Off-Grid Tiny House Paradise With Geodesic Dome Greenhouse

when I think of the future of tiny houses the homes themselves are only a very small part of the equation more so it's about the community that springs up around them as well as all of the infrastructure here in British Columbia today we have found the seeds of a very exciting project that is about to bloom into something incredible [Music] hi Kathleen price lovely to meet you nice to meet you too welcome oh my gosh I am completely in love with your house thank you I am too this location is just absolutely breathtaking it is stunning mountain views in every direction and the lake out in front sleeping gratitude so how did you actually come to be here in this spot many years ago I followed my favorite rock band out here and kind of discovered the area and then I was looking online thinking I want to buy some land and found this beautiful huge piece of land it's 380 acres way beyond my means but I spoke to my brother about some of the resources out here in his eyes just kind of lit up and it kind of became his passion project as well so our idea is to develop kind of a sustainable community where we live in harmony and small footprint and yam and a beautiful spot and then you've got the tiny house here so how did that all come about well you're kind of responsible for that in a lot of ways I started out just kind of wanting to be a minimalist my daughter and I we lived in a big house in the city and we just watched all of your videos and started thinking well how can we make this work I left in a very busy big city did the whole marriage kids living in suburbia chasing the mortgage being laid off two or three times and having to start over when it happened this last time it's like do I want to keep chasing the mortgage keep chasing all these payments and money money money and I decided it was a good time in my life to make a big change so I sold my big city house and all my belongings and I built a tiny house in BC and my daughter moved to Nova Scotia and built a tiny house there and yeah it was just simplifying life less objects to take care of and move around I'm so thrilled to know that I'm partly responsible for this incredible creation and how cool is well that you could actually do that with your daughter and actually how selling your home became two homes yes absolutely cuz we didn't need all that space and it was just the two of us at that point we just kind of followed our soul pals now it looks like you're actually doing some other really amazing things on this property I couldn't help notice those geodesic domes as we came in yes that was part of the plan too we wanted to be able to grow our own food generate our own energy and just you know live beautifully and you forget what good food tastes like so yeah we decided on year-round growing these domes were developed for growing in the Rocky Mountains where we are so in theory we can grow summer in winter and yeah it's just kind of part of the whole being in harmony and simplifying things well I would love to go over and take a look at those a bit later but first we should talk about this incredible house so I've noticed you've skirted everything in for the winter yeah since I'll be mostly stationary I might move in you know a few years but since I'm here we skirted and insulated and it's really clear what you've done over there at the hitch end as well we eventually you've got the shed built into it yeah and fully insulated as well but I thought it's empty space I could use it for storage and you've built this incredible deck yeah and I wanted no railings on it so I just kind of feel like I'm part of the forest and how big is this home actually the flat deck of the trailer is 30 and then eight feet for the gooseneck so about 38 feet long and we're about 9 to 10 feet wide well I would absolutely love to have a look inside the house and say what you're doing well come on in alright thank you oh my goodness this place is beyond beautiful thank you I'm very comfortable here you're immediately greeted by this wonderful and really cozy looking lounge yeah and it's it's big enough to fit several people or just me and have a lounger I can have it as a desk or an eating table it has a lot of functions it can be kind of a big l-shaped couch some of the furniture is movable so I sometimes have a queen-size bed it's nice to be able to to mix things up a little bit and then above that space it looks like you have a guest loft a guest loft yeah it's not super high for Headroom but it's excellent for sleeping and then I have a little perch here I like to pretend I'm a bird and sit up on my perch in the winter and drink my tea cuz it the heat from the fire goes up there and it's just a nice place to kind of hang out you know just another little space in your house you can go and read a book or I have binoculars up there some oats buying the birds and stuff out the windows I bet the wildlife around here is just spectacular sandless I've seen so many bald eagles I can't believe it and then you've got this wonderful wood stove to keep you warm I do it's a hobbit wood stove it's one of the smallest wood stoves you can takes teeny-tiny little wood but it heats the space beautifully and as this additional storage in the space here it is one thing I noticed with many tiny houses is they didn't consider where you'd hang your coats or put your brooms or your boots and stuff and we have many seasons here so it was nice to have a closet tiny home and then moving into the kitchen space you've got a lot of room to work in here I do yeah it was a nice sized kitchen and washer and dryer combo which is nice you've got full-size appliances everywhere um they're actually a little bit smaller they're 24 inch appliances and the fridge is just a little taller so you get just about as much room and freezer in the bottom fridge up top and nice having counter top on both sides and a place to kind of wash and dry your dishes one of the things that I really like about this whole home is all of the little wooden details everywhere like these gorgeous live-edge windows so yeah and I asked that to do them everywhere on the main floor here because each one's like a work of art yeah just bringing a little nature in here and leaving it in its natural form the mason jar light fittings look great up there too yeah they were a dream of mine and I did a little research and found you could buy parts online and kind of do-it-yourself projects I did it in the bathroom as well and speaking of the bathroom shall we have a look at that absolutely all right this is my piece de resistance my tub it's huge it is but I do a lot of great thinking in there and it was my one thing as they build a tiny house around this tub because this tub scaling and the placement of that window as well what an incredible view you have right from your hot tub yeah and you can sit in the tub and see the stars at night when the full moon is so it just pours in here and lights up the tiles it's pretty spectacular I might have to move into this one yeah and then behind us we've got the basin and toilet yes we do I decided to go with a flush toilet because of regulations in the area I was gonna do composting but they require a flush toilet and a septic system so I don't mind it it's a luxury for sure one of my favorite things about the bathroom is the doors that Nelson tiny houses built they do this gorgeous metal hardware don't they yeah they do yeah it just brings in so much rustic charm yeah that's certainly a mix of like rustic and modern and then the bedrooms are here it is just up a few steps into the gooseneck part of the trailer after you thank you Wow look at all the art in here yeah it's a little bit too much art for the small space but it's something I couldn't give up I've painted them and they had to come with me I actually think it fits the space brilliantly and how cool that you can actually showcase all of your art this is like your own private bedroom gallery it is yeah not too many people have to see it and is this it don't be down here it is a dog bed I've always been a cat person and they said no he gotta have a dog out here so I got a puppy a year ago she's awesome she's a big dog so this is her little bed space in here and this bedroom space is just so nice it really does make a quite a big difference to be able to stand up in your bedroom doesn't it oh it sure does yeah and that was on my wish list as well yeah I'm getting too old to crawl up in a loft all the time so obviously this tiny house on the property is part of kind of a much larger project we've got the solar system and the geodesic greenhouses and all that sort of thing but just for this tiny house what was the cost of this project I'm gonna say it's between like ninety thousand and a hundred thousand I went for quite a high-end trailer and I can't explode myself in certain areas so it's a little pricier than most tiny homes but it's cheaper than a regular house for sure certainly is and I think that investment was well worth it to get this level of quality and finishing arms yeah because really it is a home people think oh it's a tiny house but really it's got everything that a regular house does you've been living in this home now for two years how are you finding it I love it like I honestly I have zero regrets doing this I'm definitely not stressed anymore it's funny when I was back in my stressful life I'd go to to Maui for a couple of weeks and I'd refer to myself as Island CAF because there's almost like a different persona showed up in Hawaii and I find that is here as well as you don't sweat the small stuff you live more in the moment he appreciates you know the sounds of the birds and the sound of the water and all the stuff you can pick up when you turn off all the outer world noise it's where we're supposed to be we're supposed to be reconnecting with the earth and the environment even when you're having a bad day you look around you say well been a bad day in a place like this it's pretty bearable now if it's okay with you I would love for us to go and see some of those duties at greenhouses cuz they just look so interesting to me let's do it so what was actually the reason for building all of these big geo domes here kind of part of the whole sustainable community type idea we can grow our own food here generate our own power and live simply an off the grid and you eventually turned growing food in these domes into a business haven't you I have yeah I named the company dome growing organics it's just been a year but it's pretty exciting and what's going on in this big shipping container yet um that's kind of the heart and soul of our power system we have a big array of solar panels on the roof of it and Irey of solar panels out in the field here and yeah it's the brains behind what turns on my lights every night can we have a quick peek inside and see what's going on in there absolutely Wow this is a serious operation you've got going on it is yeah it's been an interesting project for sure and we've over built it and allowed room for expansion because it's going to power the whole site and right now I'm kind of I guess the guinea pig but yeah mostly it's just powering me and the domes right now so how did you actually go about constructing these geo domes so we basically ordered them out of the states they send a supervisor and then we had a construction crew did insulated concrete form for the bottoms to help insulate things and it took them I think probably about six weeks to do the three domes hot hot work but well worth it absolutely and I can't wait to see what you've done inside here come on in welcome to the dome it is just abundance in here isn't it yet we've got lots of tomato some peppers or they're all coming in to harvest now we're kinda at the end of one season and about to go into another so it's a good time to sneak some tomatoes out of here what's that sound oh we have a resident frog actually there are quite a few residents in here but he's a cute little frog I named Fernando and I think he probably helps eat the bugs in here very three so did you have any experience with sitting all this Apple was it just a bit of a learning curve a little of both I do like to grow things so I kind of had a natural knack for that but I've never grown in this environment or year-round so yeah part of the fun of it is just figuring it all out I grow my peppers and tomatoes my old favorites but I also tried alpine strawberries and popcorn and cantaloupe and carrots we have peppers starting to ripen up here and then you've got the Giant pull over there as well as that designed for aquaponics in here or its main purpose is kind of as a thermal mass in the greenhouse so it keeps things cool in the summer and warm in the winter there's like a reflective wall on the north that reflects the Sun in the water or away from the water depending on the time of year so it helps with the environment in here and how cool to know that this is supplying so many restaurants and places in the area for their food yeah and I was lucky because this area is really into local sourcing and fresh fruit whole culture of you know let's be sustainable within our community so I was welcomed with open arms like I don't have enough produce to fill all the orders so that's a good position to be in it really is something to be able to step outside and just look at these domes they really just have such prisons don't they they really do it almost has a really futuristic feeling yeah you sometimes roll up onto this site and think am I on a different planet and speaking of the future what do you think the future holds for you what do you see is next for this space definitely grow the business a little more try and get some more produce happen again yeah just enjoy life well wherever the future takes you I'm sure it's gonna be really exciting your tiny house is just beautiful this location is breathtaking and everything that you've accomplished here with these domes is just a monumental achievement thank you so much for showing me around thank you for coming it's been a group project here lots of hands in but yeah we're pretty happy with the progress and look forward to the future when I envision a utopian future it looks a lot like this tiny houses sustainability community renewable energy and abundant organic produce now who can argue with that [Music]

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 1,470,001

Rating: 4.9371214 out of 5

Keywords: Tiny House, Off The Grid, Geodesic Dome, Organic Food, Community, Sustainable, Solar Power, Tiny House Community, Geodesic, Aquaponics, Hydroponics, Growing Food, Organic, Living Big in a Tiny House, Dome Greenhouse, Greenhouse, Off Grid Tiny House, Small Powerstation, Shipping Container, Bryce Langston

Id: GRiIxe3GfCs

Length: 14min 6sec (846 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 21 2017