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I purchased land in the North Cascades area (Methow Valley, about 3 hours Northeast of Index where these guys built) in 2007 with the intention of building a we

I purchased land in the North Cascades area (Methow Valley, about 3 hours Northeast of Index where these guys built) in 2007 with the intention of building a weekend home myself. I prepped the property myself and ran the main power. It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made. My wife and I moved into the home full time in 2011 and have lived in the valley ever since.

TimSchumann 6y ago
> It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. I feel personally attacked. Really though, I wonder how many things are on my 'Someday Maybe' list, that really I should just make more money to accomplish and/or find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic.
- bwb 6y ago
  I think you are being funny :), but just wanted to chime in and say I think what he is saying is that he didn't enjoy it, so he would rather do something he likes and pay someone to do what he does not :).
  - kyleblarson 6y ago
    That's definitely true, but I also realized that the quality of construction would never be close to the level it could be if I used a contractor. I'm a stickler for quality so it would have driven me crazy. I did somewhat enjoy the electrical work and have done some more of that on our house. If I can partially retire any time soon I'd love to apprentice with a master electrician and do some work on my own. There has been a huge building boom in our valley the last couple of years and most of the contractors and trades are booked out to 2022 for big jobs.
    - mtnGoat 6y ago
      You might not need to wait that long. I know union electricians in NCW making quite a bit more than most software engineers i know. Some are clearing 6 figures their second year.
- MikeTheGreat 6y ago
  > find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic. I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". Downhill extreme mountain biking is really cool. And fun to watch. And expensive. And requires much more physical fitness than I've got. And dangerous (esp. given my physical fitness :). )
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". So true! Works for a lot of things. It's why I stopped playing dota.
    - thefounder 6y ago
      Ha ha! I bet you spend less time warching than you would spend playing so that is another big win(for me at least).
    - screye 6y ago
      Stopping dota was the single most important decision of my life. It is an incredible game, that consumes an incredible amount of mind-space even when you're not playing it. Dota - the worst 'awesome thing' that can happen to your life.
      - grogenaut 6y ago
        Maybe the reason I was able to get to 775 MMR was because it occupied 0 of my mind-space when I wasn't playing it :)
    - pseudobry 6y ago
      Have you watched https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol ?
    - oblio 6y ago
- atourgates 6y ago
  If you have the opportunity (and can find contractors willing to work with you), picking out parts of a project to DIY is a good way to build skills, and save $$s. We're building a shop. I've contracted most of the build out, but found that I could save $20,000+ by DIY'ing the radiant heat portion myself. Took about a days worth of planning and research, another to lay down the pipe before the floor was poured, and another to hook everything up. Honestly, the cost-differential was enough to make me think that I should start a company that installs radiant heating. I can't think of many other professions where I could clear $20,000 for 3-days of work. I'm planning to DIY the solar-install on the same shop here in a couple of months, we'll see if that's as much of success story.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    It’s funny how when you’re young you it’s hard to learn about these types of things. My wife went to school with a guy who didn’t like college. He took a summer job on a road crew, learned how to use an excavator and got hooked. Dropped out, saved up, and bought a used dump truck, which basically made him. Started out hauling stuff and then got into water/sewer work and excavation. He’s up to about 20 trucks a decade later, and pays the bills with the sewer work. He leveraged the assets he had (trucks, diggers) and won demolition contracts — they make money on demolition. Like $75-200k for an emergency demolition if they can get there in 90m.
    - hourislate 6y ago
      Have a buddy who got a Finance Degree. Was hired into a large financial/invest firm in a great position and salary. 1 -2 years and couldn't take it, quit to go drywall with his two older brothers. When he quit his job the parents wept. He was the first kid to go/finish University in the family. It went from 3 guys hanging board to a 40-50 million construction company in 2 decades.
      - oigursh 6y ago
        What's the company?
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  Beware of falling into the trap of replacing everything on your "Someday maybe" list with Youtube subscriptions. Did that for a while, don't have much to show for 2017. Watching someone make/do cool stuff and put it on the Internet satisfies similar dopamine reward functions as actually doing it yourself, with a lot less effort. Except you didn't actually do it, you watched someone else do it. Same with actually making a "Someday maybe" list, writing down the goal feels like it's something you're accomplishing even though it's not actually started yet. When you look back on your summer/year, what will you have accomplished? What skills will you have developed? If you don't really value a process/skill, but just want the material result (i.e. a cabin), pay a pro for it. If you just have an itch that needs to be scratched, watch someone else do it on Youtube. If you want it to be a part of who you are, pruning your list by moving items to the former two strategies should leave you enough time to develop it yourself.
  - foobiekr 6y ago
    As someone rapidly approaching "old", this is the exact mode of thinking I now occupy much of the time. It's awful to think of how many summers I've passed working on code or, worse, powerpoints and documents, in a 71F office. I know quite a few very senior people who are proper old, and when I mentioned this to one of them, his response was, "at this point I'm glad to be alive, and no one glad to be alive has time for that stuff." This was just before he retired.
- cercatrova 6y ago
  Do people really watch YouTube or something and feel like the accomplished whatever is shown in the video? I am asking with full earnestness as I've always viewed such r/ArtisanVideos type videos as pure entertainment.
  - saltcured 6y ago
    I think it might be more accurate to say that some people have more trouble distinguishing mild curiosity from "I should do that thing." And I don't mean that in a demeaning way at all. If anything, such folks have found a middle path in life. At opposite extremes, you have folks who actually have to go do all those things versus those who can squelch their own interest in nearly anything by merely thinking about it for a few moments...
sevencolors 6y ago
Yeah it sounds like a nice romantic dream, but mother nature is cold and uncaring. Maybe the article overstated their woes, but it sounds like they were very under prepared. And winging the technical parts. Like software the easy part is the build. The harder part is research and planning. I have notions of retiring someday and run a wood shop. But I'm working on learning the basics and doing small projects.
- crdrost 6y ago
  Yeah, there's a lot there to learn, too. My plan to build a custom shelf unit for our kitchen went over-time and over-budget (in the small). Reason: once it was made it became apparent that it lacked strength against skewing deformations, which would not happen ‘laterally’ given where it was sitting but would happen ‘dorsoventrally.’ (Apologies for the anatomical language—it could wiggle side-to-side along its width and who cares because there are walls on either side, but if it wiggles back and forth away from the wall behind it then maybe things start falling off of it or maybe it just collapses some day.) This sort of problem is of course solved with crossbeams, but like then I had to buy a bunch of wood that was the right width, calculate an approximate length and miter angle for four pieces, of course I did not have the tools to make pocket holes properly (woodworking co-ops closed, thanks COVID) so I just did it roughly (you predrill the screw hole backwards from the flush surface back to the side of the lumber, then you use that hole to guide drilling the pocket) and of course I screwed up one of these four by drilling the pocket too deep because I didn’t have a drill press (thanks again COVID) and so I start low-teching that by just masking-taping the drill bit out to the appropriate depth so that I don't go over. Finally a pair of crossbeams goes in and... it's not symmetric. I think “eh you only see those edge-on so who cares” and install the other beams but the lack of symmetry in installation actually really matters because it means that the crossbeams are pushing the posts off-level, which means the shelves are off-level. Whoops. So this “it is finally ready!” moment turns into a “no it’s not!” Then, a clever idea: pre-join the cross-beams together at the center of the X (they were not joined initially) before installing them, so they have to be symmetrical. Slight problem: the predrilled holes from attempt #1 in the side beams are now still pulling the crossbars in weird ways and attempting to mess with the level of the shelves. Solution is to just unfasten the X and swap which beam is proximal and which one is distal, then I can pre-drill the holes again, but I'd better just get the thing wood-glued in place first, even without appropriate clamps, so that I am 100% sure it is not going to take the shelves off level when I put those screws in. Finally everything works. Irrationally undeterred from this success, I am now building a California King bed frame. It is almost exactly 50% complete—there is a facade which is stained but not finished and the center consists of two free-standing “pallets” (not actual pallets, but they look similar) which get bolted together, one pallet is finished and the other is not. Delays so far have mostly been due to other life circumstances coming up, too much to do on weekends and hot weather baking my garage into unsafe temperatures... but there have already been a few overruns. I realized for example that at the outer corners of the bed frame my screws were going to be taking a heck of a lot of torque (the middle should have two posts side-by-side when the two pallets get bolted together, they can be a little lighter-weight) and revised my design to use some metal corner-ties. But those had a different geometry and so the 2x4s on the sides needed to be cut even shorter. Then I realized that I had calculated this ad-hoc cut assuming that it needed to be shorter by a 2x4's width on both sides but I had forgotten that I wasn't doing the same corner ties for the middle posts of the bed that get bolted together, so I bought a new 2x4 and while I was there I bought some tie plates to try to strengthen those middle posts a little more anyways. So we've only overrun the initial cost by 4 tie corners and 4 tie plates and one 2x4 which is not so bad, but still. I do not recommend doing your own woodworking in order to save on cost, it costs a lot of time. I do recommend it if you feel like carpentry connects you to Jesus or if you have a really specific idea about what you want in a space and nobody anywhere seems to be offering that exact thing.
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throwaway0a5e 6y ago
I find the opposite. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. I try to only pay for labor when it's low/medium skill labor paired with a capital investment I don't want to make (e.g. getting new tires on my car and an alignment) or when I'm paying for a member of a professional club for their reputation and club membership (e.g. a lawyer or realtor)
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  There are lots of pros out there who don't know what they are doing. That is true in all fields. Still, I'm certain that there is someone for hire that can outperform an amateur. Even if the final product is good in either case, there are other considerations like time investment (hours and calendar), and opportunity costs.
  - 0xffff2 6y ago
    >Still, I'm certain that there is someone for hire that can outperform an amateur. Differentiating and correctly selecting the true pro out of a lineup of estimates is a skill in and of itself. For most construction tasks, I'm better at the task itself than I am at finding someone who can do it better than I can.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > There are lots of pros out there who don't know what they are doing. Often these pros are also the ones that are easiest to find because the ones that know what they are doing are in high enough demand that they go mainly off word of mouth and friend-of-a-friend type business. We bought a house three years ago that was built in 2006. The number of things I've found that were done just blatantly wrong has soured my opinion of general contract labor quite considerably. I hired someone to fix some water damage by a door about three months after we moved in. The next spring when it rained we had a literal waterfall coming in from the top of the door frame. Never again. I've since torn that entire wall down to the studs, cleaned everything up, put it back together correctly, and rebuilt the attached deck. I don't know how much that would have cost to get fixed by a professional (supposing I could have found one that actually knew what they were doing), but I'm guessing it was easily $10-$20k of work if labor was factored in.
legitster 6y ago
When I engage in a DIY project, there is a 90% chance that my only accomplishment is gaining respect for professionals. Which is not to say it's a wasteful endeavor. Also, shoutout to the Methow! The North Cascades is such a beautiful area in general.
- anticristi 6y ago
  Ditto. Lately I opt for a cheaper way of gaining respect: watching YouTube videos. Once you realise that something takes 30 minutes despite all video editing, you suddenly don't mind paying $1000 for a professionally done job.
  - hnick 6y ago
    I like this approach a lot too, mostly because I hate paying an expert without first knowing enough to know that I'm not getting scammed. And on the plus side, I've found out how easy it is to fix taps and replace door handles and all the simple stuff!
hodgesrm 6y ago
Don't know where you are in the Methow but my parents lived there for many years near Winthrop. The neighbor at their first place was building a do-it-yourself cabin with massive logs. He was killed in an accident when one of them rolled over him. There's bad outcomes and then really bad.
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  The house we had built was in Mazama but we live between Winthrop and Mazama now. A couple of years before we bought our property a man in the community was killed when the snowload collapsed the roof of the rickety shop he was working in at his home.
  - hodgesrm 6y ago
    Best of luck up there. I "found" the Methow on a bicycle trip from Seattle round the Cascade Loop out 2, over to the Okanogan, and back to Seattle on 20. I rode up the stretch of 20 to Mazama near mid-summer's day. It was cool, and horses were gamboling through green meadows on either side of the road. There was still snow on Gardner and the peaks along the Cascade Crest in the distance. Bikes are kind of slow, so there was time to drink the scenery in fully. The Methow is a hard place to visit because you'll need to leave again.
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turtlebits 6y ago
What I learned is that it's okay to just do the things you enjoy. I personally like building the structure. Anything dealing with the ground (digging, grading, etc) and cement are generally much easier to have pros do it as they have the equipment and manpower.
grimgrin 6y ago
In 2007 how did you go about Finding land to buy? Today, would you know of options that are better than just seeing what is available on Zillow and the like? Maybe there are drastic differences in the various online services and some are much better to use than others I wonder what I'm not finding because it isn't listed on Zillow
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  I knew the general area I wanted to buy in and worked with a local real estate agent.
- iijj 6y ago
  If it is a rural area, drive around or use google maps to find empty land you are interested in, then look it up on the county tax site. If it hasn't changed hands in the last 20-30 years, call the owner. People who've owned empty, vacant land for decades tend to have either inherited it or are long term real estate investors. Frequently they will have tried to sell it in the past and not gotten enough interest. Obviously, doesn't work everywhere. Higher demand areas are going to be completely different. But it worked for us when we decided to move to the boonies.
rainyMammoth 6y ago
I think this slightly misses the point. You should still do it yourself if you enjoy the process of learning new skills and challenging yourself to build something new from scratch. I would bet that most people that try to build a cabin do it more as a passion (with bad calculation on timing and cost estimates) than as a way to save money.
drdeadringer 6y ago
> pay pros to do the job On one hand is taking pride in doing something yourself. On the other hand is paying the expert to do it. I know my limitations. In-bounds, I'll do it. Out-of-bounds, I pay the expert. I've learned my lessons and I have no regrets. I say this from a family known for "inherited" stubbornness, cheapness, and generational Great Depression learning.
jhoechtl 6y ago
While most coments seem to agree that it is a futile endeavor, my experience was and is the contrary. I learned that the meme 'let the professionals do their job' actually is an excuse for being lazy and unlearn even basic hand craft skills up to the point of being totally incapable to get along on your own. I admire a meaningful and quick fix more than a professionalistscwork, adhering to piles of regulations for no appearing reason but let many others profit from my money. I also understand that amateur is from latin and actually means to love what you are doing. So get out of your comfort chair, put the gaming controler aside and re-learn some basic skills. With every project it becomes more and more rewarding.
- _nothing 6y ago
  > I admire a meaningful and quick fix more than a professionalistscwork, adhering to piles of regulations for no appearing reason but let many others profit from my money. I have little experience with handiwork but I'm imagining if an amateur developer said this in regards to building a maintainable and scalable application (as I imagine a house to be) from scratch, and scoffing at tedious time-wasters like writing tests and hiring QAs. As an experienced developer I know the tradeoffs of cutting corners and various quick fixes and so can apply them judiciously, but I know if I ended up working on or taking over that codebase, I'd most likely end up having to tear out a lot of that developer's work and redo it, or else have a headache trying to build and improve around it.
bialpio 6y ago
The problem I have with "professionals" in Seattle area is that you pay a lot, and then you have to either have them come back every day to fix all the little things, or just give up and fix them yourself. It is emotionally draining that it's so costly and yet still done in a half-assed way. I may have been unlucky with the contractors, but on the other hand, it's not in their incentive to spend more time on something if they can get away with doing the job less meticulously...
- kbenson 6y ago
  A good, reliable, trustworthy general contractor is is a true treasure. They'll either be able to do it themselves, or refer you to someone they trust, and trust is the most important part of this.
  - ISL 6y ago
    The corollary: When you find a good contractor, pay them well.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > it's not in their incentive to spend more time on something if they can get away with doing the job less meticulously... This is every job ever. Wait until you see the quality of code that runs big backend systems...
  - bialpio 6y ago
    I think that would be true if I were to pay them by the hour. Fortunately, I'm not (at least not in the case of the remodel I'm going through now), but it means it's on me to make sure everything is the way it should be. I guess it's still a way for them to gamble - if I find a problem, they'll come back and fix it, but if I don't, that's some saved time for them. I'm ok to play this game, but it's not making me believe in "pros will do it right".
cko 6y ago
Aside from loving the writing style, I'm glad I read this article and this comment. I was half-heartedly planning to do something like this myself. Despite having zero construction or engineering experience.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I'm stumped how stuck one (I) can feel when building something for the first time. The meaning of know-how became seriously deeper after trying electronics. Needn't be fancy but you have to know, gut feeling, that you know.. know that it's not difficult to think about it.
bluGill 6y ago
I used to do everything myself. Then I got a job far from family. I can no longer call a dozen family members with different skills to help on any project. I do things alone, which means it takes more than 12 times longer. Plus I miss the excuse to get together with the family often when called to help someone else out. I still do things myself, but I'm more and more looking to just hire the bigger things done. I know how to do it, and probably would do it better. But I don't have the time.
cushychicken 6y ago
I love the Methow Valley. Have you ever been to the Methow Valley Chamber Music festival? It's run by a former EE named Howard Johnson, who wrote the book on High Speed Digital Design.
morberg 6y ago
Professional tools make construction a lot easier. I always rent tools and someone that knows how to use them.

TimSchumann 6y ago

> It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. I feel personally attacked. Really though, I wonder how many things are on my 'Someday Maybe' list, that really I should just make more money to accomplish and/or find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic.

bwb 6y ago
I think you are being funny :), but just wanted to chime in and say I think what he is saying is that he didn't enjoy it, so he would rather do something he likes and pay someone to do what he does not :).
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  That's definitely true, but I also realized that the quality of construction would never be close to the level it could be if I used a contractor. I'm a stickler for quality so it would have driven me crazy. I did somewhat enjoy the electrical work and have done some more of that on our house. If I can partially retire any time soon I'd love to apprentice with a master electrician and do some work on my own. There has been a huge building boom in our valley the last couple of years and most of the contractors and trades are booked out to 2022 for big jobs.
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    You might not need to wait that long. I know union electricians in NCW making quite a bit more than most software engineers i know. Some are clearing 6 figures their second year.
MikeTheGreat 6y ago
> find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic. I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". Downhill extreme mountain biking is really cool. And fun to watch. And expensive. And requires much more physical fitness than I've got. And dangerous (esp. given my physical fitness :). )
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". So true! Works for a lot of things. It's why I stopped playing dota.
  - thefounder 6y ago
    Ha ha! I bet you spend less time warching than you would spend playing so that is another big win(for me at least).
  - screye 6y ago
    Stopping dota was the single most important decision of my life. It is an incredible game, that consumes an incredible amount of mind-space even when you're not playing it. Dota - the worst 'awesome thing' that can happen to your life.
    - grogenaut 6y ago
      Maybe the reason I was able to get to 775 MMR was because it occupied 0 of my mind-space when I wasn't playing it :)
  - pseudobry 6y ago
    Have you watched https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol ?
  - oblio 6y ago
atourgates 6y ago
If you have the opportunity (and can find contractors willing to work with you), picking out parts of a project to DIY is a good way to build skills, and save $$s. We're building a shop. I've contracted most of the build out, but found that I could save $20,000+ by DIY'ing the radiant heat portion myself. Took about a days worth of planning and research, another to lay down the pipe before the floor was poured, and another to hook everything up. Honestly, the cost-differential was enough to make me think that I should start a company that installs radiant heating. I can't think of many other professions where I could clear $20,000 for 3-days of work. I'm planning to DIY the solar-install on the same shop here in a couple of months, we'll see if that's as much of success story.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  It’s funny how when you’re young you it’s hard to learn about these types of things. My wife went to school with a guy who didn’t like college. He took a summer job on a road crew, learned how to use an excavator and got hooked. Dropped out, saved up, and bought a used dump truck, which basically made him. Started out hauling stuff and then got into water/sewer work and excavation. He’s up to about 20 trucks a decade later, and pays the bills with the sewer work. He leveraged the assets he had (trucks, diggers) and won demolition contracts — they make money on demolition. Like $75-200k for an emergency demolition if they can get there in 90m.
  - hourislate 6y ago
    Have a buddy who got a Finance Degree. Was hired into a large financial/invest firm in a great position and salary. 1 -2 years and couldn't take it, quit to go drywall with his two older brothers. When he quit his job the parents wept. He was the first kid to go/finish University in the family. It went from 3 guys hanging board to a 40-50 million construction company in 2 decades.
    - oigursh 6y ago
      What's the company?
LeifCarrotson 6y ago
Beware of falling into the trap of replacing everything on your "Someday maybe" list with Youtube subscriptions. Did that for a while, don't have much to show for 2017. Watching someone make/do cool stuff and put it on the Internet satisfies similar dopamine reward functions as actually doing it yourself, with a lot less effort. Except you didn't actually do it, you watched someone else do it. Same with actually making a "Someday maybe" list, writing down the goal feels like it's something you're accomplishing even though it's not actually started yet. When you look back on your summer/year, what will you have accomplished? What skills will you have developed? If you don't really value a process/skill, but just want the material result (i.e. a cabin), pay a pro for it. If you just have an itch that needs to be scratched, watch someone else do it on Youtube. If you want it to be a part of who you are, pruning your list by moving items to the former two strategies should leave you enough time to develop it yourself.
- foobiekr 6y ago
  As someone rapidly approaching "old", this is the exact mode of thinking I now occupy much of the time. It's awful to think of how many summers I've passed working on code or, worse, powerpoints and documents, in a 71F office. I know quite a few very senior people who are proper old, and when I mentioned this to one of them, his response was, "at this point I'm glad to be alive, and no one glad to be alive has time for that stuff." This was just before he retired.
cercatrova 6y ago
Do people really watch YouTube or something and feel like the accomplished whatever is shown in the video? I am asking with full earnestness as I've always viewed such r/ArtisanVideos type videos as pure entertainment.
- saltcured 6y ago
  I think it might be more accurate to say that some people have more trouble distinguishing mild curiosity from "I should do that thing." And I don't mean that in a demeaning way at all. If anything, such folks have found a middle path in life. At opposite extremes, you have folks who actually have to go do all those things versus those who can squelch their own interest in nearly anything by merely thinking about it for a few moments...

sevencolors 6y ago

Yeah it sounds like a nice romantic dream, but mother nature is cold and uncaring. Maybe the article overstated their woes, but it sounds like they were very under prepared. And winging the technical parts. Like software the easy part is the build. The harder part is research and planning. I have notions of retiring someday and run a wood shop. But I'm working on learning the basics and doing small projects.

crdrost 6y ago
Yeah, there's a lot there to learn, too. My plan to build a custom shelf unit for our kitchen went over-time and over-budget (in the small). Reason: once it was made it became apparent that it lacked strength against skewing deformations, which would not happen ‘laterally’ given where it was sitting but would happen ‘dorsoventrally.’ (Apologies for the anatomical language—it could wiggle side-to-side along its width and who cares because there are walls on either side, but if it wiggles back and forth away from the wall behind it then maybe things start falling off of it or maybe it just collapses some day.) This sort of problem is of course solved with crossbeams, but like then I had to buy a bunch of wood that was the right width, calculate an approximate length and miter angle for four pieces, of course I did not have the tools to make pocket holes properly (woodworking co-ops closed, thanks COVID) so I just did it roughly (you predrill the screw hole backwards from the flush surface back to the side of the lumber, then you use that hole to guide drilling the pocket) and of course I screwed up one of these four by drilling the pocket too deep because I didn’t have a drill press (thanks again COVID) and so I start low-teching that by just masking-taping the drill bit out to the appropriate depth so that I don't go over. Finally a pair of crossbeams goes in and... it's not symmetric. I think “eh you only see those edge-on so who cares” and install the other beams but the lack of symmetry in installation actually really matters because it means that the crossbeams are pushing the posts off-level, which means the shelves are off-level. Whoops. So this “it is finally ready!” moment turns into a “no it’s not!” Then, a clever idea: pre-join the cross-beams together at the center of the X (they were not joined initially) before installing them, so they have to be symmetrical. Slight problem: the predrilled holes from attempt #1 in the side beams are now still pulling the crossbars in weird ways and attempting to mess with the level of the shelves. Solution is to just unfasten the X and swap which beam is proximal and which one is distal, then I can pre-drill the holes again, but I'd better just get the thing wood-glued in place first, even without appropriate clamps, so that I am 100% sure it is not going to take the shelves off level when I put those screws in. Finally everything works. Irrationally undeterred from this success, I am now building a California King bed frame. It is almost exactly 50% complete—there is a facade which is stained but not finished and the center consists of two free-standing “pallets” (not actual pallets, but they look similar) which get bolted together, one pallet is finished and the other is not. Delays so far have mostly been due to other life circumstances coming up, too much to do on weekends and hot weather baking my garage into unsafe temperatures... but there have already been a few overruns. I realized for example that at the outer corners of the bed frame my screws were going to be taking a heck of a lot of torque (the middle should have two posts side-by-side when the two pallets get bolted together, they can be a little lighter-weight) and revised my design to use some metal corner-ties. But those had a different geometry and so the 2x4s on the sides needed to be cut even shorter. Then I realized that I had calculated this ad-hoc cut assuming that it needed to be shorter by a 2x4's width on both sides but I had forgotten that I wasn't doing the same corner ties for the middle posts of the bed that get bolted together, so I bought a new 2x4 and while I was there I bought some tie plates to try to strengthen those middle posts a little more anyways. So we've only overrun the initial cost by 4 tie corners and 4 tie plates and one 2x4 which is not so bad, but still. I do not recommend doing your own woodworking in order to save on cost, it costs a lot of time. I do recommend it if you feel like carpentry connects you to Jesus or if you have a really specific idea about what you want in a space and nobody anywhere seems to be offering that exact thing.

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throwaway0a5e 6y ago

I find the opposite. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. I try to only pay for labor when it's low/medium skill labor paired with a capital investment I don't want to make (e.g. getting new tires on my car and an alignment) or when I'm paying for a member of a professional club for their reputation and club membership (e.g. a lawyer or realtor)

Skunkleton 6y ago
There are lots of pros out there who don't know what they are doing. That is true in all fields. Still, I'm certain that there is someone for hire that can outperform an amateur. Even if the final product is good in either case, there are other considerations like time investment (hours and calendar), and opportunity costs.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  >Still, I'm certain that there is someone for hire that can outperform an amateur. Differentiating and correctly selecting the true pro out of a lineup of estimates is a skill in and of itself. For most construction tasks, I'm better at the task itself than I am at finding someone who can do it better than I can.
- war1025 6y ago
  > There are lots of pros out there who don't know what they are doing. Often these pros are also the ones that are easiest to find because the ones that know what they are doing are in high enough demand that they go mainly off word of mouth and friend-of-a-friend type business. We bought a house three years ago that was built in 2006. The number of things I've found that were done just blatantly wrong has soured my opinion of general contract labor quite considerably. I hired someone to fix some water damage by a door about three months after we moved in. The next spring when it rained we had a literal waterfall coming in from the top of the door frame. Never again. I've since torn that entire wall down to the studs, cleaned everything up, put it back together correctly, and rebuilt the attached deck. I don't know how much that would have cost to get fixed by a professional (supposing I could have found one that actually knew what they were doing), but I'm guessing it was easily $10-$20k of work if labor was factored in.

legitster 6y ago

When I engage in a DIY project, there is a 90% chance that my only accomplishment is gaining respect for professionals. Which is not to say it's a wasteful endeavor. Also, shoutout to the Methow! The North Cascades is such a beautiful area in general.

anticristi 6y ago
Ditto. Lately I opt for a cheaper way of gaining respect: watching YouTube videos. Once you realise that something takes 30 minutes despite all video editing, you suddenly don't mind paying $1000 for a professionally done job.
- hnick 6y ago
  I like this approach a lot too, mostly because I hate paying an expert without first knowing enough to know that I'm not getting scammed. And on the plus side, I've found out how easy it is to fix taps and replace door handles and all the simple stuff!

hodgesrm 6y ago

Don't know where you are in the Methow but my parents lived there for many years near Winthrop. The neighbor at their first place was building a do-it-yourself cabin with massive logs. He was killed in an accident when one of them rolled over him. There's bad outcomes and then really bad.

kyleblarson 6y ago
The house we had built was in Mazama but we live between Winthrop and Mazama now. A couple of years before we bought our property a man in the community was killed when the snowload collapsed the roof of the rickety shop he was working in at his home.
- hodgesrm 6y ago
  Best of luck up there. I "found" the Methow on a bicycle trip from Seattle round the Cascade Loop out 2, over to the Okanogan, and back to Seattle on 20. I rode up the stretch of 20 to Mazama near mid-summer's day. It was cool, and horses were gamboling through green meadows on either side of the road. There was still snow on Gardner and the peaks along the Cascade Crest in the distance. Bikes are kind of slow, so there was time to drink the scenery in fully. The Methow is a hard place to visit because you'll need to leave again.

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turtlebits 6y ago

What I learned is that it's okay to just do the things you enjoy. I personally like building the structure. Anything dealing with the ground (digging, grading, etc) and cement are generally much easier to have pros do it as they have the equipment and manpower.

grimgrin 6y ago

In 2007 how did you go about Finding land to buy? Today, would you know of options that are better than just seeing what is available on Zillow and the like? Maybe there are drastic differences in the various online services and some are much better to use than others I wonder what I'm not finding because it isn't listed on Zillow

kyleblarson 6y ago
I knew the general area I wanted to buy in and worked with a local real estate agent.
iijj 6y ago
If it is a rural area, drive around or use google maps to find empty land you are interested in, then look it up on the county tax site. If it hasn't changed hands in the last 20-30 years, call the owner. People who've owned empty, vacant land for decades tend to have either inherited it or are long term real estate investors. Frequently they will have tried to sell it in the past and not gotten enough interest. Obviously, doesn't work everywhere. Higher demand areas are going to be completely different. But it worked for us when we decided to move to the boonies.

rainyMammoth 6y ago

I think this slightly misses the point. You should still do it yourself if you enjoy the process of learning new skills and challenging yourself to build something new from scratch. I would bet that most people that try to build a cabin do it more as a passion (with bad calculation on timing and cost estimates) than as a way to save money.

drdeadringer 6y ago

> pay pros to do the job On one hand is taking pride in doing something yourself. On the other hand is paying the expert to do it. I know my limitations. In-bounds, I'll do it. Out-of-bounds, I pay the expert. I've learned my lessons and I have no regrets. I say this from a family known for "inherited" stubbornness, cheapness, and generational Great Depression learning.

jhoechtl 6y ago

While most coments seem to agree that it is a futile endeavor, my experience was and is the contrary. I learned that the meme 'let the professionals do their job' actually is an excuse for being lazy and unlearn even basic hand craft skills up to the point of being totally incapable to get along on your own. I admire a meaningful and quick fix more than a professionalistscwork, adhering to piles of regulations for no appearing reason but let many others profit from my money. I also understand that amateur is from latin and actually means to love what you are doing. So get out of your comfort chair, put the gaming controler aside and re-learn some basic skills. With every project it becomes more and more rewarding.

_nothing 6y ago
> I admire a meaningful and quick fix more than a professionalistscwork, adhering to piles of regulations for no appearing reason but let many others profit from my money. I have little experience with handiwork but I'm imagining if an amateur developer said this in regards to building a maintainable and scalable application (as I imagine a house to be) from scratch, and scoffing at tedious time-wasters like writing tests and hiring QAs. As an experienced developer I know the tradeoffs of cutting corners and various quick fixes and so can apply them judiciously, but I know if I ended up working on or taking over that codebase, I'd most likely end up having to tear out a lot of that developer's work and redo it, or else have a headache trying to build and improve around it.

bialpio 6y ago

The problem I have with "professionals" in Seattle area is that you pay a lot, and then you have to either have them come back every day to fix all the little things, or just give up and fix them yourself. It is emotionally draining that it's so costly and yet still done in a half-assed way. I may have been unlucky with the contractors, but on the other hand, it's not in their incentive to spend more time on something if they can get away with doing the job less meticulously...

kbenson 6y ago
A good, reliable, trustworthy general contractor is is a true treasure. They'll either be able to do it themselves, or refer you to someone they trust, and trust is the most important part of this.
- ISL 6y ago
  The corollary: When you find a good contractor, pay them well.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
> it's not in their incentive to spend more time on something if they can get away with doing the job less meticulously... This is every job ever. Wait until you see the quality of code that runs big backend systems...
- bialpio 6y ago
  I think that would be true if I were to pay them by the hour. Fortunately, I'm not (at least not in the case of the remodel I'm going through now), but it means it's on me to make sure everything is the way it should be. I guess it's still a way for them to gamble - if I find a problem, they'll come back and fix it, but if I don't, that's some saved time for them. I'm ok to play this game, but it's not making me believe in "pros will do it right".

cko 6y ago

Aside from loving the writing style, I'm glad I read this article and this comment. I was half-heartedly planning to do something like this myself. Despite having zero construction or engineering experience.

agumonkey 6y ago
I'm stumped how stuck one (I) can feel when building something for the first time. The meaning of know-how became seriously deeper after trying electronics. Needn't be fancy but you have to know, gut feeling, that you know.. know that it's not difficult to think about it.

bluGill 6y ago

I used to do everything myself. Then I got a job far from family. I can no longer call a dozen family members with different skills to help on any project. I do things alone, which means it takes more than 12 times longer. Plus I miss the excuse to get together with the family often when called to help someone else out. I still do things myself, but I'm more and more looking to just hire the bigger things done. I know how to do it, and probably would do it better. But I don't have the time.

cushychicken 6y ago

I love the Methow Valley. Have you ever been to the Methow Valley Chamber Music festival? It's run by a former EE named Howard Johnson, who wrote the book on High Speed Digital Design.

morberg 6y ago

Professional tools make construction a lot easier. I always rent tools and someone that knows how to use them.