[Aaron] I've never built a house before.
[Heather] I thought he was crazy, but he has a vision.
[Aaron] This is something that I've dreamed of my whole life.
[Heather] It's important that we have a first-aid kit on hand.
[Joe] We've got to be careful. We don't want to tip it over.
It's basically a puzzle.
The diagrams are not indicating where the posts go.
These things are really heavy.
Oh!
[Joe] Anything slips out, some serious injuries can happen.
[Aaron] You have a picture of how you want something to go,
and this is pretty much the exact opposite.
These are super fragile.
- [man 1] Put it all the way down on the ground. - Sorry, we've got to--
[man 2] Hang on. No, no. It's pretty dangerous up there.
[Aaron] My worst fears are coming true.
It looks like the roof is leaking now.
This literally is pushing me to my limit.
[narrator] Are you ready to go off the grid?
[Aaron] Can't wait to show you where we're gonna put the house.
[Heather] I'm so excited to see it.
[Aaron] This is something that I've dreamed of my whole life.
I've never built a house before.
The house is gonna be somewhere in this spot.
- Okay. - Right here.
So this is gonna be one side of the house with floor-to-ceiling windows.
So you can just look out at the view and at nature.
Beautiful.
When I saw other amateur builders
make their dreams into reality,
I realized that it was something that could be accomplished.
[Heather] Where the bedrooms?
This side of the house is gonna be where the bedrooms are.
- I thought he was crazy. [laughing] - That's okay.
I kept asking him, like, "Why aren't you just buying a house?"
But he has a vision and, you know, nobody deserves it more.
- I'm Aaron. - And I'm Heather.
[Aaron] And we're building an off-the-grid smart cabin in southern Vermont.
[Aaron] My build site is located in Ludlow, Vermont,
which is about five hours from New York City
in the heart of the Green Mountains
at the base of Okemo State Forest.
Backyard's gonna be behind the house here,
which is also where the garage is gonna be.
[Heather] Cool.
[Aaron] I picked this area because I'm really passionate
about snowboarding and about the outdoors.
I lived in New York City for the last four years.
I was really dying to get back to nature.
And so I always had this dream
of having my own remote getaway
where I could walk out of my front door
and just hop on my snowboard and kind of hit the slopes.
[Heather] So, as you drive up, you see the porch.
Yeah. You can sit out on the porch.
I love it. That's perfect.
[Aaron] So Heather is my beautiful girlfriend.
Aaron and I met as most 21st century couples do,
through a dating app.
We just hit it off right away.
What better way to get to know each other
than building a house together?
I work in venture capital.
I've never actually built a house,
but I've built a lot of companies,
and I'm hoping that the process is pretty similar.
One of the things I specialize in is technology,
and I'm hoping to bring a lot of that technology into our build here.
I'm building a 1,000-square-foot Vermont timber frame cabin.
It's gonna have a big farmhouse front porch.
When you walk in the front door,
on the right side is gonna be the kitchen and the living room.
Straight ahead is gonna be the guest bathroom and the guest bedroom.
And then you're gonna have the staircase on the left
leading up to the loft with the main bedroom and bathroom.
So for off-the-grid features, we're gonna have a wood-burning stove,
radiant heating in the floors.
We're gonna have solar panels and a smart home battery for power.
And we're gonna have water from a well in the back of the property.
So, my budget is about $200,000
and our timeline's four months.
We really need to finish by that point
because that's when the snow starts falling in Vermont,
and we do not want to be caught out here
in those kinds of conditions before we're dried in.
Primary goal for today is to clear some trees and get a driveway installed
so that we can deliver materials to the site.
It's about 1.4 acres of land.
We have quite a few very large trees
that we're gonna have to take down.
Because the land is so steep,
we had to be creative with the driveway.
So, the driveway is actually gonna have to loop around
in a bit of an S-shape and go behind the house.
The biggest challenges of the build
is gonna be getting access to the site for our building materials.
And then Heather's a little worried
that I'm gonna break something.
I already have 12 screws in my arm.
Also, we talked about this.
You're not breaking any more bones.
[Aaron] We should probably know where the closest hospital is.
[Heather] I don't know that.
It's important that we have a first-aid kit on hand.
And lots of insurance.
I've never taken on a project this big before.
It's definitely gonna be on a much bigger scale than I ever dreamed of.
[Heather] So, I have, you know, used tools before.
But I would not say anything to this degree.
Turns out she's better with the chainsaw than I am.
Neil is our expert excavator.
He's gonna push down some of the really big old pine trees.
So one of the other big challenges with taking down the trees
is how are we going to get machinery
into the site when it's covered in, you know, falling trees?
So, we're actually gonna have to chop the trees up into pieces
and then come in and do a burn pile.
And that's gonna help us save time
and get rid of all of this extra brush and trees.
So, what's the plans today?
- You want to clean off this vegetation? - Yeah...
[Heather] Joe is the builder for this project.
Being that Aaron and I both don't have any real experience,
we need a true professional on hand.
I have never worked on any project like this.
This is definitely gonna be unique.
It's gonna be a challenge and I'm looking forward to it.
We're gonna bring this driveway back up to the top
and we're gonna call for that delivery.
[Aaron] The property is really steep.
We're gonna have to put some sort of hairpin turn
or what they call "switchback"
just to get up to the actual house site from the road.
Last thing I want to do is have my car
snowboarding down the driveway into a tree.
Now, that the driveway's done and the footers are in,
it's time to pour the concrete floor.
[Heather] We had a little trouble
getting the concrete truck up the hill this morning,
but luckily we had enough people stand by
and make sure that the concrete didn't topple over into the street.
We just watched the concrete pour
and it looks like our concrete foundation
and the first floor of our house is ready to go.
Big day today.
We're gonna get some lumber on site.
We're gonna start framing your cabin.
[Aaron] It was literally 80 degrees yesterday, and today is 30 degrees,
so winter is right around the corner.
Super excited to finally start framing the house.
Our materials are getting delivered in a couple minutes.
And we've got all my best friends here for reinforcement
and we're just gonna start building the cabin.
Good thing I brought the heavy reinforcement.
- Well, it's a good thing. - There you go.
[Heather] We need to frame in time for winter.
It's getting chilly.
Hopefully we can just get this process moving
and get it done within the week.
[Joe] We're reviewing the framing plans today.
We're gonna start being tricky right away
because we're missing some anchor bolt nuts and washers
that foundation guy didn't leave here.
We got a ton of guys sitting here waiting to get this frame in.
Soon as that lumber shows up, it's go time.
When you go to the store, we just tell the guy
we need foundation anchor bolts and washers,
he'll understand what we need.
Without them, we're not gonna be able
to secure the lumber and continue with the framing.
Time is money. The lumber should be showing up soon.
We're waiting on the bolts and the nuts for the anchors on the foundation
and as soon as we get them, we should be able to get going.
[Aaron] Got a whole crew ready to work.
I just wanted to get an update.
I just got an update on the materials.
So unfortunately, the materials are delayed by about an hour.
Another hour?
Every hour we waste waiting for materials to be delivered,
it's time, it's money.
So, we really have to get this stuff done.
[Joe] Aye-yai-yai.
I just got an update on the materials.
So unfortunately, the materials are delayed by about an hour.
Another hour?
Another hour.
It's a lot of money sitting over here waiting.
Hours add up to dollars, and here we are. Aye-yai-yai.
It makes me crazy, but it happens quite often in construction,
especially the first day on site when you're starting the build.
It's really frustrating, especially considering we're on a time crunch
and we're very early on in building the structure.
So, if we get delayed now,
it kind of sets the tone for the rest of the week.
So, we've got to make sure that we get this going.
[Aaron] The house finally made it. I'm so excited.
[Joe] The materials arrived on site.
We're about a half a day late.
They were supposed to be here 7:00 a.m.
Now we have to offload them on the truck.
We really got a steep driveway, so, we got to be careful.
We don't want to tip it all over.
We've got you this far. Let's get it up there.
[Aaron] There's no way we're gonna get the truck bed up the driveway,
so we're gonna have to basically carry
each of the pieces up with smaller machinery
like the Lull and the Moffett.
And we have about 25 pallets.
Each one weighs a ton. So, we've got 25 tons of lumber.
I had no idea how hard it would be to navigate some of these hairpin turns.
I'm glad that we didn't make the driveway any longer than we had to.
Thank God we still have dirt on the ground and not snow.
Well, we wouldn't be doing this if we did.
[man] We're gonna go down, we're gonna slide it.
[Joe] The steep incline of the hill, the retainment walls,
pivoting things around and moving these large pallets
definitely presented us with a challenge.
There are more loads coming up.
Finally, we get all the materials up on the top of the site.
[Aaron] So, what's next?
Let's start framing.
We received our shipment of lumber in 25 different pallets.
They're not organized, they're not categorized.
We had pieces of the roof mixed in with pieces of the floor.
Definitely a jigsaw puzzle.
What are these gonna be?
These are gonna be the posts
that hold up the walls in the roof.
And this is like a mortise and tenon technique,
which has been used in Vermont for 100 years to do timber framing.
All are made to fit together
and they're all marked with different numbers,
and we need to figure out which pieces go where
so we can start to assemble the house.
[Heather] Right. Wow.
Unfortunately, the diagrams are not indicating where the post goes.
So, it's basically a puzzle. We have a depiction.
That's what we're going to try to work off.
[man] We ready to lift any of these guys up.
[Aaron] How heavy do you think one of these weighs?
[Joe] I'd say probably 300 or 400 pounds.
[Aaron] Yeah.
[Joe] These beams are really heavy and so are the posts.
If anything slips out, somebody is not paying attention,
some serious injuries can happen.
[man] Walk her out to the corner.
[Joe] We're gonna use some of this temporary lumber
to do some diagonals, and shore it up.
Lock it.
- [Joe] All right. Corner two. - [Heather] Here we go.
[Aaron] The first post is up. So far, so good.
[Joe] We're getting off this lumber that we placed over here out of our way,
so we can get the Lull in right up against the foundation,
so we can put those beams on top of these posts.
If everything goes well, we're gonna slip that
right in that pocket over there.
All our posts and beams interlock,
and it is very meticulous.
If we don't have the right notch,
we're not gonna be able to secure the next beam
or move on to the next piece of the build.
Hang on. Wait.
Okay. Ready?
[Chrissy] Hit it from this side.
[Joe] It's not... You're wasting your time.
[Chrissy] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop.
[Joe] It's not moving.
Well, to add insult to injury, we're here,
we're trying to put the beams and posts together.
The first ones we're putting together are just not cooperating.
They do not want to go together.
And we're gonna have to figure this out.
We're gonna ratchet-strap this together.
We're gonna put tension on it.
And if that doesn't pull it in,
they'll keep ratcheting it and tapping it and slowly work its way in under pressure.
We're gonna try to get the bucket up there with the excavator,
just hold pressure on it,
so while they're pushing and banging on the other side, it doesn't bounce around.
I hope we don't have to do this for every corner now.
[Chrissy] All right.
Help him pull.
No.
Not budging.
- No? - No.
About an inch off.
[Joe] Trying to pressure treat it...
[Chrissy] No-- Oh!
Lock it.
[Aaron] I was super excited to see the first beams and post go up.
- All right. - Corner two.
[Heather] Here we go.
And then just minutes later I heard this big crunch and crack.
[Chrissy] No-- Oh!
[Aaron] I ran over there and I tried to figure out
what had happened and what broke.
I heard that crunch. Did we break anything?
[Chrissy] No, it just came out of the hole.
[Aaron] Well, maybe it'll go any easier now.
Thank goodness nothing actually broke.
Just took, took a lot more maneuvering
and a lot more time to push through that.
That's it, Joe.
- [man] You're in. - [Aaron] You're in.
- Oh, yeah. - [all cheering]
Yeah.
That was an insane amount of time to try to get one corner together.
What we're doing right now is we're cleaning up
all the mortise and tenon joints.
We're shaving them down.
We're also beveling the edges to ease it as it goes in,
because you saw how that one didn't want to go in.
Some might fit better than others,
but we're not gonna do trial and error.
Just get 'em a little loose, we'll lock 'em in, we'll peg 'em in,
and we're done.
Hey, guys, I think we got the wrong post over here.
- [Chrissy] What? - Yeah.
As we were moving along, we got ahead of the game.
We thought we were making great progress,
and it turns out one of the corner posts was incorrect.
[Chrissy] What?
[Joe] Yeah, I think it's wrong.
[Chrissy] No way. Joe...
- You kidding me? - What are we gonna do?
[Joe] Hey, guys, I think we got the wrong post over here.
[Aaron] We received our shipment of lumber in 25 different pallets.
They're not organized, they're not categorized,
they're not really numbered in an intuitive way.
[Chrissy] What?
[Joe] Yeah. I think it's wrong.
[Chrissy] No way. You kidding me?
[Joe] We realized that we put the beams
that have the notches for the floor joists
actually in the area where the loft is going.
So, what we need to do is we need to take those apart.
We need to move them into this set right here in the middle.
Again, waste more time, more energy.
[Aaron] Super frustrating when things don't go according to plan.
Especially considering we're on a time crunch.
[Aaron] Not to mention that it's freezing in Vermont and it's only September.
It's only gonna get worse from here. Winter's coming.
There are other factors at play.
We really need to get the show on the road.
[Joe] It's never fun to undo something that's already completed.
[Aaron] Yeah. It is what it is.
That thing is so heavy.
Today, we're putting all the posts in the right spots.
Then we're gonna put up the beams.
Then, we're gonna move to the floor joists.
Put the center of the post in now
and then we're gonna get this set across.
All right. So, we got another beam ready to go up here.
All right. And we're closing the gap from yesterday.
[Aaron] Yeah.
We have one more mess-up.
- See these joist pockets here? - Yeah.
You see how they're continuous every 24 inches on this side?
[Aaron] Yeah.
What do you see over there?
[Aaron] Same thing over there, but not from there.
- [Joe] Exactly. - Blank.
So, we have to replicate them all the way across
before the floor joists fall off.
For the floor-joist wall.
We're progressing along.
We're getting most of the beams in place
and we're finding out that floor joist pockets
are not notched into the beams like they're supposed to be.
Most of them are missing.
So, we have to go back over to the beams
and we're actually gonna have to create all those pockets
and re-tail the ends of the beams.
- [Aaron] So we have to hand-notch everything. - [Joe] Yeah.
[Aaron] You have a picture of how you want something to go,
and this is pretty much the exact opposite.
[Joe] So, go get your chisel, and let's start getting at them.
We're not gonna pick up the phone.
We're just gonna take over and fabricate here on site.
When you're working remotely like this,
you're limited with equipment, tools and everything else.
And to go back into town and have the mill rework them,
we're gonna lose time just traveling.
Who knows how long it's gonna take them to get these beams done.
We could be talking hours. We could be talking days.
We're just not gonna waste our time on that phone call.
It's gonna be faster if we just take over here
and do it with our tools and our men.
We're gonna have to take out the tools and hammer and chisel
and do it the old-fashioned way.
We're really excited,
we finally got the final notches in the beams.
Most of the floor joists are already going into place.
They're already going to start setting flooring.
We're gonna have some good eye candy coming up.
All right, that's good. Windows and doors are here.
[Aaron] Yo, guys, these are super fragile.
Thousands of dollars worth of very fragile windows coming this afternoon.
And so, I'm a little on edge.
So, when we're carrying them, let's just make sure...
Hence the words "glass" and "fragile" on the bottom.
[Aaron] Make sure that we're careful.
- [Joe] That's the indicator. - All right.
So, this is actually the bottom.
So, when we pull it out, we're gonna come out sideways and I want to stand it up.
All right?
[Aaron] We have really big modern windows, they're casement windows,
and just put as many windows in the house to create a lot of natural light.
Watch that corner, Mike.
[Joe] Yeah. All right. Put your ends down, guys.
Slowly. Put it all the way down on the ground.
- Very nerve-racking. - Yeah.
[Joe] No, no, put your end on the ground, guys.
- I would stop. - All right.
We've got to... Hang on. No, no, no.
Whoa. Whoa, whoa, hey.
[Joe] Windows and doors are here.
[Aaron] Yo, guys, make sure that we're careful, all right?
We have thousands of dollars worth of very fragile windows.
[Joe] We're gonna get that out first.
I'm a little on edge.
[Joe] You gotta watch that corner, Mike. Yeah. All right.
Put your ends down, guys.
Slowly, put it all the way down on the ground.
- Very nerve-racking. - Yeah.
[Joe] No, no, not put your end on the ground, guys.
- I would stop. - All right.
We gotta-- Hang on. No, no, no.
- [Aaron] Whoa, whoa, whoa. - [man] End's down.
This end's going down.
[Joe] That's it. There you go.
- And it made it. - [Joe] All right.
All right, right there. All right, stop.
Go to the last one there. Bring it in.
You're gonna keep a little bit of a lean on it.
We have 15 windows.
Right, like that. Just like you got it. Perfect.
Hopefully we'll get to put a couple of them up today
and then the rest of them
should come very quickly after that.
Mm-hmm.
So excited.
The windows look good. What do you know?
[man] You can come outside, with the level.
Okay, so you're gonna come outside once we put it in.
They're very special material, they're fiberglass,
and they're recycled materials as well.
And what's special about them
is that these materials allow us to use the color black
on the inside and outside of the window.
So just...
Hold it up to the bottom.
When I saw this, I kind of fell in love with it.
Is it level?
It's all part of the modern theme, modern farmhouse style.
So I think he did good.
It's a little to the left. Right there.
[Aaron] All right, good job. First window.
Nice.
This is gonna be the bathroom window.
Hey, Heather, you got that level?
[Heather] Yeah, it's perfect.
[Aaron] Windows are looking good.
Heather was helping to level as we went along.
Feels good to finally install them
and see this place turning into a house right before our eyes.
Look at that, that's it.
[Heather] Ready?
You're the level girl.
[Aaron] Level girl.
- Now we're perfect. - [man] Perfect.
-There we go. -[Aaron] That's it? Thanks, man.
So, it's mid-September and the framing is done,
so we're trying to take advantage
of the good fall weather to get the roof rafters on.
The guys, you know, were kind of carrying them on their shoulders,
lifting them up and nailing them in
and trying to kind of balance on the top of the roof.
And so it was definitely nerve-racking to watch.
It looks pretty dangerous up there where they are putting that roofing on.
[Joe] Oh, let me tell you, they're very happy, too, that it's dry and not slick.
We've been working in 70-degree dry weather all week,
couldn't ask for better conditions.
If it was a little wet or a little bit icy
or even a little bit of frost,
they would slide right off that roof.
All the framing is done now, we're running our stop-ins.
And we're putting our one-by-twelve sheeting up.
[Aaron] I had no idea it could happen so fast.
We're gonna have some metal on here,
if not today, early tomorrow morning.
Awesome.
[Joe] Coming in early next week there,
we've got rain in the forecast
and the temperatures are gonna start to go down.
Winter is gonna be here soon.
Sounds like we need to get dried in ASAP.
I'm super excited.
It's the point of the build where you can finally start
to see the house come together.
[Joe] Now to the vapor barrier is complete,
we're installing the last of the windows and doors.
Right there, lock it.
We're really lucky that we got all these windows undamaged.
Every time you order windows, something's bound to go wrong
out here in the remote location that we're at.
If we had a broken window,
it would really delay the project.
Looks good.
Perfect.
[Aaron] For the exterior siding,
we're using rough sawn pinewood.
So, rough sawn means you see all of the marks
from the saw blade and it's not sanded or polished.
[Joe] We definitely don't want to put guys on the roof today with this weather, I mean,
it's getting closer to freezing right now.
And as the day progresses,
it's gonna be slippery and wet.
And if it turns to frost and ice,
we're really gonna get into trouble.
Snow is on its way. It's pouring rain right now.
It's 37 degrees outside.
We're definitely not gonna be doing the roof today.
Let's hope the weather changes.
[Aaron] We were supposed to put the metal roof on,
but we ended up getting rained out
and it was too unsafe to install the metal roof.
We ended up shifting the work indoors,
but we still have to finish up as quickly as possible
because that rain is gonna start to turn to snow very soon.
So, let's get the stairs going, seeing how it's raining.
- Yeah. - It's gonna start snowing probably later.
At least we can get the stairs going inside.
These guys are hustling all the lumber in for us.
- Is that the last of it? - [man] Yes, sir.
[Joe] All right, boss. Get it in there.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna come up with four steps here.
We're gonna come up to our landing.
Then, when we come on the landing,
we're gonna turn and go the rest of the way.
Finishing off the floor landing right now,
couple more boards and the stairs are done.
[Aaron] Stairs are done, but there's something wrong.
My worst fears are coming true.
It looks like the roof is leaking now.
Because we weren't able to put the metal roofing on yet.
The rain is just coming down so hard that the roof is giving in.
This literally is pushing me to my limit.
[Aaron] My worst fears are coming true.
It looks like the roof is leaking now.
The rain is just coming down so hard that the roof is giving in
because we weren't able to put the metal roofing on yet.
But hopefully it's gonna stop raining soon.
So, we better get this metal roof on in time
for, you know, the next rainstorm.
So, when I arrived yesterday, we were supposed to put the metal roof on,
but we ended up getting rained out.
Thankfully, the weather has come back on our side today,
but we still have to finish up as quickly as possible
because that rain is gonna start to turn to snow very soon.
[Joe] So, they're putting the metal roof on
the back of the house right now.
They're ready to start the shed dormer.
Very mild pitch.
I think you could walk up there.
The roof is steep enough at an eight-pitch.
If it gets slippery, they will definitely slide off.
So they're gonna be using support brackets and safety ropes today.
Throw that rope over here.
I'm gonna tie it off to Aaron's legs.
- That sounds good. - Tethered to hip.
It's a lot higher and a little sketchier
than these guys make it look.
- You see these cleats right here? - Yeah.
That's how you're gonna climb.
[Aaron] Uh-huh.
So how do you like the views up there?
[Aaron] The views are... are gorgeous.
It's a little higher and sketchier than I thought it'd be.
I don't have a fear of heights,
but being up here is definitely pushing my limits a little bit.
We're gonna be installing the final metal roofing.
The metal roof is also really good for snow load capacity.
Generally, once the roof heats up,
the snow will actually slide right off it.
Once I got up there, I realized how high
and how steep the roof really was.
These guys make it look super easy,
but it's a lot harder than it looks in reality.
Even today, when we had the sun out,
I was up on the roof and it was still slippery.
Can't wait to get down from here.
Thank goodness the weather cooperated.
We were able to get the rest of the metal roof on.
We're now completely dried in. Heather's not here this week.
I think she would be shocked by the progress that we've made.
One of my favorite things is gonna be the front porch.
That's one of the last exterior elements
that really ties all of the design concept together.
Now, it really looks like that modern farmhouse look
with the fresh rough sawn pine,
and I'm really excited about that.
It's amazing, it's starting to feel like a house already.
Now that the walls are up and you can really see the frame of the house,
you can sort of get a sense for where everything's gonna be.
So, it's nice, all these pieces finally coming together.
We have a big push to finish on time.
You know, we have almost half a house
to build in the next couple of weeks
and we need to be ready for snowboarding season to begin.
So, hopefully we can, you know,
get that final push and move in.
Over the last week, we had all the plumbing and electrical done
and we have the drywall coming shortly.
When did you ever get trained as an excavator?
Uh... one of the trips, when you weren't here.
Okay.
[Aaron] We discovered that the excavator is actually in the way,
and so I might have to hop in there and try to move it.
All right. Wish me luck.
It's been a while since I've operated one of those.
Or ever.
But hopefully, I remember my training and I can back it up.
[reverse alarm beeping]
[Heather chuckles]
- Nice job. Great work. - Oh, man.
[Aaron] You definitely didn't think I could do that.
- I had some doubts. - [chuckles]
Drywall's here.
- So, can I help you at all, man? - Sure.
Joe must have thought that the drywall company would have a crew to deliver.
Right.
Okay.
And then the drywall company thought that we would have a construction crew
- for carrying the material out. - Right.
- Ready? - All right.
Turns out we were the only ones here.
We were both part of his crew.
[Aaron] We have almost 100 sheets of drywall.
We don't even have the right window to lift it up to the second floor,
so we're gonna have to bring everything into the first floor
and hand-carry pieces up to the second floor.
All right. Well, we'll just wing it.
[Heather] This is crazy.
[Aaron] How many more of these do we have?
[man speaks]
[Heather] Are you serious?
This is my workout for the year.
This is a challenge I was not prepared for.
We need to pick up the pace. The garage is coming, we have a lot left.
This is a nightmare.
-Last one. -This is the last one. You can do this.
Ooh!
- All right. - Nice.
[Aaron] Oh, my goodness.
Good job.
I feel like we've had two or three days already and it's only like 11:00 a.m.
I know. It's crazy.
All right, now let's get the garage going.
Let's head to the garage.
All right. The main event.
So, one of the next big steps is our garage delivery.
It has been fully assembled off-site
and they're gonna be driving it on a giant truck bed.
The garage weighs thousands of pounds.
It's an oversize load.
It needs special conditions to be able to make it on the roads here.
They have to get up this muddy and steep driveway.
So, this is gonna be a really challenging delivery.
This thing looks huge, man.
- [driver speaking] - [Heather] It looks awesome.
[Aaron] I'm ready to do it, let's go.
Okay, shouldn't have a problem.
All right.
Here we go.
[Heather] Oh, he's not backing up.
[Aaron] No, he's going to do the turnaround.
It's a little wobbly.
[Heather] It looks like it's lopsided.
[Aaron] Yeah, you think it's gonna fit between those two trees?
[Heather] Uh-oh.
Okay.
Both of his wheels were really digging in on both sides here.
[Heather] Yeah.
[Aaron] Is it not gonna fit?
My problem is the two trees.
[Aaron] Are you saying we can't do it?
[Aaron] Is it not gonna fit?
[driver] My problem is the two trees.
[Aaron] Right.
We're trying to get this massive garage
up a muddy driveway between two giant trees
and it's really not working.
Are you saying we can't do it?
I'm not saying we're not.
It's just gonna take me a little bit to get up there.
Okay.
I've still got some tricks up my sleeve.
My next option was go down, turn around, back up.
[Aaron] This is the second challenge
because this is the steepest part of the driveway.
[Heather] Right.
- And you can see the wheels are kind of pulling. - Mm-hmm.
[driver] I'm gonna do probably two more inchworms back.
I should be able to swing the trailer into position.
And then hopefully slide the building off.
- [Heather] Here we go. - [Aaron] Oh!
Oh, wow.
- Yay. Nice. - Yeah.
[driver] The job is done.
[Aaron] We're getting close to crunch time now.
We have less than two weeks left to finish the build.
We have faced so many challenges along the way.
So, given what we've been working with,
I am very surprised by our progress.
We had drywallers come in and actually install the sheetrock
and then we had the painters come in
and do a couple layers of fresh paint all through the house.
Although it looks like it's ready from the outside,
we still have a lot of interior work to do
and hopefully by the end we're gonna have a great house
and it's all gonna be worth it.
So, we have a ton going on today.
We're getting ten solar panels installed.
This should provide us enough backup for several days of power.
[Joe] So once all the equipment's installed and we're booked in,
are we gonna have lights tonight?
Yes.
I'll take another panel.
[Aaron] I'll be able to track how much my solar panels are producing,
and, of course, how much money I'm saving by using the power of the sun.
That's my last panel.
All my connections are connected
and beautiful system set up of ten panels.
[Aaron] The wood-burning stove has finally arrived,
which I've been desperately waiting for and dreaming about.
Be careful. It's very heavy.
Slide it back. That's good.
[Aaron] It will be a significant source of heat for the house.
There it is.
Easy.
[Aaron] The outside of the stove and the inside
is actually lined with soapstone,
which can provide consistent heat.
Bring it over.
Yeah!
So, we take the newspaper here in the middle
and you make yourself a little ghost.
There you go, look at that, there's a fire in there.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Feel the warmth already coming on.
Right.
All right. Be careful. She is fragile.
We have our plumber here installing the smart steam shower.
I've been super excited about making this a smart cabin.
We're gonna have smart lights.
Turn on the lights in the living room.
Yes.
Smart speaker system and smart TV.
Turn on the TV.
[TV chimes]
Finally, my pride and joy, we have the smart steam shower.
It has lights and jets and speakers
and all this really cool, smart stuff built into it,
trying to create an off-the-grid spa.
Why can't you live in the woods in comfort?
Craig, how are we doing back there?
[Craig] We'll have steam before you know it.
[Aaron] Part of my vision of living off the grid
was living off the grid in luxury and in technology.
And that's also fully sustainable.
We've been waiting months and months for the septic tank and it's finally here.
It's gonna be the last thing that kind of enables us
to be able to move into the house and use the facilities.
The septic tank weighs about 800 pounds,
so we need to use the excavator to get it up the hill.
I was holding my breath the whole time
as he was bringing it up the hill.
The septic tank was dangling by a strap.
- Oh, my gosh. - [creaking]
Oh.
[Aaron] I was holding my breath the whole time
as he was bringing our septic tank up the hill.
The septic tank was dangling by a strap.
I saw it fall off.
- Oh, my gosh. - [creaking]
Oh.
I thought that was the end, but he recovered it
and we got it all the way up here, and now it's set.
It's gonna be nice not having to use the outhouse anymore during this build,
especially given how cold it's gotten.
I can't be happier and more relieved to finally be done.
This has definitely been one of the hardest projects I've ever taken on,
and I couldn't be happier with the final product.
I absolutely love the cabin.
It is better than I had originally envisioned it.
And I'm so proud of Aaron.
It really is an amazing accomplishment.
I can't wait to just be able to walk
right out of my house and jump on the slopes.
And it's a dream come true for me.
The timeline was four months.
We ended up finishing just under five months.
The original budget was around $200,000.
We went about $25,000 over because of challenges
with the off-the-grid features.
Better to do it right the first time,
even if it's a little more expensive.
Today, we have my dad and my sister coming.
They drove many, many miles and hours to get here
and we can't wait to show the cabin to them.
[Jay] Wow.
- Hey, guys! - Hi!
The house looks amazing, Aaron.
[Jay] Ah, look at the front door.
What do you guys think?
- It's great. - I love it.
This is a custom snowboard bench
that my friends and Heather built together for me as a surprise.
Wow. I'm going try it out.
Take a seat, try it out.
This is great. Are these your old boards?
[Heather] Yeah, they're his old snowboards.
There's a bunch of stories with each of these snowboard.
[Jay] Yeah, I'll bet it has a story that involves stitches.
[laughter]
[Aaron] Can't wait to show you my snowboard cabin.
- Let's go. - Yeah.
Wow.
- This is fantastic. - You like it?
I love the beams.
It's really cool.
[Aaron] This is the foyer.
This is where you're meant to kind of take your boots off
- and your snowboard off and your jackets off. - Right.
Check out my custom live edge furniture.
That's a bench that I had them make by hand.
[Jay] Wow.
- It fits perfectly in that space. - Yeah.
- Come sit by my wood-burning stove. - [Jay] Ah.
[Aimee] This is so nice.
[Jay] That's so beautiful. That's a beautiful stove.
[Aaron] This is actually made out of soapstone.
The material is known to hold the temperature for really long,
even periods of time.
So, this thing is gonna stay hot for hours and hours, even if it's not lit.
And of course, I got smart features
that I can control all the lights in the house with my voice.
Oh, my.
Turn off the lights in the foyer.
That's so cool.
[Aaron] The lights and the TV and the heater
all controlled by my voice and my phone.
Can't wait to show you the kitchen.
You want to go check it out? I'll follow you over there.
[Aimee] Yeah, I'd love to.
[Aaron] My farmhouse sink.
- Right. - With the farmhouse faucets.
[Aimee] Those are my favorite. I love it.
[Aaron] I tried to get, you know, really modern appliances,
but also ones that fit in small places.
- So... - [Aimee] Yeah.
I love it. I love the kitchen.
[Aimee] How do you get power out here?
We actually have ten solar panels on the roof.
We're off the grid and fully sustainable all the time,
no matter what's happening.
- Come check out my guest bathroom. - [Aimee] Wow.
[Aimee] It's so nice. What is that?
Some people think it's a phone booth.
[Aimee] I was gonna say.
- [Aaron] But it's actually a smart steam shower. - Oh, my.
So, I have this remote control right here.
You can actually turn it on and off.
I can control the lights.
[Aimee] That's great.
[Aaron] Come check out the guest bedroom.
- [Heather] Can't wait for you guys to stay in here. - Me, too.
[Aaron] This is my upstairs loft.
This is meant to be like a media room.
- [Aimee] Look at that chandelier over there. - [Jay] It's cool.
Oh, that's my deer antler chandelier, right in the window.
So you can see it as you drive over to the house.
Check out the bedroom.
- Our antler light to match the chandelier. - [Aimee] Great.
[Aaron] And it also is controlled by my voice.
Yeah?
[Aaron] Turn on the lights in the bedroom.
[chuckles] Amazing.
[Heather] Our favorite is the view here.
And there is actually the Vermont snowmobile trails right out through this window.
[Aimee] That's awesome.
You guys have to get a snowmobile next.
- It's already on his list. - It's all on the list.
[Aaron] So, what do you guys think of the cabin?
- I love it. - It's fantastic.
[Aimee] It's really great to see luxury off the grid
and be able to have some kind of experience like you would at a spa,
but completely in the middle of nowhere.
You know, it's great.
I'm always proud of all of my kids,
but Aaron's really done a number on this project.
It's amazing.
We started a project and we gained a lot of lifetime friends.
Absolutely.
[Aaron] We couldn't have done this without you. So, thank you.
- Thanks, guys. - You're welcome.
We're gonna hop on our snowmobile
and come right up the fast trail here
and visit and stay the night.
Building off the grid was super challenging, but way worth it,
and I couldn't be more grateful to have had Heather to do this with.
[Heather] It has been so rewarding, so fulfilling.
And I couldn't have picked a better person to do this with.
Can't wait to spend our first winter here.
Yeah, you have to teach me how to snowboard now.
That's the goal.
Since I was ten, I've been snowboarding
and dreaming about having
like an off-the-grid mountain escape.
I've been waiting my whole life for it.
This is a dream come true.
[Heather] So proud of you.
[all] Cheers!