Field notes on cabin craft, fire‑wise design, and intentional living among the pines. New essays, plans, and project dispatches every other Tuesday.
A long read from the studio this month — part field guide, part project journal.
After three seasons walking burn scars with foresters in the Cascades, we have rewritten our standard cabin brief. Defensible space is not a perimeter — it is a gradient. Here is how we are laying out sites in 2025, what we are asking clients to plant (and what we ask them to remove), and why a 30‑foot ring is only the beginning of the conversation.
Continue readingNew writing on craft, climate, and the slow work of building a home that belongs to its place.
Why a 10/12 is not always the right answer — and how we calculate pitch against site aspect, snowfall, and the cabin's relationship to its roofline.
Old‑growth timbers carry a density and grain that new stock rarely matches. A look at sourcing, grading, and what we are willing to pay for character.
Practical routines we teach every client in bear country: coolers, composting, the right kind of bird feeder, and how to design a porch that does not tempt.
A breakdown of three approaches we use in the Pinery — and the spreadsheet we share with every off‑grid client before they break ground.
On trucks, propane runs, and the quiet economics of choosing a place that is two hours from the nearest hardware store.
Our annual roundup — the small details that paid off, the ones we will not repeat, and the client conversations that changed how we draw.
The journal is organized around the questions we get asked most often. Pick a thread and follow it forward.