This week, we get personal, sharing tales of home renovations and the histories living within our walls that continue to shape our lives. We'll walk you through the charm of uncovering memories in familiar spaces, from the laughter-filled corners of a childhood home to the serendipitous discovery of an island on a lake. Join us as we reveal how these stories of past homeownership, and the ongoing dance of personalizing our spaces, weave the fabric of our identities and connect us with our listeners' own remodeling adventures.
As we pull on our plaid shirts and laugh at the quirky cultural norms that make each region unique, you'll wonder if you're not alone in eating pizza for breakfast. We'll swap tales of the amusing cultural misunderstandings that arise when moving across the country, and you'll be entertained by our musings on the stereotypes that define the Midwest—yes, including the great 'duck, duck, gray duck' debate. We'll also marvel at the ingenuity of constructing a micro cabin for less than your monthly coffee budget, and invite you to mull over the essentials you'd pack for a life of minimalist living. Whether it's the stories etched in the beams of our homes or the cultural idiosyncrasies that make each place unique, there's a bit of laughter and a lot of heart in this episode's journey.
This week, we get personal, sharing tales of home renovations and the histories living within our walls that continue to shape our lives. We'll walk you through the charm of uncovering memories in familiar spaces, from the laughter-filled corners of a childhood home to the serendipitous discovery of an island on a lake. Join us as we reveal how these stories of past homeownership, and the ongoing dance of personalizing our spaces, weave the fabric of our identities and connect us with our listeners' own remodeling adventures.
As we pull on our plaid shirts and laugh at the quirky cultural norms that make each region unique, you'll wonder if you're not alone in eating pizza for breakfast. We'll swap tales of the amusing cultural misunderstandings that arise when moving across the country, and you'll be entertained by our musings on the stereotypes that define the Midwest—yes, including the great 'duck, duck, gray duck' debate. We'll also marvel at the ingenuity of constructing a micro cabin for less than your monthly coffee budget, and invite you to mull over the essentials you'd pack for a life of minimalist living. Whether it's the stories etched in the beams of our homes or the cultural idiosyncrasies that make each place unique, there's a bit of laughter and a lot of heart in this episode's journey.
These are always so fun as we've pulled things together to share with each other. It's like, oh, I can't wait to share this with you, and then our audience too. So it's been great. We've had so many of our listeners stop in the shop or send us messages lately, and it's really good to connect in person, because we do picture all of you when we're having these conversations, like what are they going to think is interesting and what songs we want to share with you guys?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and what they're doing when they're listening, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
A lot of people talk about taking walks, or the drive up, of course, is what we kind of envisioned when we started the podcast. But the walks that drives up and even when people are cleaning their cabins and getting stuff ready, Right.
Speaker 2:
Hopefully we can add some some positive ways to make things go faster, like if you're cleaning the cabin, and I think a lot of people with the nicer weather we've had up north are coming up to do a lot more of those projects.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, the, the season, or the availability to have access to your entire property is much higher right now.
Speaker 2:
Do you have any projects going on or in the works?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we still want to remodel the little cottage that we have down. We put a roof on it. Actually, I was just at a sportsman's banquet in the town of Rhinelander, which they put on a great event, and it was just packed full last night and I happened to be at a table with the gentleman who owned the home before I did Wow, so I hadn't met him.
Speaker 2:
Did you know you would be together?
Speaker 1:
The person that invited me mentioned that he would be there and he he is. I just never physically met him. It was all handled. This was during COVID, when we bought our house. So we didn't meet face to face, everything was kind of done remotely and it was just fun talking to him about the house and the neighborhood and the lake.
Speaker 1:
And right now the lake is a seepage lake so it fluctuates a ton year to year. I would imagine with the lack of snow we're getting it'll be pretty low this year. But he said that there's an island that'll appear on the lake and one of the fun things they did as the family would you'd walk out. The water would be about waist to chest to deep. You'd kind of walk or swim out to the island and then go hang out there and that it actually was a really popular goose hunting spot too, cause the geese would fly in and land on this island. So hunters would take a small boat out to the island and set up their decoys and do some hunting out there too. And he just said he misses the lake and love the property but his kids all, or most of them, moved away to college and they just. The house was a little bigger than what him and his wife needed.
Speaker 2:
He loves that. It's got a family in it now that loves it so much.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's what we talked about. He's like I had the best time raising my kids in this house and I just reiterated how nice of a family home it is for us and our kids age. And he was asking what did you do to the house? And like I'm like, oh, that's always an interesting, not like oh, we changed everything, but we didn't. We just, you know, put some paint on and we removed space like a wall, like a half wall almost between the kitchen and the living room, and put a beam up, a structural beam, so that we could just open things up to the dining room a little bit. He's like oh yeah, that totally makes sense. That was something I was thinking of doing. So he was super gracious and glad that we were there and it was a really positive experience.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome. Yeah, I went down a little bit of a memory lane like that A couple of weeks ago. I found an old picture of one of our houses that my siblings and I grew up in, so I Googled it and nowadays if a house has been on the market, then a lot of pictures will still be up on it. So then I asked my parents what our addresses were of other houses. You know, I could remember street names, but not the numbers.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So I was trying, before I asked them. I'm like Google mapping, trying to figure out if I can figure out which house it is and you know I felt like this investigator. Then I just finally asked them what the addresses were and then sending pictures and things to my siblings. That was. It was a fun afternoon of like reminiscing with them and seeing how things change. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:
And what didn't change, because I wish when we were growing up, we had more pictures of you know, you weren't really taking pictures of rooms and spaces the way we do now, right, so I'm like I remember what my childhood bedroom looked like, I think.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, In your memory like you have the visual of it. Yeah, I can visualize the rooms that I stayed in too, and but you just wonder, like, was it as big or small or way now, like would you think it's like tiny, or it's really interesting?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you wish you had more pictures of those things, but it was really fun and, like you said, you're curious how people have read on a house since you've lived in it. Oh, yeah, so to see the pictures is really fun.
Speaker 1:
For sure. Yeah, one of the houses that we, when my parents were building their last house that they had in Nuglares. Years ago we rented a house in town, which is really fun because we had always lived out in the country and we had this house in town finally, where we could hang out with all our friends that lived in town without having to worry about getting home. So Wade and I slept in an unfinished basement. There was a bar down there that was the perfect size of a queen bed, so I slept behind the bar in a queen bed and he slept all the way across. So it was like an unfinished basement with remnants of carpet.
Speaker 1:
We put our pool table down there and that was like the most fun summer I can remember because our friends were all accessible at all hours of the day. Yeah, I'm sure Wade did a little bit of sneaking out too, I would imagine from because it's a walkout basement into town and I'm sleeping behind the bar, and then I ended up going on my study abroad trip to Australia later from that house, so I didn't stay. I was only there for a couple months before, but that was like it's just funny, the weird little houses you think of in the memories that come up.
Speaker 2:
Right, well, and just the things that you think you want to get perfect in a house. And then you're like, oh, but you were behind the bar.
Speaker 1:
Right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
The basement and it was great memories, yeah yeah, it wasn't like, oh, it was kind of. It was like so fun and interesting and just unique and kind of strange and it made a better experience than it would have been. It's like, oh, we rented this perfect house with no quirks and I like that about homes. I think homes need to have personality and character and if there's something weird or strange or clunky in them, it doesn't always take away. It actually adds a lot of the time to the experience of living in the home.
Speaker 2:
And then you're talking with your siblings or friends or parents and you're like oh my gosh, remember that.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
And then everybody's like yeah, brings back great memories we share. Both of us have lived different places, we've traveled a lot, and one of the things that that happens with that is stereotypes, so you start thinking about when you're going to go somewhere. I wonder what it's going to be like what those stereotypes are. Or I grew up in Texas and then moved to the Midwest and in college I still had a thick Southern accent, a thick Texas accent. I don't have any more Now. My friends back home make fun of me for not having it.
Speaker 2:
So when I first got to Iowa, my roommate, we would talk on the phone it's before email before texting. Eric, if you can believe that.
Speaker 1:
I was still around before all of those things.
Speaker 2:
And we would talk on the phone and I could not understand her because she talked too fast. I had to concentrate on the phone to understand my roommate, and she would say phrases that I I didn't know. And so when I would tell people too that I was going to go to school in Iowa, people would say to me well, don't eat too many potatoes, I'm like no wrong state.
Speaker 1:
No, there's nothing worse than a missed stereotype too, right yeah?
Speaker 2:
They. They didn't know if it meant Ohio, Iowa, Indiana. They didn't know, Sure.
Speaker 3:
Just somewhere up north.
Speaker 2:
So there was just a lot of stereotypes about who I was, who I thought people in Iowa were and I I was checking our cabin cast Instagram. We love to run through and see the people we follow on there and check for messages, and this came up from Midwest versus everybody and it's Midwest BS everybody. So we'll link this Midwest stereotypes, part one. So I was laughing through this. So as I read a few of these think if they're ones you would have thought for these states, eric.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
Wisconsin Number one, drunk estate. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1:
I think that's actually been like proven just based on alcohol sales, I think there's some, there's some proof. Yeah, that's like a fair stereotype Probably yeah, the cheese stereotypes are true. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Say bubbler, not drinking fountain.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's a mix. We've talked about that before. I say drinking fountain I, that's what we always did.
Speaker 2:
I don't know if they'd say bubbler up north here, but when, when my kids first said bubbler, I was like what in the world is happening?
Speaker 1:
right Right.
Speaker 2:
Go Pat go.
Speaker 3:
Obviously we love the Packers yeah.
Speaker 2:
Minnesota, it's duck, duck, gray duck. I don't know that I don't know what that means. So, Minnesota people help us. They know how to drive in the snow.
Speaker 3:
Okay, yeah, so do we?
Speaker 2:
they're probably floating on a lake right now.
Speaker 3:
There goes back to the debate. Yet not right now. Well, I don't know. Mine's pretty much just a big puddle.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I can float in it probably, but that goes back to one of our debates on the show too. We talked about that Minnesota and Wisconsin have who has the most lakes.
Speaker 1:
Right that we actually do. Yeah, they just named it the land of 10,000 lakes, just to get an edge.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, love the color purple for multiple reasons. Okay, football stereotype again you know what the other one is no.
Speaker 1:
Prince is from minnesota. Yeah, he's from minneapolis. Oh, that's where his house was purple rain.
Speaker 2:
Purple rain, and one of my favorite hotel chains is the graduate hotels.
Speaker 1:
Sure Sure.
Speaker 2:
So if anybody has not seen those, get on right now because they are so creative and they they look at they're near college campuses and they really research the area of the college and try to decorate in that way. And In minneapolis st Paul, the graduate there by the university of minnesota they have purple paisley wallpaper everywhere. Iowa they care about high school sports way too much.
Speaker 1:
I know about wrestling, like I know Iowa is important about wrestling. I, when I think of a State that cares about high school sports, I think of texas.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like the biggest Football and everything.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, just the football thing in texas, I haven't heard. I mean, when your state doesn't have, doesn't have a ton of pro sports, of course you're gonna get more and more interested in local stuff.
Speaker 2:
Well, and for us. We always think everybody in Iowa, the Hawkeyes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, hawkeyes, they're just like great.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I've never seen. I probably see more Hawkeye things than Packer things in wisconsin when I go to Iowa, everybody's car, everybody's, everything, obsessed speaking of Hawkeyes, obsessed with Caitlyn Clark. Do you know who that is?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I know that also. This is a new article.
Speaker 2:
So, and she's about to hit the Break the record, yeah, and my kids love watching.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 2:
I think one of the things she's done, too is Is especially for women's sports. I mean, my son can't wait to watch Caitlyn Clark right. So I think it's it's. She's really helped open up.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, and I think people just love excellence in general, like watching someone doing At the top of their game, regardless of what the game is, is really amazing and be an excellent person too on the side.
Speaker 2:
This one, I I lived there, I have no clue Eat pizza for breakfast in Iowa. Yeah, what is that I?
Speaker 1:
think that's just, uh, people who have left over pizza in the morning.
Speaker 2:
Right, yeah, I don't, but I guess I'll just say this is true for several places. But say you're from Des Moines, because nobody knows your small town. There are so many little little towns in Iowa and nobody's ever heard of them.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And I grew up in Dallas until through fourth grade and then I moved to a little town just out there called Waukesahatchee. So when I'm traveling to I might say I'm from Dallas, because nobody will have heard from Waukesahatchee.
Speaker 3:
I can see people doing that or say they're from Milwaukee or Madison.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes I'll be like three hours north of Madison. Nebraska live on RUNZA. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1:
RUNZA is a and I've never eaten there because the name is a little disturbing it's a restaurant, so, like you, go to RUNZA If anybody can see the look at my face right now. Right, so it's, it's green. They're green signs with with yellow letters. I can visualize them because I've seen them a whole bunch, but I've never eaten there and I actually never even really researched it. I just like, hmm, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:
What do they sell?
Speaker 1:
It's just a restaurant, but I don't even know if it's fast food or if it's if like, what kind of food I'll have to. I'll have to look at her. I'll stop one on my next road trip out to Colorado, because we go through Nebraska all the time, but I've never stopped at a RUNZA.
Speaker 2:
I don't. After you eat there, you let me know if you should tell me. And this next one proves part of what you just said to they never have tourists because everyone is just driving through.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You just said on my way to Colorado, Right Um swear by Dorothy Lynch dressing on everything.
Speaker 1:
Dorothy Lynch dressing. Never said, I mean, I'd haven't again shopped a lot in Nebraska, it is just our followers in Nebraska.
Speaker 2:
I have a lot to learn about you. And I do know this one Undying Faith in the Huskers.
Speaker 1:
So that goes back to what we said about Iowa too. That's a big deal on college.
Speaker 2:
Kansas Want everybody to stop talking about the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's. That's like the. Yeah, we're not in Kansas anymore. I get that. That's frustrating. That's like people named Jake. Now you cannot meet a guy named Jake without someone else going. Oh, like Jake from State Farm. And the poor guy named Jake is just like oh, I haven't heard that one before, right.
Speaker 2:
That's actually or a Karen.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, what's a pet? It's a pet peeve of mine when people repeat the obvious trope when you meet someone, especially about their name, and I'm, I'm, I'm fortunate right now I don't have one of those names that people have a say, a go to thing every time you meet somebody.
Speaker 2:
There's a ton of them about Torgerson.
Speaker 1:
Yeah Right, Eric Torgerson is like yeah that's Norwegian is what people say. Um, I feel you, jake's and Karen's out there for sure, and I think it's the kind of stinks when you take somebody's, especially a well-known name, and turn it into a trope.
Speaker 2:
No, the chiefs and royals are in Missouri.
Speaker 1:
Like people don't know which Kansas City. That's confusing. I get that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, missouri. I have to explain. There are two Kansas cities. People say in Missouri, missouri, how do you say it?
Speaker 1:
Missouri.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we've done lots of those on here. Like how do you say different words? Those are just a few of the things. If you're from a state that has some interesting stereotypes, you can pass them on to us, or if you have some stereotypes about us here in Wisconsin besides the drinking and the cheese and the Packers Again, yeah, the obvious ones. Northwoods. I bet there's some stereotypes about people that live up in the Northwoods.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, and I think there's, you know, the there's the good ones, like old fashions at the supper clubs and bait shops, everywhere all those things, but some of them means most stereotypes wouldn't be stereotypes if they weren't based on some sort of even a sliver of truth, and usually it's much more than a sliver, it's. It's pretty much a framework, right, and it's easy to look at groups of people and categorize them in certain ways. And also not being sensitive to stereotypes in a bad way, because just because you don't fit the stereotype and you're from a place doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And I think, if most people are honest, it's like it wouldn't be a stereotype if it wasn't a kernel of truth there for sure.
Speaker 2:
Well, here's one stereotype about us. Everybody could, if they could, take a second and close their eyes and picture that they were sitting with us and what we might be wearing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we're both in plaid.
Speaker 2:
So there are those stereotypes that are true too. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:
For sure. I found this article in Field Mag, which is a really interesting magazines with all kinds of stuff about cabins, and it's a really interesting website that we'll link to. And this is how this artist built a portable micro cabin for just $2,300. Miscellaneous Adventures is a design studio and hands-on outdoor skills workshop based in South England run by husband and wife, andrew and Emma Groves. The modest operation has inspired us at Field Mag. Check out our past Q&A with Andrew for the few full rundown.
Speaker 1:
Unlike many black box style microcabins we feature in our every every evolving architectural inspiration column, this microcabin takes on a more rustic look, so we'll post a picture of this. And basically A couple wanted something lightweight and portable, should they ever move. On eBay they acquired a trailer that became the foundation, so they built like a two by four floor and then built like a tiny cabin on this trailer and it's parked. And then they put, like this beautiful cedar siding on it, a chimney on there, which is interesting because the chimney stack, when you look at this picture, looks really big for a tiny, tiny little cabin. I would imagine if you light a match in that cabin it will heat the whole entire thing.
Speaker 1:
It's it's so small. They have like a wood stove in there. The the funny thing is it doesn't look like there's a lot of room for anything else in the cabin. So they have a rug and a wood stove with a box of kindling In the pictures, and that's pretty much it. If you want a four foot by eight foot cabin, that's the size of a sheet of plywood you could fit a wood stove in there and a rug. I don't know what else you would do, necessarily, in this portable cabin, but these people in England were able to do it for $2,300.
Speaker 2:
I can't wait to see the picture of this, one of the first things. When you said portable, I thought steelable.
Speaker 1:
Remember the episode where you talked about the cabin. They got stolen, stole the stole, the shed, and then tried to hide it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's one of the first things I thought of. And then, as you kept reading, I was thinking about so my husband we have some land over in butternut, so it's like 45 minute drive that he goes out and Hunts and traps and enjoys being in the woods on and he has a little shed out there. There's no water or Plumbing. He's gonna do a what is it called? A sand something well, this spring. But we've been Trying to fix up the little cabin to make it where I want to come hang out to this little shed.
Speaker 2:
Yeah and so the front of it's kind of his workshop and his snowmobile and his four-wheeler and in the back Fix up. So it is. What can you put in a tiny, tiny space to make it, yeah, cozy?
Speaker 1:
No, I think I mean these folks. They must set up sleeping bags or something on the floor. Check it out. And I, what would you? Yeah, I'd love to know from a listener what you would do in a cabin.
Speaker 2:
What are the priorities?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think it's just for hanging out, maybe Just a project. Some of these design firms just come up with things that are projects table with a cribbage board right music recommendation for everybody.
Speaker 1:
A lot of times, we're sharing new music from artists that we love that come out, but I also love like discovering older songs that I'd never heard before, especially from collaborations, and this song is a collaboration from a band that I really love called the weaker thens. I think we might have even shared Sun in an Empty room, which is an amazing song from the weaker thens, but this is a collaboration by an artist named Jim Bryson and the weaker thens, and I just love the name of it. Whenever I see a name that I love, I like to listen to the song and, if it fits, it's something I write down. So this is from 2010 Collaboration. We'll share it, but this song is called Wild Folk, which, of course, just was an interesting name. I like the word folk and I just it paints a really cool picture, and when you listen to the song, I think you guys will really enjoy the picture that they paint as well. So this is Wild Folk by Jim Bryson and the weaker thens.
Speaker 3:
I slept outside in the summer and watched the dew settle on the grass. I went straight into town but at the same speak came right back To my home, to my home, to my home, to my home, to wait for my wild love to find me. I got bruised by the autumn. Look all the fruit left lying in the grass. I walked all around these hills, but at the speed of breaking glass. I went back home. I went back home. I went back home To wait for my wild love to find me. To wait for my wild love to find me, love it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so that's a good one.
Speaker 2:
I mean it had me at sleep outside in the summer.
Speaker 1:
Right, right, I know, right away I'm in.
Speaker 2:
I gotta see what this song says.
Speaker 1:
I love the picture.
Speaker 2:
Yeah right, that's a great one. Yeah, and it is fun to bring back old music and remember like, oh, I did love that man. I haven't listened to that in forever, for sure.
Speaker 1:
Yeah yeah, and there's so much good stuff out there. That's fun to discover, and I like the idea that I missed things that I really would have liked a long time ago and then somehow discover them 14 years later. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So, we'll share that with everybody and it'll be linked and and always if you guys have music recommendations or articles you find or Interesting ideas you want us to talk about. We love collaborating with our listeners and and we'll we'll be back next time with more.
