Mind-Blowing Modern Tiny Tree House Built with Reclaimed Materials - FULL TOUR

hey everyone in this video we're visiting an epic two-story log treehouse in wakefield quebec it was built with salvaged and leftover building materials that the builder saved for years before starting this project the upstairs is a complete living area with two sleeping spaces a kitchen living and dining room and a small bathroom downstairs is an outdoor lounge area and a full indoor bathroom it's a really unique space and we're excited to give you a tour so let's go check it out [Music] it's a two-story treehouse the upstairs is the indoor heated space and downstairs is the deck covered porch the entire structure sits on nine hemlock posts that are on concrete footings anchored to the bedrock so we were fortunate to have such a solid base to set this on we went with a treehouse theme so we knew it had to be high off the ground and enter from below and feel like you're outside it took three years from start to finish i didn't want to have the pressure of deadline it was 100 supposed to be a fun project for me to reconnect with my trade we access without having a ladder or a steep staircase because we we have this bridge that starts from a cliff so you enter the tree house but you're still outside we're on the patio now which is the summer living room uh a bit of a bar here a table and a nice note to sleep in we weren't sure how this would unfold over time so we built it in a way we could close this in this is already insulated and if we bought windows to fill this we could gain this space for winter use but as it is it's the best space and the most enjoyed so i don't see us doing that anytime soon in the winter the the snow blows in and you're outside but people still use the space and there's a concrete floor and it it's nicely sloped that all the water goes down the floor drains in the washroom there's a nice walk-in shower with glass walls with a nice sloped heated concrete floor a toilet that's plumbed to a septic and there's a nice counter we obviously bought new ceramic for the walls and nice shower glass to provide a really clean comfortable luxury washroom the original plan was every time we went to the washroom we had to go outside and come back inside and we realized in the middle of the night in winter that was a bit extreme so we did squeeze a very small bathroom upstairs we are upstairs in the living space this is heated with everything you need we have a kitchen two bedrooms a living room and a dining room behind this is the washroom the floor is heated that's the only heat source so it doesn't make any noise or air movement it's really calming this log room is about 18 by 20 feet including the bathroom downstairs it gives 420 square feet of living space a heated living space the logs have been salvaged from barns in the valley that were made by hand by early settlers they used axes to square them and we were able to collage them all together to make this treehouse they're not all structural they provide a shelter from outside and they that's the only insulation you can see this one was really crude maybe didn't have that much experience maybe it was in a rush no this one's nicer done still done with an axe you could tell it was from a building that had been painted this is a living room and this is a couch that makes the maximum use of the space it's very comfortable or folds out for a double mattress we're up on the deck screen porch we're about 35 feet from the ground there are no bugs that fly this high but we've had glasses fall over the edge so the screen's not there to keep bugs out it's really to keep all your belongings in the doors we get such high winds here that we had to put little locks on the doors from slamming shut we rarely close them all summer this is the kitchen which is obviously not recycled we got nice cabinets a nice mini uh stove well water a little storage uh pantry mini fridge there's a large dining room that comfortably sits for and is a great place to sit and take in the view watch a sunset this is a single bedroom with a single mattress this is the master bedroom uh originally we thought this would be a wall but after we spent some time in here we realized if we raised the bed we could take in the view and you can get coffee in bed at the bar there's a lot of storage under the bed and if you have to go to the washroom in the night there's a small washroom here if you have to go and you don't want to walk outside i used every piece of scrap i've taken home for the last 20 years i had taken down a few barns lots of different siding materials old roofing but the real thing that i had to incorporate were these 9 40-foot hemlock posts that came from a site that was cleared for a house and they were the largest hemlocks i had seen in the area and we never cut them we used every piece of it everything you can see is reclaimed there is a new plumbing wiring insulation the problem with using reclaimed materials is you often run out so we definitely had to buy some metal to match or a couple posts to finish something but it was a very small percentage i feel that some of it came together so nice that it looks it doesn't look like scraps anymore but that's good people like that we're very exposed so watching the storms roll through is amazing and we had to change the roof design slightly originally we planned to have a gable end facing the view to let more light in but it was definitely taller than i imagined and i thought having that big gable end facing the storms was a big sail so we changed the roof to be more aerodynamic and we wanted to have as much natural light as possible and you see a bit of sky so we made this coppola and it also provides natural ventilation as the hot air wants to rise if you let it escape it stays really comfortable in here and there's always fresh air without mechanical ventilation and our overhangs are four feet all around so the sunlight even though we're in the sky and fully exposed the sun is not directly in the windows we put a lot of insulation in the roof with a lot of ventilation to make sure that that heat is not transferred inside and with the well insulated heated floor it's comfortable all year we're connected to the grid and we didn't want to see any wires so we buried the connection and that's also where we hid the weld line we had to put a heated cable and insulate it so that our water supply doesn't freeze in winter i built it but i also represent wakefield construction which consists of a great crew so we built it together as a professional builder it's hard to find opportunities where you can really prove yourself and i figured i had one chance to do something to the most of my ability to me it's a giant sculpture of everything i can offer if you want to find out more about this treehouse i'll put the instagram and airbnb links down below also be sure to subscribe to exploring alternatives and check out our playlists for more videos like this thanks for watching

Channel: Exploring Alternatives

Views: 1,946,586

Rating: 4.9397488 out of 5

Keywords: tiny, house, tour, Canada, tree, treehouse, tree house, cabin, micro, home, stilts, grid, DIY, self, built, build, reclaimed, materials, hemlock, Exploring, Alternatives, Wakefield, unique, rental, Airbnb, indoor, outdoor, view, cabin life, new, tiny house, tiny home, interior, design, bedroom, modern, luxury, epic, bathroom, balcony, patio, forest, woods, cliff, cupola, heat, heated, floor, ventilation, log, timber, frame, reused, green, building, sustainable, builder, project, lookout, tower, shelter

Id: WGaICSbCr1c

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020