Construction Diary: After a Devastating Fire, a Couple Start Over With a $17K DIY Cabin
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Jeff Waldman and Molly Fiffer build a new retreat with salvaged, charred timber and a community of friends.
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Jeff Waldman and Molly Fiffer build a new retreat with salvaged, charred timber and a community of friends.
As if the global pandemic wasn’t enough, 2020 brought San Franciscans Jeff Waldman and Molly Fiffer another major life challenge. That was the year a forest fire ravaged their 10-acre property in the Santa Cruz Mountains, destroying the cabin and camp-like retreat they had spent the last several years building by hand with the help of friends and family. "For the first couple of years, there wasn’t a lot to be done with the property," recalls Jeff. "It was pretty devastated by the fire."
Jeff Waldman and Molly Fiffer built this 200-square-foot cabin themselves on the site of their 10-acre property in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Their previous cabin, which they also built by hand, was destroyed in a forest fire in 2020.
Photo: Jeff Waldman
Every piece of the cabin’s timber was either chainsaw milled by Jeff, Molly, and their friends out of trees killed by the fire on-site, or is old-growth salvaged redwood from a nearby mushroom farm.
Photo: Jeff Waldman
After slowly cleaning up the land and seeing the forest spring back to life with new growth, Jeff and Molly started to think about starting over. "It wasn’t about rebuilding, because the word ‘rebuild’ felt like a reclamation of what was," says Jeff. "That felt impossible—it was a time and a place that we couldn’t really get back to."
| $185 Foundation | $1,758 Floor Joists, Plywood | $7,105 Salvaged Redwood |
| $948 Roofing | $509 Hardware, Misc. Building Supplies | $120 Plumbing |
| $77 Kitchen & Bath Fixtures | $92 Lighting | $5,400 Sliding windows, French doors |
| $670 Glass for 12 windows | $550 Metalwork | |
| Grand Total: $17,414 | ||
Eventually, Jeff and Molly decided to start again. They devised a plan to construct a simple cabin on the site of their original build, using primarily lumber from fire-damaged trees on site that they chainsaw milled with the help of friends. The second time around, the duo found themselves bringing an entirely new energy to the build.
The floors are Doug fir, and the framing and rest of the wood inside is redwood. The french doors and lower window were made by Mike York at Ocean Sash & Door Company, while the upper windows were made by Jeff and Molly.
Photo: Jeff Waldman
See the full story on Dwell.com: Construction Diary: After a Devastating Fire, a Couple Start Over With a $17K DIY Cabin
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