Jay Shafer's Stunning $5,000 Tiny House

20 years ago Jay Shafer built his very first tiny house on wheels and that moment gave birth to an entire movement of innovative and affordable housing that is why today it is so exciting for me to be here in Sebastopol visiting Jay and his brand-new house design that incredibly costs less than five thousand dollars to belt [Music] hey J hey Brice great to see you mate good to see you and it is so incredible for me to be here now seeing your brand new tiny house because you really are the man who started this modern tiny house movement on you kind of a godfather of tiny homes I'd like to think so and what I love about your new project is with this house you're really rethinking things and taking it right back to basics on you yeah just continuing with the efficiency thing even beyond sighs you know just reducing the space is good that's number one but also the amount of material and all the life energy that goes into a house and the money is part of that too so affordability efficiency all around all that kind of waste is just trying to get rid of it so tell me about your new design and what you're actually doing with this tiny house okay this one's particularly fun for me it's taken longer than any other house to design for me because it is the most simple of my designs yet and paring it down to the essence of home and just trying to really make clever use of materials so it is the most insulated most bomber tiny house I've built yet so this thing's is less than 2,000 pounds cost less than $5,000 in materials and so I wind up with a very affordable very lightweight house that I can pull with almost any car that's so incredible because I know that so many people who are following the tiny house movement they're slowly almost watching tiny homes become more and more unaffordable in so many cases so I know that for so many people they'll see this design realize that it can be accomplished for under $5,000 and that's a game-changer isn't it yeah I'm living here in like the heart of homeless country Sonoma County is very beautiful and the whole Bay Area is gorgeous it's also home to a lot of homeless folks and I have been one of them in the past so I know the first thing you need is a roof overhead beyond that the bathroom kitchen all of that's great but first let's just get people how simply and to address people's aesthetic needs which we do have is important we don't want to necessarily live in cardboard boxes or blue tarps they have their merit too in fact I was gonna side my house in a blue tarp just to make a point but yeah a well-proportioned blue tarp well as much as I love topology I am happy that you have wooden Claddagh because it isn't gorgeous can you tell me a little bit about the materials that I used in this and how you've achieved this build for under two thousand pounds because that's remarkable well I wasn't even sure what the final siding or or finished materials would be when I started I just started knowing that the core would be foam board to keep it very light I mean I had a Dryden house that only weighed 80 pounds at one point that's before I put in the doors and windows and put on the siding the siding I was torn between MgO like smearing fireproof masonry on the outside but I went with the wood very lightweight bender board which is only 1/4 inch thick so it's very lightweight and not excessive at all one of the things that I've always said about tiny houses and really any house in general is that we may live in them but the whole wrist of the wealth has to look at them and one of the reasons I've always been such a fan of your design is you really focus on the aesthetics of the structure I love how you incorporate sacred geometry in your dimensions and I love how you really build quintessentially very attractive homes to look at can you talk to me about that yeah that's one of the most fun things for me is the challenge of boiling the aesthetics down to the essence of what it is that makes a home feel homey the archetypal forms of home like the gabled roof I like it's not mandatory as long as you get the proportions right things do tend to feel homey but I'd love to play around with with those basic forms of home the design of a tiny house for me is you know it succeeds when there's nothing there that's extra in terms of painting and music and all it's all about editing I think you don't just take your favorite note and stick it in the middle of the song because it's your favorite note it just doesn't work it's compositional so having a where everything relates to everything else and that relates to the world beyond is my idea of a strong composition and let's talk dimensions for this tiny house cuz this is a little one isn't it this is as small as I've gone with my personal houses 80 inches by a hundred inches that's like well in American terms that's seven feet by eight feet I wanted it that way not only because I don't need the extra space but because that makes it really easy to tow around and before we go inside I just want to chat a little bit about the trailer that this is built on because it's quite unusual what you've done here isn't it yeah this is unusual for my stuff and a lot of things design themselves at a certain point and when I found a trailer that only cost 800 bucks and could carry just 2,000 pounds that pretty much determined the size of my house and how heavy it would be I think I might put it on pontoons now I'm not sure I could I could hoist it into a tree if I wanted to I love it and this would look great floating I could totally see that I see it too I see a bunch of them actually just a little village on the water oh that would be exciting yeah well she would check out the inside and check out what you've done with that design yeah all right let's do it [Applause] they're a bit tall just a little bit but this is lovely what you've done with this place thank you I really like it you know I'm just finishing it up now so it's starting to feel less like a project and more like a home everyday it feels very organic but it also has that like very kind of classy element to it as well doesn't it I'm glad you think so you know I'm a big fan of authenticity so showing materials and simplicity of course so yeah I think that simplicity always comes off as a bit classy tell me how you've laid this all out to make it work because there's not a big full area here is there it's funny this simplification thing is just not necessarily easy in the end it shouldn't look easy it's bound to look easy but I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could get a sense of volume in here considering it's only like 7 feet by 8 feet on the outside so having this little pinch as you walk through the door and then opening up into this relatively cavernous what 6 foot by 6 foot room is part of it and then the layout with this l-shape is as intended to welcome you it's all subtle stuff I would never expect anybody to perceive although my six-year-old boy came in it's like Papa it's cozy it's the layout of the cabinets it makes it cozy I'm like oh my gosh you're brilliant thanks for noticing that is one thing because for the size of this space you've managed to fit a tremendous amount of storage in here yeah just because you live small doesn't mean you're not gonna have a bit of stuff in fact I found that the smaller the design the more storage per square foot or cubic foot is necessary so this place has a lot actually it has more storage than I really need for the stuff I use daily I really like this feeling of pinching the entryway down with closets on each side that's where I access most of my storage like the hanging clothes the bigger closets and above that entry space is the loft which my boys can sleep in or for now anyway I'm using a storage so talk to me about the bed area here the bed is the couch every is something and something else I guess you would call it a daybed or a sofa bed it's the Demetri Martin sofa bed where it's bed I mean it's a couch lie-down it's a bed the bed area also loops around and turns into the desk which is also a bench I'm not really into the transforming furniture thing and was it super easy talk to me about this little contraption down here what's that doing I'm really proud of how frugal I was in creating this thing so I went to salvage yard a lot and I gathered up some materials for a fireplace a candle can heat this whole place in this climate California that said being so small even a candle consumes oxygen puts out a bit of carbon monoxide so I figured I was going to build a glorified candle holder that bents to the outside and sucks air in to feed it and that's what I did I built a little fireplace in the end I also hooked up propane so it doesn't have to be a candle it can be a gas fireplace fantastic that is such a clever idea Thanks so obviously with such a simple design your needs also become simplified but can you talk to me a little bit about what the plan is in this home for things like electricity water if there is any when I built my first tiny house I was a little bit apprehensive about like phone service because I wanted to live off-grid and it's like well how do you get a phone off grid if you don't have wires and then I heard about this thing called a cell phone which was like this big and I got one of those and since then of course everything could be on the phone put a roof on my phone I probably set electricity to charge the phone and my laptop is pretty much all I need in terms of electricity I also have a little light that's solar-powered it's self-contained it doesn't need to be hooked up to anything so water I don't have any need for water in this primary living area but if I do a bathroom on the side or a kitchen on the other side I'll have gravity-fed so I can just collect the rainwater off the roof yeah keeping it simple like that is the way like to go and obviously you haven't got a shower in this space so what are you doing while you're parked up here so uh in line with the concept of the house I have a shared shower and now I have access to a kitchen that's shared and that really does reduce your costs because then you're sharing these basic amenities and I'm not always in the bathroom so I don't see why I shouldn't be sharing it this tiny house really has been such a journey for you has an and I know you mentioned before that you've even had a stunt where you've been homeless can you talk to me about that and we're the tiny house and everything fits into that for you you know every time I'm asked why did I build my first tiny house I have a different answer there's so many reasons I guess there was no reason why not for me but one of the reasons I really don't I haven't talked about at all in the media is that I was homeless before I built that house well it's it's funny my first tiny house was inspired by need mostly I needed more than just a car to live and it seemed I was an artist I still I am an artist I wanted to make something artful and I decided to live in my own art live more artfully and that's one answer of many as to why I first built a tiny house recently I returned to homelessness again when the the interesting legal system we have here in the United States basically got me out on the streets and I was forced to live with virtually nothing in terms of cash or any other resources and at that point it becomes clear again just like it was before I built my first house that a simple box waterproof at least a roof overhead that's nine steps towards the 10 steps that it takes to get there towards comfort I'm sorry that you had to experience that that's a heck of a thing to have gone through but it's so inspiring to see the way that you have taken those experiences and transformed them into such an incredible endeavor I mean you really are the catalyst for this modern tiny house movement those experiences in your first home are really what has started the whole thing and I love the way that now with this new design here you're really taking it back to its very cool values and what I love about this home what I love about what you bring to the tiny house movement is just the amount of authenticity and heart and true beauty and design because it's just so important and so needed thank you yeah you're bringing tears to me are that's why later though camera yeah I'm always gonna design houses it seems because that's what I love to do that's my happy place I spend way too much time just geeking out with paper and pencil and tiny house ideas you know having been homeless myself I think has been an excellent educator for me I never thought I would say it but I'm lucky to have been in that situation because I can really see what is necessary you know everybody could have a house nobody should be living on the street as far as I'm concerned nobody should be going hungry it'd be far more affordable to actually provide such things to people than not and with a place like this that should be possible so when I designed this house like every house I've designed I designed it for me because my needs are so simple and I have experienced a degree of simplicity I would rather not experience again in other words too little without enough not enough food or not enough shelter overhead but I like to think that something like this could be used easily and very practically for the greater good and I just think that it's important from my perspective to actually have a house that holds together in every way that addresses our needs and in terms of design that's just a great challenge trying to boil things down to the essence is really what it's all about I truly love what you have accomplished with the design of this home I love the philosophy behind it I love the materials the simplicity everything just worked so well on a personal level I like I really owe you a huge thank-you for your journey and for your contribution to tiny homes in the world because if it wasn't for you and what you have done I wouldn't be standing where I am so thank you so much and thank you so much for sharing your beautiful home with me thanks grace thank you I have always been such a tremendous fan of Jay Shafer and his design philosophy and this home is no exception there is such a humanitarian element to the build of this home which truly looks after people's most basic and innate needs and that really is something very beautiful [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 3,727,383

Keywords: tiny house, tiny home, jay shafer, small house movement, small house, tiny houses, small home, small space, simple living, tiny house on wheels, tiny homes, tiny house tour, tiny house movement, tiny house living, living big in a tiny house, tiny house building, diy tiny house, debt free living, jay shafer tiny house tour, jay shafer 2018, jay shafer tiny house company, tiny homes for homeless, small house movement usa, small house design ideas, affordable home

Id: kokfI0vn9ZM

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 08 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Do_not_use_after]

Nowhere to cook, nowhere to wash, nowhere to put books or hobby matierials, nowhere to dry clothes or put wet overcoats, no music, no internet, no garden tools, nowhere for tools to maintain the hut, no refridgerator, no work clothes.

Not really living at all, just existing in a tent with a hard shell.

[u/Kazenak]

$5,000 in materials with no bathroom nor kitchen.

[u/dimechimes]

Feel like I could buy twice the home for half the cost. It's called a shed.

[u/DakAttakk]

This is a really neat like hobby type thing, but this isn't livable to today's standards. I think it's really neet in the craftsmanship is great. Having said that my first thought was "this is like your first Minecraft dirt shack"

[u/Tinyhousecitizen]

Wow, a nice looking tiny house so cute, Anyways have you guys ever thought of getting a compact appliance? Getting compact appliances for your tiny house can be viable for a first-time owner.