Basecamp

Currently Playing: Building A Deck With No Experience On Our Island | Off Grid Island Ep. 5

We’re back on the island! 🏝️ This week we made a lot of progress on our deck and it is almost completed. We have bought some deck boards to put on top of the frame. The boards are 3.6m long and we bought 140 of them. We drove from the store to the nearest road, where we could comfortably park the car, and then walked down around 50m to our boat. A big thanks to my mom for letting us use the van and help transport the wood. This trip, I added support beams to the deck. I felled more trees, cut them to length, debarked and measured them, making sure they were all equally spaced out. Then I marked on the frame where they will be going. When I figured out the positioning, I started notching the log so they would be secured to the frame. I was able notch the logs going on top and bolt them down on the back half of the frame. This was done by making a 10mm pilot hole before putting in 12mm lag bolt. Next trip, we want to finish our deck by putting the decking on and finally move our 5m tent there. Thank you for all the tips, they are always appreciated! About the chainsaw... we have read all the comments and we did get a new chain and a sharpening kit. It is working 10x better and the battery life has improved a lot too. This video was filmed before we uploaded last weeks video, so the chainsaw is not sharpened yet. Next video tho! 🙌 More about us, the island and the process: The island is completely secluded, has no electricity or plumbing and currently has nothing on it but trees. We want to turn this island into a fully functioning summer cottage with a log cabin, sauna and other amenities. Most of the work is gonna be done in the summer months as the lake freezes in the winter and the weather conditions are tough. There's a lot of work to be done as the island is over 2.5 acres (1 hectare) and we have no experience in off-grid living, carpentry or building. So any tips or advice are greatly appreciated, as we are planning on doing everything ourselves and transforming the island into our own little paradise. We’ll document every step of the way, starting from smaller builds to finally - an off-grid log cabin. Our plan for this year is to put up a platform for a glamping tent, build a floating dock and start cutting down trees to begin the process of building our log cabin. The island is located in Finland and we bought it in 2024. We are currently both students and we plan to transform the island alongside our studies. So, subscribe and join us on this adventure. It won’t be fast, it won’t be easy, but it will be fun and challenging. We don’t know what to expect, so be a part of the journey. 📸 Follow us on Instagram: @Off.grid.island and TikTok @off.grid.island