Erika,
First off, welcome to the best site on the net concerning these matters. Don't get frightened by what you have dreamed to do. It's doable. My wife and I have done it for 8 years and counting.
When you say "power a cabin" we are left clueless. We'll help you, but it resides with you to ask us things we can directly address. The issues you mention can't be learned in a net forum (unless you have a couple years to spend asking questions). You need to do a great deal of net searching and reading and a few visits to a real library might help. Pretend you're learning a new language. This is NOT a put down. If you really want to get your hands dirty and learn this stuff it's gonna take a good deal of effort on your part. It's not an abstract science. We pretty much know how electricity works.
It's hard to make a guess at how much power a cabin might need and how much you might need. Do you want all the comforts of a modern home, dishwasher, clothes washer/dryer etc etc? If so, plan on making a heck of a lot of solar panels, buying a heck of a lot of solar panels or finding other solutions to provide for that energy budget. Wind comes to mind.
If you're going to be completely off grid you're nearly gonna have to have a battery system. You need to figure out if you want to run a 12V, 24V or 48V (V=volt) system. Then an inverter to run AC (alternating current) loads (tools motors hair dryers) like you plug in to the grid. These are issues one should/must consider well ahead of purchasing or constructing anything.
Sorry Erika, I've been living this way for over 8 years and there is NO CHEAP WAY OUT. If you find one let me know, please!
If you want power you have to pay for it somehow. Factory produced solar panels are some of the best investment dollars spent. Most have 20-30 year warranty periods and some will live well past that. Your state may have a rebate program, and it's worth checking. Aside from large hail or other impacting mishap they rarely fail. Can you assure that reliability into your efforts? I like Kyocera panels.
There are some really smart people working on band gap panels that absorb a great deal more energy than current panels. How far into the future these remain before they become available is anyone's guess. Considering the improvements in so many other technological areas the value and quality of solar panels will only go up. While $1,000 today might buy 250 watts of panels, $1,000 in 3 years might buy 1K watt of solar that takes up half the space. Unless you need all of the system at once, or can afford to take the plunge, I say build as you can/need and learn as you go. Don't make hasty choices, and if you don't HAVE to depend on the cabin until things run smoothly there all the better. It's a lot easier to pay for mistakes with a small setup than a big one, and a lot easier to be able to go back to a long hot shower and clean clothes with a little air conditioning than be pissed because the batteries are too dead to run the shower pump and it's a muggy hot late July night. Been there done that.
Google is your friend, and the answers to your understanding these issues are there. Study some basic electrical matters and bookmark informative sites so that you can revisit them to confirm your thinking. You might even make a word document to paste the urls and make a little renewable energy database. Look into direct current (DC) terms and basics. Whether you choose to have a battery system, or go dark at night, you should at least search for the basics on those too. What you intend to do, and what I am doing, has been done years ago. Remember, any power at all is a luxury when one leaves those grid lines behind! You're on your own and reliability is the deal when we leave that life-line.
Learning to live by using the absolute minimum of your available power will ensure the ability to conserve when RE isn't keeping up, like in the dead of winter. Like when it's cloudy for 18 days straight. Like when the wind doesn't rise above a whisper for 2 weeks. I keep a few gallons of diesel ready for my 5HP Kubota for when all else fails I can keep my batteries from gong flat.
Good luck and get ready to learn! :-)
