ROCK CABIN built by hand is pro snowboarder's amazing home

hey there welcome to my channel where I  take you on tours of tiny and alternative   homes this week's video is sponsored by husk  stay tuned to the end of the video so you can   learn more about their exceptional knives  today we're traveling to California to take   a tour of a professional snowboarders handmade  Rock House this incredible home took the owner   several years to construct including hand picking  every single rock that you'll see in the build   and while his Rock House is his full-time home  he also has an incredible Overlander tiny home   that he's going to share with us today if you  like these kind of videos make sure that you   subscribe and hit that notification Bell so that  you know every single time we publish a new tour I'm a professional snowboarder I've been doing  this for about 30 something years since the   mid 80s my long time passion is woodworking so  I've been around when I was 34 I started this   project and that kind of was a very fulfilling  achievement for me to bring in my passion for   building and being off-grid something that I  never got to bring in a snowboarding before   so I grew up in California and After High School  I traveled the world for 20 years after seeing   what's out there I realized I love California  I love the granite so this is where I landed   it's been 20 20 years now I feel  very rich being up here you know   clean water no one's bothering me no  one's telling me what to do I feel safe   I started this project by just getting rocks  everyone would come up and have a blast my   crew shifted throughout the projects my mom was  always there she was a big helper of this project   and this probably took five years to where it  was comfortable probably another two years to   kind of fine tune things which is a lot of  time for you know 200 and something square   foot structure but I don't think it's going  anywhere I think it's here to stay for a while I think it costs about 20  25 Grand this is in 2005. when I first built it I was trying to be  here full time the other times I wasn't   I was traveling so it was more of a home base  about half of the year it is a little bit like   camping just to put that word in this lifestyle  you know you're dealing with your trash you're   dealing with cleaning dishes slowly nothing  fast there's no toaster these things add a   lot of time I truly that's what I want my day  to be like and I definitely want to teach my   kids that so it fits me perfect what's  next will be interesting because I have   two boys and my ladies so we'll see what  we all do together and shape something new I decided to build My Little Dream  Rock cabin up here on Donner Summit   we're on 84 Acres at 7 100 feet and  I've been living up here since 0-4 so this is kind of my little bit of a front  door this is actually a milled and waited five   years until it's ready to build I had a temporary  door before come and check out the inside foreign the sun heats all the rocks  in the morning over here   and then in the evening these rocks heat up  it holds a lot of the heat which means less   firewood much comfortable living radiant heat  is actually a beautiful heat especially from the   Sun like what else can you ask for like it's an  amazing experience you get to really understand   how we're moving through space and being in  sync with all these things that you want to   enjoy I mean that's a big part of why I would be  up here this floor plan down here is based on my   birthday there's a little metal thing over here  in the window looks like a stretched out Star   based on the golden ratio 29th of October at 302  there's a shadow that meets all the points of the   Pentagon that's my floor plan big inspiration of  learning about that and that gave me a little bit   more of a celebration of me you know that's what  this place was really about to do is understand   myself what I need to move in life and so this is  kind of a result of what I've discovered about me so this is my kitchen this is a piece of granite  someone gave me from an old job some leftover   stuff some projects I've built you know in my  travels just understanding Rock a little bit   this is actually my first project that I did with  metal wood and Rock so normally it was wood then I   became a masonry but just force and I have a lot  of rocks here I got electricity which just in a   power inverter for the 110 but most everything  we all use these days is actually 12 volt   so a lot of things you can buy you just cut the  inverter off hard wire it into a 12 volt battery   my windows open here this gets buried in  the winter so this is my winter refrigerator   just kind of open it up you got a little shelf of  snow my first stainless steel welding is my sink   very proud of that it's not easy doing stainless  steel shape inspired by the Pentagon of the cabin   and moves into soapstone soapstone counters some  fun welding projects you know on downtime figure   out what we need to survive up here fire heat  dry very important I kept things pretty simple   where I built everything I needed in the wall  just to give the floor space a little bit of a   bigger of a feeling fireplace is mostly the  biggest focus of the daily chores you know   your hot water cooking everything's based around  here I got a little oven you can do some baking   fun little junkyard fireplace  door I got and this is actually   um soapstone huge fan of soapstone you can cut it  with a skill saw you can hand sand it the oven's   built out of that you just make a little box and  then I got my hot water here coils for heating and   a little 12 volt pump this whole place is 12 volt  I got two batteries very basic it's about a 500   setup as far as the panels and the batteries go  I do have a generator now for my well which is a   three-year-old project so that has really changed  how this place moves having water come out of a   pipe I did mix all the cement from Creek Water  here and that is a wild experience water seven   eight pounds a gallon you need at least a gallon a  half per cement bag 33 pallets of cement it works   out to be a lot of weight and working with it not  freezing up here in the winter big process very   proud and also when I have water I have this huge  experience of appreciation that's why my actually   did all this was to have an appreciation  for the simple things that we need to live this is my shower kind of has a natural feeling  when you go bathe in the creek you realize why   don't I have this inside my house so this is my  version of a creek bed shower drains outside got   my hot water sometimes I'll have a pump with a  shower head so my glass work here was one of my   longest projects it took me about two years to  just get the glass in place my road to get this   type of glass up here was too bumpy I have about  eight windows and I think four of them broke in   the process of getting them up here these windows  are amazing for many reasons they heat the place   you can fall asleep with the Stars on a storm you  get to watch the clouds come in this way and it   just dumps 50 feet of snow on a good winter I'm  three miles from a plowed Road when the snow is   super deep you're down to snowshoes because  nothing else can actually work I would spin   anywhere from six hours hiking up here sounds like  a lot of work but again this is kind of why I'm   here and it keeps me in shape keeps me healthy  this big window opens up so the deck became an   outside experience of flat ground and has become  part of the house as well when I started building   this house I had a big camp out and I had 20 30  people come up we made a huge pile of rocks and   I thought I'll probably be about half half of what  I need to build a house it got me about this high   you know this wall is probably 13 feet tall so  imagine it's three feet thick at the bottom it's   a lot of rocks the rock actually on the inside  is separated from the outer Rock so there's in   the middle there's a bubble wrap that separates  that barrier so the coal doesn't come in and the   hot doesn't go out people started sending me rocks  and different things to add to the cabin which was   beautiful to hear everyone's inspiration to help  after everything kind of got in place I sanded   this down quite a bit which is the the couch  black walnut took me about three tries so I got   where I wanted it to be the tables the special  tree that I got off the friend's property this   part was actually two trees it uh grew together  and then grew back apart and right here it was   kind of rotted out quite a bit so I put in a  hot plate and then I got inspired by different   rocks that people gave me one's a petrified  wood is a mammoth bone petrified mammoth bone   did some shapes and mountains with my window  framing all this stuff is welded in place   so this is my sleeping quarters up here   I've lost I have two boys now my lady and two  young boys we do sleep up here my youngest is   one and a half so we haven't stayed up here a  lot because there's no net but my inspiration   is to make things a little more comfortable for  family style this is very a bachelor planned out   and my window I have a little window over  here to regulate the temperature which is   really helpful you kind of Arms Reach when  you're in bed so you can cool the place off   the Fire gets too hot at night this is actually  what I built very first once I had enough wall   space to put this Beam on there's huge i-beams  that shape the curve of the roof I was lucky   enough my cousin bet me these he had a big  machine enough to curve the i-beams okay so this is the outside of the cabin as you can  see this is quite a bit of a rock wall this is   my biggest wall I've Had Each Rock's actually dry  stacked which is a process I learned in Mexico   I've just used to stack your rocks dry I mean no  concrete and then you backfill it and you get a   little bit of more of a natural look that way  this is my deck worked on some steps so having   a surface like this outside makes the house twice  as big which is nice this is a big addition to the   house it's a big door I guess is about a thousand  pounds with everything I welded it in place and   the hinge I actually built two acts like a kite  so you can't let go until it's actually locked three pillars here that these support the deck  this one is my water pillar this one's my fire   pillar where actually the chimney of the fire for  the hot tub is and then this is my cooking Tower   so my cooking Tower is my barbecue this is  actually a propane Grill propane's underneath   the knobs are over here on the right got your  hot plate serving plate building out a rock   being inspired by the Rocks these are California  crystals I didn't find these myself but they light   up at night which is a really pretty Vibe for  outdoor when you're in the hot tub so I have   two tubs this one is a stainless steel old dairy  tank I got and made it into a soaking hot tub has   a fireplace pretty much just on the bottom of  it got the cold plunge when there's snow here   it's an amazing experience so my water source  I have two now this was the creek water which   water falls down into the cold plunge so you have  pure Creek Water here and then I now have a well   so that's my backup option to fill it when the  creek here does go dry for a couple months out   of the summer once it's in the cold plunge it goes  down a little rock and goes into these flow forms   and it can go into the hot tub or go down to  the trees maybe one day I'll have a garden here   so this is my little garage my little dungeon of  my batteries water pump so this is the basement   this is the fireplace for um heating the hot  tub basic fireplace I got off Craigslist and   right here I cut the top off to make it  slide in there the flame literally just   hits the bottom of the tub so this is my tiny  house I call it the Dream Chaser I chase a snow   with this for snowboarding this is another  project that I put all my ideas together foreign this is a 2015 Fuso four-wheel drive diesel   my slide outs uh is the kitchen which is a funny  thing to try to make slide out because you got   plumbing parts you got grains all that stuff  moves as it goes out it's my own custom design   when I built the slide out I was halfway done and  this part wasn't up yet and a certain time of the   day the sun was coming right down on the kitchen  and I was like wow I got to figure out how to let   that sun in so the whole pexy Skylight part was an  afterthought so that's all plastic and so what I   did with the curbside was I made a clam shell  turns into a deck top part pops up as a roof I got this set up right now I Airbnb it  up here people are you know never get the   chance to stay in a tiny home it gives people  a little taste to what this is like got a nice   view and then I got a bit of an outdoor kitchen  here too if you want to cook more for parties   I got a couple goals zero solar panels that power  everything this is probably 200 watt panels my   batteries are just two six volt batteries pretty  small system I have propane for a furnace heater   for hot water on demand hot water I do have  a wood fireplace as well so that is a good   equation you start to fire dry your stuff out  and then the heater is on a thermostat so when   it drops a certain temp the propane heater  kicks on so this is the inside of the tiny   house a lot of wood in this one I milled most of  the beetle kill countertops still have I got is   just a camping stove and I made it on a separate  propane tank so I could actually take this outside   and this is my cutout to the front there's a bathtub foreign right there shower head comes off the same same water as the sink the shower turn off  on them there really great setup pretty basic   so we're more down in the Little Valley of the  property which gives us more terrain up top   we're standing under my chair lift which is an  old chair lift from the 70s I got at a junkyard   and parts kind of pieced it together where  I wanted this is one of the funner terrains   here it's not huge but there's no lift line  there's no crowds it's an amazing place to   be on a Saturday especially on a holiday so of  course my kids now are looping it and having fun   I definitely didn't do this one by myself this  was a very cowboy style of tilting the towers   up with winches up in the trees I had a lot  of rock climbing people come up and help it   took about eight months to do it so I started  in the summer and I ended up weaving the cable   myself that was the hardest thing I learned so I  weave 60 feet of metal cable to make a full loop   and this probably cost about 15 grand I actually  Market this through my snowboarding but also in   Japan I have a clothing company I call this  place area two for one after my clothing what's next keep building I'm like I love  it I think I'll do it till I die I want to   build something bigger for my family and so  now I have these spots where I'm building a   septic system I'm getting ready to build my  masterpiece you could say like this is what   I'm going to want to do this is probably  what the last thing I will do you know in   a big way and I hope I'm proud of it but I want  to really create a world here that feels safe   the value nature it's going to be a big project  it probably might take five seven years as well   even though it's gonna be much bigger than  this I think I'll be there for a long time today's sponsor is husk they've created an  exceptional Japanese inspired knife that I   use in my tiny house and I can't wait to show  it to you husk has created a great knife that   has revolutionized my daily meal prep rather  than having a few cheap knives that will Rust   and dull easily and won't be very convenient or  effective in my tiny house I've decided to get   one professional quality knife that fits all of  my needs this husk knife doesn't dull or rather   it dulls so slowly that I never even notice and  it can be used to produce the thinnest of slices   here are a few other things that I love about  this knife I love the attention to detail   and it's actually quite a conversation piece  since I display it on my magnetic knife holder   everyone who comes into my tiny house notices  it and asks me about it a lot of people think   a life hack is to have a serrated knife to  cut a tomato but you don't need one as long   as you have this knife it is so sharp so I  could really downsize my knife collection   currently for all my viewers husk is offering  a 70 discount on all of their Japanese inspired   knives and you can test the husk knife  with a 30 day money back guarantee this   deal won't last long so make sure you check it  out by clicking on the special link in my bio foreign

Channel: Tiny House Giant Journey

Views: 259,030

Keywords: tiny house giant journey, tiny house, Tiny houses, tiny homes, tiny house tour, rock house, stone house, earth house, overlander, airbnb, unique airbnb, mike basich, snowboarder, off-grid, alternative home, alternative architecture, tiny home tour, cave house

Id: aY5v_vJgfro

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 18 2022