Building My Dream Tiny Home For Under $8000

you know the drill take out a mortgage buy a nice house in the suburbs work a desk job for the next 40 years to pay it off retire and die it's the american dream that's not a dream that's a nightmare but in a world full of white picket fences there's people who think differently they're the innovators the creators the doers the people who value experiences over things and simplicity over riches the van lifers the container home architects and everything in between this is the tiny home movement ever since i first heard about tiny homes i've been absolutely obsessed i just think they're so cozy and fun and i love the concept of living more simply it's been a dream of mine for years to build my own tiny home but how would someone like me make that happen i mean i have zero construction experience no land to put one on and i'm the most generally clueless person to ever exist but one thing i've learned is to make things happen you really don't need to know what you're doing at the start but you do need to take action so let's get started first i found my trailer an old car hauler from facebook marketplace it was a little bit rusty and worn down but under its blemishes i saw a huge potential i tore all the railing on this bad boy apart because everything sticking up had to go if i'm gonna be the picasso of tiny homes i need a blank canvas so that's what i made i used some old reclaimed boards to provide cross support and create a level base then i got to work on framing the base and bolted it directly to the metal so it wouldn't fly off later i had no idea what i was doing but what i did know is that bob the builder had nothing on me i sealed up the bottom with particle board and even put spray foam in the corners to keep out the creepy crap my friend joe had this dummy thick foam left over from insulating his garage so i used it for the base and it worked great papa's little piggies are gonna be warm on this floor and over the top i added particle board underlayment which would later be covered by a layer of plywood i'm not too sure what underlayment is but an old guy down the street told me it's important so we're rolling with it we're going to build a wall it's going to be built my walls had to be built around the fenders of the trailer so i started from the bottom and worked my way up from there i designed and built each of these walls flat on the driveway and then carried them over to the trailer from there at this point you might be wondering how i planned out the design for this build and to be totally honest i really didn't i had a general idea of what i wanted it to look like but for the most part i was just kind of like yeah that seems like a good height for a window yeah let's put the door back there six feet tall for the loft i'm sure i won't bonk my head on that while recording youtube videos one by one my walls came to life and the trailer transformed into an organized disaster thanks to youtube tutorials i went from being a really bad carpenter to being a fairly bad carpenter was it easy for an ostrich looking fellow like myself to do all this work no was it a good workout also no i'm pretty sure i actually broke my back lifting these things today i'm framing the roof and for the joists i'm using these two by six boards on each side of these two by sixes i'm carving out a little doobladoo just so that it fits better with the framing my boards were looking thick and my doobladoos were looking deep and we all know that's the recipe for a perfect roof this rusty old trailer was finally starting to look like a house a really small one but still so the next thing i did to add just a little bit of structural support is i took some of this plumber's tape and i wrapped this stuff around all the corners just so that when this is out on the road going around bends and stuff it'll stay together and have a little bit more structural support when it's trying to swing out and i did the exact same thing with these little braces on the upper corners because triangles are strong and on every single corner i put one of these braces because i'm not trying to see my hard work fall apart and just like that my beautiful beautiful skeleton is all done and it's time to add the meat that sounds messed up most people go with thicker plywood for the sheathing but i went with quarter inch just because it's lighter and cheaper this entire process took me about three days but you guys get a 10 second montage [Music] so now that i'm all done with the sheathing i need to make this loft thing that i'll be sleeping in so i already built the frame and i put some extra boards on the side so that it's all secure all around next i'm going to take some plywood and put it on top and i used one inch to make sure it could hold up my dump truck i had to do a lot of trigonometry to figure out the angles for the boards up top so good thing i was a nerd in high school i added this cute little square to the frame for the skylight to go into and we were ready for the roof for the roof i used half-inch plywood because i felt like this is something that should actually be sturdy and it's right about this time that i started gaining some self-confidence not gonna lie i really didn't think i'd make it this far i thought i was an absolute clown with power tools who had no chance of making this happen but what i proved to myself is that i was a clown with power tools he was gonna make this happen after all next it was time for weatherproofing so i put this tar-filled fruit roll up from the underworld over the roof it's called an ice and rain shield and it's really nasty but it'll help protect the roof from the elements the next step in the tiny home build is for me to install the house wrap which is kind of like a big piece of wrapping paper for the home that waterproofs it and protects it from the outside world normally you see tyvek home wrap on houses but i have this knock off stuff because i'm cheap people usually staple this stuff up but i'm gonna use these plastic cap screws instead because each staple would just leave a little hole that water could get in and these things are watertight so there's a really specific way you have to cut out the windows and luckily i found a video where stephen king taught me how we're all done cutting this thing out so the next thing i'm putting up is this membrane and it's kind of this sticky nasty black tape that'll create a squishy layer in between the window and the window sill and protect it from any water coming in the next step is to put in the windows for each window i put a line of silicone caulk around the edge and then applied the membrane to make them watertight my fortress was looking more beautiful by the minute then i did the exact same thing with the door which was really nice because then i could finally go inside again and it's important to note that i use tempered glass for all the glass in this build since it'll be out on the road and needs to be strong then i watched enough youtube tutorials in a single night to become an expert on metal roofing i flashed the edges and then screwed the panels down with watertight roofing screws then i found a cool tool at home depot to cut the metal with and i was really excited because this looks dope at 60 frames per second then i added flashing to the skylight and that's really important because that's where i'm to be sleeping i actually had to drive all the way to idaho to get these roofing materials because in wyoming we don't have many stores that's right i had to saddle up a moose and ride it over the hills to get this roof but it was all worth it all right the next step is to put the siding on and i feel like the siding is really what's going to give this home a unique feel and really make it come alive just like i did with the roof i became an overnight expert on metal siding you pretty much just put up these metal brackets on the perimeter and then slide a sheet of metal into them this process was pretty tedious but it was also really fun it kind of feels like building legos also can we just talk about how mentally good for me this build was not only was i learning a new set of skills every day but time spent working became very calming and therapeutic i think just the process of building a tiny home could have huge positive impact on anyone you should try it out i'm really glad i'm painting it because honestly i low-key hate this color scheme it looks like i'm trying to open a mobile unit for red lobster what are your thoughts on the exterior right now oh it looks amazing i just think you've done so much with it so the next thing i need to do is sand off all the rest on the trailer honestly i should have done this first thing but i was just so overly ambitious now's better than never so let's start grinding [Music] i'm all done sanding this thing i think all the rust is off the surface that was absolutely horrible so the next step before i start applying paint is i'm going to go around and rub this thing down with denatured alcohol and what that's going to do is it's just going to kind of clean up any dust make sure it's a totally clean surface that when i put that paint on it sticks directly to the metal and in the middle of working look who came to check out the tiny home hey what's up it's your boy let's go check this thing out looks pretty boozy from the outside bro oh snap you got that little window there you can stargaze look i'm a big guy look i can stretch out completely i can look up at the stars if you play tonight i'm in the woods if the squatch peeks over i can say hi i just can't believe it can fit my fat ass you know what i'm saying time to get all the metal painted today and what i'm using to paint it is this valspar anti-rust paint up until this point i did everything by myself so it was really nice to have an extra set of hands to help it kept raining on and off throughout the day which got really annoying but we had to tarp and we got her done for the trim i used these cedar boards and treated it with a stain and poly mix you know what i say i like my cedar how i like my coffee so i stained it black i'm edgy for the door i did the exact same thing with cedar and then i used this walnut color to stain it and i'm pretty sure that's not what walnuts look like but we're gonna roll with it the last step of the build was to put in the cedar siding and for this i used tongue and groove cedar boards and that same walnut stain i had to stain each board individually which made this a super repetitive tedious process i secured the boards to the wall using these waterproof brass screws and i put them in right on the tongue to make the pattern happen the process was slow but one board at a time i came closer to being the owner of a tiny home and after a long summer of work not even knowing if it'd all be worth it i was done that's right papa dave's got his tiny home isn't it beautiful it looks better than i would have ever imagined but the real test is will it survive on the road you better believe it worked this thing was smooth sailing it was about as aerodynamic as a potato but it was pulling just fine and i was stoked out of my mind and that's how i turned my dream of building a tiny home into a reality and became a homeowner even if the home is only 150 square feet it still counts between the trailer lumber windows siding etc this entire build costed about eight grand which i'm actually really happy with and of course that's just the exterior i'll have an interior video coming at you as soon as i'm done with that all right it's time for you to get off youtube and go build a tiny home bye [Music]

Channel: David Rule

Views: 3,919,421

Keywords: tiny home, tiny living

Id: BIZorMuD0vE

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 07 2022