Cabinology (CABINS) Encore with Dale Mulfinger

The time is right to revisit cabins: Log cabins, woodsy getaways, A-frame cuties, cottages, tiny homes, lake houses. WE GET INTO IT, including 2024 updates. World famous Minnesota architect, author, professional cabinologist and human delight Dale Mulfinger sits down to discuss everything from what makes a cabin a cabin, to why we bond better surrounded by wood, Scandinavian hygge-ness, where to situate windows, cabin history, horror flicks and vacation activities. Alie sits there starry-eyed and stammers a bunch because she's so excited.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

  How's your ponytail looking? Maybe like a little thinner than it used to? We've talked about this in our menopause episode. At some point, it's bound to happen to all of us. So if you're ready for thicker, fuller hair, start your free online visit today at forhers.com/ologies for personalized care. So that's F O R H E R S dot com slash ologies. Individual results may vary. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. Being safer on the road starts with the person behind the wheel. That's Mazda's philosophy when designing every vehicle.

• 0:42Alie Ward?

  Their proactive safety features help keep you more aware, connected, and engaged during every drive, which means your car does more than help protect you. It makes you a safer driver, which helps protect everyone. That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. To learn more, visit mazdausa.com. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Your body has a lot going on. Sleep, stress, recovery. You would be surprised how connected it all is. Aura Ring tracks more than 50 metrics from your finger, and the Aura app brings that information together to help you see patterns across your sleep, and stress, activity, and more.

• 1:26Alie Ward?

  So you can start connecting the dots and figure out what works for you. Learn more at auraring.com. Wear your best life with Aura. Hi there, 2024. Ally here to say this is a cozy encore of an episode that is a pure delight. Such a treat. I love it. One of my faves. And it's woodsy, it's chill, it's cozy. We recorded it a few years back, but I've added in some updates. Okay, enjoy. Oh, hey, it's that friend who can't sit at a diner table without making modular sculptures with the half and half creamers. Can't not do it. Ally Ward back with another episode of Ologies. Okay, but before we hit the road, let's make a pit stop at Thank

• 2:10Alie Ward?

  Thank you, Bill, to say thanks to all the folks supporting this podcast on Patreon. I literally could not make the show without you. Thank you to all the folks wearing Ologies merch on your actual, physical bodies and talking up the show to your fam while you make pies. Thank you to everyone who for $0 rates and subscribes and leaves the reviews for me to read, because you know I do, like a lady creep, and then I read you unaloud, such as this fresh one from CrazyDogMom1227, who compared me to a gently excited Richard Simmons, but for science instead of high kicks, and said that, "I'll teach you about all sorts of things, especially things that you didn't think you'd find interesting. Here's looking at you, tics," they say. Also, thank you Fabulous with four As for the review.

• 2:55Alie Ward?

  You have my permission to cry in the car now on the way to work. Okay, cabinology. Woo, how boy howdy. Let me say right now, I love cabins. I think I'm obsessed with them. Like, I look for cheap deals to rent them. I have dreams about them. I Pinterest them. I don't Pinterest anything. I covet them. I admire them. And in fact, this past week, I found a photo in my phone from five years ago I took of one of this guest's books, without even knowing who he was or that I would meet him. I follow many hashtag cabin porn Instagrams, which has everything to do with cabins, literally nothing to do with naked people. I see pictures of cabins that I want to hug too hard, like something cute that you'd squeeze to the point of peril.

• 3:40Alie Ward?

  So let's dive into a subject I could not be more excited about. Okay, so the word cabin comes from the Latin for hut, and P.S. cabana is related. How did I never realize that? Duh, wow, okay. So cabinology is a relatively new but established term. It was coined in relation to thisologist's work and career. I first became aware of this ology blissfully enough, actually, while in a lodge in the wilds of Montana. It was the summer of 2017. I was surrounded by my huge, weird family that I love. And side note, my dad is one of 11 kids, and so the Ward family reunions, they're roughly half the size of, like, a Summer Music Festival, Thoroughparty.

• 4:22Alie Ward?

  And I was drinking an evening margarita out of a chipped coffee mug and the sounds of my elders crushing each other in a pinnacle game two tables over. I thumbed through this outdoorsy magazine. I saw the byline of this very guest touting himself as a cabinologist. I was like, hot damn, I vowed to myself, I will find this cabinologist when I finally launch that Ologies podcast in my future and I will interview him. And so indeed I did, and you're about to listen to it. The stuff dreams are made of. So I made my way to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where his headquarters of his architecture firm are. It's Sala, which he said means special room in Italian, and it also stands for the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

• 5:02Alie Ward?

  So I went up some breezy stairs to his crisp downtown office, filled with light wood and clean lines, high ceilings, a lot of airy white, and we cabin chatted. So we cover, what is a cabin? When does a cabin just become a house? And why are they so cozy? And what makes cabins horror flick fodder? How's a summer cabin visit different than a winter one? How do you build one? What about those weird franking cabins built out of old stuff from a bunch of different buildings? How big should the windows be and which way should they face? How do you even design a cabin? And in all caps, bold italics, why are cabins the best?

• 5:42Alie Ward?

  So come watch the sunset, drag a chair to the fire pit, pour a mug of whatever's handy, and breathe in an episode with architect, author, expert, and a warm, bright lantern of a person, cabinologist Dale Mulfinger.

• 6:18Alie Ward?

  And I might make you scooch into this just a little bit more. These are like stage mics, so they're like, get on up in it. I know you are a cabinologist.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  I am a cabinologist. It was anointed upon me by an external person, actually a radio personality, who upon hearing that I was researching cabins with students at the university, he...

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Announced on the radio that I must be a cabinologist. So I consider myself having an instantaneous PhD.

• 6:53Alie Ward?

  How long ago is that?

• 6:55Speaker 01

  That was probably about 15 years ago.

• 6:57Alie Ward?

  Were you like, "Well, I'm changing my business cards."

• 7:00Speaker 01

  That's it, yeah. I adopted it immediately and I've been using it since. And I wrote a book called Cabinology after it. And I always credit this person who, you know, who gave me that name. I didn't invent it for myself.

• 7:15Alie Ward?

  Quick aside, credit goes to Minnesota Garage Logic radio host Joe Satchery for dropping that C-word so, so many years ago. Now, as for Dale's bibliography, it's extensive. So between designing cabins, he's also managed to churn out a bunch of books, including The Cabin: Inspiration for the Classic American Getaway; The Getaway Home; Family Cabin: Inspiration for Camps, Cottages, and Cabins; Cabinology: A Handbook to Your Private Hideaway. So in his author bio, he is credited as a cabinologist. The dude has earned it. You've been a cabinologist for, you know, at least 15 years. But how long have you been a cabinologist in practice? Not just in title?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Well, probably about 30 years ago. As a part of my architectural practice, which we design residential homes, I was asked to do my first cabin design. And I realized then that I didn't grow up, although I grew up in cabin world, I, Minnesota and Wisconsin, I didn't grow up with a cabin in my family background. So I'd not spent much time there. And as I might often do, when I get asked to design something I'm not used to, I try and do some research. And in this instance, I thought, "Well, it'd be fun to do some research with my students at the university." So I hustled a few students over to do a summer class.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  And the essence of the summer class was, "Well, let's go out into cabin land." And every student, and myself included, would have to document 10 cabins. And out of that 10 cabins, we would say, "Which cabin feels more cabin-like than any of the rest? And why?" And so, as I was telling them, "Search for the quintessential cabin."

• 9:09Alie Ward?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  So, we did that, and we, I think, learned a little bit along that process. And a good friend of mine, who had, was editor of a local magazine, said, "Well, if you find anything interesting in this process, why don't you write an article in my magazine?" So, I wrote my first article, and then I wrote my second article, and third and fourth, and ultimately seventy-two articles.

• 9:33Alie Ward?

  Oh, my God.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Over twelve years. Heck, yeah. Always researching, and, and, so, these were little brief vignettes about some cabin that interested me for some reason. So, vertical log, we're all familiar with horizontal log cabins, but all of a sudden, there are, I noticed some that have vertical logs, which turns out that it's an old French trappers' method. So, coming into Minnesota and the northern part of the country, and northern Wisconsin, you have French trappers who made quick cabins, and the vertical log technique allowed them essentially, single-handedly, to make a simple shelter.

• 10:11Alie Ward?

  Okay, so, side note, I looked these up, and apparently, vertical log cabins are also easier to build because you can use a bunch of ten-foot-tall logs up and down instead of having to find and drag perfectly straight twenty-to-forty-foot logs to lay horizontally. Now, in addition to vertical logs just being more slimming than horizontal logs, they were also tested by time. So, before the French fur trappers tramped about harvesting beavers and such, indigenous folks like the Yerick tribes and the Chinook peoples had been building vertical plank houses out of cedar in the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. They knew what was up.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  And that tradition sustained itself for a while. So, you know, finding out why vertical log, who did it, that, you know, all those things are fun. It's fun to see somebody turn a...

• 11:08Speaker 01

  A building that you wouldn't expect to be a cabin into a cabin, a church or a small church or a school or whatever, a boxcar, a train car, a caboose. You know, so that, so a lot of cabins are inventive as to somebody's got a crazy idea and they say, oh, that'd be fun as a cabin, and so they just try it. Metal containers, buildings?

• 11:31Alie Ward?

  So Dale explained two things that separate cabins from houses, or one, cabins typically don't have garages, and the master bedrooms don't usually have en suite bathrooms. So, rather than hide away in your big bedroom, using your toilet away from the rest of the family, all the bedrooms tend to branch off a main living space. So, people can spend this time in nature bonding together and being lovingly in each other's business.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  So, privacy is not a particularly big issue in a cabin?

• 12:07Alie Ward?

  Tell me a little bit about square footage. Can you have a 2,000 square foot cabin?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:12Alie Ward?

  Okay, you can.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:14Alie Ward?

  So what makes it a cabin?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  I think what makes it a cabin are some of its attributes, how it flows, whether it captures views or things that are important to the land that you're connected to. But yes, you can have a larger structure that is a cabin, maybe because you're gathering a lot of people there. So, my last book that I wrote was called The Family Cabin, and it probably has projects in it that range from 400 square feet to 2,500 square feet practically. And some cabins are created for extended families. So, I have one for two sisters, they're each married, so they have husbands, they each have four kids, so now we're talking about whatever that is, 12 people. Grandma and grandpa show up, there's 14.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  You can't do that in a 400 square foot structure. So you need more space, more place for the activities of those youth as they're growing and changing and they're eventually bringing the Boy Scout troop with them or whatever. So, yes, cabins can be of quite a variety of sizes. At some point, when they get too large, we might call them a lodge.

• 13:19Alie Ward?

  Oh, I hadn't thought about that.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  The family lodge.

• 13:22Alie Ward?

  Yeah, I wonder if there's a lodgeology out there?

• 13:25Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 13:26Alie Ward?

  I'm gonna have to look into it.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Somebody's gonna have to step into the void.

• 13:30Alie Ward?

  Okay, side note, I found one record for logiology from 1961 and I wanted to tell you about it. It's from the University of Montana when the Student Union Gathering Center was called "The Lodge," and logiology was deemed by students the most popular course in sport on campus. One student said, "The most popular phases of the logiology course are smoking 101 and advanced time-killing 201," which I suppose nowadays, I guess, would be upgraded to introduction to vaping. Perhaps extra credit fixing the cultural and climatological mess we have inherited. Not to get too dark. Anyway, enough of lodges. Where are cabins?

• 14:11Alie Ward?

  Now, in terms of the culture of cabins in this part of the country, because there are more lakes, are there more cabins? Is this the best place to be a cabinologist?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  I think this is one of the premier places to be a cabinologist because we really, really do have an incredible cabin culture here, particularly in the Twin Cities. And we go out to the lakes of Minnesota and/or the lakes of Wisconsin because although we may be better known for our lakes, Wisconsin actually has quite a number of them as well. So, we probably have more cabin users per capita than any other part of the country. And part of that is that when you're on the coast, for instance, where there certainly are getaway places, often when you have a place on the coast, it might be referred to as a cottage, seaside cottage, rather than a cabin.

• 15:04Alie Ward?

  Cabins plus etymology. I'm dying right now. If you can't hear this in my voice, I was like starry-eyed, floating in a cloud this entire interview. Dale Mulfinger is like the Beyonce of cabin designers.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  There are some names that we, that cabin competes with. And if you go into the Adirondacks or in upper New England, you will come across the name "camp." Which is commonly used for what we, we here in the Midwest and/or further west might refer to as a cabin. And the name camp shows up again down in the bayous of Louisiana. Not quite sure of the origins of that, other than I think a lot of cabins in there, in the early days in New England, were created as a part of an ensemble of many structures and were part of what we might think of as a camp environment.

• 15:55Alie Ward?

  Oh, like, maybe there's a main lodge and then some outbuildings that are the camps.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yes, right. And also the name cottage shows up. So you can take the same structure and slide it first out of Minnesota. It might be called a cabin in Minnesota, but head further east and get to Michigan, it might be called a cottage, particularly if it's along Lake Michigan. And then if you hit the Adirondacks, it'll be a camp. And then if you slide it all the way to the coast of Maine, it'll be back to being a cottage again.

• 16:23Alie Ward?

  And what are some of your favorite styles of cabin? A-frame, log cabin, modern?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  All of the above.

• 16:30Alie Ward?

  All of the above.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  I really am fascinated by the variety. So no one singular thing stands out. I'm as fascinated with an A-framed, or a log cabin, or a very contemporary structure, or one made out of containers. Yeah, they all interest me and I love designing all of them. So it's not just a matter of recording what others have done, but also being faced with the challenge of design and trying to determine with my clients what seems most applicable for them and their situation.

• 17:04Alie Ward?

  So he likes to freestyle, as well as hark back to traditional designs of yore. Now, speaking of history, Dale grew up on a dairy farm. And according to a 2013 article in the Star Tribune, he had said about dairy farming that when he was a kid and his blue ribbon yearling died, he knew that he didn't want to be a farmer. But he was great at drafting, so he enrolled in the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota. In a time when you had to be really good at rulers, and pencils, and precision, there was no Command Z.

• 17:39Alie Ward?

  And getting to your design career, when did you start in architecture? When did you know that you were an architect?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  I went into the university wondering what I might be doing, but I had excelled in drafting in high school and so started into architecture at the university and gradually got to enjoy it more and more and more and did quite well by the time I was exiting school, not so well when I started. And then I worked for the first decade, actually, in urban design. So, nothing to do with small little buildings, but rather city planning and large-scale structures. And then, probably in about 10 years out into my working career, I started gradually to work on smaller things.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  When I got to houses, I really enjoyed being invited to dinner after you were all done. So out of that came a firm, which is now Sala. And an initial partner, Sarah Soschenka, who wrote a book called The Not So Big House, which made her kind of famous. So we had a pretty swift start as a career, in her and I, in creating a firm that does houses. And out of houses came the possibility of doing a second home for someone, which then led me to Cabin World.

• 19:00Alie Ward?

  Okay, so a quick side note. I was wondering, how many people have a second home, though? It's so hard to get just one. So I looked it up, and according to 2017 stats, 9.3 million Americans live in a house that has a second home. So, a very slim percentage. But I did some digging, and one figure estimated that folks in the state of Minnesota are three times more likely to own a cabin or a lake house than the rest of Americans. But the average age of cabin ownership is 68, and no one's quite sure what's going to happen. Are millennials going to take over the cabins? Are they going to sell them? Who knows? But Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes. That's a lot of shoreline to cozy up to. So Dale's in the right place.

• 19:44Alie Ward?

  But what about the rest of the country, or world? Are there places in the country where it's more common to have a house that you would go enjoy the seasons in? Is there something maybe about the cold weather that you really appreciate the snow or really appreciate the spring or summer?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Well, I think people who appreciate being outdoors in the snow, whether you're cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, or ice skating, or whatever, those people enjoy their cabin year-round. Or if they just enjoy sitting by the fire, reading a book when the snow is falling outside. Obviously, if you have a cabin in the Rocky Mountains, it might be because you really enjoy skiing, and therefore you've chosen a location next to Big Sky, you know, or something like that. Here in the Midwest, people seem to vary. Either they are truly just one-season cabin-goers, or they actually enjoy going year-round, as I do. I love the solitude of winter and some cross-country skiing,

• 20:43Speaker 01

  even though it might be minus 20 degrees outside.

• 20:46Alie Ward?

  I know, I don't know how you guys, I literally don't know how you survive. As a Californian, I'm like, the amount of layers. If I could grow a beard, though, I think I would be in a...

• 20:55Speaker 01

  That's helpful, yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Come on, I'm Italian.

• 20:58Alie Ward?

  Do you have a favorite cabin that you've designed? I know it's gotta be so hard, but was something that's really memorable, or was it a challenge?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  The next one.

• 21:06Alie Ward?

  The next one?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  No, I think one that I did up on Madeline Island, where people wanted a unique retreat, and one of the couples said, "I want something quite unique for me." And I designed a 100-foot-long wall with a portal in the middle. And after you pass through the wall, you step into a glass pavilion and look out over Lake Superior. And then if you want to go into a private space, you walk down inside the wall to a blue box where you have a private sleeping area. It's a very unconventional structure, and it probably still stands out in my repertoire of work as a very unique structure. And it's all about the notion of a retreat,

• 21:48Speaker 01

  having a phenomenal place of a retreat that leaves the other world behind. And I think that's one of the things that, when you say, "Can a cabin be a year-round house?" One of the challenges with that is cabins often work best when they are the other world, when they're not the everyday.

• 22:08Alie Ward?

  They're kind of like the mistress of the house world.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  I guess so, yes.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Sweetie, it's a side piece.

• 22:14Alie Ward?

  And does a cabin have to have a fireplace?

• 22:17Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't. And in fact, wood stoves can be an economical way of having fire without, say, having the cost of a fireplace. And wood stoves are very effective in terms of really heating space. Do they, do they have to have fire? Uh, no. I mean, a cabin can, I, we did a, we've done cabins without any fire in them and it helps with the insurance rates if you don't have it.

• 22:44Alie Ward?

  And what do you think about, you know, in the last few years, the tiny house movements and tinier spaces? Where do you feel like cabins fit in with that, or is it a completely different thing?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Well, there's an overlap between tiny houses and cabins. Uh, I think the tiny house movement is a fleeting movement and it'll disappear as fast as it arrived, because I think resale on it is challenging. So, much like dome homes and other fads that we jump into every once in a while, I think this one will leave. But, um, but I think cabins will remain and having a tiny structure be a cabin will still be out there. So I, um, and I think tiny homes as far as, as actually being one's home and at, living in it thirty-six, three hundred sixty-five days a year, um, you know, it'll be questionable whether people do that on the long haul or whether it'll just be for two years of their

• 23:39Speaker 01

  life or a segment of their life and then they'll move on to whatever.

• 23:43Alie Ward?

  I will say, in researching tiny home living, a little abode tends to cost between twenty to thirty thousand dollars on average to build. And in looking this up, oh my god, I stumbled upon an article about a woman who built a one hundred and ninety-six square foot tiny house out of an old five hundred dollar RV, some upcycled wood pallets, very resourceful, but then she adopted a Great Dane, a one hundred and fifty pound Great Dane to live in it with her. Oh, then she got married. And then they had a kid, and I had to stop researching.

• 24:17Alie Ward?

  reading in the middle of this article and just pace the floor and do like a meditation because woman what so sometimes life throws you curveballs in the form of quadruple the number of people living in a space the size of a kitchen also I asked Dale about this Danish concept that's all about cozy living all year round but I had to ask my Swedish friend Simone Yetch aka the gizmology episode gizmologist aka the host of Shitty Robots also she just turned her Tesla Model 3 into a truck and named it Truckla it's glorious I had to ask her how to pronounce this word that looks like Higgy she helped me out

• 24:55Speaker 04

  so it's pronounced Higgy Higgy

• 24:58Alie Ward?

  I know that you have talked about cabins and Huga and I would love to know a little bit about that concept and how you think it relates to the feeling of a cabin not just the architecture but the emotions of being in that kind of retreat

• 25:15Speaker 01

  well I think Huga comes from a comes from Scandinavia and and it's been common in Scandinavia to live in small space they don't really need luxurious houses in Scandinavia I haven't felt they've needed it so they have defined ways of using space that are are effective and therefore they the the notion of Huga overlaps with the notion of of cabins as we understand them so how you use that space and how you not say over decorated to over you know fill it with too many things I think there there is some common overlap I must confess that I'm rather new

• 25:56Speaker 01

  to the term Huga and so I've been been playing with it if you will and doing a little writing about it but I'm I'm probably not as well averse in it as others may be in this country

• 26:07Alie Ward?

  yeah I I came across it pretty recently myself I have a friend who who married a Norwegian woman and so their Instagram is just rife with Huga in the winter and so I'm like learning about what it is but Just shout out here to the Lepa Dopterology episode's butterfly expert, Phil Torres, and his charming and kind new bride, Celia Danielson. Just get all up on their Instagrams for some breezy summer living, some really high-quality cozy winterness. They got it on lock. Okay, speaking of, how do you feel that social media culture or Instagram culture has maybe changed the way we appreciate these remote buildings or structures or retreats?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Well, one big difference is that we now can rent structures everywhere, and part of that is made accessible through social media. So we can now not just have our, say, our own cabin, but we can rent anybody and everybody else's cabin almost anywhere in the world. And I think that's really changed. And then we can immediately share that experience with an innumerable number of people. So, you know, those are probably the big things that have changed through the media as we understand it today.

• 27:21Alie Ward?

  Are you okay, are you okay with that? With cabin sharing? And or do you feel like?

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, absolutely. In fact, I think one of the phenomena about cabins is that we feel much more comfortable with sharing our cabin with others than we say to our home. So we're less likely to offer up our home as a place for strangers to stay in. Whereas cabins traditionally were places where maybe we weren't accommodating strangers, but we were accommodating Uncle Harry and Cousin Beth and the colleague we work with. You know, so we've often shared our cabin with diverse people.

• 28:00Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm. Do you have any memories of being in a cabin that are some of your favorites?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Well, I think snow falling and sitting quietly reading a book with the fire crackling and my wife's good cooking smells in the background is probably one of my best experiences. Or looking out the window and seeing the five or six deer that are eating the corn just set out there. You know, those are some of the best. And I think then, I've had an opportunity to gather larger family groups together, not necessarily in my cabin, because my cabin's a bit too small for that. But through the borrowing of friends' cabins, or renting a friend's cabin, I've been able to gather, say, sixteen of my wife's family members together. And that made for a special occasion.

• 28:49Alie Ward?

  Okay, quick aside, I made you a list of things you can do in a cabin. You can play dominoes, you can read a book, you can gossip, you can ask older people important questions about their lives, you can carve spoons, you can learn to needlepoint, you can roast marshmallows, you can write a list of all the things you want to do in your life, you can make your friends all tell stories about how they met each other, you can enjoy a poem, you can bake a pie, you can sip coffee out of one of those metal enamel mugs that they sell in camping stores, you could write a short story, you could learn to fry a fish, you could nap, you can throw your phone into the lake, you can quit your job, you can disappear from the internet, you can live off the land, like that Walden

• 29:33Alie Ward?

  Thoreau guy, hope you don't get arrested, you can wish on a shooting star, I also like playing rummy cube. Okay, now, let's say you want a taste of that cabin life, but maybe a little closer. You could fashion a garbin, which sounds like a portmanteau for garbage and bin, but it's actually a cabin you fashion in the rafters above a garage, a garbin. Now, what about a straight-up cabin in your backyard? Is that okay?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  I've certainly recorded cabins that occur in the backyard of somebody's home. Now, they might think of their cabin as a man cave to escape to, or her writing, you know, a place that she can retreat to for writing, we call that a scriptorium.

• 30:15Alie Ward?

  Oh, I've heard it called a she shed.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yes, and a she shed. So, I think that's not uncommon, and I've recorded a few of those in books I've done, and in articles I've written.

• 30:26Alie Ward?

  Yeah, I guess a cabin is kind of like our childhood version of a fort, but realized and with plumbing.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yes, you know, and some not with plumbing, or the outhouse, or whatever nearby, but...

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, it it might have some modicum of plumbing in it, some some way to heat it up, which maybe our little fort when we were kids didn't have either of those.

• 30:52Alie Ward?

  And did you have a treehouse or a fort when you were growing up?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  I grew up on a farm and a fort might be a few bales of hay thrown together with a tarp over it or something quite temporal. And there were lots of places to go build in the in the forest nearby. And so, yes, I I had all kinds of inventions of space that that were getaways to hide out so I wouldn't have to do the chores.

• 31:17Alie Ward?

  I wonder if that's something about the mindset of a cabin or a shed or anything that we get out of our normal space to go to a new space. Do you think that makes people more creative? Do you think it frees frees us up emotionally?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Well, I think when these environments are small enough, we imagine that maybe we can have a hand in making them because it's not a super task to do that. I'm always amazed as I drive to my cabin and I pull up behind a pickup truck loaded with things that are going to in someone's cabin, whether it's a a door they just pulled out of the church remodeling or and I and and I'm often tailgating and my wife is is complaining that I'm too close to the back of the pickup truck because I'm trying to figure out how in the heck are they going to put that thing in their cabin? So I think cabins have have some freedom of personal expression attached to them that makes them special places.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  So you're inclined in a cabin to, say, cut the notches of the height of your children as they're growing, you you know, to score that in the in the door frame. And you wouldn't do that in your house, you know, that would be that would be defacing your house in a way you wouldn't accept. But in a cabin, you're willing to do that.

• 32:32Alie Ward?

  See, cabins are casual. They are the taking off your pants as soon as you walk in the door vibe of the architecture world. They allow us to dream of a life with fewer restrictions. Perhaps this is because there were fewer judgy neighbors in the middle of the woods, maybe? I don't know. Do you ever dream about cabins?

• 32:52Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I don't dream very much about cabins. No, it's not, not a pervasive dream.

• 32:58Alie Ward?

  Yeah, I was just wondering. I wonder, I have this dream. Okay, tell me if you've ever had this, where you're in your house, or you're in some house that you live in or whatever. And then you realize that there's a door or a cabinet that you've never noticed before. And then there's another room or another area that you've never realized that you've had. Have you ever had that dream?

• 33:16Speaker 01

  No, but I think we should talk about your dream for a while because it's, it's gonna tell a lot about you, you know, that there's this place you're trying to escape to. You're just trying to escape to one of my cabins.

• 33:27Alie Ward?

  I know, I just really want a cabin. Okay, I looked this up. Virtually every decoding dream website seems to just plagiarize directly off each other verbatim. But apparently this is a really, really common dream. It means that we're discovering new abilities and strengths within ourselves. Okay, so let's say this is not flim flam and has some kind of psychological merit. I just decided to stare out the window for a minute and think, okay, what part of me am I neglecting truly? Like, let's get honest with myself. And the main thing that came to mind was just general grooming. But I think I also had these dreams more when I was working from home and just living in a studio apartment, which isn't quite like Great Dane spouse and baby level cramped, but it was a little tight.

• 34:12Alie Ward?

  Also 2024 Ally from the future to say, since this episode came out, two things have happened. One, I have built a shed in my yard. Well, I didn't build it myself, if I'm being honest. I paid someone to assemble it for me and I hang out in it and I write in it. I love it. It smells like the woods. It has spiders in it. It's my dream come true. Oh, speaking of dreams, we have a two-part episode now that has come out since this aired on dreams from one of the world's most foremost expert, oenurologist Dr. G. William Domhoff. And we will link that in the show notes. Also a treat. Anyhoozle, dreams, windows to your gross soul. Now, speaking of windows, when you are designing a cabin,

• 34:55Alie Ward?

  do you decide to face the windows a certain way or is it different for every? Where do the windows go?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  It depends on the view, depends on the sunlight. So if you told me, boy, I really like waking up in the morning with sun coming in where I'm gonna have my morning coffee. Well, that's the east and or, you know, or there are trees over here that are gonna block, you know, this kind of sun or whatever. So, yes, windows, window locations are extremely important. And here in the Midwest, we are putting our cabins quite often at lake, on lakes. And I have to remind my clients that lakes are a horizontal view, not a vertical view. So we see a lot of people building cabins with very tall windows climbing up under the roof.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  For what? To see more and more and more sky, not more and more and more lakes. So horizontally banding windows here is great. And if I'm in the Rocky Mountains, their views are often very vertical, looking up, trying to catch the mountain peak. And then, then a different kind of architecture evolves out of it.

• 36:03Alie Ward?

  Huh, that's so brilliant. That's so interesting to know. Anything in pop culture, any cabins that you've loved in movies or TV, or maybe like a cabin in the woods is always a scene for a horror setting.

• 36:15Speaker 05

  Oh, wow. It's a cabin in the woods. We need to go hide over in there. Nah, man, I'm not going in. That reminds me of a horror movie I once saw. What horror movie? The one with the cabin in the woods.

• 36:26Alie Ward?

  How do you feel about how we see cabins?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Well, oftentimes, I think cabins are connected to some of the horror films, you know, that they're out in that dark wilderness of heavy forest and, and, and, or they're next to a lake and some, somebody drowns or whatever. So they are often attached to that, that genre of, of movie in a way. There, there's certainly exceptions to that where the cabin is seen as a tranquil place of escape. I don't think I have any singular cabin or singular movie that jumps out at me and, you know, on Golden Pond. Yes, that's gonna be what I mentioned.

• 37:03Alie Ward?

  Okay, so On Golden Pond is a classic 1981 Academy Award darling starring Peter Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, and Jane Fonda. It involves a lot of sun shimmer on the lake, a lot of soft focus filters, some difficult family relationships, there's some emotional reflection, some struggle, there's some trout, some growth. Also, Katharine Hepburn wailing in ecstasy multiple times about loons.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  The loons, the loons, they're welcoming us back.

• 37:36Alie Ward?

  I get it, Kat. Loons are tits, which, yes, is an egregious ornithology pun. What about myths about cabins? What about something people misunderstand about cabins that you'd...

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Well, I think they, they, they think they're not gonna be high maintenance. They do, they, they do require levels of maintenance depending on what you want to be there when you show up. They're not inexpensive to make, even though you might think, well, shouldn't something primitive and shouldn't I be able to find labors in remote places that are gonna work for dirt cheap? No, you know, almost anywhere today, you're gonna pay pretty much the same price for a decent window and you're probably gonna pay as much per hour for a craftsman in, in the woods as you would for a craftsman in the metropolitan area. So, yeah, those, those are probably a few of the myths.

• 38:30Alie Ward?

  And is there an easiest type of cabin to make? Is it a log cabin? Is it a shed type of cabin? If someone is like, I'm desperate for a cabin, maybe don't have all the resources, what would you say is like an entry level? Set up.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Creating a cabin that only has four corners rather than 20 is a good start. Log construction is a possibility and certainly homeowners have educated themselves on how to do log construction and done it for themselves. It is a lot of unique attributes that people don't think about. It looks more attainable than it is and there's a lot to learn about the nature of what happens to a tree after you cut it down and how it shrinks. Shrinks in diameter, not in length. And so you set log upon log upon log. They're all shrinking in diameter, which means your wall is starting to drop and it's will crush the top of the door, the top of the window if you haven't designed it to

• 39:33Speaker 01

  take it. So, so there's a lot of nuance to log that people don't fully understand. You know, a little kid might have a Lincoln log set and think, well, that's a really easy way to build, but it's probably much more complicated than just the standard frame wall made out of two by fours.

• 39:52Alie Ward?

  Did you ever see that PBS, well, it was on PBS, but did you ever see, is it Dale Wernicki's Cabin in the Woods?

• 39:59Speaker 06

  It was good to be back in the wilderness again where everything seems at peace. I was alone, just me and the animals.

• 40:09Alie Ward?

  Oh, man. Oh, side note, oops. I meant Dick Pernicki, not Dale Wernicki. Who's Dale Wernicki? I don't even know. Where, what the hell word? Also, thanks to Jared Sleeper's very on-brand gift of this DVD set a few years ago. I own this in its entirety and it's been a dream of mine to host like a screening party with a mandatory flannel dress code, friends all just hanging out, maybe silently whittling as we watch. But if you need some Dick Pernicki ASAP, a quick Google will bring you to a YouTube clip of Alone in the Wilderness, which by the way, has 11 million views. So apparently we are just united in our lust for solitude. He's just filming himself.

• 40:53Alie Ward?

  On like a eight millimeter, six millimeter, just hand heuing.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:56Alie Ward?

  Oh my god, how is he doing that?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it to actually do logs and do them well so they're gonna last is is a skill that you don't get overnight.

• 41:05Alie Ward?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  And I've certainly known plenty of people who've done their own log cabin. But I've also known a lot of people who might have done their own log cabin and had a lot of problems with it later because they didn't really understand some of the nuances. And on the other hand, in many of the areas of cabin world, there are log vendors who will do these things for you. And they will build the log cabin at their, what they call their yard, which is where they work in their place. And then they dismantle the cabin and and number the logs as they're dismantling them, and then they reassemble it on your site. Like a puzzle. Exactly.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  So it may take them five months to make the cabin in their yard, but then only three days to reassemble it on your site.

• 41:53Alie Ward?

  Oh, wow.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And they'll bring it all there in a big truck.

• 41:57Alie Ward?

  Huh. And is there a cabin that you have on like a lifelong goal list that you really wanna see some cabin on a cliff in Iceland or?

• 42:07Speaker 01

  No, not a singular cabin. I mean, I love the cabin experience. One of the fun things about being a cabinologist or someone who designs cabins is I often get to stay in the cabins that I've created for others. So it's pretty easy to ask a cabin owner who for whom we've done a cabin to say, can I use this some weekend when you're not there?

• 42:27Alie Ward?

  Nice.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  And I prefer the weekends when they're not there because I I like bringing my wife along and she's one of my toughest critics, of course.

• 42:34Alie Ward?

  [laughing]

• 42:35Speaker 01

  The spouses will be and and, you know, I but I I like waking up in the morning and saying, how does this thing really work? Does the sun coming in where I thought it was gonna come in? And, you know, how does it feel with the wind outside? So that's been a nice opportunity in this line of work.

• 42:51Alie Ward?

  Oh, man. Lesson: Design things you want to use for yourself. It's sneaky, and I like it. And can I ask you some, a couple of Patreon questions?

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 43:01Alie Ward?

  Okay, great.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Great.

• 43:02Alie Ward?

  Okay, but before we get to your Patreon submitted questions, we'll take a break and chat about some sponsors that I really like. But before that, the sponsors make it possible to donate a portion of the ad proceeds to a charity of the ologists choosing. And this week, Dale would like the episode to support the Clarence Wigginton Fund at the American Institute of Architects of Minnesota. According to their donation website, quote, "The Clarence Wigginton Minority Architectural Scholarship recognizes the extraordinary professional and civic accomplishments of the first African-American municipal architect in the United States. He was also the first licensed African-American architect in Minnesota," quote. Now, this program provides an ongoing partial tuition scholarship to students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a person

• 43:45Alie Ward?

  of color who seek to pursue a professional education in architecture and who hold promise for succeeding in such a career pursuit, they say. And Dale adds that it's really well-administered and it assigns mentors to each recipient. So thank you, Dale, for that. And there's a link to find out more about that organization in the show notes. That's the Clarence Wigginton Fund at the AIA of Minnesota. Okay, so some ads from sponsors of ologies. How's your ponytail looking? Maybe like a little thinner than it used to? We've talked about this in our menopause episode. At some point, it's bound to happen to all of us. So if you're ready for thicker, fuller hair, start your free online visit today at

• 44:28Alie Ward?

  forhers.com/ologies for personalized care. So that's F-O-R-H-E-R-S.com/ologies. Individual results may vary. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace for years, it's an all-in-one website platform. Whether you're trying to grow a business you have, or if you're just a baby business getting started, it has everything you need. That's where I secured my domain name. It helped me build a professional site. I can update it so easily. I've been using Squarespace since before ologies existed, after

• 45:12Alie Ward?

  Congratinating for years, I literally built my website in one evening. They have templates, they have flexible editing tools. Squarespace also makes it easy to share your work. You can book clients, you can get paid. They have built in tools for scheduling and invoicing and email all in one place. Whenever someone I know needs a website, whether they're a scientist that needs to put their work up or someone who's just starting a business, I'm like, dude, Squarespace. So head to squarespace.com/ologies for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code OLOGIES to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You can do it. This episode of Ologies with Ali Ward is brought to you by Alloy Health. As you may know, we've talked a lot about estrogen and hormones on this podcast.

• 45:55Alie Ward?

  We have a three-part menopause episode and there's something that nobody tells you. And this is that your skin changes that start in your 40s, they aren't just aging, they are hormonal, specifically estrogen loss. So estrogen naturally helps maintain collagen, it helps support elasticity, it keeps your skin hydrated. And as it declines, your skin gets thinner and drier. So if your skin is feeling thin or dry or dull after 40, Alloy has prescription M4 skincare. It's designed for perimenopause and beyond with convenient virtual consultations and redelivery. So try M4 skincare from Alloy and see results in as little as eight weeks. Head to myalloy.com and use the code OLOGIES to get 20% off your first order.

• 46:36Alie Ward?

  So your menopause specialized doctor will help you build a skincare plan for your needs. Plus, you get $0 unlimited messaging with your doctor. So head to myalloy.com and use code OLOGIES to get 20% off your first order. This code is valid on products only. These are compounded products, not subject to FDA approval. I can't tell you how many times your mother and I have been like, what are we gonna eat? It's constant, you know what I mean? Busy schedules, you got nutrition goals, you have your stomach and brain maybe not agreeing. Maybe you got picky eaters. This is where Hungry Root comes in. I think they are great. Hungry Root figures out what foods you like, what you don't, what kind of fits your life.

• 47:19Alie Ward?

  And then they're like, hey, how about these groceries and how about these recipes? And you're like, what are you? My second brain. For me and Jared, we are eating more plant-based meals. Jared is also dairy-free. So it's been really helpful to take the guesswork out of mealtime and also learn more recipes that maybe we hadn't tried before. I also like that we're not spending time meal planning or grocery shopping because it just shows up for us. Some of my favorite recipes for Hungry Root, they have a lot of really great curry bowls and stir fries. I signed up for snacks too, because I'm a human being. So explore my digital cookbook, Pod Mom and Dad's High Protein and Low Dairy Menu, for free at hungryroot.com/ologies. And for a limited time, you can get 40% off your first order, plus a free item in every

• 48:04Alie Ward?

  box for life with Codeologies. Let's have dinner. Supplement this, supplement that. Maybe you want to supplement your time by simplifying your supplement, once and for all. IM-8 has got that on lock. IM-8 has daily ultimate essentials. It has 16 supplements. It replaces 90 different ingredients across nine major organ systems in one bevy. Does this work for people? 95% of people who tried it for 12 weeks felt more energy. And that is from a clinical trial conducted by the San Francisco Research Institute, which you know me, I love a clinical trial. So many athletes and high performers rely on IM-8. And I don't know if I'm a high performer or an athlete, but I do too. I'm actually drinking one right now.

• 48:49Alie Ward?

  So if you're like, cool, let's give it a try. Go to imhealth.com/ologies right now. Use our code OLOGIES for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10% off your order. So that's code OLOGIES at imhealth.com/ologies. It's code OLOGIES at imhealth.com/ologies. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. We have to say that. Okay, so back to your questions. Okay, so for this first question, think about thick socks, looking out the window. It's snow shuffling down from the gray morning sky, but your coffee's still warm and it has an absolutely shameful amount of creamer in it.

• 49:34Alie Ward?

  A fresh log is on the fire. Maybe you smell pancakes being cooked by someone who's not you. But you're under one of those heavy quilts that your aunt made in the late 80s out of old denim when she was going through a divorce. Okay.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Ginger Nut wants to know, why do wood cabins seem like the coziest thing ever? What is it about wood that makes us feel cozy? Well, I think wood has a variety built into it. It also feels like it's connecting us to the forest that might be right around it, around us. So it might be a local wood. And it has a nice auditory characteristic. So it's a softening, it softens the sounds. Whether the sound is crackling fire or the chatter, the quiet chatter of the friend you're with. And it's something pretty to look at. So it creates a nice background to a warm, welcoming environment.

• 50:27Alie Ward?

  Let's repeat that because it's like peak Huga cabinology vibes.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  So it's a softening, it softens the sounds. Whether the sound is crackling fire or the chatter, the quiet chatter of the friend you're with. Sydney Brown wants to know, do cabin makers still utilize techniques that homesteaders used back in the day? Somewhat, yes. Obviously, the logs, log building was common to homesteaders. I have a log cabin on my property that I use as a guest cabin. And I'm quite certain that its original life was that of a settler's cabin. I don't think it actually was originally on my property. I think it was put on, you know, was, one of the things about logs is you can dismantle a log cabin and reassemble it in another location. And I think that happened with a lot of settler, early settler cabins.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  So in this area where there was a preponderance of wood available within arm's reach practically of where settlers were coming in, they often built log structures. And some of our earliest cabins that we associate with getting away to kind of places were the recreation or actually the reuse of those early settler cabins.

• 51:39Alie Ward?

  Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay, and now a quick aside here because for all of the history of North American settlers, there's also the history of indigenous displacement and resource exhaustion and architecture borrowed from Native customs. So that narrative is a huge part of American history and can't be ignored. I was doing a little more research. I just found a book through the University of Tennessee Press called Native American Log Cabins in the Southeast, which was published, no joke, last week. I looked at the publication date and I was like, June 2019, what? So, good timing there. And it tracks the origins of Native American cabins and building traditions. They look at the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Kalamau peoples.

• 52:21Alie Ward?

  2024, Ali here, to say, we also have some great episodes that delve more into that history, like the bisonology episode and the indigenous cuisineology episode about native foods, and a recent episode that we did on genocide. Also, this book, Native American Log Cabins in the Southeast, looks at elements of this architecture introduced by people of African heritage who were enslaved in America. And the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture has actually relocated plantation cabins that were used as quarters for enslaved people and put them on exhibit as a reminder of our country's not-too-distant history. Speaking of horrors, where do cabins factor in the apocalypse?

• 53:07Alie Ward?

  Mike Monikaski wants to know, what's the biggest obstacle of going off the grid, if one wanted to do that?

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Water. What's your access to water? If you're off-grid, are you going to be willing to have, say, a hand well or somehow treat water that you're getting out of a lake or stream? So that's probably one of the bigger challenges. Toiletry, you know, what are you going to do about a bathroom? Are you going to accept having an outhouse? And then bathing, a lot of people who are off-grid, in other words, they don't have power to run a well, therefore, they're not going to have a bathroom in the same sense. And they will often use a sauna as a form of bathing.

• 53:48Alie Ward?

  P.S. If you're in Minnesota or around a Finnish person, don't You dare say sauna, just say sauna, just say it with me, sauna. You're gonna feel like a fraud, but you will avoid a lecture or correction. Also, many high fives to my sweet and gentle Innovation Nation producer, Stephanie Hemango, for teaching me about how much fans dig saunas. Winter, summer, you just go sweat it out in this wooden box. You beat yourself with a birch branch and jump in a lake. I'm so into it. Anyway.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  So they all have a modicum of water available somehow, either they bring it with them, and that may be enough to take a steam, you know, a steam sauna. And that's, so the sauna is really their form of bathing and cleanliness.

• 54:30Alie Ward?

  And are there a lot of those up here in this?

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yeah. There, there are a fair number of off-grid. We did one just recently in off-grid cabin, and, and it has a sauna, and it has an outhouse, and it has a hand pump well.

• 54:45Alie Ward?

  Oh, what a dream. And Jen Anethus wants to know, what eco-friendly, upcycled, or non-traditional materials other than wood can cabins be made out of? And I guess we did actually kind of cover this, because we talked about anything from containers?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Right. It can be made out of many, many different things, from straw bales to, and, and again, these are probably best if they're materials that are readily available to that region or area. So, containers aren't the best product if you're building, say, high on a mountain cliff in Montana, because they're heavy and you have to have a big crane to lift them into place. So, but you can buy them dirt cheap. You know, for a thousand dollars, you can have a 20 by four, 20 by eight foot by eight foot container. Well, to get it on your property might cost you another 50,000 dollars. So, and then you need a welding torch to open up a window in it.

• 55:41Alie Ward?

  Right. That's a good point. Hey, hi, I looked this up for you, and you can buy a used 40-foot shipping container for less than the value of my 2007 Prius, which, if you must know, according to Kelley Blue Book, is less than $5,000. So soup up that container house. Maybe 20,000 dollars later, you can live in it. Just don't adopt a Great Dane. Or if you do, just don't tell me about it, because I can't handle that stress right now. And Carolyn Butler wants to know, do you believe that cabins should A, be a minimalist escape from the modern world, or B, that they can include most, if not all, of the features of a modern home in a more compact form? So minimalist?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  I think they can be either and it really has to do with your proclivity for what you want there, what you need there, what you feel comfortable with. They certainly can be primitive, particularly if you enjoy the out of doors and all you're really looking for is shelter, you know, that will warm you up a little bit and provide you a place to store a few articles and maybe some food, then you really don't need much. But a lot of early cabins really are just that. That is to say, they are just shelter and it was kind of common to imagine you're going to be outdoors to snip the beans, you're going to be outdoors to chop the wood. So you're going to be outdoors a lot and you're really just sleeping and maybe, maybe putting together a little bit of the food indoors, but you might actually be doing it for a lot of the cooking outdoors. Oh.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  So that was common with settlers' houses where settlers' houses were primitive shelter, but a lot of their food prep and even some of the eating all occurred out of doors. So if you're going to be indoors a lot, if you're going to use it in the winter a lot, then you probably need a few more, you know, facilities, maybe a bathroom, a proper kitchen.

• 57:28Alie Ward?

  Your podmother, Jarrett, and I have a word for these type of liminal lifestyles that we envy, and that is IDOD, indoor/outdoor. Places that are IDOD, for example, are an outdoor kitchen in a gazebo, sleeping in a screened porch. Camping is IDOD. Or oddly, the most IDOD place I feel like I've ever been to is the Honolulu Airport, which is just like an inside building, normal, with a roof and terminals and gates and a food court, but then you look around and there's just no walls. There's no walls anywhere. Perfect temperature year round, no need for AC, go IDOD all the way. Now, speaking of energy bills, the next question is about offsetting the energy you use by way of generating

• 58:13Alie Ward?

  renewable energy.

• 58:17Alie Ward?

  Financially worth it to build net zero energy cabins. Which I don't really know what that is.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Well, that depends on how you, what kind of dollars you have upfront. It's gonna cost you more to build net zero. But think of it as money that you're putting in upfront that you'll save downline. But you have to have that money upfront available to you. So, as I say, it depends on how you get your money as to whether or not you can afford to build the extra, do the extra finances upfront versus putting them into mortgage and paying them off over time.

• 58:49Alie Ward?

  Right.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  And, yeah, if you have the money, you can, you can build net zero and save those dollars downline.

• 58:56Alie Ward?

  Mm-hmm. I guess, yeah, just what do you have in your pockets?

• 58:58Speaker 01

  And I think it might have to do with your lifestyle. A lot of, a lot of saving energy has to do with making sure that you have a hands-on approach to being a participant in how you use energy in your dwelling. You may think of it as passive energy, but it's maybe active in terms of your, the need for you to participate in that, whether it's for you to chop the wood or for you to manage the thermostat through your iPhone or whatever, in order for you to keep tabs on just how energy's performing in that structure.

• 59:31Alie Ward?

  So you can't just build it and then let it do the work? You have to be active.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can do some of that work, like the extra insulation you put on. It's like putting on a warm coat, you know, you can leave it on and, you know, all you have to do is button it up. Some of the needs you have for, for energy performance, such as for solar panels that have battery storage and something like that, do require maintenance.

• 59:52Alie Ward?

  Okay. Just a little heads up, your grandpa dad sent me an article a few days ago about an Irish team of researchers who are using carbon nanotubes in batteries to increase energy storage capacity by 2.5 times. Everyone is jazzed as hell about this. This is like a huge, major leap. Hell, yeah, nanotechnologist Valeria Nicolosi and chemical physicist Jonathan Coleman working on that. We all want better batteries. I owe you a margarita in a mug or a perfectly toasted marshmallow for that work. I think we covered a lot of this. These things are ready, so I'll ask the last two questions I always ask.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:00:25Alie Ward?

  What is the most annoying thing about your job? Is there anything about?

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Well, I have to do a lot of driving.

• 1:00:31Alie Ward?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  I enjoy driving, but it is a lot of driving. So I put a fair amount of miles in my car. And I certainly know the Midwest extremely well because of all that driving. So, you know, sometimes having to drive four hours, five hours to a cabin site. And I never want to design anything where I don't see the land. You know, people will bring me pictures and they'll say, "Oh, we don't want to pay for you to go all that distance." I'm sorry.

• 1:01:00Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Land talks to me and more than you, the owner, the land tells me a lot about what it is I need to do here. So I always want to go see land.

• 1:01:11Alie Ward?

  Do you listen to audiobooks or?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  No, I listen to local radio stations a lot.

• 1:01:15Alie Ward?

  Ah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  And a lot of public radio in various locales. And even though I'm, I would consider myself a liberal politically, I sometimes, the one and only time I'll listen to conservative talk radio is when I'm driving. And I like to hear what the other side is talking about and how they say it. So whereas I'm not likely to listen to that at work or in my home.

• 1:01:43Alie Ward?

  When you get to your cabin, then I guess you can decompress if it's been upsetting to you, right?

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right.

• 1:01:49Alie Ward?

  What is your favorite thing about cabins or about what you do?

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Well, I really enjoy the act of creating something out of nothing. Standing in a piece of land, whether it's in the Rocky Mountains or in New England or here in the Midwest and using only one's imagination while you're standing there trying to figure out, well, how should I create this thing? Standing there just daydreaming about, or doodling and/or pacing off, saying, "Well, it could be in this direction, it's gonna be about this big." And, you know, "I need to borrow a ladder and climb up this tree so I can see what the beam's like on the second floor." That's, to me, the most fun part.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Is that very initial, as I say, going from nothing to something in one's imagination and then trying to record it on a sketchbook or something so that you can start to manipulate it, that idea, when you get back to your office. Or sometimes, sitting at the local coffee shop not far from the cabin and doing all one's doodles, you know, recording what you were thinking about when you were out in the land, I'm more likely to do that, to record it quickly before I even get back to my home or office.

• 1:03:06Alie Ward?

  Do you give the cabin owners those sketches?

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Sometimes.

• 1:03:09Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  I'm not, I usually have nothing against giving it to them. I sometimes forget about giving it to them, but, but most of them certainly appreciate when you do it. And then fairly early on, we, I make little cardboard models. And, and that's, many of my cabin owners now have those models sitting in their cabin somewhere.

• 1:03:31Alie Ward?

  No, I think it would be great to have that too at your desk at work, just so you have that to think of.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  I, I, I, yeah. We make a lot of models in our office and it's usually the designer themselves who makes the models. And not like we, we're not hiring, say, student interns to make models. We, models are, are, like our doodles, they're a form of our own artistic expression.

• 1:03:53Alie Ward?

  This has been such a dream. Thank you so, so much. Your work is.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  So I was wondering if you'd like one of my books?

• 1:03:58Alie Ward?

  Oh, I would start crying. I would love that. Oh, my God.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  So all yours, and if you want me to sign it, I'll do that too.

• 1:04:05Alie Ward?

  Uh, duh, yes. Oh, this is so exciting. Thank you so, so, so much. What a dream. So get yourself in the presence of an expert and then ask smart people giddy questions all you want. And then maybe go in with some pals, save up for a night or two away if you can, or you can crash a friend's family reunion. If there are enough relatives, they may not even notice. That would happen at mine. So to learn more about Dale Mullfinger, go find his wonderful books, just Google cabinology. It's going to lead you down a little sunny, leafy path right to him. So his architecture firm is Sala and they're on Instagram at Sala Architects and I'll link that in the show notes, along with all the sponsor and donation links.

• 1:04:48Alie Ward?

  And there are more links up at aliward.com/ologies/cabinology. We are at Ologies on Instagram and Twitter and I'm at Ali Ward with one L on both. You can do follow, say hi. Thank you to Shannon Feltes and Bonnie Dutch of the podcast You Are That for managing ologiesmerch.com where you can get bathing suits with the Ologies logo on your butt and T-shirts and stuff. Thank you to Erin Talbert for adminning the Facebook Ologies group. Thank you, Jared Sleeper, for supporting my love of cabins and for doing assistant editing on this. And to editor, the Hearthstone, Stephen Ray Morris, for stitching together all these sound clips. Since the initial recording of this, we also have Noel Dilworth to thank for being our

• 1:05:30Alie Ward?

  scheduling producer. Susan Hale is our managing director of the whole show. Jake Chaffee is a wonderful editor. And our new lead editor is Mercedes Maitland, who did touch-ups on this encore. Thank you, Mercedes, and all involved. And also, since this episode aired, Dale and I have kept in touch. I love him. We email back and forth when he sees an ology that might be fun, or if I find a picture of a cool cabin, or when I built the shed. And he wrote me last week that he was just working on an off-grid cabin near the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area, and it used material recycled from another cabin. It has an open floor plan, he says, so everyone can smell the coffee brewing in the morning. And another

• 1:06:13Alie Ward?

  client came to him recently for a well-insulated cabin, thick walls and triple-pane windows, he wrote me, right off the Lake Superior hiking trail. He said, "One could probably heat this cabin in cold Minnesota with a hairdryer," and said, "You'll be able to step outside, strap on your cross-country skis, and go for miles. Happy holidays, Dale." Ugh, dude's the coolest. The loveliest cabinologist on earth. I'm so glad you got a chance to meet him through this episode. And since you have stuck with us for the whole episode, what I do is I tell you a secret at the end. This week, it's that I still have not made the acorn cookies. The acorns are still chilling in a jar in my refrigerator, which is currently 2,000 miles away from me. But another secret is in the last couple of months,

• 1:06:57Alie Ward?

  I have felt so disorganized. And for some reason, around my house and office, I have, if I'm thinking in my head, I have probably six different canvas tote bags that are like half filled with stuff that doesn't belong in them. Like, I took a tote bag for an outing and then came home. And instead of taking everything out, like melted lip balm, and maybe there's a pamphlet in there about a garden and a toothpaste sample from the dentist. Instead of putting those away, I just didn't know where to put those things. So next time I left the house, I just got an empty tote bag. I took my wallet and keys, used the new tote bag, collected some extra ephemera and detritus,

• 1:07:39Alie Ward?

  like hotel pens or a sewing kit or a magazine I read that maybe we'll use for, I don't know, like a vision board in the new year. And so now I'm daisy chaining them. And like, there's like half dozen totes and little corners that I need to just dump into a pile and figure out what to do with the stuff inside them. I don't know if this is something that happens to other people or just me, but it's a, maybe it's a type of procrastination that's like, I don't know where to put these things and I don't have the mental space right now to strategize. Now, there are bigger problems in the world. Trust me, that's probably one of the reasons why I can't manage to unpack a tote bag. But this is just one of mine. Okay, enjoy a fireplace, enjoy a campfire or a landscape of some kind of serenity. Maybe do a game of Rummy Cube with the people you love.

• 1:08:23Alie Ward?

  All right, enjoy. You deserve it. Bye bye.

• 1:08:46Speaker 05

  Friday the 13th? No, the one with the cabin in the woods. Texas Chainsaw Massacre? No, the one with the cabin in the woods. Ring? Uh-uh, the one with the cabin in the woods. Blair Witch Project? No, man, the one with the cabin in the woods. The Monsters? That wasn't in the woods, that wasn't even a damn movie. Look, man, we ain't got time for this shit right now. We need to get you that cabin in the woods.

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• 1:09:31Speaker 02

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