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FunTranscript
00:00Our dad built this cabin deep in the rainforest and since he died it has been
00:05abandoned. So join me as I continue this wild journey of restoring this magical
00:10place to its former beauty. Today I'm tackling the job of doing up the kitchen
00:15in this cabin and it's gonna be big but it's gonna be fun. So we have big plans
00:20for this kitchen. It's a bit of a mess at the moment. It's kind of just a lot of
00:24things that we got secondhand or got from the tip and just put on for the
00:28beauty topper. It's always worked but it's not that cute so I think we're gonna
00:31completely redo the kitchen to make it really nice and to honor this spot. We
00:36have the basis of this metal kitchen bench at the moment which is good and we're
00:41gonna use that but I think I want to move it somewhere else. I haven't decided yet but
00:45I think that this spot isn't great for it and also is a bit too outdoors and we've
00:51taken away the siding here so it's important to keep it protected. So I
00:55think moving it a bit more inside is good. Our first plan is just to move
00:59this all around and get it into a spot that we like so we're just going to
01:02experiment. We're putting it in different spots. We're essentially just trying to
01:05make the best camp kitchen possible. We cook in the fire here so the kitchen
01:10needs to be centered around the fire pit for ease and to look good. This job is
01:14something that's been on my list for years so it feels good for me and my mum to
01:18just get in and do it. This big hole here we don't really know where it came from. It must have been some sort of
01:23animal trying to dig a home. I don't even know where all the soil went but now we have to fill it in and we have no soil.
01:30The first job is to clean up and move the kitchen benches around to see where they look best.
01:35This slab is what we've been using for the kitchen and we're gonna move it because I think we'll use it for a bench instead.
01:41I'm going to use these benches as a base to build a new kitchen onto. I've been
01:46collecting secondhand materials for this project and have some perfect hardwood
01:50floorboards that I can use as cupboards. Hardwood will be perfect for this semi
01:55outdoor kitchen that might get a bit of rain. This is our dad's solution for an
02:00outdoor kitchen shelf and it's made from my childhood bunk bed that's definitely
02:05indoor pine and it's been here for like 15 years. Sometimes I think that my
02:09building's dodgy and then I look at his and I'm like well it's fine. I found where
02:14the water comes in there's a tap down here so I'm gonna isolate the water before we
02:17start moving things so that we don't have any ruptures. I don't think that this is
02:25screwed in I think that it's just swollen wood so much that it's kind of like stuck in
02:30there so I'm just gonna get a hammer to it and I'm just gonna hit it as hard as I can and
02:34see if it comes out.
03:04Okay, this won't make it spray everywhere. I hope.
03:11First job is that we need to prop up this tap so that it doesn't fall over because otherwise it'll break.
03:20We think we love it here we'll have to consult big boss Julia first. I think it's perfect and now we just have to find some sort of tabletop for it which we have a few exciting ideas about.
03:27I always find that when I'm working hard I also relax hard. It's a balance that you sometimes forget about.
03:34But when I get so intensely focused on building I ask myself why am I doing this?
03:37Why am I renovating a cabin deep in the rainforest?
03:44The reason is to have a special spot for camping and appreciating this life in nature.
03:51That is what our dad originally built it for and we have so many special childhood memories that happen because of his grand idea to build a shack in the forest.
03:58So in this remembrance I make sure to always stay true to this.
04:05So in this remembrance I make sure to always stay true to this.
04:08The reason is to have more time in nature so instead of focusing only on the ground on the ground.
04:13I need to focus on spending time relaxing in this beautiful landscape.
04:32To slow down and notice the seasons changing.
04:35To notice the water on my skin and the vines that can act as rope swings.
04:40Life can be like that sometimes when you're focusing too much on the future that you don't
04:44enjoy the present. So I always remember that while of course I'll enjoy this space so much
04:52once I finish building, these autumn days spent brainstorming, mucking about and working so hard
04:57are so beautiful as well. On Marketplace I think we found the bargain of the century. We found some
05:05marble bench top for free so we're going to go check it out and see if it's everything it says
05:10it is and if it is we're going to bring it home and make the cutest kitchen.
05:19Bargain of the century!
05:36The marble is so good I can't believe it it's almost too good to use here I'm like considering
05:41if I don't know if there's another spot for it but I think it's perfect for this spot so
05:46we're going to try to unload it but it was so heavy it's the heaviest thing I've ever even attempted
05:51to lift it was wild it was us and the woman that was giving it away for free and she had she did
05:57not think that we would be able to do it but we did and we all ended up helping and it was very
06:02wholesome we kept just saying well how are the pyramids built? Can we just imitate that?
06:07And we ended up rolling them on woolen blankets and sliding them down this whole garden and it
06:13took the longest time but we hit it and now it's time to load them in.
06:22We're thinking that it's best if we drive the truck right up into here and then we move this table
06:28so that it can become a bit of a bridge to put the marble on because the marble is so heavy
06:33so we'll leave it on here for now for storage until I get the whole kitchen ready and then put it in.
06:42The rainy season has stuck around a long time this year. Normally our autumns are dry and sunny
06:48and they're the beginning of the dry season that lasts until October or November but for the last five
06:53years we've had super wet years and wet seasons that last a long long time. This week the weather's been
06:59strange it'll be completely blue skies and sunshine and then a shower comes in so fast with torrential
07:05rain before the sun comes back in half an hour.
07:14All right I've got jobs to do.
07:23Every job that I try to start seems to have a thousand little jobs attached to it. I need to take
07:31all of the leftover wood to the workshop to store it out of the weather. These pieces will be great
07:36for another project soon.
07:45The next job is removing this gas bottle which has a few spiders living in it.
07:49The first job is to level out these benches so that they're completely flat
08:00and so the first first job is to fill this hole where the gas bottle used to go. So I've got lots
08:05of big rocks. I thought that leveling out the bench would be an easy job but I was so wrong and hours
08:10later I finally leveled the whole bench so that it would sit flat.
08:27I finished all of the leveling and now I think it's time to frame it out so I'm trying to decide if I use this timber
08:42or I'm scared this is indoor pine so maybe not. Then me and mum collected the old drop saw and drove it
08:49down here so that I can cut hardwood with ease. This bad boy is another one of our very old and
08:54very rough tools and it's super jerky and hard to use but if you know what you're doing it works just
08:59fine. I'm making a frame for the marble to sit on. It's very fragile so it needs support so I'm
09:05making this frame out of some old floorboard offcuts. As I slowly add some wood and clean up this corner
09:11it's transforming I can see how beautiful it's going to become. This imagination always keeps me
09:17inspired as I do the hard jobs picturing how this work will look in not too long hopefully.
09:28I did it I can't believe it I've got it all framed up so tomorrow I think it's ready for the marble
09:35to go on which I'm so excited about but it's almost dark now I better go get the goats and
09:40that's a tomorrow job to marvel. The goats didn't escape today which is something to celebrate.
09:47They've been doing their old trick of walking up so high in the paddock that they can get into the
09:51unfenced area and then they can walk over a few mountains and come back around the hill to scream
09:56at us on the wrong side of the fence and demand to come back in. I don't even know why they feel the
10:01need to go so far because the summer growth is still so abundant right now and there's grass everywhere.
10:10Another day means a new impossible task and today's is moving this ridiculously heavy marble.
10:27a few me and mum quickly realized that we couldn't do the final lift without hurting our backs so we
10:44called uncle Adam to come help and together we were able to put it into place. Then we have two smaller
10:49pieces that we will fit into the other side and the next impossible task is cutting them. So this is the
10:56angle grinder that we have and mum has a distant memory that maybe it gets stuck on when you use
11:01it so I'm going to test it out now and see if it works but she says the technique is that you just
11:06pull it out of the power to stop it so that doesn't sound too bad. It does.
11:12I've never used an angle grinder before and mum's only used one on metal so we're both a bit scared
11:28of them considering how dangerous they are. We've tested a few cuts and I learned that I was really
11:33bad at it and mum learned that while she was pretty good at cutting straight it's really hard to safely
11:38see where you're going without putting your head in a dangerous position.
11:44So I think we're going to give up for the day or maybe the week because we don't know how to do
11:50it. This angle grinder is a really dangerous tool and we haven't really used one before and
11:57we can't work it out. It says that the blade goes this way so then the blade's going the wrong way so
12:02then it's chipping and so then when we try to turn it upside down we can't get the guard to go the
12:08whole way around it gets stuck on something so I don't know if it's just an old tool or if it's just
12:13us being silly but it's not a job that we can do without being dangerous so we're not going to do it
12:19we're going to try to get uncle out of help maybe sometime soon. The weather has been so wild lately and
12:26even when it feels like the sun is here to stay suddenly a heavy downpour comes and I actually got
12:30flooded out one day with no access home. I decided to walk across the hills. It's not that long a walk
12:38and the sun actually kind of has made an appearance. I jinxed it. It's raining. It's still flooding but I
12:45think the rain has stopped now so I think that the crutes will go down soon and Uncle Adam's going to
12:50come and help to get the marble cut so he's going to help with the angle grinder because we're too scared.
12:56I cleaned these gutters for the cyclones so just a few weeks ago and they are so full of mud already
13:02I've already filled this whole bucket with mud and there's so much more. They're probably not
13:06the best solution if they fill up with mud that fast. It's just it's just been flooding so much.
13:12We have this hole that is a bit of a problem hole that I think some sort of animal dug so I'm going to
13:28fill it with all of the dirt that was in the cutters.
13:41I've always dreamt of putting a clay floor through here so I guess this is a bit of a
13:45experiment. Maybe if I flatten it a lot.
13:48I think learning when to give up on something is a real skill and even though I wanted to push
13:58through I knew that it would have been dangerous and that it was an unnecessary risk to take. Instead
14:03we waited until Uncle Adam had a spare moment that he could come and help us and now I feel
14:07like I have a bit more knowledge so that next time I could maybe attempt it.
14:11We have finished the top of the kitchen bench so next week I'm going to start adding boards
14:18on the side and building puppets here and finish the whole kitchen but now it's looking so good I
14:24can't believe this is all green.