[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Nathan. And I'm Callie. We're in Hall River,
North Carolina. At Cranmore Meadows'
tiny home community. And this is our tiny home. I met Nathan, he worked on our
website for our non-profit. And we fell madly in love. And fell in love with tiny
houses along the way too. And now we have this
beautiful community called Cranmore Meadows. Nathan was in love with tiny
houses from the very beginning. I found an email
from 2009 that I wrote to a friend, that was
just like some random Tumbleweed model. And I was just like,
have you seen this? This is awesome. And so we hadn't met until
2012, so at least three years I had been kind of
thinking about it. And as part of our-- as Callie mentioned, our
wedding registry, we-- and even our wedding invitations
have a little tiny house with the "just married"
cans on the back. So it was featured
very prominently. You always used to tell me
that when you first told me that you were into tiny houses
and I was like, oh yeah, that's really cool. I'd be into that. Because I had lived
and gone in small spaces on and off for six years. And so he said it was love at
first sight when he told me. [LAUGHS] It was meant to be. As soon as she was
open to the idea, I knew that we have the winner. Yeah, right, I know. Behind us is our custom-built
tiny home, Polaris. It's our North Star,
our guiding light. And we built it about
seven years ago. Took two years to build. It's 8' by 20" feet. The total square footage
is about 250 square feet, if you count both lofts. We're excited to show
you our tiny house. Let's go take a look. [COOL MUSIC PLAYING] Here's our fence. It is to enclose these
wild mutts, Beasley, Topay, and Toro. Come on in. So the first thing you'll
notice in our house as you enter the yard is
we've got teal everywhere. That's an accent color that
we picked relatively early on. And so whenever we're deciding
what to do, we always ask, does it come in teal? So you'll see we have these
rocking chairs that are teal. And when Callie decided to block
with a skirt along the deck here, she chose
these planter boxes. We painted those teal. And you'll see teal
throughout the house as we go. But that was one feature that's
the first thing you'll notice. So other than using
the yard for our dogs, we also have a beautiful
garden back here that definitely needs to
be weeded this season. We haven't gotten
to that yet, but we will put lots of vegetables
in this fairly soon. We use this guy for
rainwater catchment, and to feed our garden here. Looking at the outside
there's a couple of things you'll
notice about the way that we designed this house
using every available portion. This is the trailer
tongue, obviously. So on this end you have
a little bit of space, and it's common in
tiny houses for people to box it in and enclose
it for extra room. You're going to see, when we
go inside, what's in here. But on the outside we
use this space for our-- we have a whole
house water filter, we also have a UV filter,
which purifies water. When you're in a tiny
house you don't necessarily know where your water is
coming from, and so that way we can purify it, and then
take any sediment out. And then on the other side, we
have the water heater, which is a propane water heater. And it exhausts just through
this little vent right here. And we also included
an outdoor spigot. And this is something I don't
see enough tiny houses do. But I really think
that if you're going to be doing any kind
of gardening or cleaning or washing or bathing dogs,
[LAUGHS] or anything at all you really want to
have, so I would recommend that you always put on
one of these exterior spigots. So you'll see here behind us we
have our deck and screened-in porch. And our deck
footprint is actually bigger than our tiny
house footprint, it is 10' by 20" feet. And half of it is
screened-in, and half of it is covered with clear plastic. So it allows the
sunshine to come through because we have lots of
windows in our tiny home, and we want that light
in our tiny home. And then the screened-in porch
in North Carolina, as you know, there are many bugs. So it allows us
to eat in comfort for most seasons of the year. It looks like the porch
is integral to the house, but it's actually freestanding. Theoretically you could hook up
the tiny house and drive away, and the entire porch would
still be standing here. And that's important
just because we wanted it to be modular. So that when we came
from the last location where we constructed
it, we actually brought the deck with us here. And it was tricky, but
it's the kind of thing that if you're going to
move your tiny house, you want to be able to bring
your deck with you too. Well, that's most
of the exterior, why don't we take a look inside? [COOL MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the inside
of our tiny home. One thing you'll
notice when you walk in is there's a lot of light. There are 14 windows
throughout, and they've all been reclaimed, except for two. But the windows, like
a lot of the materials, we gathered from other places. And we tried to incorporate
as many reclaimed materials as we could. One of the cool
things about our sofa is that it is a transformer. It has three different uses. It is a sectional sofa, it is
a dining area with a table, and it is also a day bed, and
serves for hosting guests. And we had custom cushions
made, of course, in teal. And we also had custom cushion
covers made for the dogs, and they're washable. So we worked with our friend
and local cabinetmaker to build this custom sofa. All of the drawers are storage. And this drawer pulls
out to create a day bed. We have cushions that are
placed on top of this. And you can see, too,
this is our table top. So this thing right
here is a screw-in table stand that you
will see on boats. And so we put the
tabletop on top of here. And we use this when
it's too cold or too hot outside for most of our dining. We also store our post for
the table up here, and kind of out of sight, out of the way. We also have a ladder, and
it's a lightweight RV ladder that we store up here,
again, out of the way for our secondary loft up here. So since we've been living
in this space for five years, our space has changed over time. And this used to be
my office up here. I had a sitting desk up here,
and would work half the time from home. And Nathan would have a standing
desk here, and work also from home. But when COVID hit, it was a
little bit too close quarters, and we were often
talking over each other. So we ended up building a
separate standing office outside. And so now we use the
space for reading, for playing guitar,
for playing games. It's just kind of a fun
little reading nook loft. Thanks to our sponsor, Picnic. Do you suffer from
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and the promotion will be automatically applied. Opposite the French
doors in the entrance you'll find the kitchen here. As in most tiny houses,
most of the interior space is devoted to kitchen. In this particular build
we did a couple of things. These cabinets are all custom. We had to go to great lengths
to get our door dishwasher to fit under the sink because
under a sink that's this deep, you have lots of plumbing. And so it became
very, very tricky. But you might notice
there was no other place for the dishwasher to go. And with great effort
we made it work. And we love our
little dishwasher. It's I think absolutely
essential for us just because you don't want to
have dishes all over your sink all the time. The countertop is
poured concrete. This is something
we did ourselves. We looked at a lot
of different options, and we ended up pouring this. And also the one in the bathroom
is also poured concrete in. It's held up really well. We like it a lot, it's smooth. You have to wax it
somewhat frequently, but it's really, really durable. And the gray matches our
gray and teal color scheme. Pretty deep sink, we do a lot
of cooking, a lot of prep, so we're very happy with
how this has turned out. You'll see that in
the cabinets here it looks like there's an
empty space on the end, but we actually just turned
the cabinet sideways. So we actually have
all this space. And this is for things
like our vacuum cleaner and extra baking pans,
things like that. In the kitchen you'll notice
we have open shelving. And this was a really
deliberate decision. Inside of a tiny
house, when you have upper cabinets
that are enclosed, it can feel kind of crowded. When we decided to go
with the open shelving, we said, well, let's make it be
a decorative part of the build. So you'll see all the shelves
are aromatic red cedar, which is also the trim around
all of the windows. We actually commissioned
a potter in Durham to do all of our dishware
custom teal and gray, which is the same as our color scheme. The idea thinking that if you're
going to have open shelving, and you're going to be
seeing your dishware, then why not display it as art. Up here we have our mini split. And in our house this
serves as both the heating and the cooling. We keep the AC
most of the summer. We don't use the heater
that much, we have radiant heat in the floors. And that was an
early design decision that we're really happy about. It turns out that we can just
set the floor heat to maybe 55 degrees, and it just
stays on all winter. The power bill is really low. And we rarely, if
ever even, need to use this mini
split for the heat. And then you also get
a nice comfy floor. So here in the kitchen we do
a lot of cooking from scratch, so it was important
to us to organize it in a way that made it
easy to prepare meals. And so in this one spot
where I'm standing, I have access to
everything that we need to make a really good meal. So in this corner we have a four
burner propane gas countertop. We have a little oven here. This is like a 3/4 model,
so maybe 30 inches wide. Opposite me here is a
3/4 fridge, it's about 5' feet tall. And I can turn and reach for
whatever I need in the fridge, and can cook right here. I also have, in this drawer,
all of the oils and vinegars and marinades. I have all of the
spices we need, I have all of the serving spoons
and dishes and everything, and then all of my cookware
and pots and pans right here. In addition to our pantry here
with all of our dry goods. So essentially in this one
spot I don't have to move. And you can make your whole meal
without having to go anywhere. [LAUGHS] And that
is really important. One thing that was really
important as part of the build was getting a hood that
didn't just recirculate air, but that actually exhausted
it to the outside. Inside of a tiny house
humidity and moisture are really important to control,
especially in the summertime. And any time that you're
cooking or bathing, you generate a ton
of moisture and heat. So we wanted to make sure
that the hood exhausted to the outside, and we use
it any time we're cooking. We started building
in the fall of 2015. And there was not nearly
as many resources in 2015. I mean, now you can watch whole
builds from start to finish. But we paid the
$600 to Tumbleweed for the weekend
course in Raleigh. All day Saturday,
all day Sunday. We paid the-- for the $60
for the old DVD, you know, where the guy shows
the thing, or whatever, because YouTube did not have
a huge selection of people doing this. So at the time it was a little
bit trickier just because there wasn't as many resources. But we used Tumbleweed
because they had been around the longest. And our trailer comes
from Tumbleweed. And we had actually
bought Tumbleweed plans. By doing the workshop,
they actually gave you a discount on plans. And so we ended up buying the
plans but throwing them out, and just doing a
completely custom build. So Callie did most of the layout
of the 20 feet on graph paper, and using cardboard
cutouts and things. And she-- I think a lot of
the success of the build was her insight at the beginning
of deciding like, OK, we only have so much space so
you got to make sure you design it in a way that's
going to meet your needs. And it was very much build
it as we go type of process because we had limited
money, we were newlyweds. Nathan wasn't working, and
I was working full time to finance it. So it took about two years,
and we paid for it as we went. But most of the materials
you'll see in the house are all from reuse
warehouse, secondhand stores. And that saved a ton on
costs, but not a ton on time. [LAUGHTER] Our tiny house cost-- if you
don't include our own labor, which of course, we didn't. But if you include the labor
of some people that we paid and the materials, I peg it
around $45,000 is what we did. Callie seems to think it
was closer to $60,000, but I don't think that's right. So let's just say it's a range. Yeah, we kind of lost
track along the way because it took two years to do. So welcome to my wardrobe. It's a fairly decent sized
closet for a tiny home. And here you have all my hanging
clothes and hanging jewelry. This is unique but-- and maybe a little embarrassing. But this is clothes that
I don't get super dirty but want to wear
throughout the week, so I put them in this
little bin right here, and then push it back in. I have my little treasure chest
right here with all my jewelry. And then very deep-- I won't show you my
underwear drawer, [CHUCKLES] I got very deep drawers that
can fit lots of clothes. And this was very
important to me when I was working
professionally at the University
of North Carolina. That I have all this space. And this door is
actually important to me. We salvaged it from my
sister's barn in Vermont. We actually drove it
18 hours and a Prius with three dogs, which was
a very uncomfortable ride. And then we had the stained
glass commissioned on Etsy to fit inside of it. So it was really important to
us to have a full sized bathroom when we were designing
the tiny house plans because I was working full
time, and spent a lot of time getting ready. This bathroom is fairly
large for a bathroom that is in a 20' foot long tiny home. So here is our
composting toilet. It's a separate. We love it because it
ventilate to the outside, so there's actually no smell. And you change it
about once per month. So the shower door
that we picked was actually $5 at
the Habitat Restore. And we love it
because it doubles as a mirror, a
full length mirror. So when you're getting ready you
can easily check yourself out. Our shower is a full
size shower, 3' by 3". We have all tile, subway
tile on the interior. Originally-- and this is
kind of a tiny house hack, we just had hardy board,
and we painted it teal. And that served
us for many years. And a cheap way to
waterproof a shower. We had a little extra space
on the side of the wall. So we found a used pantry
that we put in here and use for our extra
bathroom storage like towels, and toiletry,
bags, and extra supplies. And Nathan doesn't get much
room for his hanging clothes, but we found this little nook
in here that he can fit about, I'd say 10 nice shirts in there. And the big reveal, behind this
very, very tiny skinny door that I have to walk
sideways to get through we have our stacked
washer and dryer. It's a little mini laundry room. We have a his and
hers laundry basket, hanging laundry baskets here. We have our winter
hanging closet for all of our
jackets and sweaters, and space for our
hats and mittens. And we even have a
light that's mounted on the washer that turns it on
and off as you open the door. Up here's our bed loft. And before we go up the stairs I
wanted to point out the clothes you see above me here. We saw Callie's closet, but
my closet is basically open shelving also. So we use this divider for a
couple of different purposes. It is my main clothes, but
it's also a visual block so you have a little
privacy up to the bed loft. And then there's also
the safety factor too, because you won't roll off. And it was basically
just wasted space that we engineered something
to serve all those purposes. And it matches the same
scheme as our other shelving. So that was something that
we had a lot of fun with. The stairs are another
example of custom cabinets. It's basically cabinets
that you walk up. And it's transforming in
a similar way as the sofa. And we had the same
consultant help us. But we were keen to find ways to
fit all of the dog requirements into the house. And so we designed it such
that all three of them could make it up. And the first thing
you'll notice down here is there's a pull
out step, which is quite important because
if this were pulled out all the time, you would remove
a lot of the floor space. So it opens up the aisle here,
which is quite important. It's also storage, and this is
where we keep most of the dog meds and treats, and
things like this. So you'll see that here. The second step that goes up
to the loft is the dog food. So this whole bin is where we
can dump an entire 40 pounds bag of dog food at a time,
which is quite good because have three dogs, and they eat a lot. Over here you can see we
have more storage again. So this is mostly our
recycling bin, but also some more dog things because
there seems to be a lot. And then this down here
is supplemental pantry. So whatever we can't fit in
the main pantry in the kitchen, we can fit some more
things down here. But the thing that we're
probably most proud of, in terms of making use
of every available space, is, again, related to the dogs. And that is the water bowl. So we keep this
open at night when they're sleeping inside and/or
if they're stuck inside. And then we can close this
whenever they don't need it. This is our bed loft. And we fit in a king size
bed, which is great, again, for having dogs that
are sleeping with you. We could probably get
by with a smaller one, and we had a queen
for some years. But when we upgraded
to the king, it was a lot more
space for the dogs. The skylight I think
is quite important. It's very charming to have. I'm not sure if we
would do it again if we were to build
another tiny house. You see them in a lot of builds,
and they seem really cool. But, honestly,
mostly it's just you get bright sunlight in your
face at 6:00 in the morning. [LAUGHS] And so we keep this
closed most of the time. So for my clothes I have
the baskets available here. And it's easy to pull them
and grab whatever I need. I can either do it from
here, or sometimes I'll do it from the ground floor. But this holds
most of my clothes. So we owned three bedrooms,
like 1,200 square foot townhome in Chapel Hill. And we downsized
from that, moved in with his father
in Durham, and that was about 600 square feet. So we went from half
the square footage, and then down to 200
square feet or so here. So it was a phase process. We sold off all the furniture
in our three bedroom townhome to finance a lot of the
tiny home build as well. That was kind of a helpful
process to do it in stages. That's a really good point. Yeah, it was surprising to me. We did a big yard
sale, and we got several thousand dollars
from clothes and books and-- $6,000. Yeah, which was a huge amount
to put towards the build. Neither of us really
had building experience, but we did park it on Nathan's
dad's property in Durham while we were building. And he has an
engineer's mind, so he can troubleshoot everything. And he helped us
from the very start. And so we're really
grateful to him. And Nathan and him worked
on it pretty much full time for two years. Yeah, the story is I had gotten
laid off from my job in 2015 unexpectedly. And so we thought that
was a good opportunity to commit to this dream
that we'd had for a while. And as much heartache
as it was at the time, I think if that
hadn't happened, we might not have ever
have done this. And so it's sort of one of
those things in retrospect. But I didn't have any really
formal building experience, just kind of helping out my
dad a little, handyman stuff. But you just kind
of learn by doing, so we learned as we went along. [COOL MUSIC PLAYING] 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. [LAUGHTER] We hope to see you there. All right. Thanks, guys. Have a good one. Thanks to our sponsor, Picnic. See link below.
