are actually delicious.

We just realized we don't have enough planks

to finish the roof.

- Oh! (laughs)

- I'm not sure if we're gonna finish by nightfall.

I'm Rob Greenfield and I'm gonna help my friends

build a tiny house on their property

in just three days.

We're actually gonna do the whole process

from cutting down the tree

all the way to the finished tiny house.

You might have seen me recently on BuzzFeed

when I finished a year-long project

of growing and foraging 100% of my food.

This tiny house is going to be fully off the grid

and built completely out of wood harvested

on this property as well as secondhand materials

right here from the farm.

This is Antoine and Margot

and we are at Le Reve de Gaia,

which means The Dream of Mother Earth.

Why don't you tell us what this place is?

- [Margot] Le Reve de Gaia is an eco project

where we strive to be a community

where humans, nature, and animals

can live in productive harmony.

- Why are we building a tiny house?

- We wanna house volunteers and people

that wanna know about what we do here.

We need space to house people.

- And I'm the first volunteer that's gonna live

in this tiny house, right?

- Yeah.

- Shall we get to work?

- Let's get to work.

- Let's go. - Good, let's build it.

The first thing that we need to do is cut down a tree

so that we have wood to build the tiny house.

I've never cut down a tree before,

and you've cut down--

- Thousands.

I'm a forester.

So I'm gonna cut some branches first

to have a bit more space

and then it's an easy tree because it's a bit steep

and it will fall nice on the little field.

- The reality is that we're not actually using

this tree because we've already cut down

some trees six months ago.

- Yeah.

- Because they need--

- To dry a bit before they become the planks.

- But we wanted to start with showing you

the tree all the way to the tiny house.

We brought it over here on the tractor.

- Now we change the wood because this wood

has been cut down a couple of months ago.

- [Rob] How many trees will it take us

to make this tiny house?

- So we're gonna need two trees.

So now we're gonna cut beams

as a foundation, the floorboards,

beams for the sides, and then the planks

to cover the side-slash-roofing.

- All of these are trees that were harvested

from the land.

He bought this land about seven years ago

and this has pine forests on it

that have been used for forestry for decades now.

And a lot of it was done in a very unsustainable way.

Now he's transitioning this into sustainable forestry

and moving it back into a native forest

that is a place for humans, other species,

and the environment to thrive.

And behind me is his wood saw.

Imagine, if a community had this, they could

come together and build their houses

out of wood locally harvested

and it would pay for itself in no time,

creating jobs and working with the land

rather than having just things shipped

and depending upon huge corporations.

Almost everything here is stuff that we cut today.

It's wide, almost like 4x4s.

These are for the foundation.

These, what we're calling planks,

are for the roof-slash-sides.

These are the floorboards, which you can see are thicker.

- So we're gonna sand the floorboards

of the tiny house to prevent splinters in your feet

and we're gonna only sand the floor

because we want to keep the rest

as natural as possible.

- So we probably cut half the wood today,

we sanded the floor.

I'd say we're on schedule.

- Yeah.

How's it going, Margot?

- Pretty well.

- Okay, it's the start of day two.

Overall, we're off to a good start.

Margot has finished sanding the floorboards.

Now it's time to stain them

and Antoine is cutting planks

to be the right size.

How's it goin'?

- [Antoine] Good.

- We're gonna finish the wood with flaxseed oil

and turpentine so the floorboards are smooth

so you don't get any splinters into your feet.

But the floorboards are the only thing

that we are gonna finish like that

because we wanna see how long a tiny house

that is used with natural materials will last.

- Okay, we've got most of the materials cut.

We're already over halfway into the second day

and I hope to be moving into the tiny house

in about 30 hours from now.

I've always wanted a tree stump table.

My dream is gonna come true!

(kisses) (laughs)

All right, this is the spot right behind me.

This is where we cut down the tree yesterday

and it's time to finally start actually building this thing.

- We're gonna put the foundation like this

and we're gonna level it out so the floor is straight.

It's not level, so I have to lift it here a bit

to keep the level straight.

- So we've actually moved the foundation back a little bit

so that we didn't have to put it up as high.

And one thing that I wanna mention is

on the bottom we're using Douglas fir,

which is more resistant to rot

and will last longer.

And then the rest of the housing is spruce.

And I should mention this one material

that's not secondhand or from the forest.

The screws cost about $30 all together

and this is pretty much the main cost, right?

- Yeah. - The screws.

First floorboard!

- Ta-da!

- [Rob] How's it feel?

- Awesome!

- Solid? - Yeah.

I'm happy.

- Now we're putting on the flooring.

It's lookin' huge, too!

All right, so we have a floor.

Might even be able to sleep here tonight.

Little bit hectic last couple of days,

but pretty hopeful.

All right, so we have the foundation set

and it's time to start movin' upwards.

It's lookin' good for movin' in tonight!

So now we're puttin' up the walls,

which is super simple.

We're just taking these planks

and then we're just screwing them on

and they have an overlap.

Keeps the rain running down the sides

so moisture doesn't stay on there.

The windows and doors cost $0 because

they were rescued from the landfill.

All right, it's four o'clock,

we just realized we don't have enough planks

to finish the roof.

- Oh! (laughs)

- [Rob] I'm not sure if we're gonna finish by nightfall.

- [Antoine] We still have four hours!

- We'll see.

This is the compost toilet I just built.

We got my raised bed garden here.

And I started a table.

So we are putting in the last screws

to have the sides and the roof done.

If we finish the structure,

we still wouldn't have finished the inside.

- No, not finished like--

- Details. - The details, no.

If we continue tomorrow morning

then we can make it a really good looking tiny house.

- All right, not movin' in, but tomorrow.

We have just a little spot left up there to do

and, once we've done that, we'll have built out

the entire house itself.

And there's still a little bit to do on the inside,

but, man, three days was quite the goal.

That would have been a serious accomplishment.

(upbeat music)

- Voila! (Rob laughs)

- Right now, we've created the bed.

I've wanted a stump table for a decade.

(loud slaps) Nice!

Tiny house is built!

(upbeat game show music) (bell dings)

So we did it!

- Have a good night here, Rob!

- [Rob] I'll be over for dinner!

(all laugh) - Enjoy!

- All right, time for me to move in.

(laid-back Parisian music)

So here it is, the tiny house built

from trees right on the land.

And over the next few years, probably hundreds

of different people will sleep inside of this tiny house

so I wanna give you a little bit of a tour,

so come on inside.

It's really designed to come here and live simply

and with the basics.

So there's a door that I just walked through

and then we have one that goes right through the back.

We built out a structure to put the bed on top of

and we're actually gonna end up

putting two beds inside of here,

one on either side.

Underneath the bed, there's some storage.

Right above me, there's a shelf.

And then right over here is a shelf as well

just to have the basic possessions.

And then this will be made into a sitting area as well.

And then here there'll be a flip-down desk.

You know, livin' the good life in here

and being able to spend most of the time outside.

I'm gonna show you the kitchen now.

And the idea with all of this

is to keep it sustainable.

So how this sink works, the water we use is from the spring

and then, instead of it going down the drain,

it goes down and it's collected into a bucket

and then this water can be put

onto the garden to grow food with.

Using a biodegradable, plant-friendly soap.

And it can go right onto the plants.

The sink, rescued from the landfill.

Next up is the shower.

The water from the shower comes from the spring as well,

or harvesting rain water.

And with this bucket, I just put holes in the bottom of it.

And, again, this water stays right here

and just waters the trees.

So this is the spring that's just

about a 30 second walk from the house.

Delicious pure water straight from the ground

and this is the water for showering

and for doing the dishes.

It all comes from right here.

The compost bin is very simple.

The idea of this is to live as zero waste as possible,

to compost everything that can be composted,

and not send things to the landfill.

The last stop on the grand tour is the toilet.

And this is the poo with a view.

We did have to buy the toilet seat,

which was about $4.

This plant's called mullein, or lamb's ear,