Arnold, CA…(Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel.  It costs nothing and helps us get closer to being able to monetize it).  Thoreau’s Walden impacted me when I was in school many, many years ago. Now in my 60th year I realized that if did not take the leap now I would never take it. Since January 1st, 2024 the Chainsaw Cabin has been my home. Probably not the best planned move as the cabin is still not finished. I had no wood cut and ready for fires, the only heat and cooking is from a $120 tent wood stove. But Thoreau said it best… “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In 1845 Thoreau moved into his cabin on July 4th. (Probably a better plan than Jan 1st) and spent two years, two months and two days there as he wrote.

One of the big reasons for me in making this move is that as a society we are less happy now than we were 60 years ago. All of our advances have not made us happier. Why is that? Why were we happier in the 1950s than now?

We are less happy now than we were in an analog world. I live a digital life, you live a digital life. Could we be happier though if we had more analog thrown in? I intend to find out.

The plan for the next couple of years is to see how close to a normal functional home you can get a 120 square foot cabin in the woods. The constraints are that you can have no indoor plumbing, electrical or other things normally found in a modern home.

Our basic needs have not changed in thousands of years. We need to be warm, safe & dry. Be able to cook our food, take care of ourselves hygienically and maintain our health. In today’s world however we also need to be able to charge our electronic devices, have internet & be able to function in a modern world.

Our goal is to get to 80% of the functionality of a modern home in a structure and life we build entirely with our own hands, simple tools and our own labor.

With today’s technological advances of small solar generators, water purification devices, composting toilets, instant hot water heaters & more we think it might be possible to get close to a modern life with semi-permanent or temporary infrastructure.

Thoreau built his cabin for $28 dollars and 12 cents. That comes in at about $1,000 in today’s money. As it sits we are about $350 dollars in. How close can we get to a real small home for $1,000 can we get. We will find out and probably learn a few things about ourselves along the way.

In our first month we didn’t get as much done on the actual cabin as we would have liked as we spent most of time when we were not working processing firewood.

We did, however, survive and have the first feelings of being able to thrive in a paired back life. The journey has begun. No turning back now.

About The Chainsaw Cabin
The Chainsaw Cabin is our first building, a small 120 square feet shed/cabin on Hewn Hill. All lumber will be hand milled with a small inexpensive electric chainsaw. This is to see if anyone can build a small functional building with literally tools you can find at a garage sale and our only costs will be roofing, fasteners & glass for windows.

The Chainsaw Cabin will be single wall construction where the wallboards are a structural component of the build. Many of our primitive and pioneer building were constructed this way. The outside wallboard is also the interior board as well.

Henry David Thoreau’s cabin was only 10 x 15 and not much bigger than you can legally build today without a permit in most counties. For the Chainsaw cabin while it will only be 10 x 12 it will have a sleeping/storage loft. So if you are staying for a night or two at least you will have separate work, living & sleep areas.

In 1845 is cost the tiny home pioneer $28.12 to build his modest abode. With inflation that comes in at $962.80 in todays shrinking dollars. That is our goal to build our small structure with doors, windows and roofing for less adjusting for inflation than Henry did many years ago.

We are starting with outbuildings to get the property functional. Places to store tools, a solar shed & a place to sleep if need be. This is phase one and we hope to get that done this year starting with the Chainsaw Cabin then learning how to build a log structure on our next shed.

Next year, Lord willing we will start on our main two story, traditional log cabin built with logs from the property and probably a few other locally sourced ones as well.

About Hewn.tv
At Hewn we are going take you on a journey to see if it is still possible to build a functional, small homestead that anyone, even someone making minimum wage can build and own. We are going to try this in California no less. Join us as we attempt to build an off grid, solar powered, rustic, pioneer style homestead.

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