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IrelandA jazz musician builds his Dutch cabin around discarded windows
Gerrit had no construction experience, but scale models, salvaged materials and help from family turned an online photograph into a countryside retreat.
Living Big In A Tiny House
Story of Why this story? One of the most watched videos since yesterday, with 105,246 views.
He Built His Dream Cabin From Old Windows
Video summary
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- 1:04Gerrit explains how inherited land and a photograph of an American window cabin started the project.
- 5:14The cabin's foundations use iron screw poles rather than concrete, with local timber and reclaimed siding above.
- 6:30Inside are vaulted ceilings, musical instruments, a wood-burning stove and a dining table made from gym flooring.
- 11:27Scale models and paper plans show how Gerrit tested headroom, proportions and incoming light.
- 19:52Gerrit explains the financing behind a roughly €40,000 build, later confirming that kitchen and insulation were included.
- 20:10Pasta preparation leads into a shared meal and reflections on learning to build a home.
Gerrit collected discarded windows before piecing them together into the defining feature of his cabin: a patchwork glass wall looking out onto the Dutch countryside. Inside, the ceiling rises above musical instruments, reclaimed furniture and a wood-burning stove. This is a builder's home, but the builder is a jazz guitarist.
"I'm just a simple jazz musician, so I have to look everything up," he tells Bryce Langston in Living Big In A Tiny House's "He Built His Dream Cabin From Old Windows". The tour drew roughly 105,000 views since yesterday.
The project began with a photograph of an American couple's window cabin. Gerrit wanted to make something like it on land inherited from his father, and began finding windows around Amsterdam and through online marketplaces. His teenage son, family and neighbours helped turn the collection into a structure.
For all its improvised ingredients, the cabin wasn't simply assembled by instinct. Gerrit shows Bryce the scale models and paper plans he used to check proportions, headroom and the way light would enter. He wanted an inspirational space, with something of a church about it. The vaulted timber interior makes that ambition easy to understand.
The reclaimed details extend well beyond the glass. The dining table was made from gym flooring; a sliding door came from Amsterdam. Outside, his father's greenhouse has become a workshop and gardening space, alongside a wildlife pond Gerrit dug.
He also makes room in the tour for the less photogenic parts of learning: plumbing mistakes and a bathroom shelf that needed correcting. Gerrit puts the completed build at about €40,000, including the kitchen, insulation and materials. The land was already his, an important distinction from the cost of buying a home.
By the time he prepares pasta for their shared meal, the conversation has shifted from what he built to what building gave him. Every mistake holds a memory, and every new skill belongs to the next day's work.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Living Big In A Tiny House
- Subscribers
- 4,790,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 1,678,597
- Channel views, pace per day
- 326,406 (on a normal day: 197,516)
- Video published
- November 6, 2026
- Video views so far
- 177,959 (2 days online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 105,272 (on a normal day: 131,810)
The numbers
The cabin tour has drawn a substantial audience since yesterday. Here is how its viewing sits alongside the channel's usual activity.
💡 Test your knowledge
What reclaimed material became Gerrit's dining table?
The interior tour reveals a dining table crafted from reclaimed gym flooring.