Meet Derek Diedricksen, better known as Deek. He’s a carpenter, artist, musician, and do-it-yourself wizard, not to mention a real character. Watch some of Deek’s videos and you’ll instantly fall in love with this goofball. Promise.

Through creative recycling and repurposing, Deek subtly extols the benefits of doing more with less. At his blog relaxshacks, wood pallets get converted to chairs, an industrial cable spool becomes a coffee table, corrugated plastic Tuftex finds new use as transparent walls and roofs, and glass bottles and water coolers turn into funhouse windows. Put them together and you get funky cabins/cottages/treehouses/studios that you can build wicked fast for ridiculously little dough. Best of all, Deek bases his micro-architecture operations right in my backyard – eastern Massachusetts and Vermont.

For all Deek’s energy and wild ideas, he upholds basic safety and structural integrity. In doing so he instills trust, and I think that’s what makes him so persuasive. Terry, Hans, and many other carpenters I’ve known practice their craft with the same unwavering certainty. This trust takes on even greater significance when you’re teaching amateurs to build their own house, which of course is a major incentive for many people to build smaller. Anyone can master the skills to make a little dwelling, but first one needs a teacher who gives them confidence. A little humor never hurts, either.