This one is slightly related to the tiny house theme, but more esoteric. It’s about an Iowa man (Paul Cutting) who stumbled on some of Iowa’s abandoned history – mid-19th century Norwegian-American log cabins – that were being destroyed by farmers, often eager to raze their land for corn. These are 150 year old log cabins – built using dozens of century-old trees – but curiously, Paul seems to be one of the few people even interested in their fate. In the past 6 years, he’s nearly single-handedly taken down 10 of them (piece by piece) and reconstructed four of them. The story goes beyond the actual buildings. it’s also one man’s homage to a past where things were built to last. There is one scene where Paul goes through his collection of objects found in buildings he’s taken down – he shows off still intact leather shoes, intricate door handles, his town’s Norwegian-American newspaper. He even lives in one of these reconstructed log homes (built for just $20K, not including his labor). His work hasn’t really been recognized by a broader public, but he’s painstaking with his attention to detail (even hiring an Amish carpenter to recreate windows and doors).
