Young Woman's Tiny House & Self-Sufficient Life

building your own home what a daunting thought the very idea of it would stop most of us in our tracks but then there are others who wonder what would happen if they just gave it a shot and they end up accomplishing things they never thought possible and that's exactly what happened to one inspiring woman who ended up building her dream tiny house [Music] hey marie how's it going good bryce how are you i'm very well thank you and so excited to see your home yes i'm really excited you're here for a tour today well me too so first of all talk to me about what inspired you to build a tiny house so i think it was five years ago i stumbled upon a youtube video of a guy that was building his own tiny house and i was like oh my god this is crazy this person is not a builder and he decided to build his own tiny house and i was like okay i think i want to do the same how cool would it be to be able to build your own house so this is how it started so you built this home yourself yes i did because of you that's so exciting yes and talk to me about the process what was it like to diy your own home it was really really fun like there's so many skills that you need to get along the way but building a house is just you know following steps one after another so anyone can do it you just need to have the right people around you and then nothing is impossible and you must have learned a lot from the process and also really enjoyed the process because you are now doing a carpentry apprenticeship right yes i am and i'm building tiny houses before that i was working in a lab as an environmental technician and after building my tiny house i was like oh this is way too much fun i can't go back to a normal job so i started my apprenticeship because i wanted to do more of that when i was building my tiny house i was really lucky to meet two other women that were really into woodworking and we would have those woodworking dates they would come to my place while i was finishing my tiny house they would have small projects and we all like do our own thing but help each other and we loved it so much that we started dreaming about changing career and going to trades so they both became cabinet maker and i became a carpenter but we probably wouldn't have done it if we didn't support each other to do it so that was a really fun experience and probably going to be friends with them for the rest of my life and have woodworking dates but it was so awesome to have two female with me towards this experience of being a carpenter and what size is the tiny house so it's 3.1 which is the max um for a tiny house on the road and five meters long i went with that dimension because i wanted more of like a square than a rectangle if i could do it i would probably add still like just maybe one meter but um five is fine well having it wider but a little bit shorter actually gives it more of a cabin feel doesn't it exactly you know you you just feel good in it because it's such a tiny square space that's why i really like it absolutely and can you tell me about the design of the home i wanted to just be like a black square and not being too noticeable in the landscape so it's shadowclad but then i decided to obviously do my roof myself and i managed to put the screws in the wrong place so i couldn't use it for the roof anymore and then i use it on the side because i had to recycle my roof material it's not a mistake it's an unexpected design feature exactly it was all on purpose all on purpose and your house is really interesting but there is so much more that you're doing around the house because you are on a mission to become self-sufficient aren't you i am and i can tell you that building a tiny house was way easier than trying to be self-sufficient so it's a cool journey but i'm still learning and to love trial and error and my favorite saying is a hundred bad days are 100 good stories and yeah i've got a lot of those got a lot of good stories yes can you tell me about what you've set up around the house i see you've got some really interesting stuff happening with your grey water and wastewater from the home can you talk to me about all this yeah of course so i've got my own greywater system so i'm just recycling the water from my shower and my sink it goes into a little filtering system and a few more steps and from there i use the water in my garden and in the orchard and i also have a digester which is pretty cool so from my toilet and the instant curator in my kitchen those organic waste goes into the digester and i get fertilizer at the end of that process that i can use again on trees and i also get gas that i can cook with so in this house you're actually cooking on gas which comes from your toilet waste yes which is pretty insane but really cool that is super cool it's really cool and you're also solar powered on this one aren't you i am so i've got three solar panel and two batteries which are under my bed but it's a hybrid system so because it's such a small system i couldn't afford like a massive solar system when i started my belt i decided to go for a hybrid inverter which means i can plug my house into the grid or i can go solar if i want to so in winter if i'm a bit short i can just plug my tiny house to a shed that is really close by it is nice to have that option isn't it yeah i like i like options you'll see in my tiny house as well i like to have a lot of options with everything and you're collecting rainwater as well yes i do collect rainwater but obviously the surface of the roof for this tiny house is a bit small to collect rain water so what i'm using is um the roof of the shed i set up my water tank there and a little pump and i can get a lot of water from that surface well i think the house looks really great and i cannot wait to see what you've done inside can we take a look yes of course after you oh now this is just beautiful you have done such a wonderful job with this place thank you i really tried to make it cool wherever you look there's something interesting so yeah lots of hours in and love and into it and i'm pretty proud of it yeah immediately entering this home your eyes are just completely drawn to your feature window and the gorgeous palette wall yeah so my house is obviously white and i wanted something to pop a little bit more so i decided to go with the pet wool because it's free and also you can kind of do it any kind of way it's always going to look good even if it's not straight so yeah that's what i went for pallet wall i guess just the easy easy way an easy feature but a great looking feature thank you yeah i tried i think whatever you do with the pet wall always looks good definitely the green wall there is an especially nice feature as well thank you um yes i thought it would look really cool in the house with the pallet wall but it's been harder than i thought to keep them alive there's been a few losses here but yeah it still looks good it still looks great and yeah those are notoriously difficult to keep alive yes yeah and there is a lot going on down this side of the house can you tell me how all this works yes so again a lot of options and can't settle with one thing so i wanted a gigantic bit but i also wanted a u-shaped couch so i tried to combine both of them and also having heaps of storage under it is really helpful so there is a mechanism that lift the bed up and i can just hide things away under there so is it simple for this to transform into a bed no it's not there is a few things to do like you have to take that table off and then there's a box that goes in the middle and obviously you have to redo your bed so it's not something you want to do too often but yeah because i again love love options i've got this table to work on if i want to and i also have another table that i can unfold on my bed um when it's made that's such a good idea yes it's it's just nice to just choose in which corner of the house you're going to work absolutely and the blind that you've got there is that a projector screen as well yes it is so i just wanted that little amount of luxury i guess in your house that you've got like a remote and you can just get the screen down i thought it would be cool to have a feature where you can just be a potato couch sit back and just press on the remote and chill very nice feature and you've built in a lovely little desk here as well yes i did um i wanted a space to sit down and work and not be on the bed um or on the couch all day so um yes i just filled that tiny space so that's why it's there it's really really helpful and i do love how you've used a lot of really beautiful timber in this house as well the floor is absolutely gorgeous thank you it's recycled removu that i got from a friend and there's something that was really important for me to have that floor because in france when you go to an old building or something that's got character there's always like a squeaky floor so i kind of wanted that vibe in the house so at the start when i moved in it wasn't really squeaky but as it gets older because i've been here for two years now it gets squeakier and squeakier so yeah as the house ages it just builds in more of that character let's see if i can ah there it is yeah yeah here we are very fun and then behind us here we have your kitchen and this is just so cool i love how you've got all of the storage up on the wall um thank you again like trying to make it look pretty with heaps of um jars and eventually when i'm done with the tiny house and the self-sufficiency i'll go zero waste as well so that's another gigantic task as well so i've got i'm trying already to not use too much um packaging but sometimes it's a bit hard but i'm prepared for it so yes i wasn't too fast about the size of the fridge so i got a really small one but what was really important for me in the kitchen was to have a pull-out pantry so i got one i love the bench top that you've used in this kitchen too is this macrocarpa yes it is i wanted um something that feels like it's not just like you know a square kitchen kind of like makes it a little more alive um if it's like timber i guess and if there's a live edge so yes i was scared a little bit maybe that it would be sharp or not really nice to work on but actually it's it's really good yeah wonderful great that you've got a good amount of prep space here too yes i wanted a medium size i guess kitchen bench to have enough space to cook and also have a little secret drawer if i need extra space and you've got your gas cooker and the oven over here yes i do so because i decided to go solar i needed to switch to as many gas appliances as i could but when it's really nice weather i can usually switch to an electrical induction cooktop so i just have it under my oven in a door and when it's nice weather i just cook with that excellent it's definitely good to have all those options yeah again yeah so many options so many options you've got a bit of extra storage over this side as well yes i added that on um at the end because i thought it would be nice to have extra storage for shoes it's yeah very practical and very slim as well so it fits perfectly the space and what's going on behind the front door here here we have the wardrobe space and i also have a washing machine as well as more storage it's actually quite amazing that you have a five by three meter house and you've found room for a washing machine yes so i didn't want to have to go to the laundromat so yes i did if you need to find the space you will then it's not a really big one either but it does the job and then through here we must have your bathroom yes we do can we take a look yep oh now this is so cool i love how you've got the window above the shower there and you've even got a planter box yes i wanted to do something a bit special for the shower as well so i decided to put a little planter box above and having some cool lighting coming in through that window is really awesome when you have a shower like showering in a forest yeah pretty much i was i had that idea of like being in a jungle i love it great sized shower too yes i really wanted like 90 by 90 i think was the smallest i can go i really wanted to still have a little bit of a spy experience as much as i could and you've got the macerating toilet here as well yes i do so it just goes directly to the digester but i also have an outdoor toilet just a composting toilet that i thought would be important to have because if i've got heaps of people or if i'm working outside it's just nice to have another option i also wanted a bathtub but again there's not really any space in the tiny house so i built it outdoor and yeah i just finished it now so i'm pretty excited about it nice you can never go wrong with an outdoor hot tub yeah so how long have you been living in the home now um two years now and how are you finding tiny house life i'm loving it when i moved in the house was completely empty i was just like i'm gonna build this tiny house in one year and then i'm gonna move in no matter what so after a year of building it i moved in i only had a mattress and then it took me an extra six months to finish the inside which i absolutely love as well and since then yeah i've just i've been loving it it's hard not to be a potato cat though but yes i really really enjoy it home for me is that place where you feel safe and the fact that i can understand every little bit of details around this just makes me feel like i've got a special bond with the health it makes me feel good to be in something i built myself and i feel safe like i've got the color and the art the texture so i wake up and i feel really really good about myself and i built everything around here to be comfortable and to be happy and so it's just a perfect combination of the stuff you want in your life and can we talk about the cost that was involved in building this home yes so because i used a lot of recycled material and because i built it myself i could get it down to a certain point but also i went with the digester and also the solar panel so at the end of it it was around 44 to 45. i only have an estimation but yeah so considering that that includes the digester the solar panels and all that sort of thing 45 000 is a remarkable result to have your own home yeah i guess you save so much if you're doing it yourself it's so much of your time that i did it because i wanted the skills so if you do it a lot yourself you can save so much money absolutely so what would you say the future holds for you now so i love building tiny houses and also love teaching so i think what i would love to do is writing a guide or teaching somehow people to build tiny houses because i made so many mistakes i think i could teach a few things to people to not make those as well so it's something i would absolutely love to do what a great idea well marie you have done such an incredible job with building a wonderful home for yourself i'm so impressed with the quality of work in here the creativity in this design but also everything that you're doing outside of the home to become self-sufficient this really is an amazing project thank you for sharing it with me thank you so much for being here my pleasure what marie has accomplished with her home is something extraordinary so many of us feel in life that there are these things that we just can't achieve and then we set out a plan we go about trying to accomplish them and then we actually managed to do them and that's exactly what she has done here with this tiny house and now she has her own home that she's built with her own two hands and she's setting her sights to the next vision of becoming entirely self-sustainable and i think there's something really special in that that it's a cliche but it's so true that we never really know what we can accomplish until we try [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 1,230,189

Keywords: living big in a tiny house, tiny house, tiny home, off the grid, self sufficient, tiny house building, diy, architecture, home design, tiny house tour, tiny home tour, cabin, off grid living, self sufficient life, debt free, home, living big

Id: 7ht_HNNpUWU

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2022