Tiny
Houses and the Trend We’re Seeing: Part 1
Hey welcome back! Have you ever thought about living in a tiny house? I know what you’re thinking, but you know, that’s where things seem to be going. Let me share a few trends with you today.
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Now let’s get to it. A tiny house has many descriptions to it, but we’ve been seeing an increasing trend since about 2016. You’re always thinking of the celebrities with the huge mansions and bigger things, but trends are showing that people are being more attracted to smaller economical homes. This trend is showing itself even as we enter 2020. A couple of reasons behind the change in mindset is less cleaning and cutting down environmental impacts with how these homes are built.
To showcase what we are talking about, we collaborated with our friend, Brett Marlo DeSantis, who designs and builds tiny houses. During our interview, we were able to walk-through one of these houses and point out a few of the things that are different about smaller houses, or tiny houses as we hear them. Listen up, here comes Brett!
BRETT: “So a lot of people reach out to us for tiny houses. I do live in my own tiny house and we build them.”
DAVE: “What would be something someone would think, ‘I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t get that small,’ but then what did you find? What was the transition like?”
BRETT: “It’s a process. First you have a seed in your head as an idea and then think about how you would do it. You start going through your stuff and unloading. it doesn’t have to be at once, but you start kind of getting smaller. Be willing to take a leap of faith. I was looking forward to a different lifestyle. one where I didn’t have to spend my weekend taking care of my house. I may be out hiking, biking, running, and doing all the things I love to do, and this has afforded me that time. That’s the best thing about tiny living or small footprint living. Low-maintenance and more time.
ERIK: “What about the
transition for the kids?”
BRETT: “That is the time. We’re outdoors. You’re in a tiny house, you’re there [outdoors], but you have an outdoor living space. Especially in the summer when it’s nice out some people have covered outdoor living spaces. For us, it’s in the winter. We’re hiking more or biking more and we’re out in the elements and it’s fantastic! I don’t have to yell at them [the kids] about cleaning their room because their loft is small. When we go on vacation, they don’t ask to buy anything except to have the experiences because there’s no place to put it. So, it takes a lot of concern out of it. I think our biggest thing is where to put the gear, because we’ve got all of our outdoor gear. I’d recommend some sort of shed or a lone structure just so it allows you to store all your activity stuff.”
DAVE: “Build a big garage like
George Carlin said, ‘a little place for your stuff!’
BRETT: “Right! Yea it’s a
shed, so it doesn’t have to be thermally insulated the way you build the house.
BRETT: “However, I’m not
sure we would consider this a tiny house. It is small, 550 square feet, but as
you can see in here it feels big. We consider a small footprint green by itself
without all the added other green certifications. For us, I think medium size
of a house is about 2,500 square feet. Small would be no more than 1,500 square
feet. That’s a “big small”. I think we tend to think that under four digits is
where we’re at with a small. A lot of people ask, ‘what’s tiny?’ Certainly, 200
square feet up to a max out at 500, is considered tiny. This is just going into
the small footprint range. So, you’re looking at maybe 500-1,000 square feet
being that really tight-small footprint. That’s what we’re passionate about! We
love small footprint building.”
DAVE: “And you say you
live in one yourself. How long have you been living in them?
BRETT: “I think it’s been about or almost three years almost. I just wanted to walk the talk and feel how it is and be able to design really well. I didn’t have real expectations about whether I’d like it or not. Luckily, I love it! Luckily, It’s Awesome!”
DAVE: “What made you want
to try that? What gave you that passion?
BRETT: “Well, I felt like I wasn’t being congruent to what I believed and what I was talking about, because I was living in the medium sized home with 2,500 square feet. I wasn’t using all the space, and it felt disingenuous. So, I the only way to make that correction was for me to move into a tiny house.
Let’s take this another
step further. We’re going to go to a second video [part two] on this. Basically,
sharing a little bit of a walkthrough of this home that they’re building and
talk a little bit more about these particular homes that she’s recently built.
