index.md 4.0KB
title: We Quit Our Jobs to Build a Cabin-Everything Went Wrong
url: https://www.outsideonline.com/2415766/friends-diy-cabin-build-washington
hash_url: 78f2e16793
Long hikes, casual breaks, and leisurely river sessions immediately went out the window. There was no time. In part, because we hadn’t anticipated the little things. The forest floor was steeply sloped and covered in rain-slicked clay and fern root balls that grabbed at our feet. Our shoes became caked in mud. We slid and fell, and when that happened, our tape measure’s delicate hold on some distant piece of lumber was lost, forcing us to start over. We never overcame these time warps, like how long it took to shift a ladder on a hillside—we had to dig new holes with every move to provide equal footing for the ladder’s legs. Or how easily we lost entire days sourcing materials at the lumberyard 45 minutes away. Hundreds of boards went into the structure, and we hand selected every one, eyeing them carefully to ensure they weren’t overly warped, bowed, twisted, or cupped.
Days cascaded into weeks. We’d rise at 5 a.m. and build until the dimming light made it impossible to work anymore. By 9 p.m., we’d head to the bar and use the Wi-Fi to madly produce copy for freelance writing ventures that barely kept our bank accounts afloat. Many of our casual promises—the family camping trips, the birthday parties, the breaks to spend time with our girlfriends—would soon be broken.
On a hot day in August, we experienced what was by turns the most bewildering and soul-crushing task of the build: getting the ridge beam in place. It was 28 feet long and hundreds of pounds, and it needed to be perched atop the highest point of the cabin, spanning the gap between the two tallest walls. We eventually produced a jimmy-rigged contraption that, in the kindest terms, might be called a slow-motion catapult that could (maybe) hoist the ridge beam into place.
Anything improvised like this to help ourselves accomplish a job, we referred to as “jazz.” As in: How on earth are we going to lift this beam without a giant crane? Answer: We’ll just rig up some jazz. The word was useful in its lack of specificity, delaying a problem and its potential fix until there was nothing left to do but finally create the jazz.
In some ways, the whole cabin was jazz. When we had nothing but the floor, we were still sketching and debating ridiculous design ideas over our morning coffee—curved, pagoda-style rooflines; walls that folded down into decks; a spiral staircase wrapping around a tree trunk to the loft—as if we were made of money and time. As if we were imbued with the skills of master tradespeople. As if our girlfriends wouldn’t mind us disappearing, maybe forever, to build a hut of fancy and ruin.
The catapult was the definition of jazz: a mess of ropes, screws, ratchet straps, and random bracing, then a longer rope that extended from the beam to the towing hitch of Pat’s Subaru at the top of the sloped lot. Around midday, one of our neighbors—a burly, muscled airplane mechanic named Jordy—stopped by, saw the jazz, and with noticeable alarm said, “Holy shit.” He brought down more ratchet straps to add to the pile and then stayed to cheer us on. After eight hours of struggle and one last tug from Pat’s Subaru, the ridge beam slid into its perch. We placed a four-foot-long level on it and, with unbridled relief, saw that its bubble was dead center.
That night, exhausted but content, we jumped in the river and had a fire on its banks. We got good and drunk and temporarily forgot about the fact that we still had to cut and attach the rafters, build out the roof, install the door, finish the siding and windows, construct the kitchen and bathroom, put in the wood-burning stove, finish the loft, insulate and clad the walls, wire and plumb everything, never mind the finish tasks of trim, tile, light fixtures, and on and on.