California Cabin

First, I'll make an admission that there is nothing environmental about building a second house, but of course we have a pile of reasons (Like: Kim wants to live there and I have too deep of roots in Washington).  Ideally we'd only build a temporary structure, but we'd like to live in all winter for the next 20 or so years...life is full of compromises.

The land is two large parcels (650 acres total), both of which we want to convert to conservation land or make a park some day.  We are currently managing the land for wildlife habitat, which is documented under land management.

The land came with an un-permitted, poorly built 1000SF cabin that we've lived in while we're there since purchasing the property in 2001.  We originally planned on remodeling (or rebuilding) this cabin, but its location down a steep dirt road about 1/4mi from the well and power pole has been a challenge, and if we wanted to stay there, it would likely cost us more than $100k to upgrade the road to cal-fire standards.  So the house is going up where the old barn used to be, right next to the power pole.  At least the site is already graded, and already had two structures on it.

The existing house will be deconstructed, and over time re-planted with native vegetation.  Because we really like the location, we may leave a small piece of slab and erect a "hikers hut" on the spot.  It won't have power, or a bathroom, but it will still function just like any other hikers hut.

The concept for the new cabin is to be very small, to be zero energy/zero carbon as best as possible, and to use a lot of reclaimed materials for finish.   For various reasons, we've adopted a "Mexican rustic" style,  because it somewhat fits in the climate, it tends to make heavy use of hand made items, and reclaimed materials easily fit in the style.

We originally intended to build a straw bale (largely because of the feel), the cost estimate was so high that we eliminated it as an option, and went for double walls instead.