All I want to say is that you two have the most energy, and the best work ethics I have ever seen. Yes, I know it's easy to be motivated when you're working on YOUR stuff and seeing it get done. However, to have the drive to pack the trailer and go out, tired, and work like dogs for 4 days. I'm impressed. I am almost brave enough to just move to the country with a buddy and do what you do. You should be very proud.
Great video! We live in N. Idaho. We collect pallets and any building material to use on our farm. One summer we built a 10'X 12' greenhouse out of pallets. Our neighbor gave us enough 2'X 7' double paned glass that were sky lights from the Hecla building in Coeur d'Alene, to completely do the greenhouse. We spent about $250 on the project for the foundation and polycarbonate roof, which will be replaced this summer, it doesn't hold up to hail. It will be replaced with metal roofing we got for free.My husband would clean up construction sites and any good lumber, metal roofing and nails we would save. We built a 10'X 12' chicken coop with all the scrap materials. It ended up costing us less than $50 to build. It is insulated with paneled interior and attic storage. Ventilation, windows, and electric . Also the chicken yard and run are made from pallet wood, we did spend about $45 on chicken wire. All the fence posts were free. Our 34 chickens love their new accommodations.Love seeing what you are accomplishing, keep the videos coming.
I'm so impressed with how you work together as a couple! I'm 62 and really comfortable but if my 1st wife would have been so supportive like yours I would have build a complete dream house in my youth! Your lady is a real keeper! I'm so on your side and wish you the best!
I grew up just down the road from that house, I'm so glad you were able to find plenty of useable materials from it and it is now gone, it's been an eyesore for years.
Just found you, while following a friend. Sooo Very *HAPPY* for you two !! ~ Back in the 70's I bought 36.8 acres of country mtn. land @ $1,100. per acre. My *New* Husband begged me to buy it. He wanted to build his homestead / farm... just like you sweet kids are. I've always been an *All*In* kinda gal, so I believed... him begging on bended knee, for this land. The money I'd earned & saved from my Interstate cafe, where my lease was cancelled in lieu of 'Truck Stops Of America's getting the new lease for the Gas and Food retail. Sadly, my husband wasn't anything like your hubby and the others I see... working with you, to build your American Dream. After years of him not holding a job, or turning a hand on the land, I sold it and moved my boys back to town. It really could have been great !! ~ I sew, knitted, tilled and grew my own garden, canned the veggies till 3:00 in the morning (when it was cool) I did it all. Loved trying. But, just like a marriage, it takes two to build a farm from scratch. That's why I get real Joy, watching you young couples Working so hard and Loving... as a team, watching your efforts grow !! ~ I really Love seeing you succeed. Also, your Quote of "Sexy vs Practical" is Sooo True & Smart. You really have your heads screwed on !! Congrats on the Craig's List find... that lead to future 'Building Goodies.' *SWEET* !! ~ Gonna follow you and wish you the best. Lookin' forward towards all your successes. ~ Wishing you both the Happiest of Holidays & *GOD*BLESS* !! 🌲🌲🌲
You two are impressive. Love how you think. I hope your parents understand how resourceful you are. I'd be proud to say you're my kids. Especially when so many of today's Millennial generation live with a sense of entitlement. Your goals and purpose are crystal clear to me. Stay focused, healthy, and safe. Don't rush or cut corners. That's how mistakes happen. Best of luck you guys, you're doing exceptional work!
im really proud of you two for getting out there and taring down those houses by yourselves. So many people complain that off grid living is too hard....but its because they truly aren't willing to put in the work.
I really love what you two are doing. I'm hoping to be out of where I live by summer. I've been collecting tools, small fencing and anything I feel I can use on a homestead. All has been free or very cheap at garage and church sales. It's amazing what people throw out. Last year I found about 5 flats of plants that someone tossed on top of their garbage cans. I planted the plants the next day. Almost everyone survived beautifully. I have lots of planters and flats that were tossed out. I love working with my hands and am willing and able to work hard. My hubby says that I work a lot harder than a lot of men he knows.
+LINDA BROWN Good for you Linda! That's it... collect over time, keep an eye open for stuff you can get for free or low cost becuase it will go to the landfill if you don't take it, and work hard! Now that we have land, we are excited to accumulate more useful materials over time. What an awesome find on the plans. Maybe we'll give you a jingle for the next demolition! Most of that house was burned to the ground because two people can't save it all in three days.
This is great! I've done this recently on my 1800 sq ft remodel of our house. Materials gathered from Craigslist is definitely the best way to save money. Reclaiming is just another way to recycle as well.
Thank you for making these videos! It makes you realize how many resources really are available. I have already built one tiny house (192 sq. ft.) using this method! Well worth the time invested. 🙂
ive been recycling and reclaiming for over 20yrs. I like the idea of saving money, and using time to aquire the things I need. and lets face it, I love bragging about how many trees I have saved.
Your excitement is infectious! I'm starting a business and some days it's hard to get rolling. A cup of coffee and one of your vids gets me fired up. Well done, guys.
You are absolutely correct. We have been conditioned to think in terms of dollars in hand and not in terms of self worth. You make a very important and valuable point. A persons true value lies in their hearts and not in their wallet. The most valuable gift is yourself. Great point and great video.
+bain5872 Sadly the programming to the contrary starts are a very young age and can take someone a lifetime to deprogram. If only the world saw their value has no monetary equivalent.
OMG...That is so great. You ended up with some awesome and necessary stuff. AND MORE JOBS!! Holy crap. It truly PAYS off in more than one way, to be a hard worker, willing to bend a bit, to be honest and have integrity to boot!! GOOD FOR YOU!
Your mindset is great for a young couple, especially regarding the issue of "Time." My late father always said that 99% of the world's population is blessed with more time than money so spend it wisely as there are NO refunds.
I love that saying, it's so true! You can get more money but never more time! We don't always use time over money but always compare the two options to see what will put us further ahead.
You guys are doing a great job, I love the fact your building from reclaimed wood!!!!!! and it's FREE! Great job, I subbed and looking forward to following you!
I'm so proud of you guys! amy grandparents built their home with there own hands and after my grandparents died a few years back my mom and along with her brother built extensions on to that home after once again with their own hands. i want to one day be able to do the same...and naturally it wont be a shack. seeing you guys and your enthusiasm even through trials in this process is very inspiring for me.
+sherylintheraw That's so cool! In our young minds... it seems that we can continue to pass down the same land and homes (even if just parts from homes) from generation to generation, so that not everyone has to start from scratch as we are all trying to do... but most families aren't accumulating any wealth of any sort or know how to protect their assets. We're excited to learn a lot more about asset protection, trusts, and things like that so that future generations can benefit from our work today.
+Pure Living for Life you are soo right about trust protection. My great parents and my grand parents were very smart. My great grandparents wrote in their will that the land could not be sold unless all parties of their blood lineage agreed to it. so that meant direct kids, grand kids great grand kids,etc. that's ALOT of people! That would never happen and that forces those that are just interested in the money to move on and live elsewhere while those who either couldnt afford it or had no desire to move elsewhere to stay put and live on and off the land as is there right. here in the US laws are different and it seems folks are less interested in OR aware of the concepts of passing wealth and land on. I plan on doing what my grandparents did. buy land, build a strong house, enrich the soil, plant a selection of trees and crops that can sustain themselves after a few seasons and I will pass it on to any future kids I may have because this is what I was taught and admired about my elders as a child.
+sherylintheraw You're on the right path! Great for your grand parents and great grand parents. Let us know if you come across any great resources along those lines. It is NOT common knowledge and I know there are many different types of trusts. We'd like to do something similar. Most people strip the family of any accumulated wealth upon death which is just really sad. It's not an accident.. that keeps everyone in the rat race and being slaves to the system. What's sad is we know someone that had a bunch of acerage and split it up into three sections so that their kids could have land, which then made the area a "subdivision". They were then required to pay a $25,000 fee, plus a connection fee, to hook into the city water. They couldn't afford it obviously so they drilled a family well instead. Just insanity.
Don't forget about the money you saved by not needing to go to a gym. Those aches and pains will go away as you get used to it. My wife and I started our homestead 3 yrs ago and I'm in the best shape I've been in years. That work will not always be "back breaking" as you put it. Keep going it's so worth it in the end.
You go guys. I grew up on a farm that my father and I built from scratch. There was a new road going thru a subdivision and dad bought a house for $200 and we salvaged everything we could. He also bought a restaurant for $200 where we salvaged concrete blocks and large 2x10 rough sawn timbers. We used all of this to build our barn which we ended up turning into our house. We built most of it from recycled materials. We even dug our own well which was easy in Florida since it was all sand. The pole barn wasn't straight or level but it was home. People used to stop by just to see it. I live in Spokane so I know what you are talking about in your other video about the wind storm. I'm glad you made it through ok. Good luck on your adventure. I miss it.
Wait you lived happily in a house built from reclaimed materials that wasn't straight or true? HAH! It is possible! Shhhhh. Don't tell the people living in suburbia. :)
+Pure Living for Life I will warn you....our first building on the property (12 acres) was the horse barn. The main section was 20'x60'. The left 20'x20' was a sitting room with a kitchen since Dad planned to board horses and this was for parents to relax while their kids rode. The center section was the drive thru to the stables out the back. The right 20x20 was to store tack and feed. The upper sections is where we stored hay. There was a back section that formed a "T" and this is where the stables were. Well dad decided to fix the main section as a temporary house so we could move out of the rental house and put that money into building a house. So we built a new barn on the other side of the lake we dug. The first horse stall was turned into a bathroom. The left section was the living room and kitchen. We built a small temporary room in the center section for my parents bedroom and we tossed the hay out of the top left section and built me a bedroom. Neither of the bedrooms had insulation because they were temporary. I used to sleep under 6 blankets to stay warm. Well we kept putting more and more money into the barn to make it livable for mother that dad decided to turn it into the house. The center section was turned into a 20x20 living room with a 20' high vaulted ceiling. He put western rough sawed cedar on the walls. The right section was their bedroom. He added a 10x20 section on the right for their bathroom, walk-in closet and sewing room. The upper section was a spare bedroom. I was taking drafting in high school and designed a cat walk with the large 2x10 timbers we reclaimed to go from my bedroom to the spare bedroom. The first and second horse stall on the left was the bathroom and laundry room and on the right it was our game room for the pool table. The rest of the stalls were turned into the garages for the car and their motorhome, the wood shop and storage. The "barn" of course was decorated with antiques. Oh he enclosed the entryway out the front and used slate roofing he salvaged from the northeast and tile to make a beautiful front door foyer that we never used. Everybody always entered thru the side door (we made all the doors and hardware since they weighed close to 200# each). I am trying to find pictures to show you. Hang in there.
good job I am glad I found you guys, and very lucky to experience things without doing anything. I also have one thing I would like to share with you all. if you are going to have or planing on farm animals. Make sure you build your house up wind farm them not downwind. so you can get fresh air with no methane.
I have been really enjoying your videos, specifically how many innovative solutions you've shown and how much of the stuff you're doing yourselves. Great job. Keep us it up.
That reclaimed lumber is gold. It has aged in your area with the temperature and humidity changes there. Any warping or twisting it was going to do has long since happened. Run the usable boards through a jointer/planer and you'll have incredibly stable wood. Hopefully some of that cedar turns out to be nice enough to use for something that isn't just structural.
I'm not certain how you've lived your life and what you've been doing...but you're doing something right....all the stars are all lining up for you. Quite amazing....and then the excavator operator actually took the time to place the long, usable timbers on top of the pile for easy grabs. Wow! That's certainly not the way that it usually happens, not in my experiences. Glad everything is lining up for you two. Thanks for sharing.
It is amazing the things you can find on Craigslist for free. The group of people here in the Sacramento Ca. area can believe the things I find. I use them and or resale them to help build the other things I do. Great to find your channel and go along for the adventures. My wife and I have 122 acres in the high dessert of Nevada that we are slowly working on, but the real homestead will be bought by the end of this year. This was a great find for you guys, I hope it make you feel like I feel when I know the valve of all the materials I just pick up. "Trash to Cash" great way to make thing work.
Watch for housing tracts - you won't believe how much the toss in dumpsters, but may give you if you ask. The new lumber isn't as good as the reclaimed lumber, but it is easier to load. :-D
Hey guys from Melbourne Australia, my wife and I are just about to sell up and build off grid too. Very exciting. Ill be watching all your videos to get some great tips. Thanks guys.
Sometimes, the wood, if not needed can be sold. Cherry, Oak and Old Hemlock is much better than most woods today and people will pay good money for old wood to make furniture, etc.
Well done people, and very practical and realistic, I have relocated from UK to the mountains in Bulgaria , from a city and outdoor construction background which helps, and I am just getting in to the kind of things you are, growing things, foraging, and basically learning skills out of interest........you are very honest and down to earth, enjoy watching your progress.........we have a similar climate to your location and the geography is similar, I love the snow and get well prepared...........my project at the moment is berries berries and more berries, I am planting goji, bilberries, redcurrants, seaberries you name it, and not just in my land, I am going to do our track hedgerows as well just to see what happens............just wish I had found this when I was your age. I work in UK contracting and live in a caravan when Im there ............ great life.
WOW somehow I missed this vid! Sure wish I was able to do something like this and my hubby to because we NEED a shed for all my canning stuff and for canning my stuff. WOW CONGRATS on this other one to! WOW yea!!!!
Wow, awesome find and hard work. I found you a couple days ago and trying to catch up on all your content. Keep up the hard work and thanks for sharing with us.
Try using horse shoe nail pliers to pull roofing nails, they grasp the heads easily and won't damage the metal, a lot faster than a hammer and pry bar. Thanks for posting your videos.
I love the vids, guys! Going it on your own is awesome. If you decide to have kids some day then i think the value of work that you teach them is priceless. On another note, I have been doing rehabs on absolute trashed houses my entire life, and from my experience I have a small piece of advice. be careful with what used material you use as sometimes it takes three times the work to get half of the useful life out of old materials. For instance, the metal roofing you got is a very low grade with holes you have to patch all over the place and won't last as long as a good quality material that installs very quickly. Be careful to spend your time with what you love most so you don't spend time re-doing anything which can be very frustrating and cost and time wasting. ....keep on keeping on.
Agreed Harmony. We always factor in labor as sometimes it's more cost effective to buy things new, but not in this case!! I think we touch on that in the video a bit. Just gotta compare both options!
+Harmony Rose That's true Harmony though we also have to take into account that the quality of lumber, tiles and other building materials was quite often of a much higher quality in the 1920s than nowadays.
+Pure Living for Life Guys I'm a bricklayer (Mason for you in the US) if you can try and protect the bricks you have, get the snow off them and cover them. When they get wet and then freeze the water in them will expand and blow out the faces of your bricks and makes them very brittle then un-usable. Be strong and keep on keeping on, remember if it was easy everyone would do it............... POWER to the homesteader BOOM
i just found you guys also, yippie, well your doing great and have the right spirit, i did what your doing back 20 years ago, we were given a whole house to salvage and we did, it was built in 1900 and the whole inside was t and g southern heart pine, if you dont know what it looks like then google it, its gorgeous wood, and we used it all for the inside of our house, i still have a lot of the wood left and i have built furniture in our home that will last for 100's of years, if you have any questions i can help with, just ask me....enjoy the journey.
You guys are awesome!! It's so inspiring to see people like you doing this. Someday I hope to live off the grid in a home where I don't have to pay for a mortgage or assessments to my building that I have no control over. I live in a place like that now. I don't make that much money and it all goes to my living expenses. I have been saving money over the years and I hope it can help me to get what I am looking for. Good luck to you!!
Great idea. I always try to keep an eye out for free things I might be able to use later. Sometimes I get too much stuff and I purge some of it and it does good for someone else.
+Stealing-Daisies That's our strategy. It does take some time which we could do other things with, but we'd rather have a bit too much and shed some stuff we don't need than have to run down and buy something when we could have acquired it at no monetary cost. That's part of the time / money tradeoff. We also enjoy sharing the spoils with others and having too much stuff helps us be generous when we don't really have much else to give.
Thanks for much for this video it was inspirational for my new journey I'm about to take on. I'm going to try my hardest to build a tiny home for myself and my daughter. Need to get out of the rent trap and excessive ness of modern day living in Australia. Keep up the good work!
great video, nothing wrong with getting free materials. Just something else to think about. I called several contractors in the area I live in and most of them have a grave yard of materials that are left over from jobs. some of them said if Id clean up the lots I could have all the materials left over if id clean up. lots of goodies doing that.
I am 54 Male and thinking of doing a homested as well. In northern Ontario Canada hydro is one of the things that is getting very costly and i would like to be of grid ...now i just have to do it alone or buy an already build home and have a mortgage for life LOL...thanks for your video's it does give me some ideas but haven't quite made up my mind just yet. Richard.
.. i´m LOVING your kind of approach! i´m really sharing your joy and feel happy about your success. in a world, where most of the people don´t even think about values lost and demolished - just throwing away everything which might have only a small flaw like an emtpty battery, sustainability is EVERY thing. btw., it looks like you met some very nice people around not to stick to some stupid "i dont know where it comes from but it is important" principles but give you the maximum time and chance they could - making things really good and helpful without any disadvantages but just gains for all sides. so - all thumbs up, further best luck to you both, kind regards and my best wishes from austria!
Not to mention maybe you can trade some of the materials that don't meet your needs, for other items you want in the future (like the vinyl windows...) !! cool find.
i like the way you's think this is the first vid of your's i watched and i subscribed strait away i look forward to watching more of your vids all the best big pete from Australia .
+William Todd (williamtodd) Sometimes? Usually the lumber is better because it is dried and was slow cured compared to lumber today that is forced dried so it warps. Plus the timber was older. Todays wood is cut to soon.
I've been scrounging all my life, have built many things of significant value for next to nothing. I make it my buisness to scrounge every time I drive a vehicle because the replacement value of the material gained, often offsets the price of fuel. I've recently built a micro house using forklift pallets, demolition material and surplus new building materials. Cash outlay zero. Reused everything, right down to the straightened nails. As you point out, serious harvesting of demolition waste is VERY hard work, but extremely profitable. Its not hard to clock up a $5000 in a day or so of hard work. A friend of mine scrounged 8000 solid red bricks from a building site. The contractor was so impressed by his work ethic, he offered to transport the bricks for fuel. All up, he ended up spending about $500 to transport the bricks home. Several myths that stop people from scrounging. They calculate the value of recovered materials against a typical hourly rate they earn in a regular job. They forget to subtract the cost of living and taxes for their gross income. As for the time, there is no contest. Scrounging is often a thousand times faster than saving and purchasing materials new or second hand. Stockpiling building materials on site can prevent costly logistic and scheduling bottlenecks during your build. Its dirty and dangerous and 'illegal'. Not if you ask, are always friendly and always leave the site cleaner than when you began. Have all the right tools. Do you homework. Know your materials, and ask questions whenever practical.
This is very inspiring. Good to know that you can acquire materials for free like this. All it takes is hard work. PS.... How old were you guys when you started all of this?
You guys are awesome!! Love how you think about debt free building! That's the way to do it guys!! wish you all the best !! :) ps. your videos are so fun to watch. keep up the hard work
Craiglist is a great resource for materials so are the salvage yards the solid waste dumps in Idaho one off 41 another off 57 close to Coolin a few more, we have found some great wood there for building. The Inland Northwest is a different animal not like another else that I've seen. People here are rugged and sometimes backward I can saw that we live here and have lived here for over 35 years. Anyway you never know from time to time what CL will bring or the dumps. In fact I just got another chair I've painted and sold a few their fun what is ones man/woman's junk is another's treasure. Blessings
Great Score .. Damn has that to feel so good. I love it when that happens.. once found the largest old fashion bricks I have ever seen at the edge of the Hudson River someone threw in years ago.. might have been some kind of street pavers from the early 1900's I made the most awesome set of stairs with them and 6x6 lumber.. loved looking at them all the time and saying .. wow and for free!! or in your case near free.. GREAT JOB..
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All I want to say is that you two have the most energy, and the best work ethics I have ever seen. Yes, I know it's easy to be motivated when you're working on YOUR stuff and seeing it get done. However, to have the drive to pack the trailer and go out, tired, and work like dogs for 4 days. I'm impressed. I am almost brave enough to just move to the country with a buddy and do what you do. You should be very proud.
Great video! We live in N. Idaho. We collect pallets and any building material to use on our farm. One summer we built a 10'X 12' greenhouse out of pallets. Our neighbor gave us enough 2'X 7' double paned glass that were sky lights from the Hecla building in Coeur d'Alene, to completely do the greenhouse. We spent about $250 on the project for the foundation and polycarbonate roof, which will be replaced this summer, it doesn't hold up to hail. It will be replaced with metal roofing we got for free.My husband would clean up construction sites and any good lumber, metal roofing and nails we would save. We built a 10'X 12' chicken coop with all the scrap materials. It ended up costing us less than $50 to build. It is insulated with paneled interior and attic storage. Ventilation, windows, and electric . Also the chicken yard and run are made from pallet wood, we did spend about $45 on chicken wire. All the fence posts were free. Our 34 chickens love their new accommodations.Love seeing what you are accomplishing, keep the videos coming.
I'm so impressed with how you work together as a couple! I'm 62 and really comfortable but if my 1st wife would have been so supportive like yours I would have build a complete dream house in my youth! Your lady is a real keeper! I'm so on your side and wish you the best!
I grew up just down the road from that house, I'm so glad you were able to find plenty of useable materials from it and it is now gone, it's been an eyesore for years.
Just found you, while following a friend. Sooo Very *HAPPY* for you two !! ~ Back in the 70's I bought 36.8 acres of country mtn. land @ $1,100. per acre. My *New* Husband begged me to buy it. He wanted to build his homestead / farm... just like you sweet kids are. I've always been an *All*In* kinda gal, so I believed... him begging on bended knee, for this land.
The money I'd earned & saved from my Interstate cafe, where my lease was cancelled in lieu of 'Truck Stops Of America's getting the new lease for the Gas and Food retail. Sadly, my husband wasn't anything like your hubby and the others I see... working with you, to build your American Dream. After years of him not holding a job, or turning a hand on the land, I sold it and moved my boys back to town. It really could have been great !! ~ I sew, knitted, tilled and grew my own garden, canned the veggies till 3:00 in the morning (when it was cool) I did it all. Loved trying. But, just like a marriage, it takes two to build a farm from scratch. That's why I get real Joy, watching you young couples Working so hard and Loving... as a team, watching your efforts grow !! ~ I really Love seeing you succeed. Also, your Quote of "Sexy vs Practical" is Sooo True & Smart. You really have your heads screwed on !!
Congrats on the Craig's List find... that lead to future 'Building Goodies.' *SWEET* !! ~ Gonna follow you and wish you the best. Lookin' forward towards all your successes. ~ Wishing you both the Happiest of Holidays & *GOD*BLESS* !! 🌲🌲🌲
Helen D hi
I'm sorry, did I tune into the Ann Lander's channel. Life is tough, keep it yourself.
Not sure if you noticed Ed, but at the top it says: "Comments". (End of MY comment.)
Back at you with the.
You two are impressive. Love how you think. I hope your parents understand how resourceful you are. I'd be proud to say you're my kids. Especially when so many of today's Millennial generation live with a sense of entitlement. Your goals and purpose are crystal clear to me. Stay focused, healthy, and safe. Don't rush or cut corners. That's how mistakes happen. Best of luck you guys, you're doing exceptional work!
Thanks a bunch Dale! Appreciate the kind words!
im really proud of you two for getting out there and taring down those houses by yourselves. So many people complain that off grid living is too hard....but its because they truly aren't willing to put in the work.
I really love what you two are doing. I'm hoping to be out of where I live by summer. I've been collecting tools, small fencing and anything I feel I can use on a homestead. All has been free or very cheap at garage and church sales. It's amazing what people throw out. Last year I found about 5 flats of plants that someone tossed on top of their garbage cans. I planted the plants the next day. Almost everyone survived beautifully. I have lots of planters and flats that were tossed out. I love working with my hands and am willing and able to work hard. My hubby says that I work a lot harder than a lot of men he knows.
+LINDA BROWN Good for you Linda! That's it... collect over time, keep an eye open for stuff you can get for free or low cost becuase it will go to the landfill if you don't take it, and work hard! Now that we have land, we are excited to accumulate more useful materials over time. What an awesome find on the plans. Maybe we'll give you a jingle for the next demolition! Most of that house was burned to the ground because two people can't save it all in three days.
+Pure Living for Life If I lived closer I'd take you up on it!
This is great! I've done this recently on my 1800 sq ft remodel of our house. Materials gathered from Craigslist is definitely the best way to save money. Reclaiming is just another way to recycle as well.
Thank you for making these videos! It makes you realize how many resources really are available. I have already built one tiny house (192 sq. ft.) using this method! Well worth the time invested. 🙂
That contractor is a top guy, saw you guys were trying to make a go of things and prepared to work hard for it...so he cut you some slack. well done.
+Number Eight It was a good score. Hope he calls again for the next one. :)
ive been recycling and reclaiming for over 20yrs. I like the idea of saving money, and using time to aquire the things I need. and lets face it, I love bragging about how many trees I have saved.
Your excitement is infectious! I'm starting a business and some days it's hard to get rolling. A cup of coffee and one of your vids gets me fired up. Well done, guys.
You are absolutely correct. We have been conditioned to think in terms of dollars in hand and not in terms of self worth. You make a very important and valuable point. A persons true value lies in their hearts and not in their wallet. The most valuable gift is yourself. Great point and great video.
+bain5872 Sadly the programming to the contrary starts are a very young age and can take someone a lifetime to deprogram. If only the world saw their value has no monetary equivalent.
Pure Living for Life
I do believe a lot of people will be forced to learn that very lesson very soon.
Your WISE... The borrower is a servant to the lender. VERY GOOD JOB!!!
We have done this as well. The satisfaction of being debt free and time youy spend together are the best life lessons. Good luck with your project.
OMG...That is so great. You ended up with some awesome and necessary stuff. AND MORE JOBS!!
Holy crap. It truly PAYS off in more than one way, to be a hard worker, willing to bend a bit, to be honest and have integrity to boot!! GOOD FOR YOU!
Your mindset is great for a young couple, especially regarding the issue of "Time." My late father always said that 99% of the world's population is blessed with more time than money so spend it wisely as there are NO refunds.
I love that saying, it's so true! You can get more money but never more time! We don't always use time over money but always compare the two options to see what will put us further ahead.
You guys are doing a great job, I love the fact your building from reclaimed wood!!!!!! and it's FREE! Great job, I subbed and looking forward to following you!
I'm so proud of you guys! amy grandparents built their home with there own hands and after my grandparents died a few years back my mom and along with her brother built extensions on to that home after once again with their own hands. i want to one day be able to do the same...and naturally it wont be a shack. seeing you guys and your enthusiasm even through trials in this process is very inspiring for me.
+sherylintheraw That's so cool! In our young minds... it seems that we can continue to pass down the same land and homes (even if just parts from homes) from generation to generation, so that not everyone has to start from scratch as we are all trying to do... but most families aren't accumulating any wealth of any sort or know how to protect their assets. We're excited to learn a lot more about asset protection, trusts, and things like that so that future generations can benefit from our work today.
+Pure Living for Life you are soo right about trust protection. My great parents and my grand parents were very smart. My great grandparents wrote in their will that the land could not be sold unless all parties of their blood lineage agreed to it. so that meant direct kids, grand kids great grand kids,etc. that's ALOT of people! That would never happen and that forces those that are just interested in the money to move on and live elsewhere while those who either couldnt afford it or had no desire to move elsewhere to stay put and live on and off the land as is there right. here in the US laws are different and it seems folks are less interested in OR aware of the concepts of passing wealth and land on. I plan on doing what my grandparents did. buy land, build a strong house, enrich the soil, plant a selection of trees and crops that can sustain themselves after a few seasons and I will pass it on to any future kids I may have because this is what I was taught and admired about my elders as a child.
+sherylintheraw You're on the right path! Great for your grand parents and great grand parents. Let us know if you come across any great resources along those lines. It is NOT common knowledge and I know there are many different types of trusts. We'd like to do something similar. Most people strip the family of any accumulated wealth upon death which is just really sad. It's not an accident.. that keeps everyone in the rat race and being slaves to the system. What's sad is we know someone that had a bunch of acerage and split it up into three sections so that their kids could have land, which then made the area a "subdivision". They were then required to pay a $25,000 fee, plus a connection fee, to hook into the city water. They couldn't afford it obviously so they drilled a family well instead. Just insanity.
Don't forget about the money you saved by not needing to go to a gym. Those aches and pains will go away as you get used to it. My wife and I started our homestead 3 yrs ago and I'm in the best shape I've been in years. That work will not always be "back breaking" as you put it. Keep going it's so worth it in the end.
You go guys. I grew up on a farm that my father and I built from scratch. There was a new road going thru a subdivision and dad bought a house for $200 and we salvaged everything we could. He also bought a restaurant for $200 where we salvaged concrete blocks and large 2x10 rough sawn timbers. We used all of this to build our barn which we ended up turning into our house. We built most of it from recycled materials. We even dug our own well which was easy in Florida since it was all sand. The pole barn wasn't straight or level but it was home. People used to stop by just to see it. I live in Spokane so I know what you are talking about in your other video about the wind storm. I'm glad you made it through ok. Good luck on your adventure. I miss it.
Wait you lived happily in a house built from reclaimed materials that wasn't straight or true? HAH! It is possible! Shhhhh. Don't tell the people living in suburbia. :)
+Pure Living for Life I will warn you....our first building on the property (12 acres) was the horse barn. The main section was 20'x60'. The left 20'x20' was a sitting room with a kitchen since Dad planned to board horses and this was for parents to relax while their kids rode. The center section was the drive thru to the stables out the back. The right 20x20 was to store tack and feed. The upper sections is where we stored hay. There was a back section that formed a "T" and this is where the stables were. Well dad decided to fix the main section as a temporary house so we could move out of the rental house and put that money into building a house. So we built a new barn on the other side of the lake we dug. The first horse stall was turned into a bathroom. The left section was the living room and kitchen. We built a small temporary room in the center section for my parents bedroom and we tossed the hay out of the top left section and built me a bedroom. Neither of the bedrooms had insulation because they were temporary. I used to sleep under 6 blankets to stay warm. Well we kept putting more and more money into the barn to make it livable for mother that dad decided to turn it into the house. The center section was turned into a 20x20 living room with a 20' high vaulted ceiling. He put western rough sawed cedar on the walls. The right section was their bedroom. He added a 10x20 section on the right for their bathroom, walk-in closet and sewing room. The upper section was a spare bedroom. I was taking drafting in high school and designed a cat walk with the large 2x10 timbers we reclaimed to go from my bedroom to the spare bedroom. The first and second horse stall on the left was the bathroom and laundry room and on the right it was our game room for the pool table. The rest of the stalls were turned into the garages for the car and their motorhome, the wood shop and storage. The "barn" of course was decorated with antiques. Oh he enclosed the entryway out the front and used slate roofing he salvaged from the northeast and tile to make a beautiful front door foyer that we never used. Everybody always entered thru the side door (we made all the doors and hardware since they weighed close to 200# each). I am trying to find pictures to show you. Hang in there.
I realy love you guys !! The way you live, and how to work for your future!! respect!!
Also, that's one hell of a smart contractor. He got all that labor and waste removal for absolutely free. He or she is very smart.
good job I am glad I found you guys, and very lucky to experience things without doing anything. I also have one thing I would like to share with you all. if you are going to have or planing on farm animals. Make sure you build your house up wind farm them not downwind. so you can get fresh air with no methane.
I have been really enjoying your videos, specifically how many innovative solutions you've shown and how much of the stuff you're doing yourselves.
Great job. Keep us it up.
That reclaimed lumber is gold. It has aged in your area with the temperature and humidity changes there. Any warping or twisting it was going to do has long since happened. Run the usable boards through a jointer/planer and you'll have incredibly stable wood. Hopefully some of that cedar turns out to be nice enough to use for something that isn't just structural.
Like the End grain Cut Wood Guitar Jesse plays. Good humor there.
I am so glad that You both end on the Positive note!
It goes along way!
Enjoy your journey. That is truly what it is all about. Blessings
Just found you and began following! Love it! Living and working the dream!
I'm not certain how you've lived your life and what you've been doing...but you're doing something right....all the stars are all lining up for you. Quite amazing....and then the excavator operator actually took the time to place the long, usable timbers on top of the pile for easy grabs. Wow! That's certainly not the way that it usually happens, not in my experiences. Glad everything is lining up for you two. Thanks for sharing.
It is amazing the things you can find on Craigslist for free. The group of people here in the Sacramento Ca. area can believe the things I find. I use them and or resale them to help build the other things I do. Great to find your channel and go along for the adventures. My wife and I have 122 acres in the high dessert of Nevada that we are slowly working on, but the real homestead will be bought by the end of this year.
This was a great find for you guys, I hope it make you feel like I feel when I know the valve of all the materials I just pick up. "Trash to Cash" great way to make thing work.
Watch for housing tracts - you won't believe how much the toss in dumpsters, but may give you if you ask. The new lumber isn't as good as the reclaimed lumber, but it is easier to load. :-D
Awesome job guy's. Keep up the great work you do be safe & wish you both the best.
Hey guys from Melbourne Australia, my wife and I are just about to sell up and build off grid too. Very exciting. Ill be watching all your videos to get some great tips. Thanks guys.
How exciting we're in Western Australia and this is something we want to do also but the local regulations seem so restrictive.
You guys are AWESOME and very BLESSED!
that's really great to get all those materials! thanks for showing.
Yes!!! I want to build a home without going broke! This is AWESOME!!!!!
Sometimes, the wood, if not needed can be sold. Cherry, Oak and Old Hemlock is much better than most woods today and people will pay good money for old wood to make furniture, etc.
Well done people, and very practical and realistic, I have relocated from UK to the mountains in Bulgaria , from a city and outdoor construction background which helps, and I am just getting in to the kind of things you are, growing things, foraging, and basically learning skills out of interest........you are very honest and down to earth, enjoy watching your progress.........we have a similar climate to your location and the geography is similar, I love the snow and get well prepared...........my project at the moment is berries berries and more berries, I am planting goji, bilberries, redcurrants, seaberries you name it, and not just in my land, I am going to do our track hedgerows as well just to see what happens............just wish I had found this when I was your age.
I work in UK contracting and live in a caravan when Im there ............ great life.
you are lucky & so exciting to hear all of your stories.
WOW somehow I missed this vid! Sure wish I was able to do something like this and my hubby to because we NEED a shed for all my canning stuff and for canning my stuff. WOW CONGRATS on this other one to! WOW yea!!!!
Very interesting, "one man's junk is another man's treasure" Great video
Hey, you guys inspired me with this one! This is the journey we've just begun.
Excellent. What a blessing:)
That metal roofing will last for ever and ever.
Keep it dry and pull the nails and you are on top of the world.
Wow, awesome find and hard work. I found you a couple days ago and trying to catch up on all your content. Keep up the hard work and thanks for sharing with us.
Try using horse shoe nail pliers to pull roofing nails, they grasp the heads easily and won't damage the metal, a lot faster than a hammer and pry bar. Thanks for posting your videos.
I love the vids, guys! Going it on your own is awesome. If you decide to have kids some day then i think the value of work that you teach them is priceless. On another note, I have been doing rehabs on absolute trashed houses my entire life, and from my experience I have a small piece of advice. be careful with what used material you use as sometimes it takes three times the work to get half of the useful life out of old materials. For instance, the metal roofing you got is a very low grade with holes you have to patch all over the place and won't last as long as a good quality material that installs very quickly. Be careful to spend your time with what you love most so you don't spend time re-doing anything which can be very frustrating and cost and time wasting. ....keep on keeping on.
Hi guys, loving your story.Just one word for this vid."Serendipity".Hope all goes well for you both on your journey.Regards, Chris; U.K.
I love watching your videos, you two are so amazing looking forward to see your dream home done
Wonderful find for you both!
However you did pay for it through your hard labour - never forget the effort you put in :)
Agreed Harmony. We always factor in labor as sometimes it's more cost effective to buy things new, but not in this case!! I think we touch on that in the video a bit. Just gotta compare both options!
Pure Living for Life Great stuff!
+Harmony Rose That's true Harmony though we also have to take into account that the quality of lumber, tiles and other building materials was quite often of a much higher quality in the 1920s than nowadays.
+Pure Living for Life Guys I'm a bricklayer (Mason for you in the US) if you can try and protect the bricks you have, get the snow off them and cover them. When they get wet and then freeze the water in them will expand and blow out the faces of your bricks and makes them very brittle then un-usable. Be strong and keep on keeping on, remember if it was easy everyone would do it............... POWER to the homesteader BOOM
Great job guys. Can't wait to see how the barn is going to look👍🏽
i just found you guys also, yippie, well your doing great and have the right spirit, i did what your doing back 20 years ago, we were given a whole house to salvage and we did, it was built in 1900 and the whole inside was t and g southern heart pine, if you dont know what it looks like then google it, its gorgeous wood, and we used it all for the inside of our house, i still have a lot of the wood left and i have built furniture in our home that will last for 100's of years, if you have any questions i can help with, just ask me....enjoy the journey.
You guys are awesome!! It's so inspiring to see people like you doing this. Someday I hope to live off the grid in a home where I don't have to pay for a mortgage or assessments to my building that I have no control over. I live in a place like that now. I don't make that much money and it all goes to my living expenses. I have been saving money over the years and I hope it can help me to get what I am looking for. Good luck to you!!
Great find! Hard/smart work really pays off! Now, treat yourselves before you move on, that's what I do! Good Luck and Thanks!
Great idea. I always try to keep an eye out for free things I might be able to use later. Sometimes I get too much stuff and I purge some of it and it does good for someone else.
+Stealing-Daisies That's our strategy. It does take some time which we could do other things with, but we'd rather have a bit too much and shed some stuff we don't need than have to run down and buy something when we could have acquired it at no monetary cost. That's part of the time / money tradeoff. We also enjoy sharing the spoils with others and having too much stuff helps us be generous when we don't really have much else to give.
Great video! Awesome find. Keep up the good work! I enjoy flowing along.
Excellent on news for next reclaim good luck on that 😎
So cool. Save as many bricks as you can! You can make an outdoor (for bread ect) brick oven and all sorts of projects!
Great job guys. Keep up the good work.
Wow! Super Job!!! Good luck! Loved listening to the train in the background
+pbcoupons Ha the dang train! Things always seem to get extra noisy when the camera comes out!
Trying to look into off-grid living, and how to make it financially feasible. this was definitely inspiring :-)
I recycled wood for years and still do. Great money saver for sure
Nice find !!! This is about the 5 or 6th video I watched of your and they have all been well done so I subbed.
Way to go how cool is this? Keep up the good work, looking forward to more! xx
Thanks for much for this video it was inspirational for my new journey I'm about to take on. I'm going to try my hardest to build a tiny home for myself and my daughter. Need to get out of the rent trap and excessive ness of modern day living in Australia. Keep up the good work!
You two rock! Makes me wish I was twenty years younger! Best of luck to ya!
great video, nothing wrong with getting free materials. Just something else to think about. I called several contractors in the area I live in and most of them have a grave yard of materials that are left over from jobs. some of them said if Id clean up the lots I could have all the materials left over if id clean up. lots of goodies doing that.
I am 54 Male and thinking of doing a homested as well. In northern Ontario Canada hydro is one of the things that is getting very costly and i would like to be of grid ...now i just have to do it alone or buy an already build home and have a mortgage for life LOL...thanks for your video's it does give me some ideas but haven't quite made up my mind just yet.
Richard.
you two are inspirational
.. i´m LOVING your kind of approach! i´m really sharing your joy and feel happy about your success. in a world, where most of the people don´t even think about values lost and demolished - just throwing away everything which might have only a small flaw like an emtpty battery, sustainability is EVERY thing. btw., it looks like you met some very nice people around not to stick to some stupid "i dont know where it comes from but it is important" principles but give you the maximum time and chance they could - making things really good and helpful without any disadvantages but just gains for all sides. so - all thumbs up, further best luck to you both, kind regards and my best wishes from austria!
Not to mention maybe you can trade some of the materials that don't meet your needs,
for other items you want in the future (like the vinyl windows...) !! cool find.
+kim mancha Exactly, you get it!
i like the way you's think this is the first vid of your's i watched and i subscribed strait away i look forward to watching more of your vids all the best big pete from Australia .
great find. will all come in handy down the road..
Sometimes that reclaimed stuff is better than new, even if you have to remove a few nails LOL.
+William Todd (williamtodd) Sometimes? Usually the lumber is better because it is dried and was slow cured compared to lumber today that is forced dried so it warps. Plus the timber was older. Todays wood is cut to soon.
+WA RedBear Older wood can also be virgin growth. So grown slower and with a tighter, stronger grain.
What a great opportunity! All the hard work will pay off. I'm so excited for you two!
I've been scrounging all my life, have built many things of significant value for next to nothing.
I make it my buisness to scrounge every time I drive a vehicle because the replacement value of the material gained, often offsets the price of fuel.
I've recently built a micro house using forklift pallets, demolition material and surplus new building materials. Cash outlay zero. Reused everything, right down to the straightened nails.
As you point out, serious harvesting of demolition waste is VERY hard work, but extremely profitable. Its not hard to clock up a $5000 in a day or so of hard work.
A friend of mine scrounged 8000 solid red bricks from a building site. The contractor was so impressed by his work ethic, he offered to transport the bricks for fuel. All up, he ended up spending about $500 to transport the bricks home.
Several myths that stop people from scrounging. They calculate the value of recovered materials against a typical hourly rate they earn in a regular job. They forget to subtract the cost of living and taxes for their gross income. As for the time, there is no contest. Scrounging is often a thousand times faster than saving and purchasing materials new or second hand. Stockpiling building materials on site can prevent costly logistic and scheduling bottlenecks during your build.
Its dirty and dangerous and 'illegal'. Not if you ask, are always friendly and always leave the site cleaner than when you began. Have all the right tools. Do you homework. Know your materials, and ask questions whenever practical.
Good job keep up the good work you'll see everything will go just fine
This is awesome!!Thanks for what you do
Oh you can make a lovely wood storage section with that too. For long term
New to the channel. Wishing you guys all the best.
+Ray McKibbin Thanks Ray!
great vid guys, love watching the progress. :) all the best to you
i like what you two are doing - keep up the great work
awesome video guys! I'm new to the channel and i like it a lot! Looking into homesteading and i'm going to start with this next year!
What a score! Great job.
This is very inspiring. Good to know that you can acquire materials for free like this. All it takes is hard work. PS.... How old were you guys when you started all of this?
hey guys great videos quite inspiring keep up the good work Mark from Cornwall UK
Very nice find guys, good work
awesome video.good luck on the next salvage job
Very cool. Best of luck in you journey.
Yeah! Nice deal on the deconstruction
Doing the craiglist hustle!
You guys are awesome!! Love how you think about debt free building! That's the way to do it guys!! wish you all the best !! :) ps. your videos are so fun to watch. keep up the hard work
Craiglist is a great resource for materials so are the salvage yards the solid waste dumps in Idaho one off 41 another off 57 close to Coolin a few more, we have found some great wood there for building. The Inland Northwest is a different animal not like another else that I've seen. People here are rugged and sometimes backward I can saw that we live here and have lived here for over 35 years. Anyway you never know from time to time what CL will bring or the dumps. In fact I just got another chair I've painted and sold a few their fun what is ones man/woman's junk is another's treasure.
Blessings
Awesome job y'all!!
Great Score .. Damn has that to feel so good. I love it when that happens.. once found the largest old fashion bricks I have ever seen at the edge of the Hudson River someone threw in years ago.. might have been some kind of street pavers from the early 1900's I made the most awesome set of stairs with them and 6x6 lumber.. loved looking at them all the time and saying .. wow and for free!! or in your case near free.. GREAT JOB..
Just found you guys and we Subscribed, Awesome find Great video and great information!!!
+bigbear homestead Sweet! Welcome and thanks for joining us!
i love your videos keep up the good work and god bless
Way to go! I just starting watching your YourTube chanel
Truly blessed!