[William] I've done definitely some creative builds,
but I haven't really done anything like this before.
We're gonna take it to the next level on this one.
This ain't regular.
This is William Barrett build.
So the plan is to build a Greek cottage.
It's gonna be a challenge and it might add a couple gray hairs along the way.
[Scott] Shut down.
Here it goes.
[Drew] It's trying roll on us.
[man 1] Whoa, whoa, whoa.
[Scott] Well, that sucks.
[William] Ah, it's cold today.
It's been a rainy, snowy month.
And this is a mud pit out here.
[Scott] Mud's everywhere right now.
[Danielle] Oh. Whoa, whoa, hey.
- The track came off. - [Scott] Dang.
[William] If I don't see the solution, we're done, dead in the water.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Trying to be optimistic, but it's getting a little frustrating.
A mess.
[William] Use it now, Scott.
Hold up, hold up. Come on. Hold up.
[man 1] Scott, whoa, it slipped.
[man 2] Oh, watch out, watch out.
[man 2] That's part of working out here in the wilderness.
[narrator] Are you ready to go off the grid?
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Guys, I'm telling you, I'm really excited about this build.
This has been something I've been looking forward to for a very long time.
I've done some creative builds in the past
but I've never done anything this big, this challenging.
This one's gonna be taking it to another level.
Yeah, you don't see this in East Tennessee
what we're getting ready to build.
- [William] I'm William. - [Scott] I'm Scott.
[William] And we're building a Greek cottage in the hills of East Tennessee.
So build site is located two hours northeast of Knoxville,
basically at the Virginia North Carolina border
in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
My wife Danielle, and I purchased this property of 34 acres three years ago.
It was a diamond in the rough and we've worked really hard
but it's really something special now.
My wife, she didn't quite see it at first, of course it's very remote.
It was an old junkyard.
[Danielle] Thirty years of cars and tires. It had been wrecked.
When I first saw it, I thought William had lost his mind,
but slowly, things came into vision.
And now, I can't imagine it being anything other than what it is.
- [William] It's very thick. - [Boston] Rocky.
[William] For sure. So for whereabouts are you thinking to build this at?
Scott's been with me three, three and a half, four years.
We've grown together. We're more buddies now.
[laughs]
You know.
[William] What do you think about right in here?
[Scott] This looks pretty good.
[William] I don't see much rock.
As far as eye-level. I think we can...
I think we can grade through that pretty easy.
[Scott] I believe this would be a good place.
Scott keeps me in check a lot of times.
He always tells me I'm wrong in the form of a question.
He's like, "Are you sure you want to do that?"
And so it's a good subtle way of like,
"No, Will, no, that's not... that's not gonna work."
Boston, what do you think?
Yeah, few trees to bust out, yeah.
You're gonna do that for me, of course. Yeah.
My son, he's been into this since he was probably like three or four years old,
and he loves equipment.
He's been out here every step of the way with me.
And I mean, he honestly probably loves the place as much as I do, if not, more.
Sof, what do you think?
It's flat.
Flat, it's good, it's a good start, right?
- [Scott] Yeah. - [Sofie] Kinda.
[William] My youngest daughter, Sofie.
She doesn't like to get her hands dirty. And she's kind of like her mom.
She wants to come in at the end
and do the more pretty things, so to speak.
I've always enjoyed building creatively.
And this property has always offered us the platform
to build really cool and creative things.
And so we've built a hobbit house that we really enjoy.
And we've also built a really cool tree house as well.
And so, I'm looking for something
even more different on this next build.
[Scott] It's different, you know.
It ain't conventional, that's for sure.
[William] For us, this time, this is the big one.
So the plan is to build a Greek cottage
and there's a lot of rules in Greek architecture that you have to follow.
We're learning a lot, really.
- [laughs] - I quiz him every now and then too.
I think this is an opportunity to combine some natural elements
and put a new twist on what it could be.
One of the great things is this is going to challenge me
to think outside of my comfort zone
and be a little bit more precise on some things
and to really think through all the geometric proportions that have to be there
to do Greek architecture and to do it right.
[William] So what we have is just a traditional
crawl space foundation cinder blocks,
and then we're going to build our Greek cottage on top of that.
And then as you walk up to it, you're gonna be blown away
by the big, huge columns, and it's gonna be totally apparent
that this is a Greek structure.
When you enter the space, you enter a nice living area with huge high ceilings,
kitchen to your right and a living space to your left.
In the back, you come across a bedroom with a full bath,
and then you go up the spiral staircase
to another little bedroom with a half bath.
As far as our off-grid features go,
we have solar panels for electricity.
For water, we have a pump that comes from the creek
and supplies fresh water to the house.
And for heating in the winter, we'll use a propane heating system.
You got the creative aspect of the build,
the technical aspect of the build,
and then you combine that with off-the-grid component of the build
and getting things on to a remote jobsite and so forth,
it's going to be a challenge and I've already got too many gray hairs
and I'm thinking we'll probably add a couple on this one.
I think that one of the biggest challenge is,
is of course we got that creek.
- [Scott] All right. - [William] And our access
to this side over here is through the creek.
I think we need to put some temporary bridge or something, a culvert.
Absolutely, because I don't wanna be carrying all this stuff by hand.
-Yeah. It's gonna get old quick. -Yeah.
[William] Yeah, this is gonna be real nice, guys.
[Scott] I think it'll work out right. I think it'll work out good.
[Boston] What's our budget?
[William] Wait, my budget or the budget I told mom?
[laughs]
It's a 14-week build.
We have a budget of a hundred thousand dollars.
And I think we can do that.
We'll work it out some way or another.
We have a good team. We'll make it.
[Boston] You think that's good?
- [William] All right. - [Scott] Here we go.
[machine whirring]
[William] So be careful.
Here it comes.
Timber.
All right.
Good job, Boston.
Good job, son.
[Scott] That was the first one of many.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] So it's week three of the build.
And we've got the foundation in
and we're ready now to start the bridge project.
Originally, we had to put in a small bridge
and that was an effort to get building materials across.
That bridge only served the purpose for so long.
And then now, we need to put in a more substantial bridge
that can handle the floods.
Step one is going to be to, of course, pull out the old culvert
and, uh, clean up the area, and then we're ready for the new one.
[instrumental music plays]
Come on.
Almost.
Will.
Man, just blew the hose.
[Scott] I was trying to get the stump out
and it just put too much pressure.
[William] What are we gonna do?
We're down for a whole... We're down for, like, at least the rest of the day.
[Scott] Shut down.
[grunts]
Well, that sucks.
[instrumental music plays]
Come on.
Yeah.
Will.
Man.
Our excavator has an overload system in it.
There's an O-ring in there
that will sometimes get compromised and it lets the pressure out.
Well, that sucks.
Not good, no. That's a no-good.
If we don't get this fixed today, especially with the rain coming in,
it could be... it could screw us up a whole week.
It blowed this part right here between this line.
- Yeah. - [Scott] If we're lucky.
- [William] Yeah. - [Scott] It's the O-ring.
O-ring, yeah.
I might have some of them. I don't know.
- But if I can find it, I'll fix it. - Okay. Cool.
[William] I've seen Scott do some creative little fixes along the way.
So I'm hoping maybe we can make this work somehow.
[instrumental music plays]
[Scott] Well, you're in luck, boss.
- Found the O-ring. - No joke, really? Cool.
- [Scott] Last one. - [William] Last one, wow.
- [Scott] Last one, yeah. - [William] Cool, man.
We'll take it apart and make sure that's what it is but I'm...
- Yeah. - pretty certain it is.
- We'll get it done. - I appreciate you, man.
We never get nothing done running two hours out to the park store
or something like that, you know.
So we make do with what we got.
Yup. That's what it is, see this?
See how it's broke?
We lucked up, it's just the seal.
I think I can get us going in the next 20, 30 minutes, you know.
We'll be back up and digging.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Hey. Drew, man. Help me out here on this.
Okay, bud.
[William] What we're doing is, of course,
the big culvert, the big bridge that we're...
that we're building, we have to get it into place.
And of course, I'm nervous about it because this is 3,000 pounds.
So we're just trying to get it secured to my skid-steer.
And then we're gonna try to push it in.
Yeah, I've never moved a load like this before.
We just got to make sure we're safety conscious on this
because I mean, things could go bad pretty quick.
- Oh, yes. - Perfect, sweet.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] So, all we got to do at this point is for Scott to get the stump out,
and then we can install our culvert for the bridge.
[Scott] Almost.
[William] Get it to the side, Scott.
There you go.
Man, I'm watching, you're my...
you're my eyes and ears. I can't see anything.
[Drew] Okay.
Keep on coming. Yeah, you're good.
Stop.
- You're about right there at the edge. - [William] About at the edge.
Yeah, hold up.
[William] It's big and precarious, and so forth.
And once it starts to go, it does its own thing.
And so if you don't have any control over it,
then, of course, that makes you nervous.
All right, guys, here's the plan.
Scott, you're gonna be, you're on position on that side.
I'm gonna take the culvert, I'm gonna unhook the chains, and then I'm gonna push it in.
I do kind of worry about it may be, like, wanting to roll.
Because I don't... I don't really want it to roll, I'd rather just kind of...
- [Scott] Slide in. - Yeah. Slide in.
- And then... - I'll try to keep a little pressure against it
- when I can. - A lot could get wrong, man.
Yeah, this... I don't wanna get anybody hurt on this job anywhere
to getting anybody hurt, man.
So let's just make sure we're all safe
- and let's get in, you know. - [Scott] Take your time,
- don't get in a hurry. - Don't get in a hurry, yeah.
[Scott] It's gonna be a little... a little challenging.
It's gonna be turned a certain way when it goes in.
[William] Am I lined up?
- Straight in? - Yes.
Don't want to screw it up.
If we somehow damage it, or crimp it, or something,
then it'd be six weeks before I could get the new one in.
I'm sweating pretty good.
[William] Are you ready?
[Drew] Just keep on coming forward with it.
Looks like it might try to roll on us maybe.
- [Scott] Whoa. - [Drew] Yeah. That's what I was trying to do.
- Huh? - [Drew] Trying to roll on us.
There it goes.
[William] Hang on, don't, don't...
No, get away from it.
[man groans]
[William] Let's just make sure we're all safe
- and then let's get it in. - [Scott] Take your time.
- Don't get in a hurry. - Not get in a hurry, yeah.
All right. Let's do this.
I'm sweating.
[William] Don't want to screw it up.
Are you ready?
[Drew] Just keep on coming forward with it.
Looks like it might try to roll on us maybe.
- Whoa. - [Drew] Yeah. That's what it's trying to do.
[William] Did I get it?
There it goes.
[William] Hang on. No, get away from it.
Whoa, baby.
There it goes.
I need about that much more.
[instrumental music plays]
[Scott] There you go.
[Drew] You got it.
I think it's good right there.
Looks pretty good.
[Drew] Yeah. Cool.
[William] That was one of the hard projects on the job
was getting that thing in, nobody got hurt.
Tense moment, absolutely.
But now we've got a good bridge, and rain is coming,
and so overall, it was a really good morning.
[birds chirping]
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Doing some framing...
checking out the job site.
Got Boston here with me. I think he didn't want to talk today.
Anyway, just trying to work on a Saturday.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Winter is setting here in East Tennessee.
Got an inch or so of snow last night
and we're supposed to get two or three more today.
So our framing has now gotten paused.
Hoping for a better day tomorrow.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] So, yeah, another day and it's snowing here.
Just trying to get going with the rafters.
Working up high, just trying to be careful.
Don't wanna get anybody hurt with the snow and everything.
Just be glad we get this thing under roof.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Ah, it's cold today.
It's been snowing a lot here the last two weeks, which is a little unusual.
But we've been framing, and today,
we're getting ready to get some more rafters up.
Forty-two and three quarters.
[machine whirring]
Watch out.
[William] Aw!
Yeah, of course, anytime you set rafters,
you're always a little bit nervous about working up high.
If you fall or if you get hurt or something,
you know, there's not like a hospital is two minutes down the road.
You know you have to go quite a bit of ways.
And so, um, we wanna make sure we're being safe.
[Scott grunts]
Looks good from down here.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Push. All right. Push. Push. Push. All right, let it fall.
[Scott] There we go.
[William] Overall, I think we made a good progress today.
We got the rafters set on the roof
and then we also got half of it sheeted.
All right, guys.
I think we got enough done today.
[Scott] All right. Good deal.
It's cold.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] It's so cold.
[Scott] Just a little cold.
[William] So it's week seven here in East Tennessee,
and the storm blew in last night,
and we have a couple inches of snow in the ground today.
So that's gonna make the work a little challenging today,
a little bit slower, but it is what it is.
What's very exciting is now we finally have a cabin that looks like a cabin.
The Greek elements are starting to take place.
Of course, we're very excited today about putting in the columns.
And of course, that's the centerpiece of what Greek architecture is,
its big columns, door columns.
And we're very excited today to get those in place.
Any thoughts on how we're gonna actually try to get them over there?
- Yeah. - [Scott] The only way is the skid-steer one at a time.
Unless you wanna pick one up.
Definitely not, no.
[William] So we have six logs, they're eleven feet long, they're very heavy.
It's something that you can't just simply carry with two or six men, at least not us.
We're not that strong.
The logs came from the property,
some of which actually came from the rock quarry itself
and they have been floating there for years and years.
And so me and my son Boston, we teamed up on that together
and he helped pull those logs out,
and I'm very excited to put them in place.
The challenges today,
of course, it's slippery and, you know, muddy,
so which means it's gonna be miserable.
I'm clogged up right here.
[William] Hey.
Can you back in?
My bottom is hitting all this mud.
[Charles] You're going to lose it, Boston.
[man 3] Whoa! Almost lose the tree.
[Charles] Keep going, keep warming,
you gotta warm it, you gotta warm it.
All right. Set it down there for a minute.
[William] It's winter here in East Tennessee,
so that's what we're dealing with today,
and we have to do the best we can.
That's every kid's dream is playing in the mud.
Oh, yeah. I still do. [laughs]
All the time. [laughs]
[William] Lacey is a carpenter,
a friend of mine that helps me out.
I'm very glad to have him here on a day like today
because it's gonna present some challenges.
Scott, you're gonna do the Mini-X and...
Lacey, of course, you're still set to rigging and so forth,
you'll do the rigging.
You know, make sure that nobody's underneath it,
so let's, um, be safe on how we do it.
- And don't screw it up. - Don't screw it, up Scott.
Now, all right. Let's...
[Charles] Do you want to move over?
[Scott] I think I can reach it.
[Boston] Scott looks like a little stuck there.
[William] Scott!
[Boston] Oh! Whoa! Whoa!
Scott!
Hey, the track came off.
[Scott] Well, that sucks.
[William] I'm trying to be optimistic, but, you know,
it's getting a little frustrating.
[grunts]
[Scott] I think we're almost there.
A mess.
- [William] We're just done. - [Scott] Ugh.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] It's been a rainy and snowy month.
And this is a mud pit out here, you know,
we're making mud pies every day.
[Scott] Muds everywhere right now.
[Charles] Do you want to move over?
[Scott] I think I can reach it.
[Boston] Scott looks like a little stuck there.
Oh! Whoa! Whoa!
Scott!
Hey, track came off.
[William] So, we're in the middle of getting these logs up,
I'm trying to move position.
We get a track off to Mini-X and it just popped right off as...
Just like... just like that and we're done. Dead in the water.
[Scott grunts]
[Scott] I didn't want that.
A mess.
[William] I'm trying to be optimistic, but, you know,
it's getting a little frustrating.
But that's what you deal with in the winter.
Frustration and mud, lots of mud. Hate mud.
[Boston] There you go. Yeah.
[William] If we're gonna make progress today,
we gotta get this thing on quick.
You know, I need to get my logs up.
This is a critical piece of equipment
and there's just no way to do it safely without it.
[Scott] Got it right there?
See if you can hold it, I might be able to...
[Charles] Let me see if I can go right here.
[grunts]
[Scott] Push.
- [Scott] Got it? - [Charles] Yeah.
[William] Give me a hit.
[man 4] Close.
Bring it on, big daddy.
- There it goes. - [Charles] Okay.
[inaudible] Boston to go forward.
[Scott] Go forward.
- [Scott] Forward. - [Charles] Forward.
Keep going.
- There it is. - [Scott] All right. All right.
All right.
[William] See, that kind of made, uh, a short day for us,
so we can pick momentum, and back up, and, uh, we'll hit it again.
[Scott] This is a chore right here
to get that back on in a mud hole,
you know, so you can tell.
[laughs] You know?
And I'm tired.
We got it, though.
[William] It's gonna get dark on us here pretty soon, so we better work quickly.
We just got now the Mini-X up and running.
And we got to salvage today somehow
and get these columns installed.
[Scott] Curl your bucket.
[William] The centerpiece of what Greek architecture is, is big columns, door columns,
and very excited today to get those in place.
[William] We're lifting, 700-800-pound logs easy
and weight makes things go bad quick.
- And mud. - And mud, yeah, always mud.
Yeah, absolutely. And so, um, we just need to make sure we're being safe.
[man 4] All right, Scott.
Oop.
Tell him to come down on the low side.
- Watch yourself. - [man 4] I am.
[William] Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay.
All right, tell him to come down a little bit, now a little bit more.
Very gently.
Very gently, come down. Come on.
[inaudible].
Okay. Hang on.
All right. Just start easing it down.
[Charles] Whoa! No! No! Slow down.
- [Scott] Down. - [man 4] Oop.
-[inaudible] -[Charles] That ought to get it.
[William] I think it's good.
Let me brace it off.
[hand drill whirring]
[Charles] We're good.
- [Boston] We did it! - [William] We did it!
The first one.
Good job, fellas. Five to go.
Bring it on in, Boston.
Come on.
[Charles] All right, Boston.
- [Charles] Ready? - [William] Yeah.
[Charles] Go.
- [William] Okay. - [Charles] Whoa.
[William] Okay. All right.
Now pull it that way.
[Charles] All right.
[hand drill whirring]
[man 5] Up, up, up, up a little bit, up a bit.
Come down a bit.
There you go.
Come on down.
Yeah.
[William] Yeah, I can't wait until we get all six of them in place.
My stress level will go down which would be good,
and, uh, I think it's gonna be beautiful, I do.
So I'm excited and cautious.
[Charles] Hey, Will, check this out.
[William] Yo, what's up, man?
[Charles] Hey, right here,
what I'm worried about is a taper on this one, it's slipping out the choker.
Oh, I got it. Where it tapers down...
Yeah. So as far as once... He gets a hold of it,
- Boston needs to get out of the way. - [William] Of course.
[Charles] And we definitely need to stay away, because if it's gonna fall,
it's gonna fall where we're lifting it.
[William] No, and follow you, Yeah, I got you. Okay.
I guess we'll see what happens.
As soon as he gets it, hold on it.
- You back up from under it. - [Boston] Back up?
All right.
[William] All right. And lift it.
[dramatic music plays]
[Charles] It's holding better than I thought.
Now, ease it down, Scott.
Hold up, hold up. Hold up, up.
[William] Scott, whoa! It's slipping!
Whoa! Whoa! Watch out! Watch out!
[Charles] Hey, Will, check this out.
Right here, what I'm worried about is a taper on this one,
it's slipping out the choker.
If it's gonna fall, it's gonna fall when we're lifting it at.
No, I follow you-- Yeah, I got you.
Okay. I guess we'll see what happens.
All right, lift it.
[Charles] Ease it down, Scott.
- Hold up, hold up. Come up! - [William] Hold up. Up.
Scott, whoa! It's slipping!
Whoa! Whoa! Watch out! Watch out!
[Charles] I just need you to come forward.
[William] And take it down.
[Charles] You got it, Will?
- Yeah, I got it. - [Charles] You good?
[William] Are we on it?
[Charles] Yes, it's on it.
[William] That was close.
That was scary, yeah.
It tapers up, then that knot started slipping a little bit.
And, uh, it was just kinda a little tense,
scary moment there for a second.
Nobody got hurt, nobody got...
fingers smashed, or crushed, or anything.
[hand drill whirring]
- [Charles] Whew! - [William] Yeah.
[instrumental music plays]
[man 5] Go up.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] I think these things looks awesome.
Uh, like, I'm totally excited about it.
I think they balanced out really, really well.
'Cause in my mind, kinda spinning around
is now it's starting to kinda look like something.
I think, uh, definitely enough excitement for one day for me, so we're gonna...
We'll call it a day and be back out tomorrow.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] It's another cold morning here in Eastern Tennessee,
10 degrees this morning.
Snow's still on the ground from two days ago.
It hasn't really been a great morning.
We were hoping to get started on the entablature over the columns.
And went to start the skid-steer,
temperature is very cold
and, uh, unfortunately, I think it's frozen something up inside the machine
that has caused the hydraulic line to bust.
So on a build like this, stuffs gonna happen.
It is what it is.
We just keep on moving forward.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] We're gonna start framing up the entablature,
which is a space above the columns.
In order to stay true to Doric Greek architecture,
we'll place square capitals on the top of every column.
From there, we'll create the entablature
which ties the front porch to the main structure.
The original plan was to use the skid-steer with the basket,
but now, we're gonna go to some conventional scaffolding.
It's not ideal that we're gonna make this work today,
we don't have another choice really.
When I get up high a little bit, I just...
It takes me while before I start to feel comfortable with it.
It'd be really nice if I had a skid-steer for this,
that would really come in handy.
[bird squawks]
[instrumental music plays]
[hand drill whirring]
[Charles] No, I never thought I'd be building something like this here.
Not in Tennessee.
[instrumental music plays]
How about that one right there?
Perfect.
[William] So glad I have my friend Josh here today
to help with the bridge project.
He can usually handle my creative side and so, when I tell him,
"Hey, you know what would be cool?"
He can easily roll with those things pretty well
and so I always enjoy working with Josh.
[Josh] I'm gonna take it right here.
[William] All right.
[Josh] Oh, yeah.
[William] The dwelling has so much character about it.
I wanted the front entrance to have that same amount of character,
so he designed a bridge.
And the really cool thing about all this
is that every part of bridge was sourced from the property,
using rocks that were found on-site.
With William, he necessarily says,
"I don't want nothing straight, don't want nothing...
looking like it was man-made.
So, if it's gonna look crook, a little curve, or a...
- Well, a little character, I guess, and, uh... - That's what William likes.
[Josh] That's what Will likes.
[laughter]
And what Will like, I like, so it's all good.
Fits like a glove.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Got to the jobsite today and got some windows put in.
Of course, I followed Greek proportions
with the bottom half being three-fifths of what the top half is.
It's really great proportion, it looks awesome.
And it's supposed to rain a lot over the next couple of weeks,
and so we're gonna push hard today,
and see what we get done today,
and then move in for warmer weather.
Really excited to have my wife Danielle here today
to help us with the entablature.
The one thing I've looked forward the most to on the project
is doing some of those details
and using some of the things I'm passionate about and different elements,
which a lot of that takes place in my mind.
So the first application is a painted old rusty tin,
and as time goes on, the oxidation from the rust will come through,
and give it a nice kind of an older patina,
at least that's what we hope.
[instrumental music plays]
Every man's got an addiction in life,
and mine is old reclaimed lumber.
So we're taking old tobacco poles and using them
because they're very straight, which worked out really, really well.
And plus, they're more soft and natural
than just say square barn wood stock.
And so we're using the tobacco poles
to work on some of the cornice details.
- Push your lock, there you got it. - [Josh] Mmm-hmm.
[hand drill whirring]
[William] I spent a lot of time searching for, um,
you know, Greek architecture and so forth.
There is a little variation,
but the general consensus is that the triglyphs
are one-half the diameter of the column.
The columns in this case are sixteen inches in diameter,
which will make the triglyphs eight inches wide.
I've been doing a little research myself
trying to figure out what Will's doing and you still can't find.
[laughter]
It's only up here.
I need some little blocks, just like six inches.
That's all they need to be. If you can just give me six inches, it'd be great.
- Okay. - [Scott] This isn't regular,
you know, this is Will Barrett build.
[laughs]
[machine whirring]
[William] All right.
Good job.
[thunder rumbling]
[William] Done [inaudible] with that.
Of course, I was hoping the rain would hold off a little bit longer,
but it doesn't seem to be the case.
We're gonna push on as long as we can,
but, um, you know, the radar doesn't look good.
[machine whirring]
This rain sucks.
- It's getting bad. - Yeah.
Scott, Danielle, I don't know.
- It's up to you. - [William] Danielle, it's your call.
What do you think?
[Danielle] Um, I'd say we call it for the day and try again tomorrow.
[William] Just a very, very nasty day,
we were hoping to get more done than what we did and didn't happen.
All right, guys, let's put the tools up.
[Danielle] It's getting slippery.
[William] Yeah.
At this point, we're behind.
And it looks like we're gonna be at least behind for next week.
I was worried about the schedule.
Now, I'm, like, super worried about the schedule.
And I don't... I don't really see the... I don't see the solution.
[Scott] That's part of working out here in the... in the wilderness.
[groans]
[instrumental music plays]
[ducks squawking]
[William] Four months into the build,
unfortunately, that means we're two weeks over our timeline right now.
And still yet probably have at least another three weeks to go.
The good news is on all of this is that we're making progress now.
The geometric features that are so important to Greek architecture,
they're now coming to life, and it's starting to look like it should.
We've spent a lot of time on the exterior features.
Now, we're also starting to make progress on the inside.
Interior finishes are going up, the ceiling's looking good.
The walls look great. And so the ball is rolling now, which is good.
- Come on, Billy. - [Billy] Yeah.
[William] Just back in right here, Billy.
Man, I'm so excited about this, Scott.
- You go big, you go big. - [William] I know.
One of the things I'm very excited about is,
of course, our off-grid features that we have, doing a solar panel setup.
Okay, that's good.
[William] It's a trailer system that I've got a heck of a deal on.
It's a portable solar trailer, which is great because it can be serviced easy.
Okay. Hey, too much, too much.
Got to be pointing up, Scott.
There we go.
It should be about like that.
The best spot for the trailer
is not actually right at the house, it's across the creek,
and a little bit more of a clearing where it gets better sun,
we'll run some conduit under the creek probably.
[Scott] I think you've done good on this.
[William] Heck, yeah.
[water gushing]
[William] All right. So...
I'm gonna take this and drop it here in this deep spot right in here.
Deep hole? Yeah.
[William] Right in there, it should be good.
[Scott] Yeah.
[William] We were challenged with how are we gonna get water here.
City water was not gonna be an option.
So we're very lucky, we're gonna be able to use the creek itself.
And we'll have a pump that, of course, is powered off the solar.
[Scott] All right. You wanna see if we got water?
Yeah, let's check it out, man.
All right, we got water.
Cool. That's pretty cool right there.
[William] Yeah. Yeah.
[Scott] Cool.
[William] And we'll pump the water into the house.
It'll go through a couple of different filtration processes.
And then, uh, we'll have potable water.
[instrumental music plays]
- [William] All right. - [Scott] Looks good.
[William] Things are gonna be so pretty.
This is either gonna be brilliant
or it's gonna be a disaster.
A project that I've been excited about
from the beginning is putting driftwood
on some collar ties that are up in the ceiling.
[hand drill whirring]
It didn't break.
[William] Please don't fall.
Screw that in if you can.
I got this.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] We want the beams to pop or like we want, uh,
we want something that will naturally bring your eye up
to the 16 feet tall ceilings that we have.
And so by simply making them an architectural feature,
it's naturally gonna draw people's eye.
They're gonna look up and then they'll realize how spacious this room is.
Definitely a statement piece.
[birds chirping]
[instrumental music plays]
[William] Good friend of mine owns a custom ironwork shop
and done a lot of stuff for me in the past.
Of course, we wanted get him in on this project with the spiral staircase.
It's a big staircase.
The elevation difference is 11 feet in itself,
so you add the handrail, then you're at 14, 15 feet.
And I think we're looking at 450, 500 pounds.
[Scott] How are we gonna do this?
All right. One, two, three, up.
Oh, boy, this just got a lot heavier.
Yeah.
[William] I think we're gonna end up having to take it through the side door
or through the side window that is.
I mean, we've got a couple inches of clearance, so it should fit.
Man, this is heavy.
[Scott] You never know somebody gets their tape
measuring wrong and sometimes that happens.
But hopefully they didn't.
- It fits on paper. - Yeah, it fits on paper.
[Scott laughs] Yeah.
[William] Sure glad we got the Mini-X here today.
This would have never happened without it.
[man 6] We just got to hook this handrail in.
All right.
We're ready to rotate!
[William] Cut back just a little bit.
- Oh, right there. - [Scott] All right.
[grunts]
[man 6] That's what I'm saying.
[man 7] Everyone, job done.
[Scott] Man, that was hot.
-[laughs] -[man 6] John was the Hercules.
We got it in, didn't get anything broke.
So that's a good day.
[man 9] There we go.
[grunts]
[indistinct chatter]
[William] And at this point, we're kind of getting down to the homestretch.
That's when it gets exciting because you start to see things
kind of actually come to fruition
and excited to show this off to our friends and family,
and show them all the hard work we've been doing out here lately.
I'm ready for a vacation.
[instrumental music plays]
[William] We're done with the project
and, uh, I think it turned out awesome.
It just fit so well on the property,
we have the creek that goes right by in front of it,
and it's just like very majestic little area.
And you can just look up and you can then see
all the columns that come down.
It just looks like that is where that structure has always meant to be.
[Scott] You don't see nothing like this around in East Tennessee,
but when you do see it, you're going like, "Wow."
[Danielle] This has been all hands on deck with the whole family.
My favorite role was coming in with Sofie
and putting our little touches on things.
[Sofie] My brother, he's more of a builder person, but me not so much.
I'm more of a decorator girl.
[Danielle] So we've really enjoyed doing that together.
[William] So originally, we were thinking
this is gonna be a fourteen-week build.
Things, of course, went a little bit longer.
I think we ended up somewhere around 20 weeks.
Budget-wise, we were shooting for a hundred
and we're somewhere around hundred and thirty-ish.
So my mom's coming today to check out the place, we're very excited for her.
- [Linda] Hey. - [William] Hi, nana.
Oh, my gosh.
This is beautiful.
I didn't think you could make it work and you have.
A lot of my creative influence, comes from my mom.
And so she's gonna be so excited to see it.
Is it everything that I told you it would be?
[Linda] And more.
Wow, the columns.
Look what you got a beautiful Greek country structure.
- [Danielle] Well, let's go in. - In Tennessee.
- Yeah. - True, yeah.
Oh, let me show you about my steps. Okay.
- Okay. Yes. - So in Greek culture,
it's a very good luck thing to always finish on your right foot.
And so it's specifically put out,
so that you start with your right
and then as long as you finish with your right,
then it's a symbol of good luck.
- [Linda] Oh. - [William] Yeah.
[Linda] I need some of that.
[laughter]
- [Danielle] We all do. - [Linda] Okay.
- Start with my right. - [William] Right.
[Danielle] There you go.
[William] Come on in, Mom.
Wow!
- Oh, it's like Christmas, honey! - [laughs]
Wow! I love those beams, they're crazy in size.
It's spectacular, really.
[William] So the ceilings in here are 16 feet tall.
[Linda] Wow.
No wonder I have that floating feeling.
- [William] Yeah. - [Danielle] Yeah.
The kitchen...
[Linda] You did a great job decorating, girl.
Oh, look at the sink.
[William] And we actually use the creek of all things to get water in here
and so the water goes through a filter, and the purification process,
and so we have clean drinking water from the creek.
We have clean energy from the sun.
And then in the winter, when it gets cold,
we have propane to heat us through the winter.
Y'all thought of everything.
[William] And so we're off the grid
and have our own little oasis over here.
[instrumental music plays]
[Danielle] So I just love this area because you can sit,
read a book, look at nature.
[Linda] Yes.
A cup of coffee in the morning.
Of course, you know the blue is very prominent in the Greek culture,
so I tried to bring a lot of the blues into the house.
I think you're gonna have to build me one of this.
You've been asking me to for a while now.
Well, let's check out some more.
[William] Look at the door we made.
[Linda] What is this?
So this is actually just simple rusty tin that came off of a barn,
and we glued it to a sheet of plywood,
and then put, like, four coats of epoxy on it.
[Linda] You never cease to amaze me
with the ideas you come up with.
[William] Nana, let's check out the bedroom.
[Linda] Well, nature right in the bed with you.
[laughs]
I love this pattern.
[William] So that's a maze is what it is. I'm glad you noticed it.
In Greek culture,
they're very big into mazes and labyrinths.
And it starts with the front door,
meanders its way, all the way through,
and then ends up at the back door.
[Linda] Neato, neato, you've thought of everything.
[William] Let's check out the bathroom.
[Linda] Okay.
Oh.
Lovely light fixture in here.
The light comes in naturally.
Lovely, lovely.
Okay. We going upstairs now?
- [William] Let's go upstairs. - [Danielle] Sure.
[Linda] See what waits next.
[instrumental music plays]
[Danielle] This is a fun little area.
- [Linda] This is neat. - [William] Yeah.
Of course, a little half bath there, too,
just in case, so you don't have to go downstairs.
[Linda] It just gets better, don't it?
[instrumental music plays]
[Linda] And so when I heard William was gonna build a Greek cottage,
I said that, "Don't fit in with the nature out there."
And he says, "Just wait, mom.
I can make it work."
Just wanna stand here and take it all in.
This is unreal.
How can he do this, you know?
I can't even imagine the things he imagines and comes up with.
He always blows my mind.
[William] It's a risk to build something like that here,
you know, you don't see it a lot.
And so I know it's either gonna turn out great or it wasn't.
And I think it turned out awesome.
Let's me toast, we got it done.
We didn't get nobody hurt.
It looks awesome.
[man 10] Yeah.
- [William] And maybe one more. - [Scott] One more.
[laughs]
- [William] One more. - Yeah.
Whoo!