We're building a luxury canvas tent.
Watch that tree.
- Watch out. - [Tuck] Whoa.
This is definitely Bigfoot territory.
[Mallory] We're super excited to be able to have this getaway for our family.
[Tuck] It's about to get freaky.
Ooh, I'm already excited.
[Mallory] Two, three. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
We're about to go off of here.
[Tuck] Hang on, hang on.
We are definitely gonna have some blood, sweat, tears.
Wait, wait, wait, this ain't gonna work.
Come down. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- There you go. - You really scared me, Tuck.
[Tuck] We're doing this the old fashion way.
The wind is picking up y'all.
Hopefully, this thing does not turn into a sail.
[Mallory] It's been a struggle.
[Tuck] Whoa.
[Mallory] It's more difficult than we anticipated.
[Tuck] Whoa, whoa, whoa.
[narrator] Are you ready to go off the grid?
[country music playing]
Come on, guys, we'll walk down
this game trail right here.
[Jace] Wonder if hogs go down here.
[Tuck] Hogs and all kinds of animals.
What else do you all think would be out here?
- [Presley] Bigfoot. - [Tuck] Bigfoot?
This is definitely Bigfoot territory here.
We bought 30 acres out
kind of in the middle of nowhere,
it's full of cacti, brush, and trees.
[Tuck] It is very tough to traverse through the land.
It is thick in here.
[Jace] I should've brought my machete.
[Tuck] It is difficult because there's low branches,
high branches, there's rocks everywhere
that you have to step over.
There is constant slope out here.
We have over 300 ft of slope
from the top of the property, at the road,
down to the bottom creek.
Make it through here,
and see if we can find a good spot.
- I'm Mallory. - And I'm Tuck.
[Mallory] And we're building our off-grid structure
in the beautiful Texas Hill Country.
[Tuck] Our build site is located in Fischer, Texas
which is right between San Antonio and Austin.
[Mallory] The views are really what sold us
on this property.
We knew once we cleared some trees out
that we were gonna open up those views
to the beautiful canyons.
And we're at about 1,300 ft elevation.
Behind us is the Devil's Backbone,
a canyon that runs through a bunch of hills
and we've got an easy view of over 13 miles.
What do you all think about this spot?
I like it.
[Tuck] Yeah, I can see the fire pit over here,
the house right there.
Who said anything about a hot tub?
Tuck and I have two kids.
We have Jace, who's 11 years old.
And we have Presley, she just turned nine.
[Tuck] To us, off-the-grid living is ideal.
We live very, very close to a city.
When we get out here, it is amazing.
Our motivation for building this
is to have a place to bring our kids,
to really experience nature.
It makes me not wanna leave.
So our original plan was to have a wood frame structure.
But with lumber prices through the roof,
we have switched over to using a canvas tent structure
that will go on top of a elevated deck.
We're building a luxury canvas tent
because my kids are really always wanting to go camping
and I'm just not your rugged camper.
And so I thought bringing luxury
would be a great way for us to experience nature.
And I can have my glamping.
[Tuck] As you walk up to the house,
there will be 127-foot-long suspension bridge.
Once you get off the suspension bridge,
you land on a 2,200 square foot deck.
[Mallory] When you walk into the front door,
you will see our living room and our kitchenette.
To the right, you will have our main bedroom,
to the left we will have our second bedroom,
and in the back, we will have our bathroom.
[Tuck] Off the back deck, we will have an 8-foot by 24-foot hammock.
Our off-the-grid features include a solar panel system
and a rain water harvest system.
[Mallory] Our build is 1,200 square foot,
our timeline is two months,
and our budget is $50,000.
[rock music playing]
The first part of this build is getting this land cleared.
Seem like I could go through with a chainsaw
and cut it down, but, uh, I definitely got outnumbered.
Uh, I had to call in for the heavy machinery.
Once I got that out here,
it started moving along a lot faster.
The trees started going down a lot easier.
We took at least three weeks to burn all the trees, uh,
we did controlled burns.
This build is definitely gonna be challenging.
We are gonna have some blood, sweat, tears,
all of the above out here.
But it's gonna be worth it in the end
to be able to come out here and relax.
So today, we are getting all these footings
formed up real quick so that we can set
all our concrete inside of those.
Tomorrow we'll be setting our posts,
but we have concrete today, we have re-bar today, uh,
I say today, but it is actually in about 45 minutes.
So, uh, we are rushing as fast as we can
to get the stuff ready.
[rock music playing]
We're very worried about the concrete trucks
being able to get down here.
We're dealing with a lot of slope
and obviously if the concrete truck gets on a slope,
the concrete will dump out of the back.
[rock music playing]
We've got another turn up here that's real tough.
Be careful, we got a lot of rocks on the road,
don't wanna blow a tire out or anything like that.
- Okay. Sounds good. - Good luck with it.
[engine revving]
[Tuck] We are stopping the concrete truck at the top of the hill.
Come on in.
[Tuck] We've got a two-yard concrete bucket
with a big fork lift to drive it down our steep hill
and the fork lift will dump the concrete in
and then we'll run back up and get another load.
- All right. We're doing good. - [Mallory] You're good.
Good job. All right.
Keep coming, a little more.
Just a little bit on the edge here, here we go.
[Mallory] It's gonna be tough to make it downhill
without spilling the concrete
with all of the elevation changes.
- All right. It's go time. - Chances are,
it's probably gonna spill over a little bit.
We've got a very steep hill
that we have to get down to our build site.
Through the trees, obviously we've cleared our roads out
but our roads aren't very wide,
you still do have trees coming over the top.
[Mallory] Ooh, that looks a little dangerous.
[Tuck] I'm reversing down this, uh, steep incline
trying to keep everything level
and it is unbelievable
how much that bucket is swinging.
All right, knowing that that bucket weighs about
4,000 pounds with concrete in it.
It is very tricky and very scary controlling it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[whirring]
Another issue that we're gonna have
is we've only got three hours of time limit
on the concrete before it starts hardening.
We're definitely gonna have to straddle
this 2-foot-deep beam and hopefully we don't, uh,
slough off and fall.
[Mallory] I'm watching Tuck pull in,
I'm getting a little nervous.
These tires are really close to falling in
and I'm looking at him
and looking at all these guys around,
just praying and hoping that it stays on the path
and doesn't fall in that hole.
One bucket down, we got about nine more to go.
I'mma head back up the hill, get another load.
[engine revving]
[Tuck] Oh, yeah, it looks good. Number two, here we go.
Watch that bucket, it'll swing and catch you.
[Mallory] Yeah.
Watch that tree, Tuck.
Watch that tree.
Watch out.
[Tuck] Whoa.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tuck] Watch that bucket, it'll swing and catch you.
We got a lot of weight on this bucket right here
and if the weight starts going the wrong way,
it could tip everything over and not be pretty.
[Mallory] Watch that tree, Tuck.
Watch that tree.
- Watch out. - Whoa.
[Mallory] I'm watching Tuck, he is bringing that bucket downhill
and he is going backwards.
All these trees are hitting him,
hitting the machine, and I'm freaking out.
[Tuck] Timber, raining trees.
Oh, yeah.
We did do some tree trimming today, uh,
with the machine and the concrete bucket.
But, uh, we made it.
Good? All right, baby.
What? We having fun yet?
[upbeat music playing]
- [Tuck screams] - [Mallory laughs]
Oh, yeah, baby.
[upbeat music playing]
[man] That's good.
[Tuck] It's taking way too long.
Concrete's already getting hard on us.
We just finished this fourth load
and the concrete is getting very tight.
I'm having to shake the bucket...
Don't tell me that, dude.
To get the concrete to settle down to the bottom
to where it'll come out the chute at the bottom.
Oh, we're gonna have to dump the bucket over
and manually take the concrete out.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tuck] Watch your leg.
This definitely puts a big damper on my plan
for, uh, starting our columns tomorrow.
So it's gonna put us definitely a few days back.
I think we did pretty good, to be honest.
I mean, most people would've gave up at the front gate.
What do we do with all that up top?
We're not gonna be able to use it.
No, no.
Out of our, uh, 10 yards of concrete that we had,
we ended up wasting about four yards
which is a lot of money.
We also have a lot of guys here to work
and they're standing around not being able to do anything
because our concrete hardened
and, uh, they can't proceed on to the next steps.
Hey, you win some, you lose some,
at least we're all still here with our fingers.
This is it for the day.
Obviously, we've got some layout to do.
We've got a little more concrete
that we'll be able to get into some of the spots,
but, uh, the concrete truck has left.
We're just gonna clean the buckets up,
try and look at tomorrow.
[upbeat music playing]
Yesterday, the concrete froze up in the truck,
we had to dump out a lot,
so now we are going back to the old fashioned way.
This is the off-the-grid way right here.
We had to start mixing concrete from the bag.
We didn't have water on site so we are taking water
out of the barrels to mix the concrete
inside the footings.
This is definitely gonna take a lot longer
than backing the concrete truck up
and dumping concrete into the hole.
So, uh, this is gonna be the fun part.
We're gonna finish up these last two footings,
that'll allow us to proceed with setting some columns,
so that we can get our deck established.
So now that the concrete is cured for the footings,
it is time to construct our deck.
Each pole weighs roughly 800 pounds.
We have to choke-strap them at the top
so that we can lift them up with the fork lift.
Hey, guys, this is our first one,
so when I pick this thing up,
we gotta make sure those chokers get really tight,
so that nothing slips.
Make sure when we're standing around it
that nobody gets really close to it.
Be careful when we're setting it on that pin,
that it doesn't... it doesn't get moving too much,
there's a lot of wind going on right now,
so we gotta be really careful with it.
This will be the first one, let's do it.
[upbeat music playing]
[Tuck] Now watch that wind, it's whipping.
Now, now, be careful, just keep a hand on
and stay back as fast as we can.
So today we don't have the most ideal conditions.
The wind is whipping at least 20 miles an hour.
I would say it's closer to 30 miles an hour.
Oh.
Oh, it's swinging, Tuck.
[Tuck] All right, we're still level,
here we go, watch yourself, Mal.
[upbeat music playing]
- [man] Slow down. - Coming down easy, here we go.
Whoo. Perfect fit.
Now they're gonna get it braced up real quick
before we disconnect anything.
- Great job, babe. - [Tuck] Yeah.
First one down, here we go, we're gonna disconnect.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mallory] I think after this, we're gonna be good to go.
He's a pro at it.
[Tuck] All right. Number two.
[upbeat music playing]
[Tuck] Watch that wind, guys.
Whoa. Now watch out.
- [Mallory] Oh. - Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [man] Easy boy. - [Tuck] Whoa.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tuck] Today, we are setting the posts for our house.
Now watch that wind.
Each pole weighs roughly 800 pounds.
The wind is whipping at least 20 miles an hour.
I would say it's closer to 30 miles an hour.
Now watch out Whoa, whoa, whoa.
[man] Easy boy.
Whoa, let it settle now, let it settle down.
[Mallory] Tuck's lifting these poles on the fork lift
and these things are moving and I'm nervous
because he's trying to get them down to us.
[Tuck] Coming down easy with it.
[Mallory] It's a little scary down there,
I just want to make sure that no one gets hurt.
Down.
[Tuck] Coming down, watch your fingers.
- [man] All right. - [Tuck] Good deal.
Braces, braces, braces.
All right.
Got a little crazy because of the wind,
but, uh, everything's back on track.
We are moving forward,
we did get all of our poles set today,
so we are doing just fine.
With our posts in place we leveled them off.
I'm ready to come down.
Whoa. Oh, man.
There's a new sheriff in town.
Sorry.
Next, we lifted up and placed the beams.
[upbeat music playing]
[Tuck] Then, we added in our floor joists
and our decking.
And we framed up the walls for our structure.
[Mallory] It's been a busy several weeks
but it's been fun.
[upbeat music playing]
[Tuck] We were rocking and rolling
and then, here comes the rain.
[thunder rumbling]
[Tuck] We have a lot of thunder out here.
There's a lightning striking, everywhere out here.
It is definitely not a good spot to be.
All right, now, let's get all these tools up real quick.
This rain is gonna ruin all these motors,
so let's get them up if we can.
[Mallory] We had a big day planned today.
We had a ton of family and friends
ready to help us get the tent frame up,
but it's just not happening.
We're definitely feeling defeated today
because I'm not sure how we're gonna get this done tomorrow
and it looks like we're gonna get out of here
bright and early in the morning to get this deck cleaned and ready.
All right, there's nothing else up here.
We're good. They lost but we're good.
[dramatic music playing]
We had a lot of rain that delayed us
a little bit on getting the tent,
and so, it put us a day past our schedule,
and also hurt us
because we had our help lined up
to help us for two days
and now, we are only gonna have them for one.
Holy moly, that's a lot of parts.
Are we supposed to get this done in one day?
Holy moly.
This is gonna be the biggest day of our build.
[upbeat music playing]
Hopefully, this trailer doesn't take off
down the hill with me in front of it.
It's about to get freaky.
[Mallory] Come on back, go slow.
We are going down a steep hill,
pulling a 16-foot long trailer.
Oh, I'm already sliding.
I'm already sliding, so be careful.
It's gonna be so tough to get this down
in this hill without losing control.
Whoa, it's sliding.
It's sliding, I can't stop.
Okay. Try to go this way. Try to go this way.
[Tuck] Okay. I'm trying. I get the wheels cut.
You're about to hit this tree right here.
Okay. Hold on.
Can you go forward a little bit?
[engine revving]
[Mallory] Okay. Okay. You're spinning out over here.
I'm really concerned about Tuck
getting down this hill.
It's slippery without the rain.
And so, this really concerns me how slippery it is
now that we have 6 inches of rain,
tires spinning, with the extra 1,500 pounds
on that trailer,
I'm really worried about him getting down there safely.
All right. Here we go.
Come on, baby.
Oh.
All right. Coming back now.
[Mallory] We're good now.
Hang on back there.
Take me on a ride, baby.
So, after a little bit of a scary ride,
we made it safely to the deck.
Well, the hard part is over.
We were able to successfully get
the pieces down to the deck.
But now, we have to get the 1,500-pound box
with all these wonderful helpers
up to this deck.
And so, we're gonna have to carry it piece by piece
as we get it up.
And so, we gotta do what we gotta do.
We're gonna get it done.
[claps]
I'm ready.
Oh, yeah. This one is pretty heavy, too.
- Ooh. Uh-huh. - Got it.
Poles? There we go, good.
[rock music playing]
[Mallory] That's a little heavy for you.
- You got it? - You got it, big boy?
[Jace] Yes, I do.
[Mallory] So the first thing we're gonna do is make sure that we have all the pieces
because it's from South Africa.
So we can't just go there and get them, right?
So, we wanna make sure that we have all the pieces.
Once that it's done, we're gonna unwrap them
and get them to the right place,
and we're gonna start building the structure for the roof.
All right, guys. Last piece is done.
And we're ready to get started.
I sure hope we got the instructions.
[Mallory] Who needs instructions when you got me?
[laughs] Let's do this.
So, I should leave the instructions in the...
- Oh. [laughs] - Yes.
We are so lucky that we have Richard, Gary, and Jordan,
all the way from South Africa to help to give us the guidance
that we're gonna need
to get this structure up successfully.
So what we're doing guys, we're building
the frame in the bottom
and then, we're gotta lift the frame up
onto this ring beam structure.
We're gonna lift them up section by section
and join them at the top.
And we're making a bit kind of a contest out of it.
- Let's go. - Okay.
- [Jace] Hmm. - Boom. Here we go.
[Tuck] We divided into five teams
so we can build all five sections at the same time.
Why is my team still looking at the directions?
-[Tuck] All right. Put me in, coach. -Y'all gonna help us here.
- Put me in, coach. - [Mallory] Look at Jace go.
Maybe we should have chosen him on my team.
[Tuck] Those guys are moving over there.
Long one and the extended one,
the one that... The one back there.
Last for the finish line here.
- Teamwork. - Lock it in.
I would start drilling these in.
Okay. Come on, team. Face it up.
- Come on. - Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
- Stop. - [Mallory] Get it in.
Let's say, we have a winner.
[Mallory] We won.
[shouts]
Team of three. Team of three.
Now that we have finished the competition
and everyone has put together the metal frame,
now it's time to get it up on top of the ring beam.
We're gonna go straight up. Once it's up,
we have to turn it and then we're forcing it down.
Okay. You guys ready?
[all] One, two, three!
[Mallory] Okay. Okay, so, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We're about to go off over here.
- Okay. - [Richard] Hang on. Hang on.
[suspenseful music playing]
- [Tuck] Everybody ready. - Okay. You guys ready?
[all] One, two, three.
This metal frame that we're having to hoist up,
sits on top of our ring beam
so we have to turn it sideways,
lift it up in the air, get it in,
and slide it back on top.
[Mallory] Okay. So, whoa, whoa.
We're about to go off over here.
[Tuck] Everybody okay? Anybody hurt?
[Mallory] We're good. Up a little bit, there you go.
- It's heavy. - It is very, very heavy
and it is awkward.
Okay. Wait, wait, wait.
This ain't gonna work, come down.
And you are on top of the ladder the whole time
and it is making this build just very, very tough.
- All right. Up. - [Mallory] Okay. We're good.
- Now, go. - It's not that bad.
- Where do we go? - Okay. We're good.
Back toward you. No, but we're not good.
- [Tuck] Okay. - You better go that way
- so I can get past you. - [Gary] I don't know, do you got it?
[Richard] Okay. That's good.
- Okay, watch. - Okay. We're good. Great job.
[Mallory] Yes. One down. Four to go.
Let's see how strong this thing is. There it goes.
Here we are. Look at... Look at it. There we are.
Okay, guys, and what we're gonna have to do here
is lift the one side up first to get it over the top
and then, we can move it over this side
so we can get the other side over.
And then, just set it up.
It's a lot lighter, a lot smaller,
it should be easier.
Okay, so let's go with this side first. You ready?
[Tuck] How do you like it lighter and smaller?
Everyone, straight up. Hold those ropes.
Come this way now.
- Excuse me. - Oh, my hand. My hand.
- [Tuck] Are you okay? - [Richard] Hold on.
You said this one was easier.
[Richard] It's easier because this is smaller.
Having to get the post to align was very difficult.
- Top on first Jace, go in. - [Jace] Top, getting in.
It's crooked. Go out this way, some.
They were not going in easily.
We were having to muscle them in.
And it was more difficult than we anticipated.
- There it goes. There it goes. - [Tuck] There it goes.
There it is. Okay.
So what we are gonna try to do is slide back this way.
Mal, you get that end in and this end,
they'll slide right onto it.
- [man] Just keep going. - [Tuck] Oh. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Okay. So with everybody on these ladders.
Man, main thing you got to make sure
is that your ladder is correctly open
and standing in the right way.
- Okay. - One, two, three.
- Watch your fingers, Mal. - [Mallory] I got it.
- [Tuck] Okay. Okay. - Okay. Push it in.
- [man] You in? You in yet? - I'm on the... I'm in.
Okay. So, we're good.
[Mallory] So, it's been a struggle.
It took them longer than expected.
We thought we'd be done before lunch,
but here we are and it's after lunch,
and we're still on the last one.
But we're almost done.
We have a crew working here,
and then, we sent a crew to get the fly sheet
that we have to put on next.
[rock music playing]
[Richard] And we've stretch it out as far as we can.
The PVC fly sheet that we're gonna put on first.
I don't know exactly what it weighs
but it's a few hundred pounds,
and we have to get it up on this deck first.
And then, up on to the top of these apexes
that you see up here.
So getting it up right there
is probably the toughest part of the whole project.
[upbeat music playing]
[Richard] I'm gonna get the ladder in the middle.
Okay. Pull now.
Keep going.
Whoa, whoa.
I'm all right. I'm good.
- [Tuck] Whoo. - [laughs]
- [Richard] Is the tent okay? - I don't know.
Maneuvering this thing around is very hard.
We don't have the luxury out here
being off the grid to have scissor lifts,
fork lifts, anything like that.
We are doing this the old-fashioned way,
with ropes and with manpower
standing on top of the ladders,
lifting it into place.
[groans]
- There we go. There you go. - [Mallory] Go, go, go,
- you're almost there. - There you go.
There we go.
[Richard] Give me that ladder.
You're really scaring me, Tuck.
I was really nervous watching Tuck
as he was getting so high.
And you could tell that he was in beast mode,
and so, there was nothing that was gonna stop him.
[Tuck] Our problem is our ladders are too short.
So these enormously tall ladders are very tall
but they are not tall enough to put our apex piece
onto that pipe.
We're gonna have to move into plan B.
I did get some scaffolding brought out here.
It is gonna get us up there to that height
that we need to be at, to really manhandle this tent
and stretch it and get it into place.
[Richard] Hey, can you pull that in?
Yeah.
- [Mallory] It's in? - [Tuck] Yes.
- [Mallory] It's in! - [Richard] Okay. Apex is in.
All right. Tuck, come on down.
Let's call it a day.
You scared me enough for today.
We've had so many close calls today
and we all need some food and some rest.
[Tuck] Good work, everybody.
[upbeat music playing]
[Tuck] Yesterday was very rough.
Wrestling that canvas up on top of that frame was deadly.
[Mallory] We've been working so hard this morning
to get that shade net up.
We have limited help today.
So, we have to do as much as we can as a family
and so it's a little bit more tough today
but I know we can get it done.
[Mallory] Let's get this thing down.
Right now, we got the canvass rolled up
and it is secured up there with the rope over the top.
I'm gonna go up there and start rolling it down
so that we can get it to fall.
And the wind is picking up y'all.
The minute I got up to the top of that ladder,
there was a huge gust of wind that came through.
And hopefully, this thing does not turn
into a sail and roll over.
The last thing I wanna see is all of our hard work
getting blown away.
Hold my ladder.
[Mallory] Careful, Tuck.
[suspenseful music playing]
Right now, we've got the canvas rolled up
and it is secured up there with the rope over the top.
I'm gonna go up there and start rolling it down
so that we can get it to fall.
And the wind is picking up y'all.
[Mallory] Careful, Tuck.
Hopefully, this thing does not turn into a sail
and roll over.
It's a struggle because we don't have many hands
and, uh, we need to utilize all the strength
that we got right now.
So, I'm definitely on the top
dangerous step of the ladder where I'm not supposed to be,
but you have to stretch the canvas.
You gotta set it on the pole.
It is definitely, uh, a struggle point
of this whole build.
- Okay. - [Mallory] Is it helping?
- No. Let go. - Okay.
Okay. Hold on. We're almost there.
- There you go. Yes. - [Tuck] There you go.
- Good work. - We got it. Here we go.
- [man] Well done. - Woo!
So excited that the roof is finally on
and I'm so excited to see these walls go up.
[rock music playing]
[Tuck] Get it snug, buddy. There you go.
Man, it looks beautiful from up here.
It's like you're on top of the world.
[rock music playing]
So over the last few weeks, it has been tough out here.
[Mallory speaking]
It's been a busy several weeks.
We did get held back with a lot of rain
but once the rain held off,
we were able to get the tent sealed.
[Tuck] We got all the tent stretched,
everything's tight.
Uh, we've got some decking done,
we got our handrails in place.
[Mallory] We were able to start framing some walls.
We're on the homestretch.
It's exciting to be able to see the progress that we've made and
to really start seeing our vision be reality.
So today, we have a lot going on.
We have our giant oversized cargo net hammock
being installed.
We're installing our windows
and then we're putting some final touches
on our hanging bridge that we've been working on.
[Tuck] Wow, look at this thing.
And this thing looks huge.
What are we at, sizewise now?
It's 8.6 foot by 24, all free span across.
- [Mallory] Go big or go home, baby. - Exactly.
[Tuck] So the hammock was a vision
that we had to be able to lay
and look up at the stars and the sky.
[Mallory] And we've been trying to do
a lot of this work ourselves.
But we're letting the professionals work on this one
to make sure that we're not gonna fall through it.
[Tuck] So it looks like it's bridge time.
We've got to finish the suspension bridge
and at least get our sections completed
from here down to there, so...
Sounds good. What do you want me doing?
I'm gonna get you to unthread my cable for me
and I'm gonna feed it through the holes right now.
[Mallory] We came up with the idea
for the suspension bridge
once we saw the elevation changes.
I thought it would be really cool
because you really can't drive down there
unless you have a four-wheel drive truck.
I think it's just really cool for the kids
to be able to run across it and play some tag on it,
just have some fun on it.
[engine revving]
All right. I wanna see... I wanna see a fun flip land
with the dismount and all that fun stuff.
Now, that's gonna be Jace, it's not me.
Feels pretty sturdy, though.
Like a trampoline.
It's gonna take a couple more days
of working at this,
but I can't wait to see it finished.
[machine whirring]
[Tuck] Perfect.
This is a mammoth hammock right here.
- You did a fabulous job. - Thank you. Thank you.
We had to pull a few tricks
but we got it all stretched out,
we got all the rings in places ready to test
so I wanna know who's gonna do it.
I think it'll hold me.
I can get on this other side and...
I don't know. What do you think?
- [Tuck] I think it's, uh... - Check out that view.
- It's about ready... Whoa! - [laughter]
Oh, what a test. You scared me.
[Mallory] You think it's safe for me to join you?
- Oh, yeah, have a lay. - [Mallory] Oh.
[Tuck] It is perfect.
I just got to figure out how I'm gonna get out now.
[Mallory chuckles]
[country music playing]
[Mallory] I got my gloves on.
I am ready to move some glass.
I'm a little nervous. I don't want to break it.
Waiting for a replacement is not on our schedule.
Getting it up to the deck is gonna be difficult
with the slope, the rocks.
It's glass edge right here all the way around,
so if this touches anything, another piece of glass,
it shattered very, very quick.
There's no structure to it,
so we just got to be really careful.
It's gonna be heavy, but the only way to do it
is the old-fashioned way,
get our hands on it and lift it up.
Oh, it has lots of prints.
[Tuck] Oh, yeah. That's your side, right?
[Mallory] Look at this. I don't even wanna touch it.
That is a bunch of daddy longlegs right there.
- Those things are, uh... - That's building off the grid.
Let's hope one doesn't crawl on us
as we're carrying this glass and we drop
because I think I will drop it if it crawls on me.
If one starts crawling on you while we're carrying this, just stone cold it.
- Okay. - Don't, uh... Don't shake and nothing happens.
I'll do my best.
[Tuck] One, two, three, up.
Yeah, I really think there's one on my hand, Tuck.
Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait.
[screams]
[suspenseful music playing]
We've got to be really, really careful here, Mallory,
because the only way to do it is the old-fashioned way.
We have to carry this extremely heavy
and fragile windows up to the tent
and when we went to uncover them,
there were hundreds of spiders.
Look at this. I don't even wanna touch it.
[Tuck] I'm glad they're on your side.
- Up. - [Mallory] Yeah.
I really think there's one on my hand, Tuck.
Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. [screams]
[Tuck] Hey, they won't hurt you.
Just keep your footing as best as you can.
- Why did I go backwards? - [Tuck] Watch your step.
[Mallory] You need to go backwards.
[Tuck] Most of the weight's down here.
- Is that your excuse? - [laughs]
It's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Coming up. Easy.
Our stairs weren't built, so it's really nervous
of how we're gonna get them on the deck.
[Tuck] Oh, oh, oh, whoa.
I was very glad that we were able to make them up
and that we didn't break any.
Okay, you got to love how the spiders came
into play with it almost made us drop the glass
because you got scared.
They were everywhere. It was disgusting.
That was difficult, but now comes the fun part,
and because we have only got so much canvas
and this canvas is stretched, tight,
so, uh, we got to be very careful
when we're cutting.
Let's hope you have a steady hand today.
- Steady hand. - Steady hand.
All right. Let's do this.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tuck] This is the scary part...
because, uh, this is all woven fabric
and as you start cutting it,
the cut starts wandering in different ways.
We just got to make sure we don't go too far
because if we go too far,
then we've got a big gaping hole
next to the window.
Why don't you come outside? The weather is great out here.
- Here we go. - [Mallory] Oh.
Right there. All right. Coming up.
Okay, don't pinch your fingers but come on in with it.
- You go up on the block. - [Mallory] Come on.
Now easy, does it? All right.
Let's go check it out from the inside.
- Okay. So... - Yeah, that looks good.
These windows with the natural light
are gonna be amazing.
- [thunder rumbling] - [rain pattering]
The last few weeks have been very challenging.
It has rained every day for the past couple weeks,
so as soon as we get started on something,
more rain has come
and so we focused on our inside work.
And so we've been putting shiplap up,
we've been working on the bathroom,
and we installed some cabinets.
We also got our flooring done
and so that was super exciting.
And we're just trying to get that inside
ready for us to be able to move in.
[machine whirring]
So what we envisioned on this is to have a rustic look
and that's what we are going for.
And it makes it nice because everything
can be rough cut,
everything can be roughly nailed.
We're, uh, not so much worried about denting
or dinging, so, yeah.
And someone doesn't have to have perfect cuts either,
- he likes it. - Yeah.
And I can be a little loose on my cuts and nails
and stuff like that, so it's great.
We have a really cool accent wall
that we started with the kids that we're gonna be working on
where we've cut some oak and cedar limbs.
And we're cutting them up into wood pucks.
We had so many trees that we had to knock down
and I was really just looking at what we can do with them,
so I think it was just a way for us
to get our kids involved in order to make something
that they could work on
and that would have meant something to them.
Put them by size if you want.
That way it's easier to grab, you know,
go what kind of size you're going for.
The good thing about it,
this stuff came from right outside.
We need some more wood for the wall.
All we gotta do is walk out the door
and cut a little more, right?
It's a great project for us
because there's no way to really go wrong.
We kind of messed up sometimes in this house,
but this is one thing I think that we can't mess up
and so that's kind of nice
to be able to be successful on something.
What y'all think about the wall, guys?
We got probably like 2,000 more pieces to go.
It's gonna be a long day.
It's a lot of work
but it's gonna look fantastic.
Being out here in the woods off the grid
means that we have to find our own water
and use water from the land.
We can't get gutters mounted on the outside of the tent,
so we are doing our water catch system
underneath the house.
Our gutter's sloping from me to you
and, uh, our metal's gonna come
and it's gonna be a sloping from that beam to this beam.
Three inches of slope,
so when water comes through this deck
and hits this barn tin,
and it rolls down the barn tin,
hits that gutter, and this will run
all the way to the center of the house
and running in that PVC deal to our rain tank back there,
and, uh, that's how we harvest our water.
[Mallory] We're wrapping up some final touches on the house.
We're on the homestretch
but I still see a lot of long hours ahead of us.
[upbeat music playing]
[Mallory] Our tent house is finally done.
We've been working so hard.
And I absolutely love this place.
Seeing a finished product is almost breathtaking
just seeing everything come to reality.
And this is gonna be a great place
for our family to come to for many years to come
and spend some quality time out here.
[Mallory] Our timeline was to complete the build
within two months.
[Tuck] We went a month over but we did a lot of add-ons
and the weather did not help us out.
It knocked us back a few weeks easy.
Our original budget was $50,000.
We ended up around $65,000.
A lot of that increase in our budget
had to do with the increase of lumber prices.
But we are super excited about the product
that came out, so I'm not too hurt about it.
Here they come.
[Tuck] Hey, how y'all doing?
So we are very excited to show this house off
to my cousin and her husband, Janna and Gavin.
This looks amazing.
Check out this bridge, man. I like it.
We're super excited for them to be able to come out
and see what we've been working on.
It's very cool. [chuckles]
We've missed y'all.
This is where y'all been hanging out?
- [Mallory] Yeah. - [Janna] I'm so happy for y'all.
- You look so good. - It's so good to see you.
-[Janna] It's good to see y'all. -I'm glad you could come out.
- Y'all ready to go inside? - We're ready.
- All right. Go. - I get to lead the way.
Okay.
Oh, my gosh.
This is amazing.
- Look at this place. - [Gavin] Wow.
[Janna] This is not what I thought it was at all.
- What do y'all think? - You said tent in the woods
and I thought you meant tent in the woods.
[Mallory] This is Mallory's tent in the woods.
[Gavin] Definitely.
[Janna] This is awesome.
And this wall absolutely amazing.
This was a labor of love.
It was like a puzzle, the family puzzle
that we kind of pieced together and worked on.
- [Gavin] One of a kind there. - [Janna] Yes.
[Mallory] It is definitely one of a kind.
Y'all ready to go see some more?
[Janna] Yes, show us.
[Mallory] Let's go right in this bedroom right here.
[Janna] So is this the main bedroom here?
This is the view we get to bed every morning.
[Janna] I think I could do that.
This is amazing, guys. This is definitely not what I had in mind.
Tuck, how did you guys get the power out here?
[Tuck] We are all solar power out here.
[Janna] Never been in a tent like this before.
[Gavin] It's the nicest tent I've ever been in.
But you can actually see that is the tent wall.
This is what I was envisioning,
just pulled back with the bed right there.
Nothing like this. This is amazing.
[Mallory] Girl, if we would have done that,
we would have been done a lot quicker.
[laughter]
[Tuck] We'll go over here into the bedroom.
- [Gavin] Wow. - [Janna] Oh, wow.
This one's just as nice.
And I love the walls that you did throughout here.
[Mallory] I did every single one of them.
I even had a white wash manicure going
for a little bit.
And, uh, girl, people asked me
where I got it done.
You all ready to go see some more?
[Janna] Yes.
So we have our kitchen here.
[Tuck] We put the butcher block in,
shaker-style cabinets, made it all,
worked out great,
and made us a little kitchen area.
It looks great. And I love the shelves, too.
A little Mallory flare up there.
It's pretty perfect.
[Gavin] But how did you guys get water out here?
[Tuck] We harvest water.
Obviously, we couldn't put gutters
on the edge of this tent,
so we did barn tin as a gutter system
underneath this deck and, uh, we got it filtered
and we reclaim the water.
[Gavin] Wow.
[Janna] I wanna check out the bathroom.
- Wow. - This bathroom is huge.
And it's nice to have a bathtub in a tent.
[Mallory] To take my bubble bath,
so I can take a shower.
[Janna] There is a shower too?
We got a shower right here around the corner.
I did not realize that.
I just thought it was just a tub
when you said you're taking a shower,
- I was just thinking... - [Mallory] Oh, my God.
Your head.
[Janna] That's what I was thinking.
I can like picture myself right there.
- [Gavin] Right. - [laughter]
[Mallory] Let's go check out my favorite part.
[Tuck] Let's go.
Come on out to the patio, guys.
[Janna] It looks amazing.
That breeze feels nice out here.
[Gavin] I think this might be my favorite part.
- [Janna] Uh, me too. - [Tuck] This is. This is.
Y'all wanna try out the hammock?
Sure. [laughs]
[upbeat music playing]
- [Gavin] Ooh. - [Janna] Ooh.
A little tricky, but once you get out here,
it's pretty nice.
Yeah, go ahead and lay down.
- [Gavin] Really. - [Janna] It's very cool.
[Gavin] There's that view again.
[Mallory] It's even better at night
when you can look up at the stars.
[Janna] I bet so.
[Gavin] That's what I was just thinking.
All right, guys. We'll check you later.
[Gavin] All right.
Tuck and Mallory's house is amazing.
It's way more than I expected it to be.
I really, in my head, kept picturing just a tent,
drawing the curtains back, and there being a bed there,
and it's so much more than that.
Tuck and Mallory did an amazing job on it.
I think they're onto something here
and it's an amazing place with amazing views.
I've never seen anything like it.
Building off the grid was extremely challenging
for me and my family.
We definitely underestimated it
but we're gonna be able to come out here
and disconnect from all the crazy city life,
see the things that really matter in life.
I think it's a lot of work, don't you?
So mom, what do you think about it?
I think it's awesome.
I think you all did a very good job.
It feels great to be able to show everybody else
what we've done and we can't wait
to continue coming out here and making memories.
- [birds chirping] - [dramatic music playing]