Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast

What’s it really like to live in a converted school bus or Skoolie? Rob Schannep lives in a Skoolie with his wife, five kids, plus a dog. They've been doing it for four years, so they have a lot of experience living tiny day-to-day. We'll learn what it costs to live in a skoolie per year, how they’ve figured out how to function as a family in such a small space, and what they’ll do diffe...

Kerri reached out to me because she started a meetup group in Edmonton, Alberta that grew to be quite large. She has created a tiny house community where there was none before. Kerri has actually been interested in the tiny house movement for years and finally decided to embark on her own build after several years of being involved in the community. It’s an inspiring story, and we also get to lear...

Rather than flying under the radar, Sarah decided to be public about her tiny house and the consequences and resulting actions didn't go the way that she had hoped. This is an important and instructive story for anyone hoping to live tiny legally. I initially met Sarah Hastings at the Big Mass Tiny House Festival, where she was a star participant in the panel discussion on building a tiny hou...

Malissa and Chris Tack did one of the first tiny house builds to be fully documented in photographs every day. I remember poring through their daily time-lapses to figure out how they did certain things. Their beautiful design included dormers in the loft, which inspired my tiny house and countless others. Melissa is here to tell us the story of her tiny house journey and how the house has continu...

MJ Boyle is here to talk about how to get sponsors to help you get materials for free for your tiny house. MJ has built several tiny houses this way and it has saved her a LOT of cash. She really has the process dialed in! In this interview, MJ shares how she does it and how you can get started finding sponsored materials for your build. The post How to Build Your Tiny House for Less Using Sponsor...

Andrew Odom is one of the original online tiny housers who started sharing his building journey as it was happening all the way back in 2010. He inspired me while I was building my tiny house, both through his writing and also just by being a really friendly, approachable person who was there to help answer my questions. While Andrew doesn't live tiny anymore, there's a lot to learn from...

Alyssa Nolan is the founder of Tiny Houses for Camp Fire Survivors, which is an organization that is building and giving away tiny houses for the survivors of the devastating wildfire that leveled the town of Paradise, California. Alyssa is actually a wildfire survivor herself, having lost everything in the 2008 Butte Lightning Complex Fire. With no construction experience to start, Alyssa has des...

This is a special live recording of a panel discussion that I gave at the Big Mass Tiny House Festival in September of 2019, all about building with reused and salvaged materials. The discussion includes an all-star panel of tiny house DIY builders and dwellers who have done amazing things with reuse and salvage materials. Featuring Alex Eaves, Vera Struck, Sarah Hastings, and Shorty Robbins. The...

Chris Strathy AKA The Capable Carpenter has jumped headfirst into all aspects of tiny house building. After his first tiny house on wheels "It's OK To Play", he has worked on a horse trailer conversion, a tiny a-frame, and even repaired some damaged tiny homes that needed some love. Chris works with salvaged materials and has an amazing mobile workshop made from a converted camper....

Maria Saxton is the first person to have done academic research about the Tiny House Movement, and she decided to explore how the ecological footprint of tiny home downsizes change as a result of going tiny. Now we actually have some science about how tiny houses can be a positive factor for the environment. In our conversation, we dive into her research to learn more. If you’re concerned about th...

Lauren and Chris are a husband and wife team of Airbnb entrepreneurs. They own two rental properties in Southern Vermont, one of which is the beautiful Green Mountain Tiny House. They were incredibly intentional about how they set up this tiny house as an Airbnb. If you're thinking about investing in tiny houses as rentals, or you want to make sure your own tiny house will be viable as a rent...

Backyard cottages (DADUs) are dwellings that share a lot with a primary residence. They provide opportunities for families while increasing housing stock density and diversity. And they are becoming more common as housing costs increase and regulations are eased. Through his company, microhouse, Bruce Parker has been designing DADUs in Seattle for 10 years. The post 100% Legal Tiny Accessory Dwell...

Ariel has lived off-grid in a tiny house in the Wyoming mountains for 6 years now. She has first-hand experience on how to deal with heat, water, and electricity without a reliable connection to the grid or even consistent sunshine. Ariel is a generous guest who offers an inside look at how she has set up the systems in her tiny house. The post 6 Years of Off-Grid Tiny House Living in Wyoming with...

Melissa Gersin is here to tell us the tale of 3 tiny house parking spots in 3 years, one of which resulted in her actual eviction. This is not what we want to think about when we are excited about living in a tiny house, but Melissa has been kind enough to share her story and impart some wisdom to help us all avoid some of the negative experiences that she had with tiny house living. The post Tiny...

I met Steven at the Vermont Tiny Fest and I was impressed by his contributions to a panel discussion about the future of tiny house trailers. Steven has been in the trailer business for a long time building custom trailers, and so it was only natural that when the tiny house movement took hold he started building custom tiny house trailers. He has some ideas about how we can improve tiny house tra...

Jonathan Avery of Tiny House Scotland has developed an ingenious system (NestHouse) for building moveable, modular tiny houses. Jonathan shares his philosophy on carpentry and design, and we explore the tiny house scene in Scotland and the United Kingdom. The post Tiny Houses in the U.K. with Jonathan Avery – #086 appeared first on The Tiny House . Send us Fan Mail Support the show Listen. Subscri...

This week, we're back to everyone’s favorite topic: Tiny House Toilets. On the show, I chat with the inventor of the C-Head Compact Composting Toilet, Sandy Graves. This system diverts urine away from the solid waste resulting in a system that requires much less frequent emptying than the classic Jenkins Humanure toilet. The post Wet vs. Dry Compost Toilets for Tiny Houses – #085 appeared fir...

What does it take to buy and repair a used houseboat and turn it into a successful Airbnb? Nicole Young reached out to me because she was a listener of the show who also happened to have bought two different house boats and retrofitted them to be used as Airbnb hotel rooms. I've been wanting to talk with someone about houseboats for a while, and Nicole was the perfect guest.  The post Tiny Ho...

This is an exciting time in the tiny house movement, as cities and states across the country are looking at legalizing tiny houses in some form. There are many strategies that advocates of tiny houses are using to push for tiny house legalization. I recently heard from a listener, today’s guest Dan Armstrong, about something called RILUPA, or the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Ac...

Cubist Engineering made a splash with The Sturgis, a gorgeous tiny home built with some very innovative materials like Cross Laminated Timbers. Mike Haney has an engineering background so I asked him to come on the show to explain what CLT’s are and how they can be used for building tiny houses. Plus, a look at Cubist’s transformable trailer that can be converted into a permanent foundation. The p...

Lil Wing is a metal triangle on wheels with a putting green grass landing, and it was the most unique tiny house I saw at last year’s Big Mass Festival. The builder, Chris Schapdick of Tiny Industrial, specializes in smaller tiny homes that are easy to tow. In addition, he is the author of two books about tiny house living. In this conversation, we’ll cover the ins and outs of building towable tin...

Miranda Aisling is returning to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast to update us on the upcoming Big Mass Tiny House Festival, and her plans to turn an unused public building in Beverly, Massachusetts into a community art hotel. Plus, what to do when you realize that there are mice living inside your tiny house walls 🐭 The post Organizing a Tiny House Festival with Miranda Aisling – #080 appeared fi...

I learned about Terry’s work through Alexis and Christian of Tiny House Expedition. Terry is in the process of creating an urban tiny house village in Lake Dallas, Texas, in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. After working on this project for some time and running into a lot of red tape, the project is almost done. The Lake Dallas Tiny Home Community will have 13 parking spaces for tiny hous...

What natural material has the tensile strength of steel and can grow 12" in a single day? Bamboo! On today's show, I'm chatting with my friend Palo Coleman about alternative and old-school building methods and materials that are better than what we do today. We'll also go in depth on Shou Sugi Ban, which is the (now popular again) technique for preserving wood by burning it. Th...

Jewel is leading the conversation on inclusiveness and diversity in the tiny house movement and is a wonderful interview guest. We talk about a wide range of topics, from her own tiny house and the special features inside it, to some issues that persist in our housing and financial systems. There are many problems with housing in the United States, and there’s been systemic racism built into our h...