A cabin in the woods. Someplace secluded and private, warm and cozy, way out in the middle of the wilderness. In the crazy world we're living in today, this version of the American Dream is becoming more popular every year.
And though I can't tell you how to find your slice of paradise, I can show you what it looks like to build one. So come along with me as we build a cabin in the woods from start to finish from the ground up. My name's Dave Whipple and you're watching Bush Radical. This fall I decided to build a cabin on our remote piece of property in the northern midwest. In this part of the country we get tons of snow so just a little cabin that you could snow machine into in the winter would be fantastic.
Something that could go up quick and take care of all your needs. during the winter. Nice place to sleep, nice place to hang out, read a book, a wood stove to cook on, and plenty of big windows so you can keep an eye on what's going on outside and just enjoy the natural beauty of this part of the world. Like every cabin I built before, I picked this spot because it looked right, like a cabin belonged here.
Started trimming out the trees but not too fast. I wanted to keep the shade for the summertime. I wanted to open up the view.
I wanted to also open up other things that are interesting to look at like this big giant white pine. Not the biggest white pine on this property by far but a nice one. I decided to just build a conventional frame cabin. It seems that lumber prices had come back down.
Also, I did not have any time to do any logging on this property, so building with logs, it just had to wait. And there's my new front yard, nice and trimmed up. The hardest part about any construction project to me is always picking where you're going to build because once you start you're kind of committed.
So once I found the spot where I thought the cabin would set in just about perfectly I got to work laying it out. My brother Ryan started building a cabin this fall and he was using a treated post foundation. I kind of liked the idea so I decided to use it on this build.
Now this little tiny cabin is going to be 10 foot by 16 foot. Then it's going to have a 5 by 16 foot deck out front. So we're going to start out by putting in the first two corner posts.
This will be for the front wall of the cabin. In this part of the world, the ground is mostly sand, but it's a very hard sand. And when I get down to that hard packed sand, about three and a half feet, that's about where I'm going to stop.
Because I know that post is never going to settle down into that ground. When you try to drive a well in this country, you hit those layers of hard pan sand, and it takes a lot to drive a well point through it. One thing I always try to do no matter what I'm building, I like to make it look like it's been there.
I don't want big piles of dirt laying around, so the dirt that comes onto the holes I dig for the foundation, whatever doesn't go back down into the post hole, I'm going to take and use it for a fire pit. Dug down to sand where I want a fire pit at, and I've brought a wheelbarrow's worth of sand to come out of the holes. That'll make a nice bed for a fire pit. This is kind of an interesting foundation system. The outside 2x6 acts as a rim joist and the inside 2x6 acts as a ledger.
And you crib everything together. When I saw it at first I thought it was pretty ingenious. So far my only regret on this project has been that I didn't start a little bit earlier.
Now I love working in this kind of weather, but I would have loved to have worked when the leaves were peak. Right now there's no leaves at all. It's just the evergreen trees and a few beach leaves hanging on.
Now building like this out in the wilderness by yourself in the peace and quiet of nature is very enjoyable. But this is one part of the job that was not enjoyable. I'm gonna be straight up front with you.
You have to have some kind of a bottom to your building so the mice and squirrels don't take all your insulation out and put it up in the trees. And getting underneath this floor, nailing off that under sheeting, well I can't say that I enjoyed it. I have so much fun doing insulation. That's a lie. I don't enjoy it at all, but I do try to do the best I can when I have to do it.
Make sure you tuck in your corners good. When all you're eating is eggs and corned beef hash, something tart and fruity, sure is nice. This ain't the Kool-Aid of your childhood.
I like to put in about 10 times as much Kool-Aid so it's not just some water drink with a little bit of coloring to it, but it punches you right in the face. I don't think I could ask for anything better when it comes to a break room. Time to get busy on the deck.
I'm sure you'll agree, hardly anything is better on a cabin than a deck. Nice place to sit, look at the wilderness, place to cook outside maybe with a barbecue grill just to hang out. I can't wait. When I was a kid, one of my cousins was applying for a mortgage.
And they said that it was only going to cost $600 a month to buy this house. My grandpa told them, you can nail together a lot of boards for $600 a month. And I've never forgot that. Although this isn't for everybody, and not everybody would want to live in a place this small, you certainly could.
Not only that, but by building a cabin, even a cabin this small, you learn the ABCs of construction. So later on, if you did want a big house, and you didn't want to pay big money for it, you could build it yourself. It's just the same principle on a larger scale.
So far on this build I've had nothing but good weather. And it's been a warm fall. But this morning's quite a bit of rain. Had a neighbor stop by.
Long as the water comes out of the sky nice and clear, and not too often, I think we're going to be okay. When it starts coming out of the sky snow white, well, we might have a problem. Better get at it. There's something magical about building a deck. It's just a floor to sit on.
And it's outside. It's sole purpose to exist. It's just to be a place to be enjoyed.
That's a wonderful thing. Sure is nice to be at this point. The whole floor is done.
The deck is done. I can start standing walls and it'll start to look like a place. I'm excited.
What a beautiful day for getting something done. Everything's trucking right along and I can feel the momentum of this project. And then this happens. You ever feel like you bit off more than you can chew? This is what it looks like.
Oh my goodness. So plan B is to cut out the windows and the doorway and hopefully that 50 pounds of plywood I lose is going to make the difference. Nice.
Nice. I don't know what that wall weighed, but it was too much for me to pick up. It was about 32 square feet of plywood between the window and the doorway and that made the difference. Honestly, it was a stupid idea to try standing a wall like that in the middle of nowhere in a remote setting by yourself.
I shouldn't have done it. But the good news is that was the hard part. That was the peak of the mountain and I'm on the other side of it now.
Standing that wall is the single hardest thing that needed to be done on this cabin and oh I would have loved to have had three people to help me put it up effortlessly. I did manage to get it up. This back wall is nothing compared to the front because it's only a six foot wall.
Now on a shed style roof like this I like to just put my rafter up in place. Get it where I want it and then mark it along the top of the plate and on the outside of the wall. Put a clamp on it if it wants to move around on you. As long as the front wall is plumb and the back wall is plumb and they're braced, you can put that rafter up, mark it, cut it, set it in place, and then I'm going to start building the rafters that go to the porch.
Setting them up one at a time. Also, I'm going to put the bird blocking between the rafters. That's going to make the roof sturdier and of course it keeps birds and squirrels out of your insulation. Very important part of the job.
Everything is going along just as smooth as I could have hoped for. I can just imagine how it's going to be to hang out here in the wintertime and read a good book. And speaking of hanging out, where am I living while I build this cabin?
Well, I'm living in a tent at our campsite on the property. At night, the wind dies down and this part of the country gets just about silent. You can lay there in your sleeping bag and just listen.
A lot of times you don't hear anything for hours. Just silence. This whole project has been an absolute joy. And I can't think of a single thing I would change about the experience. Until right now.
I never heard a thing. Never heard a flake fall. Never heard the wind blow. Nothing at all. Just wake up and just a bunch of wet heavy snow everywhere.
Well, nothing will get you motivated more than the idea of absolute failure. I need to get this project done. I have procrastinated as long as anybody should, and now I'm being reminded. This is obviously a warning shot. Four inches of wet heavy snow.
I don't have a roof on. Time to get it done. Get it done or shovel every morning.
It's an easy one. So I think the plan for today is I'm going to try to get the porch done as best that I can. I don't want to put a roof on the main part of the cabin just yet if I can avoid it because I want that light for filming and for doing the insulation.
for doing the tongue and groove work that I want to do. It's all gonna look so much better if I have natural light from up above. As long as the weather holds out I'm not gonna put a roof on this place but I am gonna keep an eye on the radio or an ear rather and make sure I know what the weather is gonna do to the best of my ability. Lucky for me the day was really warm and by the afternoon all that snow was gone. Thank goodness!
But I did learn my lesson so it's time to start putting some metal on at least part of the roof. Now you might have noticed that the building sequence for this cabin has been very very odd. I put the front wall up, then the back wall, then the roof without the end walls being on.
Then I piece in the end walls and I sheet them. But I don't sheet them all. I've left a hole in one end wall so I can pass long flooring boards and long tongue and groove in. I'll finish that wall at some point. See the hole behind me?
So I guess I'm just kind of doing what seems right at the time. I also don't want to put the metal on the roof until I'm done with as much as I can on the inside, just for the lighting of it. Well after being terrified by a big dump of snow too early I feel like I'm back on track.
Getting these walls insulated and getting this tongue and groove up is going to go a long way, at least for my morale, in making me feel like I'm making progress. Gotta love the tongue and groove. Nothing looks better in a cabin than just beautiful wood.
Well, I'm to that point where I need to put my roof panels on. I've done everything that I can do without having a roof on this place. Now, it's time to put these six panels on the back of the roof, which takes no time at all. I do love doing metal roofing. And now that the roof is done, I can insulate the ceiling, which is my favorite job of all, said nobody ever.
But hey, I guess it's done now. The following morning was cool and frosty which just makes me want to work on the chimney and have a little campfire to boot. Not only do I have all kinds of brush I need to burn up, I also have scrap wood and scrap material that's got to get burned up and it's just nice to have a little campfire while you work. Now I'm not really ready for the chimney, but the chimney is kind of an assembly. It needs to be put together so when you're ready to install it, it's ready to be installed.
So I'm hooking all the pipe together and the elbows. It's a fantastic morning for getting some of these jobs out of the way that don't really fit in to the rest of the building project. They're things that need to get done, but they're kind of their own little separate jobs.
Now that all the tongue and groove is done, I'm pretty much through with lumber that needs to stay dry, except for the floor. I still have to put the floor in. Now the floor is going to be 1x12 pine boards.
We built a cabin last year, my wife Brooke and I, and she did the floor in 1x12 pine boards. And it looked fantastic. And it's pretty simple and straightforward and quick. I like both of those things.
So that's what we're going to do. We're going to do this floor in just a knotty pine. But the floor can wait until tomorrow. It's almost dark and it's supposed to be good weather. Time for burning some brush, burning up some scrap, and cleaning up the pigsty of a building site.
I like to keep my building site as clean as possible, but sometimes work just gets ahead of you. It's nice to take a minute and just have a big fire. Well, overnight our friend Snow came back.
And I don't need to be told twice, I get the picture. Time to wrap this thing up, be done. Now the one thing I really regret about this whole building process is that the porch has kind of become a catch-all.
It's covered in nails and screws and bits and material and tools and whatnot, and I haven't had any time at all to enjoy it. One of the best things about being done with this project is being able to clean the porch off, and I look forward to that like you wouldn't believe. For people who have never built anything before, my best piece of advice to you is everything in building is sequenced. Today I want to put the wood flooring in, and I'd like to get it stained, but I can't get it stained until the cabin is heated, and I can't heat- cabin until the chimney's in and once the chimney's in then i can put the wood stove in so the sequence of events is kind of laid out for me i've got to put the chimney in on the outside anyway so i can put the wood flooring down and then put the stove inside and the inside chimney heat the cabin then hopefully i'll get the floor stained To be totally honest, this time of year, the name of the game is get as much done as you can.
Because tomorrow, there's a possibility you could get a foot of snow. And I might have a hard time even getting back out to a paved, plowed road. So, I'm just going to keep plugging away at this and try to get the important things taken care of before there's no way to get in and out of here but a snowmobile.
one of the biggest innovations in the last 50 years for people who want to live off-grid are these little power stations. power stations and LED lights Wow! now that is nice. this place has been pretty gloomy today with all the rain and the wet snow and junk. this makes it quite a lot better The weather forecast on the radio is, well, let's just say threatening.
It's going to be snowy, and it's going to be snowy soon. I wouldn't say I'm in a mad dash right now, but I'm thinking about it. Just like any serious dyed-in-the-wool procrastinator, I'm putting the door in last. And then I'm going to put the steps to the deck, which I should have put in on day one because I've been leaping up on this deck and jumping off of it for weeks. Even though the snow is falling on and off right now, I can see the end in sight.
I get these steps in and I'll have all of the major things done that I hope to get done before the end of the season. Man, that sure feels good. Nothing fancy.
Just a simple little cabin. In the woods. In a remote spot. Quiet. Peaceful.
Well by the look of the weather I think we pulled that off just in the nick of time. For everybody that's followed along on this video from start to finish I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much for watching.
My name is Dave Whipple and you're watching Bush Radical. And be radical eh? See you soon.