We Built a Log Cabin, Here's How! 

It’s been three years since we finished the largest project we have done in this channel. To celebrate, we have rendered a new 4K version of our cabin build as a single full length episode. We are very proud of this project, and hope all of you have fun watching with us! Thank you.

I'm a carpenter's apprentice, and it's amazing to look back and realize just how much historical construction was literally rule of thumb. You could build a full house with little more than an ax, a saw, a square, some string, and a pocket full of nails. Even for complex joinery, all you need is patience, skill, and a sharp set of chisels. Full respect for keeping the old skills alive.

This channel has been surprisingly helpful in a Dungeons and Dragons home brew world I make from transport, food recipes, tools of the time, camping, and how cabins of the time were built. Thank you John and crew for the lessons, the coziness against the crazy times, and also expanding my musical tastes.

Those are some big boys moving those logs around

I think that the sense of a community working towards a common goal is one of the things that makes this project so appealling. All so beautiful in 4K!

There was an old Swedish log cabin on our property in southern Delaware. Sometime in the 1980's a crew from the Smithsonian came here and removed it piece by piece. We have no idea what happened to it. We have a newspaper article detailing what they did.

30:24 "hey they made a door for me now." That's a good dog right there.

I like how the dog is constantly wagging it's tail. Happy boy outside with friends.

We definitely take our modern homes for granted. Long ago, the survival of people depended on having a good shelter made. This was awesome. Cheers!

So happy you made a full-length version of this cabin build, John. It’s one of my favourite Townsends projects 😍

I am so glad I stumbled upon this page. Living on a fixed income, I can't always subscribe or keep a membership at Townsends Plus, but I always watch the new vids and it has renewed my desire to get back into reenacting. I did some as a teenager, but that was decades ago. I am currently saving up so I can order Hannah Glasse's cookbook - I should have enough in 2 or 3 months. I have begun nutmegging random dishes I make. So far, scrambled eggs with nutmeg are my favorite. Living with depression, I have turned to this channel time and time again to help me pull my mind from the dark places it goes. There was one night where watching your videos literally keppt me from ending myself. I just want to thank each and every one of you for all your hard work on our behalf - both in front of AND behind the camera. I daydream about being in the cabin - the old crone who lives in the woods and scares the kids at Halloween and who the village comes to for healing and tending to aches and pains. Are there any stories about healer women and their lives in the 18th century? I would love to learn more about that aspect of the time period. Thank you so much for everything you do. You are quite literally life savers. You have my eternal gratitude and appreciation. Thank you.

Well, I know what I'm watching this evening. This looks like it will be the comfiest video ever to hit the internet. I love Townsends!

Building something like this would be such a wonderful experience.

The chimeny is my favorite part by far. I get such a kick out of all of you dressed up around the cabin, eating the right food for the era. So cool.

Watching this will be the highlight of my day, and possibly my week!

I recall watching the smaller videos eagerly the moment they were uploaded and the moment I found this one I watched it.

The transition from inside the cabin to stepping out into the snow is one of my favorite things! Fantastic!

Thank you Townsends team! Without you guys, my research would have been under the bed gathering dust a long time ago. haha I also love the happy, cosy feeling I get when I come home from work and it's dark. When I open a beer, sit in my armchair, smoking a pipe of twist and watch your videos! I love it!!

Your whole crew should be proud of the work you've done on that cabin! This was a wonderful video and it was great to see the cabin from start to finish.

The most amazing part was seeing the seasons change as work progressed. Before I was as disabled as I am now I used to dream about off grid lifestyle and living in this type of log cabin. Seeing how much labor went into this is really sobering to say the least. This is something that takes a great amount of effort as well as community which I feel like gets left out of the conversations on modern day homesteading. Amazing work.

Cool! It's pouring rain here-perfect for watching you while the rain on my garden relaxes me even more! Thank you! ❤️😁 ⛈️

Watching this really lifted my spirits today! I inherited from my mother an 18in × 12in × 16in replica of a cabin that was built by her grandfather from a log taken from the cabin he was born in in Bucks County, Pa. in 1857. He eventually moved closer to civilization and became a cabinet maker by trade. Thanks to all of you, I now have some real insight into what it took his father to build a humble dwelling for his little family 160 years ago!

Good afternoon from Syracuse NY everyone thank you for sharing your adventures in live history

This package makes a fine way to see the cabin come together... In the end, we have a good sense of just what the shelter and fire meant to the family.

I can’t believe it has been 3 years! You got us through a rough time and continue to. I’ll be watching this again! Thanks for your hard work!

When I was a little kid I loved playing with Lincoln Logs and I always wondered what it would be like to build something like that in real life. It's great to see people like you who take that wonderment and turn it into something really amazing.

I'm flabbergasted that it has been three years. I love your content, thank you for continuing to put out amazing videos.

Ive watched you guys build this cabin for quite a while now and it has been an enriching experience. My favorite part of the homestead has to be the forge. I would like to see more metallurgy, but appreciate anything you decide to shine a light on :) Keep up the good work guys!

Although I watched the creation of the cabin this video combining everything is absolutely brilliant. I just sat back and relaxed watching the creation of the home grow. Fantastic stuff.

I can't wait to move to a farm to live like you guys, working with my hands, growing my own food, taking care of animals, away from the toxicity of large cities and the 'money first' thought.

This never gets old love your stuff john ❤

Regarding the notches. It looks like you're basically handcrafting every single one individually. What I learned from this is that it might be a good idea to make two perfect notches once. The fashion a wooden template piece that fits those notches. Then you can use that template piece and test against the other notches you make and see how well it fits with the new notches. Should, in theory, yield very consistent results

My favorite part is how happy yall look chillin in it at the end

Thank you for these videos! They are a precious piece of calm in this often contentious world. I am imagining spinning yarn on my wheel in front of your fire. Keep them coming. Thank you.

i like the long format for this. thank you.

Been here least 3 yrs, fantastic stuff as normal! Love y'all n what ya do n be happy to see ya at 1812 in Oct

im super stressed about finding a flat in London and this has somehow both calmed me (lovely video thank you) and upset me as i would much rather recruit my friends to build a cabin than talk to another letting agent.

I am doing this. Offically on the Bucket List, seems so quaint and peaceful. My bunny and I would be set.

Wow, the level of skill, commitment, and time this took is so impressive. Well done!

You.guys are so lucky that you have a crew to work together on these projects. I am a single nut case who wants to do this.

Probably one of the coziest cabin settings I think I've seen yet. Would've loved to have shared in that meal!

Yoooo, this is actually helpful! This will really help with some writing I'm working on. I'm sure that these cabins are the same as they were in the late 1790s to early 1800s

I love the build videos I really want to do the same but modern life doesn't allow for it, so I shall have to live the dream via you guys Thank you

Love you admitting to being humbled by the old worlds craftmanship. Everyones gangster till its time to make those notches. Even by seasoned pros back then the house always improved the taller it got lol. Also your camera guy is very good.

Awesome video .... just what I needed to relax

It’s so satisfying seeing the wood just slot into place in the notches! Cool !

This was a treat to watch. I’m a carpenter and I often wonder how exactly my job was in the past. The fact you used oak makes this so mating to me because you barely work with oak these days. Thanks!

Such a fun project, can't wait to see what more you will do with this homestead.

It's a fine cabin. Keep building and growing and learning, crew!

I love how the gaps get smaller as you get up further. It really shows what we we're up against. Most folks back then did it got the first time too. It wasnt like there was college for this stuff. You were just in the woods and that was your options. I love it . I wish I could have helped y'all!

I’m so glad you put up the full length video! I’ve watched all of the smaller videos, but I’m very much enjoying this one. It’s amazing what our ancestors did with their more basic tools, and it is a joy to watch you learn their ways as you go.

Awesome job all!

This is probably one of my favorite of your video series.

Great work on the remaster, Aaron. BTW, Townsends gang: It's so uplifting just to hear you guys laughing as you do this stuff. Thanks.

That cabin looks like a very cosy place to savour the flavours and aromas of the 18th century

Of what I’ve been watching from this channel over the last ten years, this video is the magnum opus.

Hey, just wanted to add something interesting to the discussion. I notice you often focus on male crafts like smithing and woodworking, and I imagine there are many like myself who would love to see you cover more crafts like weaving, dyeing, herbal remedies, cheese making, etc. that don’t get as much love in the modern day. Bookbinding would also be a fun thing to cover as a part of your leather crafting series!

Finally! So excited to watch this.

Even though I live on 30 acres of woods in Arkansas, built my own house, and farm a little, watching these videos soothes my soul.

I love this full lenght version! Super calming

The sense of satisfaction and accomplishment building something that cosy with a kettle on the fire and the snow falling outside.. must be unreal.

That thumbnail looks like you’re about to drop the dopest rap album of the 1760s.

I was wondering how they were going to hoist the logs after they were to high to lift, that rope and ramp system is really clever

Hi, my name is James Kirk, and I really enjoyed this video. It's the first video of yours I have seen so far. I am a big history buff, and enjoy this kind of stuff. I wanted to tell you, I got to meet a lady once, she was 94 years old, and lived in a log cabin that was built in 1865. It was one of the dogrun style cabins that had the breezeway between the rooms of the cabin. Of course by the time I got to meet her, it had been closed in to make her living room. She had lived in that cabin since she was a child and still slept in the same bedroom she slept in growing up. My dad said the logs that were used to build the cabin, were floated down the river and carted there. The outhouse still stood in the back yard, and the old smokehouse had been long converted into a place for her to park her car. She was so neat, everything in her house was living history. In her parlor, she had a piano her mother bought in 1890 something and it still worked. Probably the most modern thing in her whole house, was her tv, her phone and her kitchen. She still had all her parents furniture and things still in the rooms where it had all been left. The neatest thing, my dad saw an old dresser in her parents room, had a marble top on it that was broke on one corner. When he asked her what happened to it, she said, "Oh that happened when it fell out of the wagon on the way here." lol The original well still stood behind her cabin, with the original hand pump still sitting atop it, but no longer in use of course. Up until two years before she passed away, she never had an indoor toiler. My uncle, who was a carpenter, put her a toilet in her house and she was tickled as if she had won the lottery. This cabin was in a small town called Eureka, Texas. It was one of those things that you probably would only ever get to see once in a lifetime, and then if you ever saw anything like it again, would probably be in a museum somewhere. I hope you won't mind me sharing this with you. Seeing your video made me think about that, and I thought I would share a bit of history with your channel.

So much work and planning; thank you for showing us and sharing the problem solving as well

Shout out to the two big dudes busting their ass every day on this. What an amazing process. Great work 💪

This looked awesome , things keep going the way they are , we might all be doing this .great to see how our forefathers lived and worked.

I’m a New Zealander but I went to Germany to study there building styles. Your using the tools I had to learn on in late 2000s

My parents lived like pioneers in the deep rural parts of eastern Ontario. They built a cabin like this using the foxfire books as a guide. It looked pretty shabby as well. The next year they used money from cutting cedar fat wood in the winter (used for perfume and sold for about 100$ a tonne) to get logs milled for a shack. No insulation and they lived there for a few years until their neighbor died and they bought his land and moved into his old farmhouse. They had been farming on his property as he had about 70 acres cleared. They spent the next 10 years clearing another 70 acres to connect the two properties into one piece of farm Land. About 20 of which was done with hand tools and horses. Used the lumber to build stables and two new barns, sold the rest. After 15 years they had 6 horses, 20 cows, 100 sheep, 15 pigs, 500 chickens, 20 bee hives, and produced about 9000 jars of preserves a year. They were quite industrious, but still that log cabin took almost all their work from spring through summer to build something better. I grew up in the farmhouse, but the way they talk about the shack is like a lifesaver, and i've seen the shack, it's basically a cedar work shed.

Thank you for putting this together as a whole. This was an amazing project! The episodes that you do on the homestead are always my favorites.

My husband's family has an old log cabin and silver mine way out in the mountains. We usually go once a year. It's an hour up logging roads and another hour or so hike in. It's really old, from the 1800s, and we still stay there over night.

Love you Thownsends ! A straight down history build it as was and it think it have a soul of sorts Just being constructed as an effort of the builders It sort of connects ? Am I far out ? Think not !

I still watch that first Winter Cabin video for the sense of peace it gives me. Always satisfying seeing the fire started and the food cooking in the warm fireplace. It seems like you guys are getting better and better at building these.

I absolutely love watching your videos. It truly brings me comfort. I feel like I lived in this period of time, in another life 💕🙏🙏

Soooo AMAZING!! Thank you for all your efforts and sharing!

We've watched this over and over! Even my 1yo loved it! I need y'all to make a relaxing DVD, just hours of the sights and sounds of building, cooking, the fire, etc! I'd buy that! A how to guide on building a cabin would be pretty amazing too!

well done man, you and your team are inspirational !

I'm thrilled that they're doing such a real-to-life cabin build! I honestly love and learn from every minute of it, and it definitely shows how much effort goes into making even the simplest of structures! ...But damn if it doesn't bring to mind Dick Proenneke and how much he single-handedly accomplished in Alaska! Mad props and love all around!

Interestingly, cleaning pots and pans works really great with sand, as you mentioned. The sand acts like a coarse scrubber which has no problem getting even burnt stuff off. If you're worried you could still use hot water but honestly it's fine as is.

This is fascinating!!! Thanks for this video! I like all of your videos but this is one of your best!!!

Tremendously impressive, on so many levels. Congratulations; not only on building the cabin, but also for producing a quality content for your viewers to enjoy.

The result of your effort is amazing. Y'all are definitely prepared for the apocalypse. The multi-man effort definitely shows how a community was needed to build even a rough dwelling. It is more than technical know-how that we moderns have lost. We have lost that community.

That was one of the best 40 minutes of television I've watched in my entire life. Excellent job, all of you.

Most excellent! This project is the one that inspired me to build this sort of cabin in miniature for a video I recently posted. I will have to update my description to include this, I linked to the old playlist. Cheers!

Remember when you living in a type of a community type of environment you helped each other out. You really had to help each other out especially before winter came. So whatever you had or grew during the spring and summer, that's what you were going to have for 6 months.

Im looking forward to cold winter nights. When its perfect weather to be cozyz thats when ill watch this video on repeat with the dog

Absolutely fantastic! It's very exciting to see the progress take place along with the learning!

Idk if you know how special I find your videos but you should know, you bring peace to me knowing we can all find what and where we connect with the most,on this earth in this life.

I love this channel more and more with every upload

I really like the way you guys built that log cabin home. It really looks straight from the 1700s and you have done a fantastic job. I am really impress by the log cabin design, roofing and especially the chimmney. That's a lot of hard work that paid off.

I’m currently bedridden with Covid right now, and this is just the medicine that I need. Great job, guys.

I hope someone is archiving these, so that in worst case scenario (we're in the dark ages again), with some solar recharging unit, can juice up a device to watch these for instruction. Fantastic build!

It was great to see this all again, Your joy in the cabin has been clear from the start, and the episodes filmed in it since continue to radiate that warmth and satisfaction. Thank you!

This really is one of the best channels on youtube.

Great to see a full episode of this amazing project well done

I have enjoyed watching you all build this cabin so much! I am getting older and couldn't physically work like this now but I felt like I was there with you working the whole time. I could almost smell the wood smoke and the fresh cut logs as you worked. Great job! Makes you realize how hard folks worked in those days and were much better for it. We have come so far since then in the wrong direction in many ways. Continue what you do please!

Man I just spent 41 minutes watching these fine gentlemen building a cabin and it was marvelous, what an experience, I felt like I was there.

You guys are seriously awesome and I love watching you

Man, I loved your video. I really liked that you built it very accurately according to the period tools & equipment. Great job. I would have loved to have worked with y'all on that project. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much for sharing the whole process!