Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 110 ratings

Price: 13.12

Last update: 12-23-2024


About this item

This program is read by the author.

A memoir of the author's journey from an office job to restoring a cabin in the Pacific Northwest, based on his wildly popular Outside Magazine piece.

Wit’s End isn’t just a state of mind. It’s the name of a gravel road, the address of a rundown, off-the-grid cabin, 120 shabby square feet of fixer-upper Patrick Hutchison purchased on a whim in the mossy woods of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state.

To say Hutchison didn’t know what he was getting into is no more an exaggeration than to say he’s a man with nearly zero carpentry skills. Well, used to be. You can learn a lot over six years of renovations.

CABIN is the story of those renovations, but it's also a love story; of a place, of possibilities, and of the process of construction, of seeing what could be instead of what is. It is an audiobook for those who know what it’s like to bite off more than you can chew, or who desperately wish to.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.


Top reviews from the United States

Lake Littlejohn
5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable read
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2024
For all that like to dream about what it would be like to live a more blue-collar existence, this is a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed this recounting of a passion project that led to a new fulfilling career and would love to see more books from the author down the road.
Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2024
The books was a very enjoyable read about the author taking a chance on a dilapidated cabin. Loved seeing the photos at the end of the book, nice touch!
Pope Mel
4.0 out of 5 stars The Dream of a Cabin Versus Reality
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2024
"In reality, it was a dark, musty, disgusting hole. There were spiders everywhere, skittering around the floor like extras in a Godzilla movie. It was the sort of place where you wish your shoes had shoes. There was no electricity, no water, no plumbing, no wires, no bathroom, no lights, no Wi-Fi, no cell service. If you counted gravity and rain, the total number of utilities would have been two. It was a wooden box with a roof and a door. It was perfect."

"I saw only potential, and I saw a version of myself that was capable of making it better."

Hutchison had a dream - a cabin in the woods where he could get away from it all, and test out his practically nonexistent carpentry skills. What he got was that, and much, much more.

"At times, it felt like the cabin and I were partners in a sort of joint self-improvement project. When the cabin was fixed up, maybe I would be too."

Sometimes these tales of novices who take to the woods can drive you crazy as the "adventurers" make one unbearably insipid move after another, relying on others to rescue them from their own stupidity. This author is honestly not that clueless when it comes to home cabin improvement, seeming to realize when it's time to call in the "experts" . . . or at least the friends who have a little more experience, and will work for beer.

"Whoever had come before me had approached carpentry more like a bird building a nest than a carpenter set upon a job.".

There's an awful lot of tool talk, which may or may not interest you, and some passages tend to drag on, but on the whole, this was a fun and breezy read.
ck
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and funny book!
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2024
Lightweight read that will have you laughing!
Reader By The Water
5.0 out of 5 stars A Millennial Bill Bryson
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2024
???????? For my friends who want to buy and fix up a shack in the middle of nowhere, but only vicariously.

I vividly recall my first encounter with a Saws-All (“the power tool equivalent of a loose firehose”). Our neighbor’s home flooded, and it was all hands on deck: yanking out furniture, pulling up the carpet, and cutting out Sheetrock. Someone handed me a Saws-All and told me to cut all around the house, four feet up. Note to self: Know where the electrical wires are before you hit them with a Saws-All.

Hutchison also learned many lessons the hard way when he bought a run-down, one-room “charming in a dystopian kind of way” cabin waaaaaay off the grid in the Washington woods. He bought tools as he needed them, learned how to make and repair things via YouTube, and hosted weekend “work parties,” enlisting the help of friends looking for camaraderie (and tetanus).

He finally succumbed to the siren call of the Saws-All, a tool whose “only purpose in life is to utterly destroy things while giving the operator the illusion of control.” He cleverly notes, “It’s what you would come up with if you were tasked with creating a new product that would ultimately be named “The Stabs-A-Bunch 9000.”

Hutchison’s memoir is an ode to celebrating your tribe, finding a defining project when your life seems adrift, and being willing to do things wrong, pull out the nails, and try again. It’s about building something that lasts and cultivating friendships that will last even longer. He’s funny, self-deprecating, clever, and reflective, and I loved every bit of his story.

“Building things slowed down time, translated efforts into results that reverberated for decades.”

???????????????????? The author’s delivery of the audiobook amplified my enjoyment, resulting in a #FiveSpongeAudiobook (so entertaining you’re willing to clean to keep listening). I immediately pre-ordered a copy for my brother.
Melissa Parcel
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Memoir
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2024
I mostly enjoyed this memoir about a man who buys a shack/cabin in the woods in Washington.

I've always been fond of books where people pull up roots and move to a farm or property and work to fix it up. I thought that's what this book would be about, and it somewhat is, but it isn't. Hutchison does buy a falling down cabin and through a comedy of errors and experiences manages to learn how to fix it up and eventually does. But he doesn't live there full time, and the more mundane and tedious parts of the book have him wishing he was at the cabin/unable to go to the cabin/working at his job so he can afford to work on the cabin but not wanting to be doing the job.

Some of this book also feel like an inside joke where the reader is on the outside looking in. The author and his friends had many experiences that were probably funny and meaningful to them, but I was mostly thinking I just didn't get it. Especially when he goes on a long long description of a mushroom trip (trips?) they took.

I listened to the audiobook which was well narrated by the author. I wonder if the actual book will have photos, which would go a long way towards making the entire narrative more relatable and understandable. If we had photos of the process and the end result we might be able to picture ourselves there with him.

I loved the Washington state setting, because I live here and know many of the places he mentions.

Overall, this was an interesting experience and I enjoyed living vicariously through his journey.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

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