was it sort of like a joke and then it eventually became like a real thing yeah it's

00:03:46.520 funny to hear back now that it was originally a story idea because i had completely erased that from

00:03:51.960 my memory for the longest time all i can remember is us kind of like sending each other ideas back and

00:03:59.120 forth about different types of professions and the cabin idea is one that sort of stuck longer than

00:04:07.120 the rest and it became you know just like increasingly this serious thing i remember

00:04:12.860 at one point i was still kind of thinking of it as a joke and pat i think was starting to think of it

00:04:18.620 in an increasingly real way and he was you know saying things like what if we just start a tiny home

00:04:25.800 company and we'll build tiny homes and sell them and i thought well that's that sounds really cool

00:04:30.860 but i have no idea how to do it no idea where we would do it where we would store these tiny homes

00:04:35.860 or who we would sell them to and it just seemed like this ridiculous thing and then over time it

00:04:41.780 became increasingly serious and morphed a few times until you know we landed on the idea of a cabin

00:04:46.860 and what i love it too about you guys in the article about kind of how kind of self-aware you were

00:04:51.800 of this because you talked about one of the things you were afraid of both of you when you decided

00:04:56.000 yeah we're gonna we're actually gonna do this was that you were gonna look like those sort of

00:04:59.560 insufferable millennials who are trying to live an authentic life and so they're gonna go out and 1.00

00:05:04.300 build a cabin i mean how did you overcome that fear of how you'd look and just decided we're gonna go for

00:05:10.060 it uh it's funny i think there's something incredibly cliche about what we did right like there

00:05:15.860 there are many stories like these there's you know go on instagram and you see just a gazillion

00:05:21.520 pictures of people out there building cabins and i think originally it was a little bit less about

00:05:27.600 the being insufferable for me and more just you know what are my friends and family gonna think

00:05:33.640 am i just throwing my future away to kind of chase this dream that you know frankly even at the time

00:05:40.520 neither of us knew you know how it would work out or whether or not we would even really enjoy it we

00:05:46.700 had this inkling so for me i think it was more a matter of like overcoming i don't know convincing

00:05:53.140 say my parents and my friends that like you know i'm not totally throwing my life away and or maybe i

00:05:58.280 am but i think it's going to be worth it and then later you know we were approached by outside to

00:06:04.020 write about it and then it really kind of dawned on us that yeah like we're just a couple of

00:06:07.900 millennials just chasing dreams you know but it just felt worth it we had been in careers for

00:06:14.340 quite a long time that we eventually sort of came to i don't know if i don't think i'd go as far as

00:06:20.900 resent but just we were ready for a change and it was it was worth it to go ahead and give it a try

00:06:25.560 regardless of how it would look parents are obviously their concerns like what is my what are

00:06:29.600 my kids doing they should be have a job with health insurance but also like do you guys have

00:06:33.460 significant others in your life who you this was a decision that affected them as well

00:06:37.060 yeah definitely we both have girlfriends and i think uh a lot of the pressure that we put on

00:06:44.460 ourselves about you know what are people going to think about this is a terrible idea i think that

00:06:49.260 was mostly sort of self-imposed and both of our girlfriends were remarkably supportive and actually

00:06:56.060 so my father was a carpenter much of his life and became a home inspector and when he found out we

00:07:04.160 were doing this he was i think he was probably a little bit wary but he also every night before

00:07:11.000 he went to sleep he would think about things that we would need to know how to do and he kept sort of

00:07:15.640 a journal of how to's and then he sent me that journal and it was you know things like how to make sure

00:07:23.160 your foundation is square and plum and how to frame walls and and some of the different techniques to do

00:07:28.920 so all around super supportive people you guys had this idea you start floating and you start

00:07:34.300 in 2013 you guys do some kind of get some background experience pat you bought a cabin an already built

00:07:40.640 cabin back in 2013 and both of you kind of worked on that to i don't know get your hands dirty with

00:07:47.820 this idea right yeah and to call it an already built cabin is sort of i've kind of think of it as

00:07:56.040 like uh if you know that story stone soup as a kid where it's just like a bunch of bandits come

00:08:01.240 together and they're like oh we'll make some soup and you know we just need a stone and you know what

00:08:04.180 really goes good with stone soup is a potato and they sort of like trick the townspeople into making

00:08:08.180 a soup by just bringing all this mishmash ingredients in it's sort of how the cabin was it really felt like

00:08:13.660 someone had you know just like found a couple pieces of wood on the highway brought them up on a

00:08:18.200 weekend you know had a few beers and nailed them together so nothing matched nothing was square nothing was

00:08:24.300 level and you know everything was about 30 percent completed so it was a great opportunity to sort of

00:08:32.080 see like an x-ray of a poorly built cabin and then apply you know what was very little experience on top

00:08:40.200 of that but it was a great learning experience for myself and for brian and for a bunch of friends

00:08:44.860 you know who all you know didn't really have building experience and you know couldn't really test out

00:08:51.660 their skills on you know an apartment that they were renting in the city so it was kind of a nice

00:08:56.400 like bunny hill that we could sort of screw up on it it didn't matter and to pat's credit he you know

00:09:03.320 he had just bought this thing and it is funny it's like it to say it's fully built was both accurate and

00:09:11.260 very generous but pat basically let us just try things out and if we mess things up he didn't get mad at

00:09:17.900 us there were no it truly was just kind of like i don't know let's see what happens here throw a wall

00:09:24.400 up and if it works great and if it doesn't oh well did both of you have a construction experience before

00:09:30.400 this uh i had a little bit my father's a contractor and now a home inspector and so i'd you know growing

00:09:37.180 up i'd go out and do some jobs with him nothing too major did a few roofs and you know various gosh i

00:09:45.160 don't even remember at the time maybe we framed some walls uh small stuff nothing major how about

00:09:50.240 you yeah same same for me i think it was you know i built a lot of tree houses as a kid um but you

00:09:56.560 know as an adult it was more like you know going home for for christmas and my mom you know needs

00:10:02.380 something fixed and so i'd sort of you know try my hand and you know nailing a couple boards together

00:10:08.120 or something like that but very little before before buying that cabin although i did watch a lot of

00:10:13.100 this old house uh on pbs for a bunch of years and continue to that's fantastic okay so and with

00:10:20.320 this house so you guys you guys kind of completed it i mean we put that quotation marks like what did

00:10:24.860 you do with the the the cabin in 2013 after you you did what you want with it we just used it a lot

00:10:31.860 i made a bunch of keys and then handed keys out to you know seven or eight really close friends that

00:10:38.340 i've got up here and just sort of said you know like here's the here the directions you know where

00:10:43.080 the cabin is you know how to take care of it and so i would say you know for the seven or eight years

00:10:49.560 that i owned it people were up there using it probably you know every other weekend at least

00:10:55.400 all right so you still ended up selling it eventually fast forward to 2018 this is when you

00:11:00.920 guys finally decided all the talk you've been having this you know going back and forth with

00:11:05.020 potential plans you guys decided you're going to build a cabin from scratch how did that i mean

00:11:10.760 this did you guys have an idea of like what you wanted the cabin to look like when you started off

00:11:15.040 or was one of those things like we're just going to get started and we're going to figure this out as

00:11:19.140 we go i think we had a few different ideas that constantly changed i remember for a real long time

00:11:26.000 we were sending each other pictures of a-frames and so at first it was like all right we're definitely

00:11:30.320 going to build an a-frame and then we came to realize that i think the only thing that we had

00:11:35.960 decided concretely was the general square footage which was i think 384 is that right pat yeah something

00:11:43.040 like that anyways and we realized that if we built an a-frame on the footprint that we were thinking

00:11:47.120 it was going to be really small inside so that changed after i believe we already had the subfloor in

00:11:55.000 so we'd like kicked off a whole bunch of different ideas and we're still planning and drawing things

00:12:02.020 out well into after we started and when you first started you guys set a budget for yourself when you

00:12:07.960 decided we're doing this yeah you could call i mean we we told ourselves that we were going to spend

00:12:14.460 no more than twenty thousand dollars i mean really the only thing it was based on was that we didn't

00:12:19.820 want to spend more than twenty thousand dollars and so we thought that that seemed like more money than

00:12:26.060 either of us had independently and it must be enough to build a cabin

00:12:31.540 it was and that that included the property as well that twenty thousand yeah yeah all right so let's talk

00:12:39.520 about that where did you guys end up buying property for your build we bought it in the same general

00:12:44.760 area that my little cabin was in and we you know basically got word that a property was going to be

00:12:51.760 up for auction and so put it in a super low offer hoping you know that we would get it and sort of

00:12:58.400 taking it as as as a sign from the universe that you know we were supposed to be doing this if it worked

00:13:03.340 out and it did all right so this is in washington right that's right yeah the so the sort of central

00:13:09.240 cascades of of washington on the west side of the mountains all right so you guys got the

00:13:14.400 property pretty cheap was i think it was like a lowball offers like three thousand or something

00:13:18.180 like that and you're like it's not going to happen yeah exactly all right so you got the property what

00:13:23.880 was the first thing you you did when you started building like did you just take the initial plan

00:13:28.480 that you you're gonna build a small a-frame and just start you know we're gonna we have the plan

00:13:32.960 we have the blueprints we're just do exactly what the blueprints say well we we didn't have any

00:13:37.540 blueprints that's for sure everything was sketched out on uh paper and pencil and i think

00:13:43.160 once we actually got the land was the sort of oh crap moment now we actually need to figure out

00:13:49.020 what we're doing and so we just started researching as much as we could on the internet watching you

00:13:54.200 know tons of youtube i remember pat was when it came to the foundation was researching a lot about

00:14:00.800 weight loads you know how many like posts and peers you would need and how much concrete and at what

00:14:05.860 depth so it was kind of you know when you got to turn in your homework and classes the next day

00:14:10.600 that kind of feeling and then also i think it was you talked about too um as you were starting to

00:14:15.860 prepare the build you guys together had this idea of what building a cabin and you know in the

00:14:22.240 washington woods would be like and it was really idyllic i mean how did you imagine cabin building in

00:14:27.160 the middle of nowhere would be like i mean for me i i just imagine all of these beautiful pictures you

00:14:35.700 see and i mean i guess our experience up there to an extent also on our building weekends on pat's

00:14:41.760 first little cabin didn't really matter too much if we messed up most of the time when i went up there

00:14:47.200 i was really lucky and it was beautiful weather the river's always running at like a nice pace

00:14:53.100 so just like this beautiful area and a great time with friends and i think i had it in my mind that

00:14:59.740 it would certainly be difficult and we wanted it to be difficult but it would be totally manageable

00:15:04.560 and we'd have time for for hikes and you know having as much coffee in the morning as we want

00:15:09.880 and sort of leisurely getting over to the job site doing a great job during the day and then having time

00:15:15.260 to like play in the river or whatever else afterwards and that pretty quickly came to an end i think that

00:15:20.260 lasted about two or three days yeah like what was the the moment where you realized like oh crap this is

00:15:26.380 going to be a lot harder than i thought it was going to be i mean it might have been the

00:15:32.040 i think the very first couple of days we were basically just digging holes and toiling in the

00:15:38.220 mud and it was super fun we were having a great time and then it might have been after kind of

00:15:44.020 putting in the first foundation posts and building up to the subfloor where we had like a really long

00:15:50.080 day that was really difficult and sort of troubling a few things went wrong and we had to kind of wrap

00:15:56.400 our heads around how to make it right and our our idea of how long it would take was just nowhere near

00:16:04.020 realistic and i think that's when it kind of started to dawn on us that you know maybe we're in over our

00:16:10.380 heads and we were going to have to like actually put in some work to get this thing done well and the

00:16:15.020 thing to note too is that you there was no electricity out there and there was no water so like you had

00:16:20.420 there's these pictures in on the the article of you like there's a you had to basically go down to the

00:16:25.060 creek and climb up this giant hill with just big buckets of water so you can get the water to mix

00:16:30.940 concrete yeah yeah i think in hindsight you know we ended up installing a 1500 gallon water tank

00:16:37.940 at the at the cabin as one of the finishing touches and uh in hindsight we should have maybe done that

00:16:45.960 first so yeah and anytime we needed water for anything you know especially mixing concrete it

00:16:51.160 was you know going down to the river with a big five gallon jug filling it up which required getting

00:16:57.700 into the river deep enough so that we could actually get it under there and we also did this

00:17:02.860 in the middle of winter to mix up concrete for the hearth under the wood stove so i think literally

00:17:08.720 trudging through snow to get into the river and fill up those jugs well let's backtrack when did when

00:17:15.720 what part of 2018 did you guys start the cabin was it like spring summer it was june 2nd june 2nd

00:17:22.680 june 2nd a day in infamy it was supposed to be june 1st and something came up something and when did

00:17:30.060 you uh like you guys started in june you got were you expected to be had this you know done and wrapped

00:17:33.960 up by the end of summer yeah i had a four-month leave and i had budgeted a few weeks at the end or so i

00:17:42.640 thought for like a little vacation time which you know wasn't at all realistic but yeah we thought

00:17:48.960 we would be done i think by the end of august if that's right yeah all right and then very quickly

00:17:55.800 you realize that's not going to happen and something you note both of you note in the article is that

00:17:59.680 the thing that really threw you guys off were like there's all these little small things that you

00:18:04.200 overlooked before you even started working on it that just sucked up all your time i imagine one of 0.64

00:18:09.600 them is getting water to mix concrete was one of those small things any other like things that 0.85

00:18:14.500 they're really small but they just they piled on each other that just really suck a lot it sucked a lot 0.77

00:18:19.420 of time uh from your work day uh man getting materials was always a challenge especially because we

00:18:26.780 didn't have cell phone reception at the site and so a lot of times you know trying to check

00:18:32.280 you know how to do something required like oh we need to drive into cell phone reception for half an

00:18:39.040 hour and then you get into reception and you know to like watch a video on how to do something

00:18:44.300 and then you forget exactly what you know your situation is so we drive back to the site to look

00:18:50.180 at it take more pictures and then back to cell reception and then you know you're into town to get

00:18:54.720 materials but the first hardware store doesn't actually have what you know they say they do online so

00:19:01.080 you drive to another hardware store and it's just these days unravel like instantly and you know

00:19:07.720 you spent seven hours just figuring out you know how to screw a couple of things together and find

00:19:13.100 the screws to do it and then the day is over and it's dark and you don't have electricity so you can't

00:19:18.640 see anything and you know you only need two or three days like that to realize you know that this

00:19:26.520 project could take three or four times longer than you know you ever expected it to there's also some

00:19:32.080 like small things that you just don't realize when you're getting into something so something that

00:19:37.080 would happen would be i guess later on once the cabin was built up higher you know we need ladders 0.98

00:19:41.900 and so you throw some ladders up but it's on a really sloped hill and so the ladder would be pitched

00:19:47.120 to an angle and so you'd have to dig out a patch of the hill to get the ladder you know lined up

00:19:53.840 with the cabin so that you could actually go up to it and only later did i realize that you can

00:20:00.180 actually get these little like leg extensions on the bottom of your ladder so that if you're on a

00:20:03.740 slope you just extend that one leg and then you're good but we didn't realize that so we wasted you

00:20:09.040 know tons of time just like digging holes in the side of the hill so that our ladder would sit properly

00:20:13.280 small things like that add up too we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:20:18.240 and now back to the show how long were your work days when you finally you guys kind of finally

00:20:24.580 got in the groove of of your working schedule they felt very long yeah i think they basically became

00:20:32.260 just whatever daylight hours were so at the peak of summer that could be you know up here in

00:20:39.340 washington like you know 6 a.m until 10 o'clock at night and were you guys sleeping out by the at the

00:20:46.960 cabin site during the summer no actually at this time pat still had his small off-grid cabin that

00:20:52.960 he had purchased in 2013 so we'd retire there every night every night but then wake up at 6 o'clock

00:20:59.300 but you didn't have time to enjoy your coffee and look at the sunrise you just had to get back to

00:21:03.920 digging a hole there was no enjoying sunrises no some sunsets on occasion well and during this time

00:21:11.340 i mean so you guys you kind of budgeted that you wouldn't be working or you'd have a leave of

00:21:15.520 absence from your your job but you also had to keep money coming in because you guys quickly

00:21:20.800 realized this is going to cost more than we thought so what did you guys do to keep money coming in so

00:21:25.400 you keep the build going would you take it pat you had to do a lot more of this yeah so i had had quit

00:21:32.240 my job so the only way to keep money coming in was doing freelance copywriting including for the art

00:21:37.540 of manliness so on select nights that you know i had to do work or brian had to do work we would

00:21:43.260 you know go from the build site to a bar that was about half an hour down the road and that was

00:21:50.740 open until like midnight or so and so at you know nine or ten at night we'd be sitting down for dinner

00:21:57.180 and to start you know work day number two and write you know marketing copy or art of manliness articles

00:22:04.720 until you know 12 or 12 30 at night and then try to get back to the cabin and get some sleep

00:22:09.760 well yeah well really we really appreciate it and like during this time i don't think you really

00:22:14.180 you mentioned it all that much i think you might have in a few emails like yeah i'm building a cabin

00:22:17.480 and i was like oh okay you know i didn't know the extent of like what that actually meant until i read

00:22:23.780 this article yeah pat in particular was really grinding it out i had some freelance writing to do

00:22:30.140 but i you know i had taken my leave and i had kind of cashed out on some vacation hours that i had

00:22:35.940 piled up and so i was in a slightly more comfortable position i guess and that i i at least wasn't

00:22:42.720 concerned about what would happen at the end of the build because i knew i had a job to go back to

00:22:46.720 so i could really sort of drain the account down pretty far all right so you guys started making

00:22:51.280 progress you guys got the floor the foundation laid guarding some walls uh well before you got to

00:22:56.700 the walls there's this part in this in the build where you had to put in place the ridge

00:23:02.280 ridge beam and i like this story because i think it's it's a it exemplifies some of the improvisation

00:23:08.020 you guys had to do because like you like you just said you're describing how you're learning on the

00:23:12.220 fly you'd have to go in town get cell reception watch a youtube video then go back and then try it

00:23:17.440 the ridge beam this is a really really important part of the cabin and a really hard part to put on

00:23:23.720 a structure for those who aren't familiar with what a ridge beam is what is that what makes it so hard

00:23:29.940 to put into place and what did you guys do to get that in place so yeah so the ridge beam is

00:23:36.660 essentially you know you're building the cabin up you've got your you know floor and you've got your

00:23:41.100 walls and then it's all got to come back together to get closed in you know on the roof and so the

00:23:48.320 ridge beam is sort of that initial you know very big piece of timber that goes across the top of the

00:23:55.280 cabin that all of your rafters that all the rest of the roof can attach to and sort of stitch

00:23:59.900 everything back it's sort of like the the backbone of the cabin and i guess i'm still not certain how

00:24:05.400 people you know are supposed to put these in uh but ours was um i think about 28 feet long

00:24:16.780 and how much did it weigh yeah i think it probably weighed about 200 pounds yeah maybe 250 or 300

00:24:25.220 pounds and so it was impossible for i mean we struggled to lift it the two of us on the ground

00:24:32.700 and so the idea of getting it up you know 18 feet above our heads into a very narrow slot that it had to

00:24:40.280 fit in was it was just one of those things that we just sort of ignored until the day that we had to do

00:24:46.480 it because i don't think that we could comprehend how it was actually going to happen and so what

00:24:51.560 did you guys end up doing i had sort of dreamed up this uh i think what brian eventually got like a

00:24:58.180 slow motion catapult so sort of built this like a shaped structure out of two by fours and then tied

00:25:08.220 one end of the ridge beam to that and then we sort of pushed pushed that a frame structure up bit by bit

00:25:15.920 you know to sort of pull the ridge beam up we got it in one end and then to get it into the other end

00:25:23.060 was sort of a combo of that plus we had the thing tied like to my car at one point that we were like

00:25:30.440 you know up on the hill trying to drag it upwards into place we had a neighbor come down with some

00:25:36.200 come-along straps to to use those and pull in a different way and i remember there was one point

00:25:40.940 when we had so many different things that we had just made up on the fly to help push this thing up

00:25:47.960 and hold it in place and at one point we looked at it and nothing was touching the ground anymore

00:25:53.520 and we didn't understand what was holding it up and then it was like all of a sudden we all just sort

00:26:01.680 of like all right everybody back away let's look at this thing from 20 or 30 feet because it could fall

00:26:08.100 at any second because we don't understand how it's being held up right now and you call this

00:26:13.720 improvisation i thought it's funny you guys called this improvisation you called it jazz we're gonna

00:26:17.200 use some jazz to get this ridge beam up yeah yeah jazz was was the word that we use anytime we didn't

00:26:24.520 know how to do something and knew that we were just going to sort of you know make it up and see

00:26:28.760 you know if we could get it to work there was a lot of jazz was there a lot of jazz like most of the

00:26:33.360 it was just it was just jazz the entire time the entire yeah the entire cabin was jazz essentially

00:26:39.000 besides the ridge beam was there like another thing part of the cabin where you just like you

00:26:44.020 had to just wing it and to say okay we'll see how it turns out you know to a certain extent we did

00:26:50.300 we did that with a lot i mean we built the cabin you know to code we've got you know brian's dad to

00:26:56.620 sort of use as a resource because he inspects homes and so you know that the place was built to code

00:27:01.800 but what sort of hurt us in the long run was winging it in the way of saying like oh it'd be

00:27:07.700 cool if this wall was a little shorter you know instead of being eight feet let's make it like

00:27:11.800 seven and a half you know not realizing in the moment that okay well you know all boards come

00:27:18.640 in standard lengths of eight feet all plywood comes in standard lengths of eight feet you know

00:27:23.200 everything is eight feet and people build walls at eight feet for a reason and so now you can't just

00:27:29.260 you know throw this material up you have to custom cut every single board that you put in

00:27:35.840 and i think that we actually took some time to think about it once and realized that there's not

00:27:42.920 a single standard piece of lumber in the entire cabin that might be true maybe a couple sheets of

00:27:51.220 plywood at some point but in you know like a home or a house or a cabin or whatever is sort of built

00:27:56.340 in layers right you have like the framing and then you have the interior wall cladding you've got to

00:28:02.540 sheave it and then you put the exterior finishes on and so by you know cutting our studs shorter than

00:28:10.200 their natural length you had to do that at every single stage of the build so it just was this

00:28:16.260 compounding problem over and over and over again making your life harder yeah it needed to be well you

00:28:23.560 guys are you guys are friends you guys been friends for a long time how did you all work together

00:28:27.780 during the the build mostly good not always good there's there's a scene in the article that we wrote

00:28:36.900 about where you know different people have different jobs and so when we're getting the roof in one

00:28:42.180 person would be up on the roof and the other person would be down on the ground and the person on the

00:28:46.920 roof is sort of it's impossible for them to really get anything for themselves because they're on the roof

00:28:52.460 right so they're always yelling at the person on the ground you know can you get my tape measure again

00:28:58.020 because i dropped it for the fourth time or you know can you get me a sheet of plywood or whatever

00:29:03.260 it is cut at this length and then if it's not quite right you send that back down and meanwhile the person

00:29:09.160 on the ground is just like running all over the place making all the cuts fetching all of the tools

00:29:14.700 and you know moments like that can get really tense especially when it's not all coming together

00:29:20.300 right and so there were definitely times when we i don't think we ever like yelled at each other but

00:29:25.800 we would get pretty passive aggressive or just kind of like just kind of mean to each other and you

00:29:32.660 know that could last for anywhere between like an hour or a day and eventually it would be fine we'd

00:29:38.740 you know have a good laugh about it later on and make up but there were some moments for sure

00:29:43.560 and was it like the disagreements were they just kind of or like the the tension was just about was it

00:29:47.880 about small things you guys have big disagreements but like the big picture with the the project

00:29:52.100 you know i think the big picture project stuff brian and i were just talking about uh the other day

00:29:59.100 that it seemed you know we'd put on these really long days and a lot of them back to back to back

00:30:05.100 and every once in a while we'd you know really just realized that we needed even an afternoon just

00:30:13.960 away from the project and so we might take like on those days like a longer hike or something

00:30:18.920 and just sort of talk about you know really you know are you still doing okay with this project

00:30:26.340 it's taking much longer it's costing a lot more um you know you've not been home for a month and a

00:30:32.500 half or whatever it is and really try and check in and make sure that we were doing fine and i think

00:30:37.220 you know for the on the grander scheme of things we were always pretty aligned and most of the

00:30:43.640 disagreements came from you know because brian wanted me to cut a rafter for the eighth time and

00:30:48.400 it was like well you know i mean all you had to do was not cutting it right or is it you not

00:30:53.480 measuring it right what are we really doing here it was definitely you not cutting it right

00:30:57.480 or the roof guy wanting something too much right it's like bring up all the nails roof guy

00:31:03.740 yeah and if it's not obvious brian was usually roof guy

00:31:07.840 um so you guys started this in june you thought it'd be done wrapped up by the end of august at

00:31:16.100 what point did you realize that it wouldn't be august that this thing would be finished

00:31:19.880 probably pretty close to august or like five days after starting like what what did the cabin look

00:31:28.060 like in august oh that's a good question i mean did you have did you have the ridge beam in place

00:31:33.540 i think it would have been in august that we got the ridge beam in place but the you know all the

00:31:41.560 rafters weren't in the you know roof had not been covered in you know plywood or tongue and groove

00:31:47.040 boards that we used to cover it i don't think we finished the roof until early october is that right

00:31:55.860 brian or was it late september i think you're right about early october by the time if i because i remember

00:32:01.780 that the uh the sort of fall storms were well underway and we were sort of racing against a really big

00:32:07.300 rainstorm that had been sort of building for a few days and i if i remember correctly we got the last

00:32:14.920 you know screw of the roof in i mean just you know minutes or hours before like a huge rainstorm came

00:32:23.280 no it's actually the last half of the roof that entire day that we were working on it it was

00:32:31.000 pouring down rain oh my memory is notoriously bad you just wanted to forget that it wasn't a good

00:32:37.780 wasn't a good memory exactly see i've shut out certain things well so brian you had you had your

00:32:43.280 leave until august did you have to go back to work in september i did yeah i returned to work or um

00:32:50.060 let's see was it uh well no so i had my leave a bit longer than i had thought the build would take

00:32:59.780 so i we thought that the build would end sometime in august and then i would have a few more weeks

00:33:04.700 basically to um i think what i originally had planned was to spend some time with my girlfriend

00:33:10.000 since i would have been gone for so long and that time basically just got turned into continuing

00:33:15.740 working on the cabin and then eventually i did go back to work and i would just you know basically

00:33:21.760 go up for really long weekends or i'd take a week off here and there if it's not already obvious my

00:33:28.080 bosses were remarkably generous and patient with me for this whole thing well and at this point like

00:33:33.940 and you know when you decided you had to go keep building even into the the fall possibly the winter

00:33:39.280 were there moments where you're like we should probably just give up uh move on we're doing sunk cost

00:33:44.820 fallacy at this point right we're just we're gonna keep doing this just but it's just costing us too

00:33:49.380 much time and money did you guys have those moments i don't think i ever got to the place where i

00:33:54.760 fully wanted to quit i mean it probably would have been wise at several different points

00:33:59.520 but i ultimately i mean this even though it was you know pretty challenging at times and hard on

00:34:06.340 relationships ultimately i just really really enjoyed it and every time i needed to go back up i looked

00:34:13.000 forward to doing so and it kind of i mean at some point you know eventually you'll you'll run out of

00:34:19.440 money or you'll run out of time and i guess we just kind of squeaked by and it always felt worth it to

00:34:23.900 keep going and pat did you have any quit moments or were you just like no i'm gonna finish this you're

00:34:28.640 you knew that from the beginning no i mean i think the more that we that we worked on it the more

00:34:35.100 clear it became to me that it was like a hundred percent what i wanted to be doing with my days

00:34:41.980 and that if there were any way to combine you know seeing family and friends into the same lifestyle

00:34:46.740 that that is what i wanted to do with my life and so i think as brian said quitting never really

00:34:53.620 was something i thought about because it was i kind of realized that i would be working on the cabin

00:34:59.180 at the cost of you know pretty much everything else that was going on and then you also mentioned

00:35:04.360 you guys didn't want to be i didn't know this is a thing but apparently in washington the wilderness

00:35:08.740 there's lots of unfinished cabins because people they ran out of money or they just said i don't

00:35:13.060 this isn't worth it you didn't want to be one of those guys yeah that's true i mean there are a

00:35:18.360 bunch of cabins even in that immediate area that you know you see and and maybe they got halfway

00:35:24.320 through on the interior they they built up to the roof and and didn't go any further and you know

00:35:31.080 some of them look pretty good and others are just totally thrashed and look like they'd been there

00:35:35.360 forever and they each one just sort of represented um like a broken dream perhaps and in as depressing

00:35:43.740 and sad as it was to kind of see those i think they also fueled us to keep going and make sure that

00:35:50.520 this cabin wouldn't be another one of those so you went into fall did it go into the construction go

00:35:56.420 into winter as well oh yeah yeah yeah okay well yeah you mentioned that so you had to actually go

00:36:01.900 yeah you said that you had to go down the river in the the ice cold river to get uh water for cement

00:36:07.700 to make the the platform for the uh stove yeah and and that cement actually so there was a pretty big

00:36:12.900 snowstorm on that trip and we had to we strapped on snowshoes because we couldn't drive up to the

00:36:18.580 cabin there was too much snow and we piled all of the bags of concrete into sleds and just like

00:36:24.280 towed them up to the cabin so it was pretty deep so i mean right and besides going over budget on time

00:36:32.640 i mean did you guys go over budget on money as well oh yeah more than double where do you guys get the

00:36:39.160 funds you have to take out a loan from the bank or did you just have to you know go into savings you

00:36:43.300 started go fund me what'd you guys do you know i returned back to work and so i basically took

00:36:48.480 everything that i wasn't using for just my life and import it back into the cabin we also had a

00:36:56.960 very generous buddy our buddy dan who had agreed from the start you know he was sort of looking for

00:37:03.100 an investment and he's not one i think to be into the idea of just putting his money into into stocks

00:37:11.020 or something like that and so he thought that we would be a good investment and this project would

00:37:15.800 be a good investment and so he was blindly giving us you know thousands of dollars he put in you know

00:37:22.940 a third of all the costs to help us realize realize this project you know hoping that we'd eventually

00:37:29.600 be able to sell it and he'd get some sort of return i'm not entirely sure it was even necessarily

00:37:35.000 an investment for him because originally we weren't even sure whether or not we would sell it you know

00:37:39.940 we we had right right maybe throwing it on airbnb maybe we'd all keep it and it would just be

00:37:44.700 this fun cabin that we all got to you know hang out in on weekends nonetheless i you know he did uh go in

00:37:52.480 as a sort of a third part uh financial backer and was both generous in that and also generous in

00:38:01.080 not getting too upset that it was taking us longer and longer and costing more and more he was uh yet

00:38:07.360 another very supportive person in this process yeah he was a romantic like you guys he had the

00:38:12.120 he caught the vision yeah exactly so when did you guys finally finish the cabin you started in june 2018

00:38:17.820 when did you wrap it up i think we stopped working on it and uh in early july of 2019 and that became a

00:38:28.220 hard thing it's really knowing you know like when is when is a cabin done but i think early july is when we

00:38:36.120 we kind of put the last finishing touches on it except for you know starting to bring in furniture

00:38:41.600 and things like that we had a big you know party i brought the fog machine in we had some you know

00:38:47.280 a bunch of friends up and sort of pristened the cabin i mean so what did it feel like when you guys

00:38:52.320 finally decided okay this is a year almost over a year since you started what did it feel like to

00:38:57.340 finally think i'm gonna i'm done with this like what was it anticlimactic or did it did you feel

00:39:01.360 some closure what was that like oh man it's tricky i think it was a huge relief for me it was also

00:39:09.120 it kind of made me think like all right how do i get to do this again you know when we decided to

00:39:16.960 sell it we had a lot of people ask like are you gonna miss it do you feel bad about selling it and

00:39:22.760 i think correct me if i'm wrong pat but i think for both of us in the end it was a lot less about

00:39:28.860 the end product and more about the process and as much as we liked you know what it turned into

00:39:35.900 for me it was going to be missing actually building it and being up there with you know close friends

00:39:41.960 doing something that we really enjoyed was that for you the same sort of sentiment for you pat

00:39:46.640 yeah i would say that you know the the last day that brian and i actually worked on it you know

00:39:53.560 was a much sadder day than the day that we you know handed over the keys to it it's kind of like

00:40:00.320 now what right right well and selling it was was kind of a hassle too because because it doesn't have

00:40:06.900 indoor plumbing right people couldn't get a house loan a more you couldn't mortgage it so you had to

00:40:11.940 find someone who was willing to pay cash just to buy the thing yeah it was either cash or we

00:40:17.680 essentially we were hoping to find someone that was going to pay cash and eventually we had to do

00:40:21.720 seller financing so essentially we become the bank and you know someone gives us a down payment and

00:40:27.280 then makes payments to us every month and fortunately finally found a couple that were up for that and

00:40:35.460 they've actually paid it off now full and they couldn't have uh gone to a better a better couple

00:40:41.560 of people they've really done a lot to the cabin and really embraced it and absolutely love it and

00:40:48.200 yeah it's great seeing they've also uh thrown it up on airbnb for times when they're not using it

00:40:54.680 themselves so if people are interested they could check that out right so the title of the article

00:40:59.220 is we quit our jobs to build a cabin everything went wrong and you know we highlighted some of the

00:41:03.560 stuff that went wrong but it sounds like both of you guys it wasn't the end product that this was

00:41:07.600 all about the experience like you it was in the end it was worth it to you guys right yeah definitely

00:41:12.580 100 so what are you going to do so people ask you what are you going to do now are you are you guys 0.53

00:41:17.380 planning another cabin build you guys gluttons for punishment we indeed are you know we would

00:41:23.840 we had hoped maybe this fall would be a time to start again and uh that's not happening you know

00:41:29.860 coronavirus and and other we got the wildfires out wildfires yeah yeah there's a lot of disruption

00:41:36.620 going on right now obviously so we we definitely are hoping to and we're hoping to now in the spring

00:41:42.300 i guess we'll kind of see you know what spring brings but uh that's the idea and i mean what

00:41:48.500 would you guys do differently this i mean are you it's gonna be one of those things here's one of

00:41:52.240 the things i've done with like diy projects is that i've done the same sort of thing that you guys do

00:41:56.600 on a much smaller scale and i'm not building a cabin but like i want to learn how to do something i

00:42:01.220 watch youtube videos i learn how to do it and then because i don't have to do that thing ever again

00:42:05.620 when i do have to do it again i completely forget and i have to go through the process all over

00:42:10.960 again do you think that's going to happen to you guys or do you guys think you learn some things

00:42:14.580 that you will kind of cut down on that having to go to get cell reception to watch a youtube video

00:42:19.940 right right i'd like to think we've learned some things you know also between then and now we've

00:42:27.000 both have kind of continued uh not doing the same thing but similar things like i mentioned i'm in

00:42:32.300 woodworking school right now we're actually pat and i just started doing a sort of backyard office

00:42:38.680 build out for some folks down near where i live and pat works for a company that builds these

00:42:45.200 really cool travel trailers they're kind of these retro trailers that you could glamp in and so it's

00:42:50.700 not the same as you know sort of cabin construction but we're still you know getting our reps in to some

00:42:55.880 extent so hopefully it won't be too we won't be too rusty and i mean how do you guys think the

00:43:01.480 experience changed you like what like can you looking back on it and you've done some introspection

00:43:05.520 like how have you grown because of this experience oh man you know i think it taught me

00:43:11.980 sort of the thing that i had suspected for a lot of years is that you know being at a desk you know

00:43:18.640 working on a computer is is just not something that i can do long term and that you know i really

00:43:24.960 value spending my days as actively as possible i think it also reminded me you know just sort of

00:43:34.780 how much i enjoy really giving myself big challenges putting myself in situations where

00:43:41.440 you know i'm uncomfortable and sort of need to to rise to the occasion kind of things and just how

00:43:48.160 you know valuable and meaningful those you know growing and learning experiences can be and you know

00:43:54.140 how kind of toxic it can feel you know just sort of just get comfortable and live out your days

00:44:00.880 sort of without ever challenging yourself that i've you know tried to apply that after the cabin

00:44:06.640 and hopefully am but i think that it was a great experience for reminding myself of all those things

00:44:11.160 and brian for you any big lesson takeaways from that experience i mean i really have to echo pat in that

00:44:17.800 one of the reasons i think that we were drawn to this to begin with is we you know like we mentioned we

00:44:23.440 had both been in jobs for a number of years and for a variety of reasons we're you know looking for

00:44:30.500 something new and i think for me i really kind of needed a big challenge i felt like i hadn't really

00:44:38.380 stretched myself in in a long time i'd been doing you know much the same thing for several years

00:44:43.560 and building this cabin definitely stretched us and i think the fact that in the end we pulled it off

00:44:49.940 was sort of a relief because i think i had gotten to a point that i really wasn't sure if i was

00:44:56.260 capable of doing something like that anymore because i just kind of you know gotten into a

00:45:00.460 routine and so that in particular resonates and i think you know constantly challenging yourself

00:45:07.280 to the degree that you can is super important i don't want to keep that up all right so the article

00:45:12.080 is called we quit our jobs to build a cabin everything went wrong it's available on outside online.com

00:45:17.480 are there anywhere people can go to follow you guys and your exploits building trailers doing

00:45:22.020 woodworking or your next cabin build or anywhere can people follow you at we do have an instagram

00:45:27.660 page that is very sparsely updated but hopefully we'll be doing more of that and that is at landing pad

00:45:34.320 cabins at landing cabins on instagram well brian schatz pat hutchinson thanks for your time it's been a

00:45:39.360 pleasure thank you brett thanks a lot brett my guests they are brian schatz and patrick hutchinson they're

00:45:45.420 the authors of an article in outside magazine called we quit our jobs to build a cabin everything

00:45:49.560 went wrong you go check it there at outside online.com also check out our show notes at

00:45:53.460 aom.is slash cabin build where you find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:45:57.960 well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast check out our website at

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00:46:37.900 brett mckay reminding you not only listen they win podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:46:42.140 you

The Art of Manliness - September 28, 2020

#647： What Happened When Two Friends Left Their Jobs to Build a Cabin Together

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