Arnold, CA…This last couple of weeks any spare minute was spent on building outhouses for customers. Our hope is to make our Hewn Hill off grid project self sustaining.

So while we are committed to our minimalistic, Henry David Thoreau inspired Chain Saw Cabin and Hewn Hill homestead if we are fortunate enough to get an order for one of our products customers come first.

One of these outhouses was our standard 12×12 pitch roof and the other was our steeper pitch model for areas that get a lot of snow.

We start out with charring the baseboards which is a good way to add a bit of preservation to the wood in a natural and historic way.

We have spent most of our nights at the Chainsaw Cabin since April 1st. Most of our meals have been cooked on our tiny wood stove.

Living off grid in a simple, basic way has been rewarding in ways I hadn’t imagined it would.

It definitely takes more effort and planning but it has been worth it. The little stove basically runs on kindling.

If you have your small diameter wood prepped and ready making coffee, cooking meals etc really doesn’t take much longer than on a regular stove.

The nice things are the electric bill in non-existent and we are currently spending about $25 – $30 a month on generator fuel to charge phones, laptop, run led lighting & our tools.

Since we cook entirely with wood the cost for that is our time prepping the wood.

For next week our video will hopefully be of us finally starting to get our roof sheeting on our little 120 square foot cabin.

Thank you and may God bless your life!!!

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About Hewn Hill & The Chainsaw Cabin
The Chainsaw Cabin is our first building, a small 120 square feet shed/cabin on Hewn Hill. Most of the lumber was 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 is 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 is only 10 x 12 with 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.co
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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