4 ms·

This is the type of house that gets published in architecture and "Home" magazines as inspiration. The thing is most of those houses do a bit of media and adver

This is the type of house that gets published in architecture and "Home" magazines as inspiration. The thing is most of those houses do a bit of media and advertising to help pay costs. It's partly sponsored and used by architects to sell their services. The "FU Money" emanating from this article is palpable. Good for OP - it's amazing, but boy sometimes the shit you read from tech folk is so detached from the regular every-day experience of regular people. "Building a modern home in the woods", really?

brailsafe 5y ago
Well.. it depends. I'm not making any uncharitable assumptions about the author's intentions. The entire article could say "I bought a house near Vancouver" and you'd be expecting the person to be extremely well-off, because it'll cost $1.5m anyway. It's obviously a little disingenuous to call it a "modern home in the woods" because it's definitely not a humble bungalow, but whatever. I just find it a little silly to keep implying budgetary constraints and keeping costs as low as possible, but not providing any context for what that really means. The house does look pretty nice, and while I don't care for Pemberton much, it's seems like a decent build.
- prawn 5y ago
  "modern home in the woods" because it's definitely not a humble bungalow Why would a "modern home" in the woods need to be a humble bungalow? He hasn't termed it affordable or DIY. It could be a $100k tiny house and someone living in their car would gripe. This sort of thing seems to happen every time someone writes for their audience and an adjacent audience finds it; just doesn't seem like a very charitable reading of their intentions. It's more expensive than I could afford, but I liked reading about the process and seeing what they built. I also enjoy reading about tiny houses, people living in their vans, $100m mansions, chateau conversions, anything. I liked Architectural Digest's tour of JJ Redick's apartment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDNGVmHxn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDNGVmHxn4 He has all that money yet the kids still fight about Lego, and neither kid can be convinced to sleep on the top bunk. And then their patio is near-unusable due to construction noise.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    I also enjoyed reading it, and didn't mean to imply otherwise, but I think there's a few bits, particularly starting with "we could only afford the land and couldn't agree on a timeline for paying for a house" (paraphrase) that implies it's going to be a more gradual humble project, perhaps like Les Stroud's off grid home in the woods https://youtu.be/hWfgxxZl5Tg https://youtu.be/hWfgxxZl5Tg
    - prawn 5y ago
      That's more about your interpretation than their intent, right? If it had said dirt-cheap or humble or hand-built or similar, then they've implied something they didn't deliver. The only time the word "humble" is used at all is in describing the architects. My house is pretty standard. It would be a hovel for someone living in a palace but a palace to someone sharing a dirty apartment. I would describe my experience building it in terms of what I could or couldn't afford along the way relative to who I was and what I understood. Just as the author did. So many comments on the HN story got caught up on what the reader was expecting from the link. It was modern and it was in the woods!

brailsafe 5y ago

Well.. it depends. I'm not making any uncharitable assumptions about the author's intentions. The entire article could say "I bought a house near Vancouver" and you'd be expecting the person to be extremely well-off, because it'll cost $1.5m anyway. It's obviously a little disingenuous to call it a "modern home in the woods" because it's definitely not a humble bungalow, but whatever. I just find it a little silly to keep implying budgetary constraints and keeping costs as low as possible, but not providing any context for what that really means. The house does look pretty nice, and while I don't care for Pemberton much, it's seems like a decent build.

prawn 5y ago
"modern home in the woods" because it's definitely not a humble bungalow Why would a "modern home" in the woods need to be a humble bungalow? He hasn't termed it affordable or DIY. It could be a $100k tiny house and someone living in their car would gripe. This sort of thing seems to happen every time someone writes for their audience and an adjacent audience finds it; just doesn't seem like a very charitable reading of their intentions. It's more expensive than I could afford, but I liked reading about the process and seeing what they built. I also enjoy reading about tiny houses, people living in their vans, $100m mansions, chateau conversions, anything. I liked Architectural Digest's tour of JJ Redick's apartment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDNGVmHxn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDNGVmHxn4 He has all that money yet the kids still fight about Lego, and neither kid can be convinced to sleep on the top bunk. And then their patio is near-unusable due to construction noise.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  I also enjoyed reading it, and didn't mean to imply otherwise, but I think there's a few bits, particularly starting with "we could only afford the land and couldn't agree on a timeline for paying for a house" (paraphrase) that implies it's going to be a more gradual humble project, perhaps like Les Stroud's off grid home in the woods https://youtu.be/hWfgxxZl5Tg https://youtu.be/hWfgxxZl5Tg
  - prawn 5y ago
    That's more about your interpretation than their intent, right? If it had said dirt-cheap or humble or hand-built or similar, then they've implied something they didn't deliver. The only time the word "humble" is used at all is in describing the architects. My house is pretty standard. It would be a hovel for someone living in a palace but a palace to someone sharing a dirty apartment. I would describe my experience building it in terms of what I could or couldn't afford along the way relative to who I was and what I understood. Just as the author did. So many comments on the HN story got caught up on what the reader was expecting from the link. It was modern and it was in the woods!