Building a Raft House on a Norwegian Fjord ???? Hot Tub + Cold Plunge Hatch #cabin #offgrid - Video

A floating cabin built by hand on a Norwegian fjord — with a wood-fired hot tub on the deck and a hatch that opens straight into the cold water beside it.

It starts with six peeled logs and four barrels on the shore rocks. The logs get lashed into a raft, the barrels wedged underneath for flotation, a timber grid on top, and the whole thing floated out and moored to iron stakes in the rock. The deck goes on plank by plank — with one square left open on purpose.

The cabin rises on the raft: a stud frame with rough openings, a ridge and rafters, boarded roof, then a black waterproof membrane and a living turf roof rolled out over it and edged in weathered timber. The walls are clad in vertical black-tarred boards the traditional Norwegian way, glass goes into the windows, and a pine plank door with iron strap hinges gets hung.

Then the two things the whole build was for: a round cedar hot tub with its own little firebox and stovepipe, set on the front deck — and a hinged cedar hatch fitted over that open square, so you can go from hot water to a cold fjord plunge in two steps. A pine gangway with a rope rail ties the raft back to the shore.

Inside, the shell gets wool insulation and pine lining, a wide-plank floor, a small black wood stove with its flue through the roof, a built-in bunk under the side window, and a plank table under the window that looks straight at the waterfall. Wool blankets, sheepskins, lanterns hung and lit, a kettle on the stove. Then dusk — the windows glow, the tub steams, and the builder climbs in.

In this build:
• Lashing a six-log pontoon raft with barrel floats
• Decking the raft (leaving the plunge opening)
• Stud walls, gables, ridge and rafters
• Living turf roof over a black membrane
• Black-tarred vertical board cladding
• Windows and a plank door
• Cedar wood-fired hot tub + the cold plunge hatch
• Gangway and mooring
• Pine-lined interior, wood stove, bunk and table
• Lanterns lit at dusk, first soak

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#floatingcabin #offgrid #cabin #timelapse #norway #tinyhouse #hottub #build #offgridliving