Rustic Cabin Perfection & The Art Of Salvage

nothing builds character and story into a home faster than the use of reclaimed materials and this next incredible cabin that we're about to visit is a master class in both Salvage and style [Music] g'day Louie how's it going mate Bryce how are you very well thank you and I am really excited to check out this cool house you've built yeah it was a bit of a work in progress say but had my brother in there helping it was yeah it just come along good absolutely so this was a project that you and your brother worked on together well he did all the building and stuff I was kind of like a bit of a mule I suppose dragging all the all the timber around the district and milled a lot of the Timber but yeah it was mainly him building it yeah it must have been such a cool thing getting to actually work on a project like this together it was cool it was really enjoyable just watching it come together we've sort of once a week would come out do the big clean up and then I'd do another week and you get to see all the results again it was awesome and with this build you've used a lot of reclaimed materials haven't you yeah as a beekeeper I was kind of always shooting around the countryside and I was always on the lookout for the hardwood poles we've used for the veranda and I sort of stopped at every every time I see him I'd stop and have to go and approach the farmer and ask what he's doing with her and it's generally rubbish to me so I was out there hauling them onto my you day so here movie but so worth it oh yeah and can you tell me about the overarching design ethos behind this place I think we're away on holiday at the time and we sort of had a magazine or something and had this real South Island type sort of High Country Cabin you know so yeah we just wanted to go with that sort of High Country South Island sort of look the zenkaloom cladding a always gives it that rustic kind of feel yeah mixes well with our hardwood power poles and sort of other materials we've picked up along the way amazing and you're a family of three living here now yep so it's me Julia and baby son Ali who's four months now when we had Ali A lot of people said what's it like living in such a small space with having a um baby and yeah it's been perfect for us so far we couldn't really ask for a better first house for our little family yeah no it works really well and what size is the home inside is 30 squares and then it kind of has like a 70 square meter head on it as such great yeah yeah what a fantastic way of doing it and what's the inspiration behind building a small home I guess for us it was like a budget thing like we wanted land so it was either we went and spent three you know three 400 Grand on a small bit of land where we could only probably build a real house on or get a bigger bit of land and build a smaller house you know so it's just like a balancing act for us yeah I completely understand that and you've got about five acres here don't you yeah five acres we bought it with a friend so we've just finished subdividing it so we have our own title each yeah two and a half acres each which is plenty I think yep enough to run a few cows and a few sheep it's a great size yeah and especially building to the smaller footprint you get more of the land to enjoy that's right yeah yeah we love gardening and planting and all that sort of stuff we won't have an orchard and and sort of all the sort of things you kind of miss out on if you just live residentially I guess and you've started some Wetland planting here too yeah we've planted about six thousand natives so far wow which is all sort of part of the um consent stuff for the subdivision but and saying that it's pretty um satisfying thing to do as well you know it sure is and one of the things that I really like about the design of this house is the way that you've separated the living area and the sort of quasi-indoor outdoor bathroom that's a very cool feature Yeah we actually talk a lot about that with our mates it's kind of like even I think if we were to build a bigger house just having a whole wet area that doesn't require all the nooks and crannies to be always cleaned you know it's kind of like a place that can breathe you know yeah would probably do it again even if we built a bigger place a to be honest and you've even got a business here on this land as well with the Jiu Jitsu Studio that's really cool yeah yeah we started the Black Swamp Dojo a year ago I guess and we're just trying to incorporate the Jiu Jitsu with sort of health and well-being work shops and yoga and all that sort of stuff just the space people can come and all learn together it's pretty cool yeah keeper as well aren't you yeah so we started a company mangafai Honey about four years ago I finished up my building apprenticeship and I was kind of head against full of building and my mate Tim said we've got a job beekeeping if you want it and I was like yeah sweet so I jumped on with him for two years and sort of built up my hive numbers to sort of go out on my own and then you'd have started a brand and started selling at the markets and then today we've yeah probably got maybe 30 stockists or something like that and selling online and it's going really well yeah enjoying your day congratulations well you have totally nailed this Ultra cool rustic aesthetic on the outside of the home and I cannot wait to see what you've done on the inside can we take a look yeah come check it out thank you very much this is so cool the combination of all of the materials that you've got in here is just working so incredibly well we obviously wanted to use a lot of Timber and then obviously didn't want it to be too temporary so we had to sort of come up with that color contrast that we wanted and we love the color green as you can see so we kind of Blended it all all with the sort of khaki kind of green yeah yeah I think one of the cool things about building cabins like this is you just get to experiment so much with materials like the way that you've offset the stainless steel bench top with the green tiles and then that's right next to the brick wall it's so harmonious but just makes every place that you look at interesting like I said earlier is one of those things we just sort of off the cuff earlier we just oh that'll work yeah we'll put some floating shelves there we'll I'll use all the macrocarpa for the window sills and put the brick up and it just sort of we just sort of floated it all together really and with you and your brother both being Builders and with you sort of having the ability to sort of collect all of these cool materials it makes the whole process a lot more fun because it's just an experiment right yeah you just find materials you kind of like and you just have to run with it you don't have Architects saying well that'll work or that alone it's just yeah just going with it yep absolutely and with the lounge over here you've got this really nice big couch yeah the couch we just got for free from some of the neighbors and it just funnily enough it just worked it was the perfect size and it is a great fire that you've got in here as well yeah the Roaring Meg I sort of I was following them on Instagram for a fair while I always knew that was the fire we're gonna go with me and my brother always sort of went back and forth he's he's right into the Wagner and I was like no no Roaring Meg's a good joke about that but you know really stoked with that way we do a little bit of cooking on it and it's got a wet back in it which we haven't hooked up just yet but in the future we might do like a an outdoor sort of hot tub that we can just run the wheat back just for that purpose great idea yeah and the bricks there definitely look like they've got a story to tell so the brixa from the real groovy building in Auckland which is an old record store at the top of Queen Street there which is pretty cool just super rustic and huggledy-piggledy yeah looks so good are and the kitchen great size lots of prep space nice stainless steel benches there was another Marketplace kind of find I just found an Indian fellow down in South Auckland who was making them out of his garage which was pretty cool so I went down and checked it all out and he showed me what was what it was going to look like and he did a good a good cheap price on it which was cool love the stainless and sort of wood look I really goes together quite well I think yeah I mean a kitchen is such a utilitarian space and having materials like that that you don't have to be precious about is just so nice because you want to be able to bang things around in your kitchen and just not worry about it there totally it's so good just being able to drag a hot pot straight off the fire or off the Hobs and not have to worry about you're going to burn a hole in something hey or or Market or whatnot and easy to wipe down that's awesome absolutely and you've got lots of storage space underneath the bench as well yeah Julia was a little bit more like I'd prefer it to be all closed in and I was like no I quite like the busy look of everything you need for a kitchen yep the kitchen sizes it's probably you know just as big as most people's kitchens that have in a normal home almost you know like we never feel out of space that's for sure yeah for sure and you've got the four burner stove top there and it's cool to see you've got the toaster oven as well and don't think there's anything you can't do in a toaster oven yeah my sister's got one of those and I think mum and dad are building new house at the moment and they're still stuck with one of those too so yeah that just works so well and then you've got the full-size fridge and even more storage over the back here yeah that was one of the things we choked with my brother about he did such an awesome job of everything and then we come back in one day and he had this plywood carcass made up for the fridge and we just come there like wow no that's not going to work called the kitchen maker Brownie and he come in and whacked that up which we're super stoked about love it just sort of all matches real well yeah it makes a big difference yeah it does and the Timbers that you've used in here as well are just immediately striking especially the floor and ceiling I suppose the whole building was built around this floor we heard that there's a floor up towards the surf beach that was demoed so we injected out and it was like it's one of the oldest batches in mangafai an old matai floor we didn't get to decide what shape the building was it was just decided for us so we got some cool pictures of moving this floor in straight onto the piles building the house around it and then getting the floor sander in to finish them off that's just so cool and then the ceiling as well just so much character yeah that's South Island beach which I seen on trade me I think it was a one dollar reserve and ended up getting it for like 500 bucks for the whole native Timber ceiling that's pretty cool unbelievable it's so cool that in this day and age where we're sort of being plagued by ridiculous inflation and cost of materials going through the roof it's almost comforting to know that there are those deals still out there yeah for sure there's still a few deals out there because people just don't know the value of like old Timbers in their day yeah and then the bedrooms next door can we check that out yeah I want to throw them we'll have a look let's take a look hey this is really nice and one of the things that just jumps out to me about this home is that every direction you look you've just got the most spectacular rural views yeah it's pretty cool we're lucky enough to have that big pain of glass to sort of build the home around a friend of ours was building a place in magnify and I think the glass had a bit of a blood stain on the inside so it was no good to them so we managed to pick that up and build our bedroom around that just about a look straight out the bed onto the main lawn and the trees growing and whatnot a works well and there's nothing more relaxing than just being able to watch a cow yeah no it's pretty cool and just to be able to watch people come and go and yeah that's awesome and really comfortable space that you've created here for the bedroom as well I like the way that you've got the built-in storage with the plywood as well yeah we just chose to build that back wall out of 300 mil framing just so we could have those recessed shelves in there just to gain that little bit of extra space so I guess it's all those little things you do in a tiny home to create a little bit extra space and you've got storage under the bed as well yeah with four drawers in it which is sock drawers baby drawers and linen drawers yeah perfect yeah and the area that you have created for the baby is really clever yeah it was just like the only sort of area we could use my clothes ended up going out to the bathroom it'll sacrifice for the baby and built a cotton there and the Sleep lady was saying it's the perfect place to have a baby sleeping in a real dark quiet room so yeah he's just actually moved into there we had a cop beside the bed and I think it's a second night tonight and in this new room which is um pretty cool wow and do you have any strategy for what you're going to do as he gets older now would be pretty comfortable in here until he was say two or something like that and if we chose to have a second child then would probably think of building a bigger home yep but um for now it works really well yeah fair enough and can we take a look at what you've done with the bathroom outside yeah let's go check it out let's take a look foreign this is really cool it's definitely a far cry from your average Outhouse isn't it yeah we were sort of just after a place that we could have via dry space have our toilet have our shower and it'd be a room that never really got too Mucky if you know what I mean you know you sort of you just use it as it's almost like a trash little shed space type toilet space you know it's good yeah yeah and I love the way that you've gone for these very Elemental materials in here as well with the stone look tiles the beautiful Timbers and that thick concrete Basin which is especially cool yeah that was another good find off Marketplace it worked out really well yeah then we just sort of thought all that and the brass the brass sort of wear and sort of goes well with that concrete type look oh the old Garden Taps and yeah now it's Choice yeah and it's nice the way you've done the concrete shower as well yeah we just boxed it up and pretty much essentially just poured it straight over the decking and yeah it works awesome great and you've got an incinerating toilet here yeah we went with the Eco Ash toilet which was a really good option in the fact that you don't have to worry about a septic system and worry about going through all the rigmarole with accounts or it's all Council compliant and yeah it just works really well I think every 100 uses we get a cup of Ash and we put it on the lemon tree and yeah Happy Days nice and easy yeah and this is where your wardrobe got moved to yeah that was my little um sacrifice and in terms of making room for the baby but it's pretty easy to be fair it means I can come out here have a shower straight into my clothes and there we go yeah nice and easy and so how long have you been living here now uh about a year and a half and how's the space working out for you it feels like it's honestly all we need like it's just we never feel too cramped in here it's just it's really works for us and obviously you're adjusting to life with the little one as well yeah it's been awesome to be honest everyone said you know get ready for all the sleepless nights and that but touchwood it's been pretty good so far so yeah hopefully it stays like that yeah I've actually heard that it can even be somewhat easier in small space is because you have that sort of proximity of and the comfort of the close family unit yeah I guess it's yeah it's quite a warm warm environment in here especially when the fires going and it's all pretty cozy hopefully the the baby feels that as well yeah and this is just such a cool project it's built with so much character you've utilized all of these gorgeous reclaimed materials can we talk about the cost that was involved in making this home a reality yeah so I guess for the average person trying to do it for what we did it for might not be as a fair assumption but um for us I think it cost about 130 Grand maybe but yeah obviously we build a lot of our own Timbers and I put in a lot of my time which probably isn't accounted for and yeah reused materials and not let concrete go to waste and all those sort of little things help come off the um off the overall price eh yeah I mean that is a really remarkable result but as you say that stands Testament to all of the time and effort that you've poured into getting all of those reclaimed materials and being so Thrifty with those yes that's right it's all part of the whanau yeah exactly I like the idea of like simple living having minimal things and yeah you don't need much to live I guess there's always like so many cool books and stuff around like tiny homes and cabins and stuff and it's just always seems so much more exciting building something smaller than it does like a a big house you know we just love living here it's a special place to us we love the land I guess it's our first family home so that's pretty special to us and now the house is finished you're all settled in what does the future hold for you now we really been enjoying sort of doing stuff down at the dojo and that sort of thing and um so we'll try to grow that space and keep growing the magnify honey and see where that takes us we want to get Chucks and all that sort of things you know and just sort of be a bit more self-sustainable and yeah just enjoy our land I love being out here so yeah what a great plan well Louis this is such a beautiful property you have and a truly incredible home that you've built here for you and your family thank you so much for sharing that with me cheers coming for us my pleasure this is just such a cool house that Louis and Julia have built you can see that each and every part of this home has a story it's a collection of wonderful materials that have all been harmoniously brought together to create an amazing home for this couple it's so exciting that they've now welcomed their new addition to the family into this space and I just can't wait to see that the home and the land now grows together with the family [Music] thank you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 506,834

Keywords: cabin, cabin tour, salvaged materials, diy, architecture, small house, small home, small home tour, micro farm, small farm, homesteading, living big in a tiny house, reclaimed materials, upcycling

Id: Nnu_5bEL7rM

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023