Welcome to our Lavish Meadow! In our first episode you will get to know us - Charles and Frieda - two big city kids who bought land in the Baltics with little to no knowledge but with the determination to make their dream come true to build a tiny house and live more at one with nature. As you will see, we are keen researchers and are on a journey to acquire as many new skills as we need and are not afraid to fail if it means that we learn through it. So come and join us while we are making mistakes, celebrating small wins, and enjoying our property in the Baltics.
For our very first build, we decided to tackle an outdoor kitchen! And as with any great project, ours started with a delivery of a whole lot of wood.
Every Build Needs a Foundation… And Sawhorses!
Before we could even think about the kitchen itself, we had to build some essential construction furniture. You might also know them as sawhorses! We found a great and sturdy design from James Alofs on his channel and decided to recreate that. This led to our very first beginner mistake: we didn't account for the wood for the sawhorses in our bill of materials, but we managed. And, of course, we quickly realized we would need two of them!
Once the sawhorses were ready, we cleared the area for the build site right next to the existing shed on the property—a shed we can’t take credit for, as it was built by the previous owner!
The Big Cut & Our Learning Curve with the Circular Saw
With the space prepped, it was time to cut all the wood to size. Charles had built a 3D model of our outdoor kitchen, which was a huge help in getting all the measurements right. This digital plan allowed us to cut nearly everything to size before we even started assembling. Frieda, meanwhile, stuck to the more traditional pencil-and-paper method to keep track of our cut list.
We believe that PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is very important, so we geared up and got ready to use our brand-new circular saw for the first time. This is where the real learning began. After our first attempt failed, we realized the saw wasn't plugged in! With power sorted, our second attempt still wasn't quite right, as we hadn't set the blade deep enough and clamped the cut off side.
Our motto quickly became: when in doubt, look it up on YouTube! We are not an educational program, but we are definitely documenting our learnings. After a few tries, we got into a great rhythm, with Frieda measuring and marking, and Charles doing the cutting.
A Natural Finish: Painting with Pine Tar & Linseed Oil
For protecting the wood, we wanted something that fit the rustic, natural look of our property. We were inspired by the beautiful greying of the existing shed and Shou Sugi Ban, the traditional Japanese method of charring wood, but building a fire furnace felt a bit beyond our skill level for now.
Instead, we researched and found a fantastic local alternative: a mix of pine tar and boiled linseed oil. Both are natural products sourced from the Baltics. We mixed them in a 50/50 ratio because we wanted a nice, dark finish.
We discovered that painting the planed wood was much easier and smoother than painting the rough-sawn wood, which just soaked up the oil mixture and required a lot more product. A good lesson for next time! After letting it dry, we wiped off the excess oil with old cotton cloths.
A quick public service announcement: Linseed oil-soaked rags can spontaneously combust! We were super careful, washed ours out with water and laid them out on the stones of our fire pit where they could dry safely before being discarded. And if you're wondering how to get sticky tar and oil off your hands, we found a foamy, undiluted soap like Dr Bronners works wonders!
Getting to the Root of It: The Screw Piles
For the foundation, we opted out of concrete and went with screw piles. These are large metal screws that you drill into the ground to serve as anchors for the posts. The plan was simple: use a piece of rebar as a lever and good old-fashioned human power to twist them into the earth. The biggest challenges? Hitting a rock and, well, having enough strength!
We didn't get them as deep as we'd hoped because the rebar started bending before the piles would go any further. We’ll just take that as a sign that we’re super strong!
It All Comes Together: Assembling the Frame
After all that preparation, the assembly felt like magic. The whole structure of the outdoor kitchen came together in just a couple of hours. It was so rewarding to see it finally take shape. We even made a few on-the-fly design changes, like adjusting a support beam to create more knee space under the counter.
Putting a Lid On It: The Roof
With the frame up, it was time for the roof. First, we installed the OSB boards. We learned another valuable lesson here: it’s much easier to cut OSB on the floor than trying to do it up high on the saw horses!
Once the OSB was secured, we added the final weatherproof layer: a profiled aluminum roof. It was a bit sketchy at times, working on our ladder-scaffolding setup, but with some teamwork, we got it done.
Construction breaks
Rain or shine, the work continued. But building isn't just about the work; it's also about enjoying the process and the place. We took breaks for some outdoor yoga to stretch our construction-sore muscles and, of course, for a very important Latvian snack review: Karums! We tried the new seasonal apple and cinnamon flavor. The verdict? Deliciously autumnal.
Our daily routine also includes fetching water from our well with a rope and a bucket. It's heavy work, but it's our only source of water, so we make do. We even found an old fuel funnel, which works perfectly for pouring water into our containers while filtering out any debris.
And what better way to end a hot day of work than with a refreshing swim in the nearby water?
The Finishing Touches and The Grand Finale
With the main structure complete, we moved on to the final details. We installed the floorboards, leaving small gaps between them to allow rainwater to drain through. For the shelving, we used the same boards as the existing shed to keep the look consistent. Finally, Charles used some leftover wood from the old shed to create decorative siding, tying the new kitchen visually to the existing building even more. Even the last little scraps of wood were put to use by Frieda to create a tiny staircase (another detail we had forgotten to plan for in our bill of materials).
After a quick trip to the hardware store (and then a second trip, because the first sink trap didn't fit!), we installed the sink. The dishwashing water is filtered through layers of sand and pebbles before returning to the soil. And do not worry, we use 100% biodegradable dish soap.
Then, for the moment we’d been waiting for. Charles prepped our very first meal in our brand-new outdoor kitchen: a delicious, truly Baltic buckwheat risotto with chanterelle mushrooms we foraged from our own forest.
It was the perfect end to our very first build together. We hope you enjoyed it, and we invite you to come along for the ride as we continue our adventure here at Lavish Meadow.
Resources for this Episode
How we built our sawhorses
As afar admirers we love what James Alofs is doing in Canada and almost religiously watch his videos when they come out on Saturdays. For some reason we did not at all plan for saw horses nor calculate to order enough wood for building them. Luckily, one of us at least did remember James building them in one of his earliest episodes. So at least the construction took no time at all.
Basics you should know before using a circular saw
You might have seen us fail catastrophically at our first circular saw cuts in Episode 1. This is the video that taught us almost immediately what we did wrong (we clamped the offcut side). Very helpful video for newbies like us and maybe you too.
The benefits and results of using linseed oil & and mixing it with pine tar
We decided for our Outdoor Kitchen Build (episode 1) to go with a natural finish of the wood to protect it from the natural impacts it would face over the years. From Swedish wooden house facades we already knew linseed oil paints but we did not know that you could also achieve a similar charred colour like the one you get with Japanese Shou Sugi Ban treatment (the literal burning of the wood) by mixing linseed oil with pine tar. Being the scaredy-cats that we are (or maybe were in the beginning) we did not want to accidentally burn down our forest and opted for the linseed oil and pine tar mixture as explained in the video.