Off-Grid Living

A 14×16 hand-built cabin in the California Sierra. It is located at 7,700 feet near Sonora Pass.  

Video

Rolf and Mari von Walthousen are a young couple who want to tread lightly on the land. They built a tiny cabin in the woods of a northern Michigan town named Cedar.

Their 200-square-foot house has no electricity or running water. The town health department and zoning officials said their home is too small and deemed it uninhabitable.

SIX DAY CABIN | photos Aaron Flack + Mac Bishop

We wanted to use our hands for something other than tapping away at a keyboard or smartphone; to be directly responsible for building a place that we can enjoy together in the coming years; to use vacation for creation rather than escape; and, above all, to learn something new.

…we managed to erect a solid ~200 square foot cabin over 6 days of building. The project consumed ~40 working hours, 264 two-by-fours, 3,000 photos (which add up to this time-lapse video) and about $6,065.62 (excluding the land we built on). We are now convinced that, if you have a week to burn, a cabin-build will beat a week in Cancun every time.