The first time I met Sean he was sketching tiny houses in a sketchbook at a speaker dinner after a tiny house conference. I'm so glad to have him on the podcast all these years later. Sean is an active member of Tiny House Engage, my online community, where he does monthly design reviews of various members' tiny house designs and he is a professional architect. In this interview, we talk about Sean's design philosophies and the tiny home he designed and is almost finished building. We also cover...
Aug 06, 2021•54 min•Ep. 174
Have you ever struggled to figure out what you want to be when you grow up? Or maybe you're already grown up and you still balance multiple interests and don't feel like you can just fit into one box. Today's guest, Emilie Wapnick, has created a whole set of resources just for people like that - people like you and like me - and I actually have a hunch that there are a lot of us among tiny house dwellers. The word that Emilie uses is "multipotentialite" and in this conversation we're going to ta...
Jul 30, 2021•41 min•Ep. 173
In this special episode of THLP, your host Ethan Waldman joins forces with veteran tiny house designer, builder and instructor, Lina Menard, to chat about "what we wish we knew before we started". Plus, we bring you a sneak peak of our upcoming LIVE course, Tiny House Considerations, an interactive, 8 week course with Lina and Ethan as your guides. To get on the waitlist for Tiny House Considerations, head over to: https://www.thetinyhouse.net/considerations In This Episode: Could we have built ...
Jul 23, 2021•31 min•Ep. 172
Michael Janzen is a legend in the tiny house world, having started his website, TinyHouseDesign.com in 2007 and just continuing to work as a prolific designer pretty much since then. Michael has put a lot of plans out into the world and I have no doubt that there are many, many tiny houses that are built either directly from his designs or were inspired by them. On today's show, Michael stopped by to talk about the second edition of his book, Tiny House Floor Plans. It now contains over 350 tiny...
Jul 16, 2021•50 min•Ep. 171
If you've been listening to the show for a while, you may recognize the name Natalie Bogwalker because she's been a guest in the past! Natalie is a wealth of knowledge about natural building techniques. In today's show, we are going to do a deep dive into two natural building techniques: slip straw and hempcrete. I went in knowing nothing about these and I asked really basic questions and Natalie really did a wonderful job explaining everything. Natalie also tells us all about how her online bui...
Jul 09, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 170
My Guest today is Betsy Barbour. Betsy’s tiny dreams began in 2017. After downsizing and selling her condominium, she moved into her 200 sqft tiny home in 2019. She has since lived in 3 unique communities in 2 states. Betsy has become passionate about tiny house advocacy and community development. On today’s show, we’ll talk about the different kinds of communities that Betsy has found, the wins and challenges that tiny living has presented for Betsy, and more. Full show notes and images at thet...
Jul 02, 2021•47 min•Ep. 169
Can developing the tiny house mindset help you start tiny living sooner? What is the tiny house mindset anyway? My guest Angela Barnard is not only a tiny dweller but a life and career coach who specializes in helping people change the direction of their lives. IN this interview, Angela gives us the Be - Act - Have framework and explains how to use it to become a tiny dweller… even if you‘re not living tiny yet! I was really inspired by this conversation and I think you will be too! Full show no...
Jun 25, 2021•45 min•Ep. 168
I wouldn't hesitate to say that my guest this week is one of my all-time favorite professional tiny house builders. JP Marquis from Minimaliste Houses has been building gorgeous, modern, premium tiny houses since 2015, early on in the movement and his company really has staying power because of their pursuit of building excellence. And I'm not reading any pitch, this is all coming from me. They have continued to innovate to make their tiny houses both safer and better to live in. In this convers...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 167
I was really excited to invite Leslie on the show because she has just published a book called "Tiny Plants: Discover the Joys of Growing and Collecting Itty Bitty Houseplants" and I just knew I had to have her on to talk about plants that you can bring with you into your tiny house lifestyle. I had no idea that this was even a thing so I'm really excited to share this conversation! Leslie is a super outgoing and knowledgeable guest and she actually brought plants for show and tell. Members of T...
Jun 11, 2021•42 min•Ep. 166
I've known Sarah for close to 10 years but we only met in person last summer. Sarah is a bicycle touring professional and also a tiny house enthusiast who got in touch with me nearly 10 years ago when she was looking for people interested in both bicycle touring and tiny houses. It turns out that they are a lot in common! In this episode Sarah will share her story of how she fell in love with bicycle touring and how it goes so well with tiny house living. I also share my story of how bicycle tou...
Jun 04, 2021•46 min•Ep. 165
My fascination with houseboats really started when I saw a video tour of Bonnie's houseboat, the River Den, on the Exploring Alternatives YouTube channel. I've been trying to get her on the show ever since. It turns out I had no idea that Bonnie was a talented entrepreneur who has multiple houseboats and unique Airbnb stays. In this interview, we go through the ins and outs of what it takes to actually build a floating house on the water and also some insight about how Bonnie thinks about design...
May 28, 2021•33 min•Ep. 164
In their own process for going tiny in 2014, Joshua and Shelley Engberg decided to design a custom trailer for their dream tiny home. Frustrated by how difficult the process was, they went into business as Tiny House Basics and now build over 450 custom tiny house trailers per year. In this interview, we’ll hear Joshua and Shelley’s tiny story, their tips for finding an ideal Parking spot, and we’ll nerd out about trailer features, from tube steel to threaded rods. Full show notes and images at ...
May 21, 2021•57 min•Ep. 163
Certification of tiny homes has been a tricky topic for years now. I’ve been skeptical of many of the certifiers because I haven’t always seen the benefit. Last week’s conversation with Jenifer Levini only increased that skepticism. But this week, I’m happy to bring you my conversation with Alex Ontiveros from Pacific West tiny homes. Pacific West has been in the certification business for a long time, and in this conversation, we’ll see if Alex can convince me whether tiny house certification i...
May 14, 2021•44 min•Ep. 162
The legal landscape of tiny homes is one of the most frustrating and confusing parts of the tiny house movement. In fact, “tiny home” isn’t even a legal term, so municipalities have had to figure out what form of existing law they fit into. My guest Jenifer Levini is a housing and land use lawyer, and author of Building, Occupying & Selling Tiny Homes Legally. I would consider this episode a must-listen: Jenifer walks us through the 6 types of tiny homes (from a legal perspective), why codes...
May 07, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 161
SquareOne Villages is an amazing organization creating self-managed communities of cost-effective tiny homes for people in need of housing in and around Eugene Oregon. My guest Amanda Dellinger is the Community Relations Director, and if you’re curious about tiny home villages, this conversation is a must-listen. We start by exploring the co-op model for housing and delve into all the details of how these tiny home villages are funded, built, and maintained. Full show notes and images at thetiny...
Apr 30, 2021•42 min•Ep. 160
The concept of Lifestyle Design certainly predates the tiny house movement, but I see the two as very linked. Enter today’s guest, Jessica Malone, a lifestyle design coach who lives tiny herself. In the interview, we’ll talk about the difference between Decluttering versus Downsizing, life hacks for easy minimalism, and the mindset required to succeed. I hope you Stick around! Full show notes and images at thetinyhouse.net.159 In This Episode: Clutter is more than just 'stuff' Minimalism vs Decl...
Apr 23, 2021•30 min•Ep. 159
One of the best ways to spend time as a family is traveling full-time. Traveling together can be fun, interesting, and educational for your children too. But it can also be difficult. My guests today are Jessica and Will Sueiro, and they are two parents who have done it successfully. They left the American rat race in 2014 and haven’t looked back. In this interview, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of full-time travel as a family- from health insurance and medical care to homeschooling an...
Apr 16, 2021•54 min•Ep. 158
In some ways, the Yurt is the original tiny house on wheels. If you’ve never seen one, a Yurt is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by nomadic groups in Central Asia. In America, Yurts have been popular since the ’70s, and I’ve wanted to interview a yurt dweller here on the show for some time. Enter my guest, Kevin Obrien, who lives year-round, off-grid in his yurt in New Hampshire. Kevin will explain why he chose a yurt over other forms of housing and what ...
Apr 09, 2021•37 min•Ep. 157
Is it possible to convert a cargo trailer into a tiny home? On today’s show, I take with Nicoll Davis, who currently lives and travels full time in a 112 square foot converted cargo trailer with her husband Jake and their dogs. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the photos and total cost of the conversion. Oh, and a few days after scheduling my interview with Nicoll, I saw her featured prominently in a New York Times article about tiny home living during the pandemic. She wasn’t happy wit...
Apr 02, 2021•47 min•Ep. 156
Figuring out how to get your tiny house a supply of water is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face living off-grid. Wouldn’t it be great if we could simply capture and use the water that falls out of the sky? I had always thought that rainwater harvesting in a tiny house would be inconvenient and ineffective due to the small roof size. Enter today's guest, Brad Lancaster. Brad is a tiny house dweller and author of several award-winning books about rainwater harvesting, and he has completely ...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 155
Michelle Jones discovered the tiny house movement well before most of us, struck up a friendship with Dee Williams, and had her 84sf tiny house built by Dee’s company PAD. She’s been quietly living tiny in Portland, OR backyards for 11 years now, and in a lot of ways, tiny living has helped to guide and inspire her unconventional career choices. In this interview, Michelle shares her reflections on living tiny for 11 years and some of the unexpected things she has learned along the way. Full sho...
Mar 19, 2021•54 min•Ep. 154
The home you build or buy may be the single biggest purchase you’ll ever make. That’s why choosing the right builder is such a consequential decision. But since we’ll only ever need to do this once or twice in our lives, it’s very easy to be taken advantage of, or miss red-flags before we plunk down our life savings on a tiny home. My guests this week, Paul Dashevsky and Jon Grishpul started the company GreatBuildz to connect homeowners with reliable, pre-vetted contractors. In the interview, I’...
Mar 12, 2021•49 min•Ep. 153
Chad Deschenes is a building inspector who is usually called in when issues like air quality, mold, and moisture have gotten out of control. Chad is here to blow the whistle on some of the standard tiny house building methods, and share some common problems he sees in buildings, large and small. Plus, Chad will share the one system that EVERY tiny house must have. Chad has kindly shared lots of photos to go along with this interview, and you can find them on the show notes page at thetinyhouse.n...
Mar 05, 2021•59 min•Ep. 152
It’s every homeowner’s nightmare to discover a small patch of mold, and then learn that their floor, subfloor, and insulation have all become a soft, rotten waste. But that’s exactly what happened to my guest today, Chris Murphy. Chris and his wife Bri had to move out of their tiny house unexpectedly when it was discovered that there was a terrible moisture issue in both the floor and walls. In this interview, Chris tells his story so we can all learn from the critical mistakes that were made in...
Feb 26, 2021•41 min•Ep. 151
Lindsay Wood is an evangelist for tiny living, and these days she’s as busy as ever. As the pandemic has put economic pressure on a large swath of the country, tiny houses are being increasingly seen as a solution to housing affordability and inequality. But there are some big legal hurdles to get over before we get there, and in this interview, Lindsay helps us explore them. Full Show Notes and Images: https://www.thetinyhouse.net/lindsay-wood-2 In This Episode: Could tiny homes be included in ...
Feb 19, 2021•44 min•Ep. 150
Contracts, Evictions, Housing Law. These topics might make your eyes glaze over, but they are becoming big issues for the tiny house movement. My guest today is Jody Gabel, a trial attorney with 25 years of experience in mobile home park law, RV tenancies, landlord/tenant and housing law, and local government issues. On the show, we’ll explore the challenges and solutions facing tiny house dwellers, landlords, and communities. I learned a lot and I know you will too! Full show notes and links at...
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 149
If it has wheels, chances are someone has made a moveable tiny house out of it. On today’s show, the “it” I’m referring to is a 1985 Railroad Camp Car. My guest is Hannah Doss, who converted said railroad car into a gorgeous moveable tiny house in just 3 months and for less than 9000 dollars. Full Show Notes and Images: https://www.thetinyhouse.net/ 148 In this Episode: What is a railroad camp car and how can you find one for yourself? The budget breakdown: creative ways to accumulate materials ...
Feb 05, 2021•39 min•Ep. 148
I love looking at tiny house plans. Just seeing how other designers solve the space-related challenges of a tiny house is inspiring. That’s why I was super excited when I discovered PinUpHouses, the international design studio run by my guest Joshua Woodsman. PinupHouses sells digital plans for over 150 small and tiny houses, cottages, and sheds, and they’ve been doing for many years. Today, I’ll ask Joshua what got him into tiny houses in the first place and what he’s learned from designing so ...
Jan 29, 2021•41 min•Ep. 147
Rocket Mass Heaters are a very popular DIY in the cob, natural building, and permaculture world, but is only starting to get traction in the tiny house movement. Today, Chris McClellan AKA Uncle Mud is here to explain how Rocket Mass Heaters Work, how to build one of your own, and most importantly, his design for a tiny rocket heater, called the Cottage Rocket. Full Show Notes and Images: https://www.thetinyhouse.net/uncle-mud In This Episode "The first non-suicidal woodstove" is safer and more ...
Jan 22, 2021•54 min•Ep. 146
Daniel Ott is one of the first tiny home builders in Ontario, working to change the housing market by designing and building legal tiny homes (which is no small feat under the Ontario Building Code, one of the strictest codes in North America). Using his unique UpSizeDown Method, Daniel and his team at True North Tiny Homes not only design your tiny dream home, but they also help you get prepared to thrive in it. The post Innovative Designs for Cold Weather Tiny Living in Canada with Daniel Ott-...
Jan 15, 2021•41 min•Ep. 145
