(Cool) Cabin Fever

All the latest goss on the 650-square-foot straw-panel cottage we're building in the Hudson Valley, plus a chat with the architect (aka, my partner😬) about why small really is so spectacular.

Welcome back to our “Future Cottage” series, tracking the progress, the challenges, and the breakthroughs as we build a modern, energy-efficient cabin for under $120k (the budget began at $100k, but, yeah, the pandemic changed all that). As part of our ATA Paid Family, more updates will be coming to you monthly, so stay tuned as our Future Cottage finds its groove.

When I was little, my neighbor Jennifer and I used to pretend we were squirrels stocking up for winter. Her home was landscaped with these beautiful berry bushes that created dramatic canopies that were perfect for two five year-olds hiding out, collecting rocks, leaves, leftover Cheez-Its, and anything else we thought would sustain us through a long, cold Long Island winter. We never had a fort growing up, but some of my friends did, and it was dreamy (if not a little terrifying) climbing up some rickety homemade steps into a wooden tree-house…a hideaway that offered us a vastly different vantage point from which to see our not-so-little worlds.

I think that’s part of the appeal of building something small…out there, somewhere in nature, or a field, or in a side yard…wherever you can find a plot of land and imagine there is a refuge someplace that’s yours to create however you can dream it. Which sounds very romantic, I know. In fact, building even a simple 650-square-foot cabin is complicated. And expensive. And if you want to be as sustainably minded as possible, it can be even more costly and/or time-consuming to source the materials and mechanics to work with nature and our shifting environment as much as you can.

Well…we’re trying!