[Deanna] We're building our off-grid cabin
on Sugarloaf Mountain.
[Logan] On either side of where we're building,
there's a cliff that probably drops around 150 feet.
Careful.
[screams] Watch out.
It's not working too good.
[Logan] It's boulder after boulder.
[sighs] Oh, this is so tiring.
Deanna is a little worried at this point.
It's a mess.
The skies are black.
On top of that, it's supposed to go below freezing.
[gasps] No.
Something ain't right.
This is not long enough.
Oh, my gosh.
[Logan] It's hot and we're making mistakes.
Whoa! That wasn't how you do it.
[Deanna] That is the scariest thing I've ever seen.
[announcer] Are you ready to go off the grid?
[upbeat music playing]
[Logan] All right. Y'all ready to see it?
-Yeah. -It's so exciting, right?
Cool.
[Logan] Start seeing the view.
[Lucas] Yeah. We're up high now.
We were looking at property in Arkansas
for about a year and a half,
and in our pursuit to find some land,
a real estate agent reached out and said
that he had an entire mountaintop
that he had the ability to break up and subdivide.
-And we had first dibs. -[Lucas] This it?
-[Logan] This is it. -[Deanna] This is it.
-What do you think? -[Lucas] The view.
[Logan] We cannot wait to get this started.
So I rushed my butt up here.
Uh, I think I might have had 30 minutes
to look at the property.
He called me and he was just blown away.
And so his excitement, uh,
made me super excited, and it's been fun ever since.
-I'm Deanna. -And I'm Logan.
[Deanna] And we're building our off-grid cabin
on Sugarloaf Mountain.
Something I've always wanted to do
was build a cabin with my own hands,
just wanting to find land
and build something that we own,
that we didn't have a note on,
that it was paid for,
and it was paid for by our hard work.
The build site is in Hackett, Arkansas,
30 minutes south of Fort Smith.
We love the State of Arkansas.
It has so much natural beauty.
It's a little bit underrated.
I mean, when people think of mountains,
they want to go to Colorado
or, you know, some other area.
But we wanted to stay in driving distance
from our hometown in Louisiana,
and this really made that happen for us.
[Logan] The thing that screams at you
is the view looking east.
You get both the Ouachita
and the Ozarks where the sun rises.
Towards the west, we get to see the sunset
every evening.
We get two creeks off of the property
that feed the lake at the bottom.
And they merge on our property.
So it's a really pretty spot down there.
We're building an 18 by 40 off-grid cabin,
perched in the perfect spot on top of a mountain.
We'll have a deck that wraps around to the back.
Inside, we're going for a open concept
where the kitchen and the living room are one,
tall ceilings, big windows.
When you walk down the hallway,
you'll see a flight of stairs that take you up to the loft.
That's where the kids are gonna sleep.
Further down that hallway,
you're gonna see a big bathroom.
Past the bathroom is our bedroom.
High ceilings, exposed wood beams,
and comfortable.
Some of the off-grid features of this cabin
are gonna be a wood-burning stove for our heat.
We're gonna have a rain-catch system for water.
And we're gonna have a whole home generator for power.
One of the biggest challenges that we are gonna be facing,
you'll see a lot of rocky terrain,
obviously, as you expect on a mountaintop.
This area is known for snakes.
And, uh, we've run into some pigs,
so definitely critters everywhere,
but no mosquitoes like from Louisiana, not the big ones.
-So we'll take those... -[Logan] No bugs.
[laughs] over the mosquitoes.
Oh!
-Was that a bug? -It was.
Oh, just when we said there's no bugs.
It was a big fly.
The size of the cabin will be
around 800 square feet, including the loft.
We plan to get it done in about seven months
with the travel that we have to do,
and our budget's $50,000.
We're so excited to be breaking ground today
and to get this thing started.
[Logan] First things first, we're gonna have
to stake out the site.
We're gonna kind of mark our first corner.
[Deanna] All right.
Our kids are gonna come help with the entire process.
[Deanna] Lucas, who's 13.
Oh, I hate these bushes.
[Logan] All right. Go a little bit further.
I'm on... I'm on point right here.
[Deanna] And Lily, who's nine.
-[Deanna laughs] Oh. Nice. -Nice.
Hit a little harder. Use two hands.
[Deanna] Oh, my gosh.
You know, they are your typical kids.
Uh, on their phones at home all the time.
And so this property is just wonderful
that we can get them away from that.
There's not a lot of service,
and it kind of forces them to get out
and enjoy this outdoors.
Is it good?
-[Logan] Loosen nice. Perfect. -All right.
The first big job we have
is to get the excavator back here.
Dig out the footers for our foundation.
We got 24 holes to dig in very rocky terrain.
Uh, we're gonna have to chisel through boulders.
It might take all day.
It might run through the whole weekend.
I'm not quite sure yet.
We've never done this.
[upbeat music playing]
We gotta go about 3 and a half foot deep on each one of 'em.
Maybe 4 foot, uh, the cross line's 2 and a half foot.
-Mmm-hmm. -So just watch out.
Stay clear. Because there's cliffs on both sides.
Rock might be flying from the chisel.
-[Deanna] Oh no. [chuckles] -I don't know.
-We've never done this. -Please be careful.
[rock music playing]
[Logan] All right, Deanna, you have to guide me in.
All right. Keep it coming.
Look like I'm pretty on center, Dea?
[Deanna] Yeah. You're on center.
Is it straight up and down?
I can't really tell from here.
That... It is now.
All right. So this is the corner of the cabin.
The very first hole.
Rev it up.
Here we go.
Whoa, that wasn't how you do it.
I have zero to none excavating experience.
I'm not quite sure why they rented me this equipment.
Um, I guess I'm very convincing over a phone call.
Whoa.
But I'll figure it out.
I'm pretty good at a lot of different things
and I don't think this will be any different.
Are you gonna do the second one...
-second, right? -We'll do this one right here.
[Deanna] Okay.
Really, we just need
to break up this rock
and then have the kids come over here and dig it out.
[upbeat music playing]
[Logan] Come on, baby.
Yes.
Whoo, I feel it.
I feel that one.
That's a big one.
This is super rocky.
On either side of where we're building,
there's a cliff that probably drops around 150 feet.
Logan is on this excavator
and he is knocking through these holes.
It seems to be going pretty good.
Careful.
[Deanna] Next thing you know...
[screams] watch out.
[Logan] You're making me nervous, Deanna.
[Deanna] Oh, my gosh.
[screams] Stop.
[Deanna] It seems to be going pretty good.
Next thing you know...
[screams]
he's hanging over the side of the cliff.
I felt like I could scoot it around the edge just fine,
but it's a big piece of equipment,
and I don't know exactly
where the treads of this thing are.
So if it wasn't for Deanna screeching loud screams,
I probably would've just fallen off that cliff.
-Thank you. [laughs] -[Logan] Yeah.
I definitely didn't wanna lose him on the first day.
-All right. Last hole. -Whoo.
-[Logan] Yup. -Yeah.
All right. I think we're gonna have to dig it out
by hand before we can
-use this anymore. -Okay.
We gotta get the holes opened up.
Grab the kids.
All right. So we're done jackhammering.
-[Lucas] Yeah. -And I'm all shook up.
Yeah.
So we're gonna try
to dig these out by hand
and see how that goes for a little bit.
Mom's already saying it's not gonna work,
-so-- -I agree with her.
Well, let's put in maximum effort.
All right?
-Yeah. -Let's get it.
No, it's hard as a rock.
[laughing]
We're gonna start hand digging each one of them.
Uh, we hope that it goes quick,
but, again, we have 24 of these things to dig.
There's huge boulders.
So...
[grunts] oh, yeah.
[Deanna] No, I... Look.
It's boulder after boulder
even after chiseling.
I know.
I told you.
Look at all these roots.
-[Logan] Yeah. -[Deanna] This is terrible.
[Logan] Yeah. [sighs] This is so tiring.
We kinda ran into a hiccup.
The hand digging didn't work out
quite like I had in my head.
We saw very quickly that it would take
probably a month to get all this hand dug.
-I don't know, Dad. -Yeah.
I think you do it in columns.
So we do have the excavator bucket.
And we can take that bucket,
dig it out, and try to run trenches
instead of doing individual holes.
So instead of hand digging,
we've decided to grab the excavator one last time
and start digging out rows
where we had previously chiseled.
That seemed to work a little bit better,
but it looks like a hot mess.
I think Deanna is a little worried at this point.
[Deanna] It's a mess. I don't know.
I hope that this is okay.
I'm trusting him, but it's a mess.
[upbeat music playing]
[Logan] Morning.
-Number one. -Good morning.
Got some breakfast.
It'll be so much better with a kitchen.
-Yeah. -[laughs]
-And a warm place to sleep. -It's so cold.
[laughter]
[Logan] It wasn't a fun night.
We'll figure it out, though.
And of course, in a few months, we'll have a cabin.
[Deanna] So, the plan today is we're gonna place the form
for our footers.
[rock music playing]
[Deanna] Once we have all the forms in place,
we're gonna backfill so that they'll be steady.
Well, Logan continues to scare me
with all his machine driving.
[gasps] No, no.
Oh, my gosh.
[Logan] I mean, not many people can drift a tractor.
[laughs]
You're looking at one in a million.
So, we eventually got everything in place and level.
We're ready to pour concrete tomorrow.
[rock music playing]
Hello, day three.
Concrete pour day, huh, Mabel?
We're gonna lay some concrete down today.
[alarm beeping]
[Logan] Since we're in the spot building off grid,
we can't get a truck back here with a hose.
So, we're gonna have hand bucket out
these loads of concrete into our concrete forms.
It should be a messy job and very heavy,
but we can do it.
[rock music playing]
We did it.
We finished.
We have filled in this disastrous-looking holes
that I wasn't too sure about before,
but you know what?
I stand corrected.
Just, uh, like Logan said,
everything worked out as it should.
And I am in awe
because there's gonna be a cabin here
very, very soon.
[country music playing]
All right. Let's look for some heart rocks.
Be on the lookout now.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
They're everywhere.
One of the big things about this property,
uh, is what the locals call Lover's Leap.
It's right when you come in.
It's the sunrise view.
And because of that, we've kind of taken a shine
to collecting heart-shaped rocks
that we can use on the hearth for our wood-burning stove.
I found one.
Yeah. That's a perfect one.
It's perfect.
[Deanna] Wow. That's amazing.
-[Logan] Good one. -All right.
-I say we go right. -[Logan] Okay.
-Because there's a creek there. -Okay.
So today, we're gonna break up
the day to day, all day grind
of just working on the jobsite
with a little fun time
with Lily and Lucas
to look for some heart-shaped rocks.
And look at all these rocks.
They're... There's bound to be something here.
[Deanna] Wow.
[Lucas] Look at this one.
-[Deanna] Oh, wow. -That's a good one.
-[Lucas] Yeah.
-[Logan] We'll use that one. -That's awesome.
-[Logan] Yeah. -[Deanna] Perfect.
-You approve, Lily? -Yeah.
I think that every time that we come to the property,
we're gonna be able to, um, remember this.
It should be something that we can look at in the future
and remember these good times with our kids.
Okay. So, we got one, two, three, four, five, six.
All we need is about...
I don't know, 150, 200 more.
[Lucas] That's a lot.
-[Deanna] Keep looking. -[Lucas] Yeah.
[country music playing]
[sighs] All right.
We woke up after a long day
of pouring concrete yesterday
and the skies are black.
There's rain coming.
Less than 24 hours after we poured.
On top of that, it's supposed to go below freezing.
Logan says we gotta keep these pillars dry,
uh, and warm somehow.
So, we are freaking out.
Ugh.
[suspenseful music playing]
So, we woke up this morning and, as feared,
it looks like it's gonna rain.
Concrete has settled, but it's not fully cured.
So, we wanted to run to the store this morning
and pick up some bags, bag these columns.
It won't be fully cured for a few weeks.
So, we definitely wanna try to insulate
and protect it as much as possible.
[thunder rumbling]
[upbeat music playing]
[Logan] It's been a real busy couple of weeks.
Luckily, the rain did not mess up our concrete forms.
When we unwrapped them, they were good to go.
We're gonna start building that deck.
[rock music playing]
[Logan] Today is a pretty big day.
We've already constructed the first wall.
So, step two to that process
is building out and finishing the windows on the wall.
Once we finish those windows,
we will move on to the back wall,
which has the biggest portion of glass on it.
It's a lot of work.
It's some heavy lifting.
And I'm gonna rely heavily on my wife, Deanna.
We've already got the boards cut.
I'm gonna lay it out pretty much like
a jigsaw puzzle on the deck.
We'll get it all measured out correctly, hopefully.
And from there, we'll lift the wall up with the kids' help.
And wall number two is about 90% done.
[Deanna] Something ain't right.
This is not long enough.
-Look at it. -It's not long enough.
It should go all the way up to here.
Yeah.
We put them in the wrong place.
How?
[Logan] Uh...
what we need to do is take this outside bore off,
pop that one out, pop that one out,
re-put this one on, move this one to right here,
and then put these on top like it's supposed to be
-because... -Hmm.
[Logan] it's hot and we're making mistakes.
-[sighs] -[Logan] I'm making mistakes.
It's not your fault.
[Deanna] Well, what... How do we...
We're gonna have to deconstruct that portion of the wall,
bang out every nail that we put in
[hammer banging]
so we can reuse that wood
because we're limited on wood.
We're in the middle of nowhere.
We can't really go to the store and pick up more wood.
You could tell how much learning's gone on
at a jobsite by how many bent nails
there are on the ground.
We've done a lot of learning.
[laughs]
I got this.
All right. So, no more nails
until we measure.
[Logan] Setbacks like this, they're defeating,
especially when it's this hot.
But even when we make the mistake,
I got to make it with my family.
We got to learn together.
We got to build this thing together.
And at the end of all of this,
we'll have memories of those mistakes
and all the heartache that it took
to actually achieve what we went out to achieve.
Done. We finally figured it out.
All right. All right.
-No problems on the next one. -[Logan] Yeah.
[Deanna] Believe it or not,
we were actually able to measure
everything correctly
for the second half of the wall.
Now comes the fun part, raising it up.
[Logan] One, two, thee. Go.
[instrumental music playing]
[Logan] All right. Let's get to the corner.
[Deanna] You know, there's such a sense of pride
that we have being able to do this
with our entire family.
Being able to show our kids
what everyone is capable of,
what they can be capable of.
[Logan] Now that the wall's up,
we can almost see the finished product,
but we still have two 2 by 10 by 20s
to put up to span the distance of the entire wall.
That's gonna hold up the roof eventually.
-I'm gonna get on this ladder. -I know.
[Logan] You'll get on that ladder.
I'm... Yeah.
[rock music playing]
This I-beam is extremely heavy
and I have to, you know, keep it even with Logan
because if I get too high or he gets higher than me,
it really puts strain on the other side.
[Logan] Deanna's side wasn't quite lining up,
so I decided to switch sides.
I think it might be easier
for her to take on my side.
[Deanna] I really thought that I had it.
And the next thing I know...
Oh, my gosh.
[Logan] Ooh, are you okay?
[upbeat music playing]
[sighs]
I am trying to pitch in and do my part,
but this I-beam is extremely heavy.
Oh, my gosh!
Ooh, are you okay?
[Deanna] Yeah.
-All right. -I wasn't quite up here.
I'm sorry.
Ugh.
I just looked to my right for a moment,
and the next thing I know,
it's moving and I just thought I could grab it.
Okay. Back up.
[Logan] Luckily, nobody got hurt.
We'll pick this thing back up.
We'll set it back up there
and we'll put a couple of screws in it
just to hold it secure while we finish this thing.
Good on this side.
Hold it still for me.
[hammer banging]
Okay. That looks flat.
No setback's gonna stop us.
We'll figure it out.
[electric drill whirring]
[Logan] One down and one to go.
All right.
We got the first header beam in
and it looks amazing.
-All right. That's a wrap. -[Deanna] Whoo.
I'm glad we were able to figure this out.
And I'm even more happy
that you weren't just killed...
-I didn't die. -by that I beam.
I didn't die.
[upbeat music playing]
Today's all about framing out the main wall.
The biggest wall in our cabin.
This will be our baseboard.
[Deanna] Okay.
[Logan] And the one that will all be marked.
So we need to start with measurements.
Once we get our measurements,
we can start laying out our wall studs.
From there, we can get a good idea
of where our windows are gonna go.
[machine whirring]
[sighs]
[Logan] This definitely wasn't planned for today.
Nope.
Issue number one for today,
generator won't crank.
Hopefully we can fix it quick and get it back to work.
It's just dying.
It might be a bad sparkplug.
Might've went dead on us.
I'm at my wits' end with this thing,
especially being here off grid.
I don't have tools here with me.
I'm gonna give it one more tug.
[Deanna] Okay.
This is a build killer,
if we can't get this generator going.
We can't run power tools.
We're at a dead stop
if this thing does not start up right away.
Everybody hope for the best.
I'm ready.
[Logan] Got to work.
[Deanna] Okay.
Come on. Come on.
We have a backup generator that someone left here
when they were working on another project.
It hasn't ran in a year,
but we're gonna give this one a try
and see if we can make it happen.
[upbeat music playing]
[machine whirring]
Oh.
-Yeah. -[laughs]
[Logan] All right.
Slide this one up.
Back in business.
-Back in business. -Yeah.
Please work.
Oh, yeah.
[machine whirring]
[Logan] Time to start building this wall.
[Deanna] Let's do it.
[Logan] All right.
Those go right here.
We need one on each corner.
We're gonna put it together on the floor
so we can take a good look at it,
get our measurements before we nail anything together.
We can definitely see it's taking shape.
And getting us where we need to be.
[Deanna] Yeah.
[Logan] Let me double measure this
before I stick some nails in it.
We've pretty much got this wall knocked out.
It's on the ground.
It looks good.
All right.
I hear the generator's kind of
-sputtering a little bit. -[Deanna] Oh, gosh.
[Logan] It's an older generator
but it might just be out of gas.
[Deanna] Okay.
[Logan] Oh, there it went.
I told you.
[laughs]
I told you it was gonna go out.
All right. Let's go get some gas.
Cool off on the trip.
[Deanna] All right.
The generator, it went out, it ran out of gas.
So we're gonna have to run to town,
get more gas, which isn't good.
Definitely taking longer than expected.
As usual.
We're at a dead stop.
Par of the course, building off-grid.
[Logan] Yesterday was a really long day,
but after our drive to get gas,
we got the generator running.
[machine whirring]
[Logan] We were able to finish out
that wall on the ground. Sheath it.
We're ready to lift this wall.
It's a huge day for us. A big challenge.
Probably bigger than anything else that we've done
as far as our nerves go.
[Deanna] I'm scared.
[Logan] Yeah.
[engine starting]
This is a freaky part.
So fingers crossed that we hit a home run
and we don't drop this wall off the cliff.
To get this wall up.
We're gonna rely on our heavy equipment.
It's got a boom arm that goes out 40 feet.
Watch your toes.
[Deanna] I'm watching.
It's good so far.
No creakin'.
[Logan] This wall is massive.
16 foot tall.
It's got to weigh 1,000 pounds.
This is a super sketchy part of our build
and I'm a little freaked out about it.
[Deanna] It's pulling it this way.
Oh, my gosh.
[Logan] If this wall crashes,
I don't even know where we go from there.
We would be crushed.
Mentally.
Oh, I'm so scared.
I'm so scared.
We have to nail it today.
[Deanna] Oh, God.
Please don't let this fall.
That would just be the worst thing.
[Logan] All right. Just stay clear, Dea.
[Deanna] I am.
I'm terrified.
Wall is up and it is tilting,
it's moving around
and I'm terrified.
Come on.
That is the scariest thing I've ever seen.
I can't even look.
That's a really heavy wall.
So if it goes one way or the other,
all the work that we did is gone.
[Logan] Leave it right there.
We got the wall vertical. We got it braced.
We're gonna take the fork.
We'll bring it back down to our push-pole
and push it straight.
[Deanna] It's going. It looks good.
[Logan] It should slide right into place.
It's a heavy wall, but that's a big piece of equipment.
How we looking?
[Deanna] Just a little bit more
about this much.
This far.
A little bit.
Stop.
[Logan] We on?
[Deanna] I think so.
-Come see. -Well, hallelujah!
[Deanna] Yes. [laughs]
We made it.
Getting this wall up was definitely
a challenge for us today.
[groans]
-[laughs] -That was uh...
that was very nerve-wracking.
-That was scary. -Moving forward,
it won't be smooth sailing,
but knowing that we could do everything we've done
to this point and this huge wall
is a confidence booster.
I really feel like we can get it done now.
-Yay. -Lunch time?
-Lunch. -Let's do it.
[upbeat music playing]
[Logan] The things that we've accomplished,
it's been nonstop.
One minute to the next, day to day,
we've got the walls up,
we've put all the sheathing up,
spray foam installation has gone in
and that cooled the place down dramatically
from what it was.
It's pretty dang nice.
[Deanna] We did the plumbing.
We did the electrical.
[Logan] Oh, we got stairs.
And here is the living room.
[Deanna] A lot of the siding has already gone up.
[Logan] It's amazing. It's black onyx.
So it's kind of this copper color.
And we got our 2,500 gallon
rain catchment tank in place.
[Deanna] We hired a roofer.
They were here first thing in the morning.
And by lunch, they were finished.
It just all came together.
Like, it went from this platform to an actual cabin.
Besides having kids, this is probably
the hardest thing we've ever done.
-Really. -I had the kids.
Yeah. Well, I'm having to deal with them though.
[laughter]
[rock music playing]
[Logan] Come on, Lily.
-Bring those heart rocks. -Yup.
Grab those hearts.
Since we've been coming up to the property,
we've found lots of heart-shaped rocks
and so we've been saving those
to make a hearth for our fireplace.
[Logan] All right. Let's get some water.
So the first thing that we'll need to do today
is to get the water so that we can start mixing the mortar
and getting everything ready for the hearth.
The water is probably a football field away
from the build site,
so hopefully, we won't need too much water.
So we're walking, got our bucket in hand
and all of a sudden I hear Deanna squeal.
[screams] Watch out!
[Logan] All right. Let's get some water.
Snake! [screams] Watch out!
After I slipped and almost busted my butt,
I find out that it's just this tiny little garden snake.
[Deanna] No, it could be pygmy rattle.
You don't even know.
No. It's just a garden snake.
-It's like a little worm. -Oh, my goodness.
It is like a little worm.
We keep thinking that we're gonna run into a snake
and these big awful humongous snakes.
And this one was little bitty,
but scared me nonetheless.
[Logan] I really don't like snakes,
but that's a cute snake.
[laughs]
Hopefully it went back on its merry way
and made a bunch of baby snakes later down the road
and we can see those later too.
[Deanna] The snake business is done, thank goodness.
We can get on our way and go get this water
so we can get started with the hearth this morning.
First things first, we need to do the base.
Now.
-[laughter] -[indistinct chatter]
We didn't buy these rocks at the store.
We've picked them up around the property.
So some of them are thicker than others.
So we will use a hefty heaping pile of mortar.
That's looking good.
So what we gotta do
is put one big stone right here.
And to do that, I'm gonna have you dump
a big old blob of mortar right here.
So just kind of dump it out.
All right.
Now, spread this out for me, Luke.
[Deanna] Looking good.
That's good right there.
Let's go get the rock.
[upbeat music playing]
Heavy.
I think it's perfect.
From kind of a bit, you know, of a distance
and from a nice angle
kind of looks like Arkansas
so I think we started off good.
If you squint just right.
-If you squint just right. -It's Arkansas.
And once we get this base done,
we can coat the top
and we can start with our heart-shaped rocks,
making a cool little pattern
like smoke going up to the top.
So it's finally time to get the kids involved.
They haven't been able to help us too much
with all of the heavy lifting
and some of it was a little bit dangerous.
So finally able to get them doing this
and get them back involved in our project.
All right.
I think that's about as good as we can get this for now.
Let's start the first layer of the back.
And that looks great, Luke.
All right.
That'll sit right there.
Let's start with the biggest, fattest
heart that y'all found.
-All right. -I think we found that one
down in the creek. Remember?
Yup.
So slap you some mortar right here on the back.
There you go. Just like a brick mason.
Perfect.
-[Deanna] I like that. -[Lucas] Perfect.
[Deanna] That is perfect.
[Logan] Lily, find you a heart rock.
[Deanna] Oh, that was good. I like that.
Fist bump.
Fist bump on the hearts.
Come on, one time.
She does this every time.
The kids needed a little teaching.
Obviously, they've never done this before.
My dad is a super good teacher.
I love working with my family.
We're always doing something fun.
They really picked up on it fast.
I'm pretty confident they're gonna get this done
and it's gonna look amazing.
I think that it's great so far.
All right, y'all got this.
I'm gonna step away now.
We're gonna go do something else.
-Okay. -All right.
I had an idea after I saw the cabin
kind of in its finished form with the drywall up
that I wanted more nature inside.
Driving down the driveway,
I noticed some of our Pinus
have these really neat branches.
Well, we need a rail for the-the landing
at the top of the stairs,
and a tree's a good solution.
So a few days ago, we found the perfect tree
on the property.
[grunting] There it goes.
We got it down, we pulled it out.
Time to figure out how this is actually gonna fit.
I don't think we can lift it up there,
so gotta go with these unfinished stairs.
Oh, just help me lift and make sure
we don't hit too bad.
It's a little tight.
There it is.
[drill buzzing]
We get it cut and like a glove,
it-it slides right in.
Kids, what you say?
What?
We still have to add the base
to make it look like a complete tree.
-All right. Let's do it. -Let's go. Got it.
-This is a little different. -It is.
Yeah. I've never put a tree in a house before.
The measurements can be a little wonky
because the tree's a little wonky.
[Logan] All right.
-[Deanna] That's perfect. -I love it.
The tree is there, it's in place,
and it looks amazing.
It looks amazing, but we're missing
that one little lower branch
to give us a lower railing for a smaller child.
[Deanna] Go over just a little bit.
About right there.
[drill buzzing]
I wasn't sure, but this turned out amazing.
It's nothing for an idea to come together
when it comes together so often for me.
[laughter]
[Logan] Now that we have this done,
we really need to start tackling these stairs.
-[Deanna] Okay. -[Logan] Because...
-[Deanna] Do it. -[Logan] we're running out of time.
So Logan came to me with another idea
about how we're gonna make our stairs
using some of the wood that has been pulled from
the Mississippi river, which is where I'm from.
[Logan] We basically took book-ends
of this red elm and butted them together,
and then we poured black epoxy in it.
It makes kind of a river look,
and we're hoping that when we lay them down
as the stair runners and you're looking down it,
it looks like a river running down.
Once we paint this back board black,
that river should look like
it's drifting from one to the next.
[Deanna] It's beautiful. I love that.
[Logan] So now that we've seen this,
I really wanna see our peninsula table.
Another piece of red elm done the same way
with a waterfall edge.
Just walking, running around to this...
-Under the stairs. -Okay.
And we'll lift it up.
Okay.
One, two, three.
[grunting] It's heavy for me.
I know it's heavy for you.
That's nice.
[Deanna] It is nice.
It's perfect.
Let's complete the look.
-All right. -And put the side on.
This makes the waterfall edge.
-[Deanna] That looks so good. -[Logan] It is.
[Deanna] That isn't what I even thought it was gonna look.
[Logan] For people that don't do this,
we sure did this good.
-Yeah, we did. -Mmm-hmm.
I imagine that we're gonna have lots of breakfasts
and dinners at this for many years to come.
[upbeat music playing]
Whoo-wee, that's looking good.
Y'all did it.
[Logan] We just got a little bit more to go
and we can call it a day on this.
Over the next few weeks, we have a lot to do.
[Deanna] I'm a little bit nervous.
[Logan] "Hope you enjoy this in your beautiful new cabin, dad."
Papa Byron.
Nice. One-of-a-kind.
Love the color in it.
-Pretty nice. -[Deanna] It's perfect.
[Logan] Seamless.
All hands on deck.
And hope for the best.
[upbeat music playing]
Golly, I'm so happy that we're done.
It's been a long road,
but the cabin turned out perfect.
We both learned so much about ourselves,
about what our kids could do,
just life in general.
This has been an excellent experience.
Our original timeline was seven months
and we ended up being right on time, seven months.
Our original budget we set was $50,000,
but we came in right at $46,000.
[Deanna] What I've learned along the way is that
most of the money that you are paying
a contractor is their labor.
So we were able to come in under budget
just because of the work that we put into it.
We did all the labor.
Under budget, on time.
Today, my parents are coming to town.
I've talked to them about it,
but they've never seen it.
So today's a big day.
-Hello. -Hey.
-Well, this is spectacular.
Ooh, look how pretty.
Wow.
-Nice job. -It's great.
[Logan] Yeah, I'm happy y'all came.
This is exciting.
It's amazing how big it is.
I didn't expect it to be this big.
[Logan] I think it just looks and feels bigger
than it actually is.
It's only about 800 square feet.
It's deceiving because of the loft
and the high ceiling, big windows,
the whole cabin is powered with a generator.
We got the rain catch,
it goes to our 2,500-gallon rain tote.
We got a standing seam metal roof,
we got siding that's board and batten.
And that siding's gonna last forever.
[man] That's spectacular, son.
[Logan] Thanks, Dad.
[woman] You did a great job, both of you.
I don't have how you did it all by yourselves.
Can't wait to see the inside.
-Yeah, let's go. -All right.
[Logan] All right. Get ready for this.
-Yup. -Okay.
[upbeat music playing]
-Oh. -[man] It's beautiful.
-[woman] This is great. -[Logan] Thanks.
It's been a long journey.
A lot of work for Deanna and I.
-[Deanna] A lot of work. -[Logan] Yeah, but...
[Deanna] It was well worth it.
[Logan] come together nicely.
How you like the table, how it turned out?
[man] Oh, it's incredible.
-You've been talking about it. -Yeah.
It's-it's been a long work in progress.
[man] Yeah.
[Logan] But your painting, Dad,
really sets the whole room up.
Yeah, that painting looks good there.
-[man] Yeah, it does. -It brings color in.
[Logan] All black wall and just feature.
-It's perfect. -[woman] Yeah, love it.
I'm proud to have it up here.
There.
Look at that girl right there.
-[laughter] -Look at that.
[Deanna] It's just like her [laughs].
[upbeat music playing]
[woman] So tell me about this fireplace.
This is pretty cool.
[Logan] Oh, man.
So this was kind of the kids' project.
-[Deanna] Yeah. -[Logan] We've let 'em loose on it,
but they had hunted for heart rocks for months.
-You can see them all over the place. -[woman] How cute.
-[Deanna] Yeah, right? -[woman] Look... Oh, yeah, look at there.
[man] It protects the wall, too, doesn't it?
-[Deanna] It does from our wood-burning stove. -[man] Yeah.
[Deanna] And this will actually keep us warm.
[man] Puts up a lot of heat, doesn't it?
[Deanna] Yeah, once we add the stove pipe going out,
it's gonna heat this whole cabin.
[woman] This is perfect.
[Logan] You see the kitchen area, huh?
[woman] Oh, it's beautiful. Love it.
[Logan] It's kinda all-in-one space,
but that also makes it feel roomy.
But we have our two-burner cook top,
-big sink. -[man] Oh, it looks cool.
[Logan] A chopping block counter tops
and we did these cabinets.
[man] Looks very professional.
-[Logan] They do. -[woman] Is that so?
I love the tree.
What was the motivation behind that?
[Logan] Well, the tree was here
and I didn't wanna cut it down.
-[laughs] No, it was not. -So...
[Logan] No, we saw it driving down the driveway
and we needed something up there.
It's railing, it's something that we did ourselves.
And that's what makes it special.
Oh, it's beautiful, though. Absolutely gorgeous.
[Logan] Yeah. All right.
-You wanna see the bathroom? -[Deanna] Bathroom.
-[Logan] Down this hallway... -[woman] Oh, okay.
[Logan] next to these beautiful stairs.
-Same as the table. -[woman gasps] Oh, look.
[Logan] And that leads you right into the bathroom.
[woman] Pretty.
This is beautiful.
[Logan] Yeah, this was a lot of work
-in a short amount of time. -Did you carve this?
-Is that what you're talking about? -[Logan] Yeah.
-Whittled it by hand. -[laughter]
[woman] Uh-uh, you did not.
[Logan] No, I didn't.
So all this is plumbed out,
sinks and everything,
and everything goes up to a septic system,
but it's all gravity,
so we don't really need power for it.
It works great.
Where do you sleep?
-Best room of the house. -Okay.
[woman gasps] Oh. Yeah.
This is pretty.
[man] Oh, it's beautiful. Look at the beams.
-I love the beams here. -[Logan] Yeah, they keep
going from the hallway to in here.
It just makes it feel so much bigger.
-Yeah. -[Deanna] I mean, it's not a lot of space,
but I mean, it's just feels big.
Everything looks real good.
[Logan] You wanna see the upstairs where the kids sleep?
-[woman] Sure. Yes. -[man] Yes.
Oh, look how cute.
[man] This is perfect for them.
[Deanna] So Lily has a space and Lucas has his space.
[Logan] They say it's kinda like a tree house up here for 'em.
[woman laughs] Their own little space.
[Logan] You wanna go outside and look at the view?
-[woman] Oh, yes. -[man] Yeah.
Welcome to the great outdoors.
-[Deanna] Come check this out. -[woman] Ooh.
-[Deanna] Yeah. -[man] Beautiful.
[woman] This is gorgeous.
That right there, that mountain
is in Oklahoma, so we're that close.
-That's crazy. -Good job.
[woman] You've done an incredible job.
-[man] Yeah. -[woman] I'm so proud of you.
Yeah, it took both of us, the kids,
and-and a lot of effort and time and--
[woman] Well, now you got something to be proud of.
-[man] Yeah. -Building off the grid
has been a lot of fun
and a lot of not-so-fun moments,
but I'm just so proud of us,
I'm proud that we pulled together as a family,
and we built it with our bare hands,
and now we're gonna go enjoy it
for the rest of our lives.