[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi. My name is Amy Moss. And this is my tiny house. I started building it back
in 2015, but it is now 2021. And I'm here in
Cranmore Meadows, one of the sweetest spaces
this side of the Haw River. Amy is really unlike any
person I've ever met. I think it's pretty cool how
we connected so instantly. I feel like I've known Amy
for a really long time, and we really just
met a few months ago. She's got this knowledge
based out of exploration. So it's fun to go out and
explore with her because-- like, cool. What's this? Let's look it up. She's got like every book
that you could ever want on. I think I'm just so
very happy that I got a friend to hang out with. I mean, we're spot-on
no matter what-- the things that we like
and the things that we do. And it's just like when
you're a little kid and you find a best friend. And I never thought that
I would be like 56 or 57, and I'm having a best friend. It's kind of weird, but
it feels really good. She brings into the
relationship that's like really calming and
very like intelligent. She's very smart
and wise because she like just says things that gets
me thinking like, yeah, maybe I don't have to think about
it that way or whatever. And so I think we
help each other out, which is like what friends do. So we are tiny house
dwellers ourselves, and Cranmore Meadows is
a tiny house community. It's a 30-acre farm located
in Central North Carolina. We've been working on it for
the last two and a half years. Cranmore Meadows is also-- it's a nature preserve--
it is going to be a working permaculture farm. And it is the home
of phase one, which is seven tiny houses on wheels. And we're currently
working on phase two, which will be another six
tiny houses on wheels. When we started looking
for land for ourselves to park a tiny home,
we also realized that this was a problem that we
needed to solve for ourselves. But there's so many people
we knew that were just parked in someone else's
backyard that also needed a place to park their
tiny home legally and feel safe and comfortable
and not worry about getting one of those
notices on their door, too. So that's when we're
like, OK, let's do this. If we're doing
this for ourselves, let's do it for other people. And that's kind of
when we went down that road to build a community
for ourselves and others. So we call ourselves
benevolent dictators because we did interview
a lot of founders of intentional communities
and intentional communities with consensus built in. And-- They all said the same thing. Don't do it. We want to do an intentional
community, and they said don't. Yeah. So it's worked out so far. We have really cool
people in our community. And they have to run things
by us before they move forward with doing a chicken
coop and getting a half dozen chickens on-site
or doing a community garden. But we have monthly meetings
where we discuss that stuff, and folks can submit
a budget to us. And we can kind of all just
talk about it as a community. But ultimately, Nathan
and I make the decision and give the go ahead. We also have rules when
you're signing the lease, kind of like an HOA type of
rules, that folks follow, so your standard stuff. One thing we did have to
kind of come to a consensus on in this process
was leash hours because we like free
ranging our dogs. But not all dogs get along. So we came to a
consensus on doing certain hours of the day,
which are leash hours. Come on. Let's go. Let's go. Thanks to our
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annual subscription today. See the link in the description. Oh my goodness. Amy just texted me
that two of the chicks have escaped from the box. [LAUGHS] And that means
they're getting big. Oh my goodness. I guess that's what we'll work
on later, today, or tomorrow. We've come up with-- so she usually has Mondays off,
and I usually have Mondays off. So we call it our Monday
fun day, get done day, or get stuff done day, if
that's more appropriate. So we'll probably have to
fix up the chicken coop. Oh, that's funny. And so all of these--
of course, her. She'll lay the blue-green eggs. But the other ones will
all lay brown eggs. OK. However, [VOCALIZING] I want
to try to get a [INAUDIBLE].. Oh, jeez. You girls. Now here it is. It's Vernie. Come here, Vernie. Come on, Vernie. What do you think, huh? She's a good puppy. She's a good puppy. Yes, I know. They're all puppies. I don't know. I always call them. My kids laugh, too. [VOCALIZING] So I have a lot of
projects that I need to do, but my first project
that I have to do is to build my shed, which
is currently under that tarp. And under this tarp
is the wood that I'm going to be using to finish
the inside of trimming my tiny house out. But I need to build a shed for
my workshop, which currently is under this tarp,
all of my stuff that would be in my workshop. And until then, when I get the
funds and the ability to do so, I'm just having fun
planting and beautifying my space around my house. Yeah, so why don't you come in
and see inside my tiny house? [MUSIC PLAYING] My total area, the total length
of the trailer, is 20 feet, and I have 8 feet wide. This space, I call
it the alcove. And I intended originally
to have a folding out, like love seat. I found this wonderful
piece because I love books, and I moved it into this space. So obviously, I'm not worried
about a bed in here anymore. But I do have this
lovely chair that was gifted to me
by my sister-in-law that she got in a thrift store. And it is awesome
and comfortable. And although I was
thinking of a recliner, this works beautifully. Everything around in my nook is
like really something special to me, whether it's
like the pine cones that I find on my
walks, obviously my books and a lot of the art
from my children and my family that I have. It's a great storage
loft, and you can go and hang out up there,
sit, and be very comfortable. But right now, it's a
brooder for chickens. I have 10 chickens up there
waiting to go into their coop, and I'm yet to find
a way to get off it. So I just use this ladder. But this is just too easy. I mean, to come up and down. It's ugly as all get out. So I thought about building
or finding something. But I know what makes this
important, the flat steps. So the round rungs
wouldn't work. I sit here, and I think like,
what would be the best way? And until I figure that
out, the ladder is fine. So it might always be a ladder. Who knows? This table was really special
to me for a long time. I found it in the garbage on
the curb, curbside shopping, I call it. And the couple--
legs were broken, and I didn't know what I
was going to do with it. I decided I like
this this way, and I decided to keep it like this. So I screwed it into the wall
to make it nice and sturdy. To me, a table is everything. Whether I'm doing projects
or eating or just sitting and hanging out and
playing Mancala with Tyler. This loft keeps changing also. My daughter got me this
tapestry a long time ago, which was a
bedspread, but I used it. And it's perfect to create
because for the longest time, I never had anything. It was open just like that one. But it's nice to kind
of have that privacy, especially with the light
on for the chickens. I was able to close it off. But this, I'll tell you what. This is like the most
wonderful place to sleep. And this little bump out
space is my bathroom. A good friend of mine, Anne,
gave me this little cabinet, which works out well. It's great for my
spices and my teas. And I think it's a great use
of that little bit of space inside your walls. I was a stay-at-home
homeschooling mom for 12 years thereabouts. And I didn't have any skills. And it was this guy
down here, Ron Petit. He was like this-- he took me under his wing
and not only taught me like the basic carpentry
skills but was patient enough to deal with my
problems of being in an abusive relationship
and gave me confidence. And to this day, I
get emotional about it because it's a great thing
to have, a skill like that. Serendipitously, I
fell into this spot. And every single
day, I'm grateful. With Charlie, with
my partner up in PA, we had raw land, nothing. And he had to put in a
well, and he had to do this. And I watched it all grow,
so I know what goes into it. I don't have a shower here
yet, so like once a week or whatever, I can go up
and use the guesthouse. They allow me to use
the guesthouse shower. And when that water
comes on me, I'm like, I realize what it took that I
can have that water like them digging the well and
all the struggles that they had to go through. So it's like just being
grateful and having a space to be grateful. I think that's
like the best part of living in Cranmore
Meadows and knowing that those two have
worked hard to get it so that I can be happy. We have a community
guesthouse of folks that have family coming
in, can use that space. We have a community kitchen and
washer, dryer that folks use. And that's where we
gather for potlucks. So it's just nice creating
all these intentional spaces where people overlap and
can talk and coalesce. Cranmore Meadows, its name
is split into Meadows. So the front area,
first meadow, is going to be our event center
and retreat center long term. That's probably on a two
to three year timeline. And then it'll also
be an opportunity to do workshops and lessons
on alternative living, health and wellness, and
green building. So in addition to tiny house
building and expertise, we're also interested
in earthen building. So that's part of what
we want to do here, too. The next meadow is where we are
currently, where our house is. And right behind us
is the first phase of seven tiny homes on wheels. The next meadow is
going to be phase two, and we'll have room for six
more tiny homes on wheels. And then the last meadow, which
is the most beautiful meadow, where the Haw Creek circles
the whole meadow, that's our glamping and camping area. So we have our earthen
buildings back there. Here is our off-grid bathhouse. It's made out of
earthen materials. And one side is
a compost toilet. So the other side is
a shower, and we're using rainwater catchment
system for all the water. We're going to have
an, outdoor kitchen, and it's going to service
all of our glamping and campers out here. Well, there's three different
natural water systems. This particular wall
has a base big fat beam of what's called cob,
which is like adobe, and there's also a
beam that you can still kind of see at the top of
cob right below the roof. And then in between
sandwiched are all straw bales that are stacked between
two posts and stake down between layers,
courses of them. And then there's
successive coats of earthen plaster
on top of those. There is some
evidence to suggest that earthen walls like charcoal
will actually absorb impurities out of the air. They breathe, so they pull
moisture out in the summer. They exhale it in the
winter when it's dry. Of course, because the
thermal mass is so high, you can have the sun
beating on it all day and maybe have a 3 degree
temperature differential inside. And then same thing
at night as it's cool, then it just releases that. So the walls kind of breathe
with both temperature and moisture, and it's just
stuff that was on the ground or in the ground. Honestly, this could
be 1,000-year building. And when it finally decomposes,
the, clay, the straw, the rock, and the lime plaster,
all of those ingredients, you would just find
in nature anyway. And so it just returns
to the environment. Amy has really been an
inspiration and just like a role model for
both of us, I think. She's just so strong
and knows so much. She's always willing to-- or not just willing but like
excited to teach us things. And she's just this
wealth of knowledge. I think we both feel pretty
darn lucky to be around such a wonderful community. We have a lot of fun. We have a lot of events. We do like potluck. And I think one of the most
wonderful things about living in this community is
that everyone who's here has a very unique kind of
like set of skills or interests or strengths that they have,
and they complement the space really well. For me, I'm the youngest
member of the community, and it feels really
great to have a space for intergenerational
conversations and kind of intergenerational
friendship as well. That's been something
that feels really like a kind of
family situation, not like the nuclear family that
can sometimes be really tense, but the family that
you want to be around. One thing you'll hear
about people living tiny is that it affords
them opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. And so saving more money,
traveling more, living simply things like this. And all those things
are true for us, living for three years in this
house in a different location before we bought the lands. As she said, we basically
put away one full-time salary for three years. And so that was a huge
part of the initial capital to get this place going. We put this place under
contract in April of 2018. And usually, when
you're under contract, it's typically like a 45-day
close, sometimes longer. With land deals, it can
sometimes be longer. We paid extra due
diligence so that we can have a six-month window
to close, so from April to November of that year. Because when we put
it in our contract, we did not have the
money to buy it. And so we said, OK, we
gave ourselves six months to scare up a down
payment and find a bank that will lend to us. And we went through three
lenders, four lenders before finally the fifth one. I mean, we were like
weeks before closing. It's hard to find
money for land. It's hard to finance land. Yeah. It's mostly cash deals. And for something that's
big, obviously, we don't have that much
money to pay cash. I will say Alamance County
has been really good. Its rural nature sort
of lends itself better. But when we first
approached them and said, this is what we
want to do, there was a lot of support
at the planning level, at the inspections
level, saying, let's see if we can make
this work, kind of thing. And so we felt a lot of
support from the beginning. But for the most
part, I will say, what made it simpler was that
the County had a manufactured home ordinance which is
just your standard kind of mobile home park. And so they said, we're
going to permit it like that. And so that gave
us a framework for like, OK, this wide of a
road, this much of a setback, and those kinds of things. But that ultimately--
there were some ways because the land was so
challenging that we couldn't meet 100% of the requirements
of the mobile home ordinance. And so we ended up having to go
first before the planning board and saying, this is
what we want to do. Do you think it's worth going? And they said yes because
they recommended that we then go to the County commissioners. We appeared before the County
commissioners and said, we need a special
variance basically because we can meet, let's just
say, 90% of the requirements but not these 10. But unless you approve this
exception, we can't go forward. And they voted four to
one to let us do it. And then at that
point, we were just making sure everything
got inspected along the way and stuff. But it was about
an 18-month journey for the permitting, the fees,
the planning, the design, all those things. The back side of it
will be right behind-- Working on starting a community
garden-- and I sort of vol-- well, I volunteered
to head that one up, develop an estimate of
what would be needed. And then I've been-- like for the past month,
I've been in my spare time. I've been working on breaking
ground for the garden. By hand. By hand. I just get a better sense
of the land, the soil, what's needed for that. In this community, there are no
requirements for tiny houses. Some people ask,
does it need to be NOAH-certified, RVIA-certified? And we don't care. We do have a requirement that
it can't be over 36 feet. Oh, so a length requirement? Yeah. As far as that. And-- That's just like
our requirement. And 10 feet at the widest. We like tiny, tiny homes. Yeah, because-- some people
say, oh, I have a 12 by 40, and that's too much. It's too small a place. So the lot rent at Cranmore
Meadows for phase one says $600 per month,
and that includes septic, water, physical
address, road maintenance, communal spaces like
a guest quarters, community kitchen with a washer
and dryer, and anything else. Trash. And trash collection, recycling. And we are thinking
for phase two-- we really like the idea
of affordable housing, and we're drawn to that. And we want to make the
space affordable for folks. Based on how much
we've spent here so far and how much we're in
debt, we can't really come down a ton on
lot rent, but we are thinking of maybe
doing a sliding scale for the second phase. Tiny houses draw a slew
of different people from many different backgrounds. And so someone who's a
lawyer could pay more than someone who's
making minimum wage. And we have both
in our community. We think that might be
fair, and it will also attract the folks that
believe in social justice and want to be on
this land with us. That $600 number, we
agonized over for a long time to figure out how
much to charge. I should point out that we
are not breakeven at that. We are still paying out
of pocket every month at that price point. But to go any higher than
that felt like too much. To go lower than that
would not be tenable. But the sliding scale
idea might help with that because there are
people who say I would be happy to
pay more if it meant someone else could pay less. And that's, I think, some
area we'd like to explore. [MUSIC PLAYING] Yeah, Cranmore Meadows
has been amazing. It's even better than I
thought it was going to be. And I had very high expectations
when I first met Callie and when I first read what they
were trying to create here. Very intentional
community building and based on really sustainability
and connection and not just connection to people but
connection to the land that you're living on. It has been really fun
to explore this space and get to know the nature
that's all around me, the trees, the flowers. I'm learning so much
that I've never really-- I don't want to say I've never
had the opportunity because I probably could have done this in
other spaces and in other ways, but I'm surrounded
by a community that's also very focused on that. It's allowing me to connect
with people who are also aligned around those things. [MUSIC PLAYING] The common thread
that unites us is that we all live in
these really tiny homes. And even though we're
very different people, that's enough of
a shared identity to create a sense of solidarity. I lived in Ghana for five years,
on and off for five years. Nathan lived in
Honduras for a year. And when you travel
and live in countries that are not the States, you
feel a sense of community, especially in more rural areas. And the houses are smaller. People are living more outside. People are living
with each other, like they're interacting
with each other daily. They're cooking
meals for each other. They're taking care of each
other when they're sick. And you get that sense of
community living abroad. And we both felt that missing
here in the States, at least in the places that we've lived. And we wanted to recreate that. And I'd say folks
moved in October, so it's only been six months. But I had a surgery recently. And that was like
the first time-- I'm going to get teary. The first time that I
really felt the community that we wanted exists. And I came back, and there
was food in our fridge. Folks had walked our
dogs for a few days because it was an emergency. They had walked our
dogs while we were gone. They had left us flowers, left
us food, came over every day to visit and cheer us up. And so everything that we wanted
and envisioned for a community all coalesced in that moment. And that was really,
really beautiful. Thank you for watching our video
and for stopping by Tiny House Expedition. I'm Alexis. And I'm Christian. Don't forget to like,
comment, and subscribe. And for more tiny home
tours and stories, click the videos below. And join us on Instagram
for bonus content. Including face-to-face
conversations with us. [LAUGHS] We hope
to see you there. All right. Thanks, guys. Have a good one.
