I've become fascinated by tiny homes. I've also become friends with a man who makes his living (or most of it) writing about the topic for his Tiny House Blog. So last fall we got together and issued a call for submissions to anyone living in a tiny wee dwelling who wanted to be part of a video on both of our sites.
A Homemade Spaceship
Four days later, I received an email from a man in Minnesota who had no building experience, but had been inspired by the blog to build his own micro-home.
First, we don't actually have a tiny house yet - but we are building one right now - but it's at a really rapid pace and in probably 10 days we'll be living in it. I'm literally eating lunch on a 15 minute break from work to write to you - we don't have much daylight or warm days left up here in MN so we've got to work as fast as possible.
So, our story really quickly is: my partner, Jeannie, and I met five years ago - fell in love the moment we first talked and have been traveling the world together ever since. Well, not the whole world- we've mostly lived in India with a few diversions here and there-, but the basic point is we've been living out of a backpack as nomadic artist type people this whole time. We've just returned from India actually- less than a month ago- and one night well wandering around the internet I stumbled on the tiny house blog and two days later we had bought a utility trailer and have been working at a mad dash ever since to make our home.
A sub-$3000 Tiny American Dream Home
It took more than 10 days for them to move in, but using the Internet as their guide, one month -- and a lot of sawing, sanding and shellacking -- later, they had their first home (dubbed Homemade Spaceship).
The total price was less than $3000, and that includes all furnishings, like their $600 boat stove.
In this video, Kyle and Jeannie chronicle the 7 months (October through April) from when they began the project last October through their first few months living in their tiny American Dream home in the wilderness near Moab, Utah.