Incredible, Indeed

No, not the cabin. It’s fine, don’t get me wrong. I’m using the word “incredible” to refer to the builder, Bjorn Brenton, who was 21 when he produced this video. It’s hard to nail him down (sorry), but he’s apparently a Swede, although it appears he’s building stuff in the Ukraine. I’ll have to assume the western part.

I’ve seen lots of videos of people making stuff, including proto-semi-kinda houses like this one. They all use clickbait headlines that are attractive to the modern internaut. Young people don’t respond to anything but dream house baloney. They’re say they’re not only willing, but eager, to live in the forest in a log cabin with no electricity, or a tiny house, or a hobbit hole, or anything other than a regular single family home, because they’d have to mow the lawn and clean out the gutters in the fall. For most of these alternative housing people, it’s an offer to expend all sorts of effort in the quest for a free lunch. They’re willing to watch videos of people doing it, anyway, while eating microwaved hot pockets in their apartments.

At any rate, this video is well worth the two hours it takes to see it done. This fellow’s cabin project is borrowed or stolen or re-purposed on at least one other YouTube channel that I saw, titled: Man Builds Incredible DIY Wood Cabin in the Woods Start to Finish. “Incredible” is one of those words that’s been bowdlerized, if not outright bastardized, by misuse, and then plain overuse. Words like amazing, or at least unusual seem more to the point. Commendable comes to mind.

But I really can’t believe (the true meaning of incredible) what I’m looking at in the video. I don’t mean it’s a fraud. I have no doubt the kid built this by himself. The construction techniques are mundane to someone who’s built houses. Not incredible. I’m talking about the young man in the video. He’s incredible. He wasn’t old enough to buy beer when he built this. Here’s what I noticed about him:

He is dressed properly for construction. He is wearing long pants, a shirt with sleeves, and substantial boots. He is wearing a hat, and it’s not on backwards. He has no visible tattoos. He wears gloves to protect his hands when it’s appropriate. He has a proper toolbelt with small assortment of good hand tools, not loaded down with labor-saving gewgaws that are a drag to carry around all day. He knows better than to risk injury while lifting, and rigs a come-along for timbers that more foolhardy workers would try to muscle into place. He has a broom, and knows how to use it. He finishes off the exterior with a flourish (the antlers). He saves interior work for bad weather. He works carefully, but doesn’t waste his time with superfluous safety devices. He uses insulation, but he doesn’t worship it. He knows the value of wood preservative. He has a cute dog, instead of the usual vicious beast.

A cabin in the woods is nothing. That young man there, however, is a rare thing indeed. I used to know lots of guys like him. I was sorta one myself. And we’ve been hunted to extinction. Well, almost, apparently.