Here is a short video tour of my completed cabin in the woods of Maine.
I came back to New England with goals. I remember the zeal and enthusiasm I toted around Seoul before I left, but now see them as tarnished with anxiety and open wounds. I wanted to heal, and I did, but it was not the lofty, romantic scenes I imagined from afar that applied the sutures. Instead it was the element behind the ideas that let me heal. I found a new way to heal; passively. I sat, and thought whenever I wanted to for 3 months. I didn't force it, I let the memories, questions, and acceptance come to me through time. Someone said to me that they hoped my cabin was everything I imagined. It wasn't, it isn't. It's an actual physical place where I have sat, and healed, and finally tired of. My life inside it was entirely different from what I had imagined, but it accomplished a lot of what I hoped it would.
Let's see how I've done on life goals I set prior, then onto the cabin details.
"I have a set a few tasks for myself to begin. There are as follows;"
"* Re-connect with the people I love." Definitely have done that.
"* Build a small cabin on family land in the woods of Maine to....
[Spend a couple of months there healing body, mind and soul.
Enjoy the process of creating.
Re-connect with the natural world.]" I found that I didn't have to "re-connect' with nature. I just had to sit and think. The connection was never gone, it was just obstructed by stress and cement. One of the things that helped me heal the most was the effect of the colors around me that made me feel lighter, content, and healed. I have a shotgun in my cabin -or 'shack' as it has been dubbed by my local friend- and I've spent a good deal of cathartic time shooting clay pigeons. Please don't ask me why it helps, for it's probably due to some part of human nature I dislike or perhaps some conditioning from growing up in Maine. I have to admit, I don't hate guns, I like them. I hate the way people use guns or any other means to destroy lives. I have a gun for two reasons. 1) preservation of the 2nd amendment, 2) protection from things which most likely only exist in my head. The release of pressure that resulted from shooting down floating, orange discs was an unexpected bonus.
"* Spend time at D-acres Organic Permaculture Farm & Educational Farmstead to...
[Learn anything and everything I can about sustainable agriculture, forestry, green building, clean energy, community, and friendship]" Sadly, this didn't work out, but I did learn how to cut my water and electricity waste down considerably. During August, I used roughly 16-17 gallons of water for washing and drinking per week. That is less than you use to brush you teeth if you leave the water running while you brush.
"* Read and write like a fiend." I was most surprised that I didn't read or write all that much, in fact I read less than I did when I was teaching. I did write, but it was much different than I anticipated. I'm not writing quickly, but much more carefully than previous attempts.
"* Move to an urban environment bringing these skills, feelings and a healthy state of mind in order to determine if I can live there with MUCH less impact on the planet, without sacrificing my happiness, and subtly spread these ideas. )" We'll seeeeeeeeeeee.
Ultimately, although I read less, I really connected with one book I read. Before I left Seoul I exchnaged a handful of books I had around for "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin. I've had a great deal of stress and unhappiness in my life due to my reluctance to accept change and uncertainty in life. This novel touches upon this concept with the wisdom only a person of her age could. It was like a gift. Like having a wise grandparent around to tell me a fascinating story that was really a large metaphor for a way I have to see the world. The idea that blew my mind is that uncertainty, rather than being a burden, is the one thing that makes life possible. I won't go into my personal interpretation of this work, but I feel that I've wrapped my mind around the way I deal with change, uncertainty, and the rational and irrational fears they produce. This is not to say that I am not affected by the natural fear of change and uncertain, but rather I have been able to see how to think about them in a way that leaves me feeling hope.
I also had set conditions for building the cabin. These conditions were actually a plague, and presented me with the only battle I faced mentally this summer. I wanted to stick to my budget so badly, and wanted things done so quickly that I got genuinely stressed out for about a week in the middle of the building. Even in this I learned about not imagining myself into despair because reality won't conform to my dreams. In my defense, I was living in this cabin that was a metal roof over a structure of posts and pallets that was covered in Typar. The nights of the first week were strange huddled in there knowing anything that wanted in would find little to stop it. Thus came the shotgun.
Let's have look at how well life conformed to dream;
"A) $200 budget firm" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA try $400
"B) Use mostly salvaged materials" I used about half salvaged materials. Details will be below with materials breakdown.
"C) Keep it simple (something I can mostly do by myself, with a hand here and there.)" Exactly how it worked out, though even simple can become complicated when you ALWAYS have the wrong tool.
"D) Create a space that will encourage (or perhaps force) a way of life that will help me heal." Living in a tiny space was liberating. It really allowed me to simplify my life, and that simple living was cleansing, and I can see how to apply it to other places I will live in the future. However, it started to rain a lot, and then I began to understand the origin of the phrase 'cabin fever'.
"E) Get the building done quickly, so I can do the living, but do things with great care and respect." In retrospect, this sentence seriously resembles a joke. I lived in the the cabin after working on it for a week, then it took me 7 weeks till I finally finished everything (except staining the siding). I'll be leaving the cabin in a bout a week. So really, I'll have to stain next week and move out, meaning I worked on the thing the entire time I stayed there. This is fine, because I enjoyed having something to due every morning. What is truly laughable is the idea that I could do everything with care. I borrowed all tools, and I was very thankful to those who lent them to me, but I had a skill saw at one time that was so dull it had a hard time cutting dimensional lumber. I cut the whole in the door facade with some rat tail handsaw thing I found in my brother's tools. I used flathead screwdrivers as a wood chisel. My brother said at every turn while helping me that my cabin was "built like a barn". At the beginning these things were getting me flustered. I wanted to 'do a good job'. I believe in the old adage do something right, or don't do it at all. Life happened though, I got a little worn down by the chase for cheap, salvaged or sustainably produced materials for siding. Then I just gave up a little. Just a little, just enough to relax. Then I realized that the things I gave up on and just worked around were things I could have never worked out, because quite simply, the mistake was made. I did what carpenters do to cover minor mistakes; finish work! HAHAHA I covered those mistakes as well as I could, and everything turned out looking nice.
Now it's October, and the leaves on the grove of Sumac's have turned orange, read, and mostly fallen.
Materials breakdown:
$65 Dimensional lumber cut locally from salvaged logs a mile from the land.
$35 LED solar shed lights.
$45 PVC roofing panels.
$20 Windows, new second-hand bought from a nice old man on a country road nearby.
$50 fuel to get pallets and other salvaged materials.
$50 nails and screws
$10 silicone door and window sealer.
$15 cedar shingles
$95 3'x4'x4' pallet of .75"x8" & 6"pine boards in 4' lengths. All scrap from full length boards sold at Hancock Lumber, a new England Lumber company that SFI certified, and practice local sustainable forestry, and carry some other Green building materials.
$15 hammer
$70 Portable camp toilet.
$45 small tower heater.
$50 dorm type fridge
-- -- --
$400
I got these materials free from construction waste, warehouse waste, materials that were on the redneck property, and what friends and family were getting rid of.
14 pallets from a warehouse.
10 laminate flooring 'cover sheets' that are used to cover pallets of flooring during shipping from a warehouse.
1 free new second-hand window from a family member.
1 interior door new second-hand window from a family member.
4 sheets of MDF project excess from a family member.
100 sq ft of project excess Uniclick laminate flooring from a family friend.
1/2 roll of Typar waste from a construction company.
dimensional lumber waste from a construction company
6 metal roofing panels that were abandoned on the property.
2 antique ceramic electric wire insulators that were abandoned on the property.
It's hard to look at a list and estimate what percentage of a building is made of salvaged materials since the materials are all different sizes. However, it seems like more than half of the structure is made of materials that would have ended up in landfill somewhere. Also, I bought very little new, and wherever feasible I bought local and responsible. Given the location though, I did have to patronize Walmart more than I would have liked to.
