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  • Earlier we saw some of Jacob's Incredible Forest cabins

  • but today we've traveled to another property in Olympia where we're about to see where it all began and

  • visit Jacob's very first Cabin in the Woods

  • Yo, Jacob. What's up man? Good to see you again, man. Good to see you dude.

  • Dude, it was a bit of an ordeal getting out here eh oh yeah, you mean from where we parked yeah

  • Yeah, I don't know if it's I always it sometimes it gets longer and longer

  • But it must be a hundred two hundred yards out here crossing a river

  • Using the hand trolley yeah, but it's cool right I knew it's amazing

  • This is exactly the kind of remote location where you would want to build a cabin like this

  • It was a blessing and a curse. I mean, I think that it's really beautiful to be out here away from

  • roads and away from everything but very difficult to kind of forge the path and

  • To bring all the materials that was also really difficult so you carried everything out here by head on the shoulders and me yeah

  • It was hard the river is crazy because it'll go from 4 feet wide to 30 feet wide so there were times when it was

  • not crossable

  • But mainly I had crossed over a fallen tree and post me living here someone put in a trolley and make it easier

  • But I still use the tree because it's still there this place is actually really special because this was your very first

  • Cabin wasn't it? this is where I started really

  • Working it out, and I mean, I just went for it. I jumped into it. It was made with 100% recycled materials and

  • Costs me about 800 bucks and getting all the materials together this place only cost you 800 bucks to build your must have been

  • really resourceful with your sourcing that's one where did it say the other would be like I was like a crow you know I was

  • just picking at the scraps that were outside job sites or my job sites that I was working on or friends job sites or

  • Some salvage stuff that I did actually have to buy like the metal roof was salvaged

  • But I sourced it through Craigslist, and I was a scavenger

  • That's what I'm looking for carrying so I was just like getting everything free that

  • I could as your very first build project though this still doesn't actually look like a super simple project

  • There's some quite complex geometry and everything that's going into this house as well, isn't there. It wasn't easy. I didn't pick just an easy

  • Cabin I wanted it to look different than things that I had seen and I also had this

  • Vision in my mind that I wanted to see it realized you know so in my mind. I wanted to see

  • A shed roof that went from a high point to a low point instead of a high wall to a low wall

  • So it was basically like a normal shed roof

  • That's just a single pitch, but then the roof rotated and the whole actual building kind of rotated

  • So it was more angular looking I suppose and I also wanted to be really really tall like I want to have

  • 12-foot ceilings on the on the ground and then I also wanted to be able to do a substation up in the high point

  • so that shot it up to something like 18 feet and

  • It was only a 10 by 10 because in my mind

  • I thought that it had to be under a hundred square feet when the rule is actually 200 square feet

  • so I made it really tall and skinny and

  • That was complicated for sure and that was very much what?

  • went on to define something that's kind of become your style hasn't it these really unique and

  • intricate shapes that are actually going into the cabins that you build now yeah, I guess like everything I do is based on shape and

  • Based on like a theme almost like those little wings that kind of shoot out. I wanted it to have this sort of like witch's

  • hat look and then I started thinking well, that's not really which is Kevin looks more like a Manta Ray

  • That's maybe where I feel like it's more of a sculpture, and I can I want it to be different. You know cool man

  • Yeah, look at it. Let's go inside and have a look

  • Come in

  • Hey, wow, it's definitely very Sparse right now

  • Yes, I think part of the charm of this kind of sort of Rustic Cabin

  • And it doesn't need a lot of things to fill it and make it look right

  • I was a college student and I was trying to live this low-impact lifestyle, so this was way more

  • My kind of a cabin and when I did live here it was definitely closer to this where it's like candles

  • I didn't have a couch and I had pillows like the upstairs right now looks exactly like I did when I lived here pretty much

  • And what I loved about living out here was that there was just

  • Less of everything and when I started this is kind of when I started out on my own. I was really young carpenter

  • I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't have tools, but I like it all bare bones, and I don't know school

  • Maybe it's just Nostalgia. That's why It means so much just being back in it

  • We kind of talked about this a little bit with your last cabins that we visited

  • but when you are building a cabin like this in the woods

  • maintaining that intimate connection with nature is so vital and keeping all of the area a bit more Sparse and then having

  • Features like this elongated window just really help bring the outside into this space

  • I mean yeah

  • That's the idea the windows like I want you to feel like you're inside one of the trees in that these are just the windows

  • From the inside of the tree that you're in to all the other trees that are around you if you look at those trees?

  • There's these lines in there, and you have the tree kind of being separated by these lines

  • but it continues up, and then if you go upstairs you see that same tree you're up in the top of the tree and

  • upstairs has some real big windows and a real big skylight and

  • the same sort of thing like I want you to feel like your

  • Tree house style like you're in the tree. All right, well should we have a look upstairs. No doubt

  • Man, this is just so cozy. It's a little bit like camping that's very much how it feels cool, and yeah

  • That's what it is

  • It's like a big wooden tent that you get to leave set up all the time in the middle of the woods

  • And that's one thing. I love about building is that you start in a place that humans haven't touched at all it's just

  • nature trees mud and you

  • start

  • sinking that shovel and

  • making a place to protect yourself from

  • the Elements and

  • It's not you against nature

  • But we need shelter and people have been doing it for Millennia. I think especially in today's Modern society

  • It's really easy to fall into that trap of thinking that we need so many of the things that we're just used to having

  • but for three years you

  • Successfully lived out here with no running water with no power and yet still managed to be a functioning member of society

  • Right what are your thoughts around that and what advice would you have for people who are?

  • Looking at taking the plunge into a simple cabin project

  • but it may be afraid of doing that if it means giving up some of the modern conveniences

  • One thing is that you don't have to think like oh my God. I'm never going to I'm not gonna shower for three years

  • It's kind of just

  • Looking elsewhere. There's also a creek, so in the summer

  • I swim a lot, and you know it's just like there are other ways of getting clean

  • And then I would say that there is to some extent yeah, you've got a roughing

  • but if you are willing to believe that the value is not

  • Just tangible you know the value and being a space like this and living in a space like this and living a more

  • Simplified Lifestyle the value is not tangible if you don't believe that then you might be like yeah

  • It's not worth it is it's more work. You definitely like I said hauling everything back here

  • Oh, that was a pain. You know those really hard, but right now especially

  • there's this insane joy that I feel from and I did that I really loved the

  • Adventure of this place. I love the this story of

  • The adventure that you had actually creating this I'm a little bit envious

  • Of the fact that you lived here because I would have loved a place like this when I was in university

  • But I loved as well the adventure that it still represents today like climbing up this

  • Ladder and coming up into this loft and being amongst these trees. It does it just makes me feel like a kid again

  • So thank you so much for sharing with us. Thanks for coming man. I really appreciate it

  • Jacob is a cabin builder who is now constructing these wonderful

  • Ornate sacred Geometric works of art in the forest

  • But coming here is so special because this is where it all began

  • this is where he got the courage to actually learn his craft and just

  • Experiment, and in the process he built himself a wonderful home that served him for three years and then that I am finding a lot

  • of inspiration

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Earlier we saw some of Jacob's Incredible Forest cabins

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