Why on earth haven't we just started doing tiny homes. That's where the passion is. We have the full skill set. We, you know, have done so much research into this and are just so passionate about the community. So...
Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, the show where you learn how to plan, build and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and this is episode 219 with the Saudes. Richard and Cassie Saude met and quickly built a tiny house together, and
their relationship survived. So we start the conversation talking about how building a house together can can be stressful but wasn't for them, and then how they transitioned from living tiny to actually starting a professional tiny house company, where they're now building tiny houses for others.
In this conversation, we'll talk about how being a tiny home dweller creates a different perspective as a professional builder and helps them provide additional insight to their clients in the design and construction process. I hope you stick around. Let's face it, most Tiny House dweller's want their tiny homes to be small but not uncomfortable. That means reliable unlimited hot water.
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and reliably. Right now PrecisionTemp is offering $50 off any unit plus free shipping when you use the coupon code THLP, so head over to precisiontemp.com and use the coupon code THLP at checkout. All right, I am here with the Saudes. Richard and Cassie Saude have a classic love story -so naturally, it started on Tinder. They bonded over their mutual love of the outdoors, tiny homes, playing music, and
vegetarianism. They united to build their DIY tiny house, tied the know, and then turned their lifestyle into their business. Richard brought a lifetime of construction experience and Cassie a history of management and customer service. Cassie is the realist and the manager of the mundane. Richard is the dreamer and achiever. They are both artists at heart. As you can tell this duo eats, sleeps and works tiny. Richard and Cassie, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us, Ethan. We're super excited to be here.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, glad to have you both here. So I'm curious, because there's an old saying that says, "Build a house, lose your spouse." Was the relationship like you knew it was the one when you successfully built a house together? Or was there? And Was there ever any question?
No, absolutely. I think, you know, a lot of people were curious, throughout our build process, like, "Hey, how's things going? Is everything, is everything working out?" And we're like, "Yeah, it's great. We work really well together." And so we're very lucky and fortunate to be able to have that with each other.
I think we're pretty much a done deal. when we started. Nothing was official. We weren't engaged or anything yet, but it was, it was very much like I've found my representation of home om another person. And I think definitely got cemented throughout the build process. The compatibility of our, you know, communication, working together, and everything was
really exciting. And it was a little nerve wracking to start because we had lots of folks telling us, "Oh, you know, you're supposed to build things together, you know, building a house, you know, that.
Yeah,
that's the big deal. What if you guys, you know, fight a lot?" So we, we definitely were a little nervous going into it. But I have to say it was a pretty great process. And I already knew I was pretty blessed in a partner with Richard and that just kind of shone through throughout our whole build.
That's awesome. And so can you what, what was the timeline of like, meeting, starting to date and then like, building the tiny house? And whose idea was the tiny house anyway?
So we both we, we actually both were into tiny homes before we ever met and then we started dating about a year and a half before we started our build. And we lived together for a little bit before that. So we kind of got used to like the kind of lifestyle things that we do together and with our three dogs We had four dogs at the time one of them has passed on since then. But yeah, so about a year and a half, and we started the plan process, got our trailer and everything. And
then our build. All in all working evenings and weekends, mostly. We both work full time during the whole process. That took about two years. And then we got married about six months after finishing the house, I think, so that we've been in the house for about a year and three months now.
Nice. And do you live in Portland in the house?
We're in the Portland metro area. So we're out in the country.
Nice. Nice. And what was it like finding a parking site? Like what what is your parking situation?
Sure. So when we started the build, we were living in a fifth wheel on my dad's property out in the country. We did our whole build process out there. And we're very fortunate to have that available to us that we just kind of rented a parking spot from him. We did input all of our own utilities and everything. So that was pretty exciting. We did all the manual labor for that mostly by hand. We made some mistakes in that process, trying to save money.
Yeah.
First piece of advice. If you have access to a Ditch Witch that you can rent, do it. It's worth every penny.
Yeah, actually, I'd love to hear - I think people will be curious to hear about, like, what what you mean, when you say, "We put in all of our own utilities."" Like what, what did that entail? What did you do?
Sure. So we, we pretty much did all of the digging and trenching. We had to run 300 feet of electrical and water. So we did all of the infrastructure for that before getting it inspected and everything.
Wow.
And basically, it's permitted as an RV hookup. I'm sure I don't have to tell youre following about how difficult it is, if you were to say, "This is for a tiny home." But we did all of it prior to moving out there with our RV and prior to the build. So we were able to get all of that done with fewer questions, you know, without having all of that in process. But yeah, primarily the things that we needed were our water and electrical hookup. We were on a 50 amp service on our
house. And just a standard basic, potable garden hose like that.
Uh huh.
And then we did a composting toilet. So no sewer hookup or anything.
Got it. Got it. And so 300 feet of electrical. That's expensive. That wire is not cheap.
Yeah, absolutely. We started at a really good time with our build. We started in the summer of 2019. And that was right before all of the prices skyrocketed for wood and whatnot. Since it was pre pandemic, we were extremely fortunate on our timing,. We calculated that we basically wouldn't be able to afford to build our house today.
Wow.
With what what we paid originally, even just our our plywood using for our sheathing.
Yeah.
Was I think eight times what it was.
Oh my gosh,
If we priced it out again. Yeah.
What did? I'm curious, like, what what did your house cost to build? Obviously, not counting the cost of your own labor versus what it would cost today?
Sure. Um, do you want to answer that?
Yeah. So we put a lot of higher end finishes on some aesthetic black walnut. And we kind of went all out unnecessarily on our house. I think all in all, were upwards of $40,000 in materials. And that's what the, the chassis and everything included. Just even that we've - our trailer cost somewhere around $8,000. Now they run around $10,000 - $11,000. The increase in price over the last few years, even
with steel, has been a lot. So I would imagine, you know, material cost now to build our home is around $55,000 - $60,000.
Wow.
Just with all the inflation and increase the demand.
Yeah, that's that's significant. That's a big percentage.
Yeah.
And the home that you built is that you know, I'm on Lionheart homes, which we will get to but is that the Duchess is like, is that model based on your home?
Yeah,
yeah.
Nice. And so that's a that's a 30 foot trailer and it's is it 10 feet wide?
No, it's a standard. eight foot eight foot six.
Okay.
For that clearance though, it's it's within The restrictions for the road.
Right.
But that, you know, it took us I think it took us about eight months planning and designing the layout for our home and that model for the Dutchess.
What are some of the kind of features and highlights of that model?
I think one of the big ones that stand out is just kind of being expressive. We went with, you know, the bay window and the front. the shapes, cedar shingles gives it a different look. Using that, that darker teal color and bring that inside with cabinets.
Yeah,
Using all that black walnut. I mean, we just really pertained to using a lot of natural woods and not just not playing it safe, I think, is what we kind of went for and making it our own style.
Yeah, giving it some character.
Yeah, we, we definitely think model wise. And I know we're probably not going into that yet. But just model wise, our floorplan is just really livable. Like I said, we've lived there for over a year and at this point, we have three dogs and two cats. So we really amplified the storage space. That was a really central focus for us and fitting that in
everywhere we could. So that's a really big bonus on that model for anyone you know, that's looking to live tiny versus to have you know, an Airbnb or something that they're just vacationing in. We really focused on that. So are you know, everything from the storage to our stairs are extremely accessible for the average person. I know sometimes tiny home stairs can be intimidating to folks because they look a bit treacherous.
Yeah,
So we've really focused on that. And our bathroom is also a really generous size so that it's a comfortable space to shower in. And, you know, live life.
Yeah, yeah. That's, that's an important thing that, you know, if you build really small, there's plenty of people who do it and live full time there. But you know, if your life expands a little bit, or you know, you have some unexpected changes, or just need a little bit more space, it can start to feel really small, really quickly.
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. We, we have had one life change since we originally designed the house. And since we were in the completion stage. And that was me changing from working off site to working from home. So yeah, if folks take a look at our home, you'll see my work from home station with my computer and everything that was actually not designed into the space, we just got really lucky with it, it worked out that way
It kind of fit in there.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's a really good point, I don't think, you know, my tiny house was designed for, for really one person working from there. And even then, you know, it's it's the dining table is the desk is the dining table. It's not its own dedicated space, which is actually, you know, it's kind of hard to not have a dedicated space for working. If you have to put it away every time.
Very true. I mean, sometimes you don't feel like you've left work, then as well, when you have that dedicated space, you can just choose not to sit there or not to use that space during that time. And then you're not sitting there eating dinner going, "Oh, I didn't finish that report today, I should maybe I'll just hop back on and work on that for a little bit."
Any special features for for the pups in the house?
They have their own dedicated cabinet with all of their food and their toys and everything. And then we do have a section in our fireplace surround in our bookshelf that we built in for them to have little beds in there. So they could have their own spot. We have two very small dogs under seven pounds. And we did dedicate that area to them, although they typically prefer to be up on the sofa, since that's where we hang out with them. So they're more comfortable, they're usually
fit. Those are our two two fun points that we put in for them and pretty practical too.
Nice. Nice. So at what point will did you go into the build, you know, thinking like, "Hey, maybe, maybe I'll you know, we'll do this professionally afterwards?" Or at what point did that transition happen?
You know, we definitely started thinking and kind of dreaming about it. And a lot of it just came down to you know, we love doing that so much and we love you know being a part of the tiny community and since we have the available skills we're like, "Wow, we could really offer our services here. And, and, you know, we believe that we would, you know, really excel and, you know, be really, really talented and
offering what we offer." So it definitely started, you know, a little seed, and then it kind of grew from there.
Yeah. And so, can you tell the story of like, what that process was, like, you know, kind of hanging up a shingle as, as a professional, tiny house building company?
Yeah, so, um, Richard was already in construction, like he'd mentioned for pretty much all of his adult life and, and beyond. Kids on worksites was a great idea. But just going through that process, and realizing that being in control of your own quality, and being able to amplify other people's quality of life with the skillset that you have, he decided to go off on his own into contracting and has a business partner that
we've worked with. And basically went off was doing contracting and just kept going back to, "Why on earth Haven't we just started doing tiny homes?" That's where the passion is, we have the full skill set, we, you know, have done so much research into this, and are just so passionate about the community. So we had a big, big family conversation between us and our
business partner, Steven. And yeah, he was supportive of us changing directions and our tiptoeing into the realm was what we lovingly referred to as ghost building. So we've been consulting for other tiny home companies that are already national brands, and kind of taking them back to their roots and going, you know, "Here's what we can work on for you, here's what we can improve." Because a lot of them have gotten so big that they have outsourced to builders, and their quality has declined due
to that. And so we've kind of brought a force back in doing that. And that's kind of how we got our foot back in the door. So we are doing our own custom homes, have our own models, but we are also consulting for other existing tiny home companies and helping them get back on track so that our community benefit from maintaining that quality and just commitment to building great homes, no matter what company you are.
Interesting. Yeah, it seems that in the process of scaling a tiny house company, I would imagine that it becomes easy, or sometimes even necessary to kind of almost cut corners, or to do things in a less careful way.
It definitely seems like folks have to let go of some things in order to be more efficient, or in order to be more I assume lucrative.
Yeah.
And so it really does come down to either maintaining your scale and choosing to stay at a certain size and have a longer waitlist, or, you know, having less control over things. And, you know, having to trust other folks to do that. So we've we've felt very fortunate to be able to get in there and help people kind of roll things back and go, you know, "You don't have to sacrifice these things to be, you know, competitive and to, you know, keep things going."
Yeah, you know, I'm curious, because I would imagine that many listeners or some listeners out there are in the process of looking at builders, and I know, they'd be curious. Do you have any, any things that people should kind of look out for that would kind of, I don't know, clue them in to like, "Hey, this builder has has maybe started to cut some corners," or just like, what are some things to look out for in that department,
I would offer the start ask for a detailed report, inspection report on the home, just to make sure that all proper inspections were done with a legitimate inspection service, you know, whatever entity that might be, that's super important, and just, you know, seeing what kind of documentation they're willing to provide, as far as what how they do their process, you know, what kind of quality control do they, you know, processes do they have set in place to make sure that
they limit the amount of warranty issues in their product, you know, and that's, that's pretty important, I think.
Yeah, that's, that's good. It sounds like you wouldn't suggest working with a builder who's not certified.
You know, at the end of the day, I would recommend not. I mean, it's, it's a fairly, you know, big procedure to get certified and be able to build certified, but it's necessary, it keeps everybody honest. And you know it in my, in my experience, I mean, it would, it would, I would never want to build anything that's not certified. I mean, it just, it makes sense to you at the end of the day.
And in addition to that being kind of assurance of the quality of your home that you're getting, it also ensures that if you're going to be traveling with it, that you can be parking in RV parks, etc. So that kind of a multipurpose process for that certification to make sure that you're safe, things are done properly, and you can go the places that you want to go without hindrance.
Yeah. I asked John and Fin Kernaghan have united Tiny House Association what they love about their PrecisionTemp hot water heaters. And here's what they told me.
Hey, Ethan. This is John and Fin Kernaghan with United Tiny House Association.
We organize tiny house festivals.
Oh, yeah, I guess so.
First and foremost.
We have a total of three PrecisionTemp On Demand hot water heaters. The thing we really like about these and folks know this, I think they pick this up on Fin and I, if we don't like something, you'll never hear us talk about it. So the two things we noticed that we noticed and experienced immediately. They took painstaking effort to make sure that it was done right and installed. And so that was
pretty cool right there. The other thing is the continuous on demand hot water that just ran forever without any fluctuations or anything. I can't imagine an application, especially in our environment and our lifestyle of being the nomad, transportable, mobile, tiny lifestyle where one of these units aren't good to use.
Are you planning to do any travel with with your house?
We did not build our house intending on travel. So we didn't, we are actually slightly over height.
Okay,
So yeah, so we did not plan on traveling with our home. Our whole process with our home was really intended on being scaling down our lifestyle and being in control of our monthly expenses so that we can work towards owning our own property. Because we felt like being stuck in an apartment in a rental of any sort was really going to negatively impact our trajectory for being able to get where we wanted to be in life,
physically and financially. So we did take advantage of knowing that we weren't going to be moving regularly to make our house just a little bit over height, so that we could have a
little more headspace. In our Dutchess models that will be custom building for folks, they will be within height restriction, because we know that you have to get from point A to point B. We know that folks are probably going to want to travel but we did not take that into consideration when we did our build, because we did not
intend on travel. We are very keen on adding a van or other smaller, movable home to our repertoire when we're ready to go on vacation, etc. But yeah, well, we'll see when we get to that point. No vacations for a while.
Yeah, so you know, how has the business grown? It looks like, you know, just looking at your Instagram feed, it looks like you've you've moved into a fairly large space.
Yeah, we're in about a 6000 square foot commercial building right now that we are renting out. With all of the homes that we're working on, we typically have about three at a time going within that space. We do everything from the, you know, chassis up. We get the trailers in depending on what specific types of trailer we need. And once we get going, we have our own cabinet shop, do all of our own custom cabinet painting, pretty much everything is handmade by us and our team. So, um, yeah.
And how many houses are you working on at the time?
About three of the time.
Okay, and why why that number does that. You know, is there some benefit to like, doing more than one or two, but but not more than three?
Yeah. So brief fits the best of that 6000 square foot area allowing room to work and room to move around and for storage.
Yeah.
And then also for the for the team that we have. It works well having the two and three going at a time so that there can be transition into different stages of those processes. It's a little bit more of a fluid process of completing these builds, having those, you know, kind of staggered. You start one and it's getting framed by the time that houses into finish date is you're starting to frame another one. So it's a good, it's a good flow for our shop.
Nice. And are you building only stick framed? Or do you? Are you doing any SIPs building or steel building?
We have done aluminum, the steel framing and the SIPs and in the past, and we're open to it. A lot of the models and homes we're building right now have been predominantly stick built at the moment.
Okay.
But we've we've ventured into those other categories as well.
And that's just based on what the client wants?
Yeah, you know, it's a lot of preference, and just kind of what, what works for that particular home? Yeah. And
How far out are you booking right now for homes?
It depends on how custom the build is. So right now, we have a house that's in the design process, but we won't be starting it until the beginning of next year, because they chose to go with all custom windows. They're going to be absolutely gorgeous. And we're really excited to share that build when we get started. But our rep called us a couple of weeks ago and said, "I am so sorry. But these are out 32 weeks right now." So, that's been changing things a little bit for
Oh my gosh. us with the with the lead times. But right now on our are just, you know, more strategized builds that aren't custom or existing models. If we go with one of those, we're looking at about five months out. And we do stagger it based on what we already have. If we're working on somebody else's build if we're if we're ghost building. So right now we're probably looking at being able to take custom orders, or more builds probably the beginning of the year.
Nice. What are what are some ways actually, first, we just want to ask how many how many have you built under you know on as Lionheart and and not for other builders or not consulting?
So we've completed about a handful so far, and we're still a fairly new company. So we're definitely hitting our stride right now with getting our shop completely set up properly to meet the demand that we're now seeing. And also, you know, building for, you know, others for ghost building. But yeah, so we've been, you know, we have our, you know, handful that we've done.
Nice. How would you say? Or what are some ways that being a tiny home dweller created a different perspective as, as a professional builder or some insight into the design and the construction process? Yeah. Richard, did you have anything you wanted
Sure, it was a great question. We have a really great ability to just place ourselves in a space and visualize using things and everything from how is this going to work when you move your house? How is this going to work when you have to hook up your house? How are you getting into your house? When you walk through your house, what are you to add to that? seeing what are you having to walk around, it's just a really
immersive perspective. And it is a good foundation because we you know, we live pretty basically but we you know, are able to build on that with what kind of hobbies do you have and kind of fit things into the space without having to retrofit things. Since since we can do things custom and we've you know, experienced doing that for ourselves we just we know what to ask people. We know what to look for. We you know have a
No, not really, she pretty much nailed it. I great outlook on you know where to place things to make them Tiny House friendly but not tiny house dweller unfriendly. mean, it just, it's a unique position to be in, just being able to picture ourselves in that space because that's the
space we live in. So, you know, thinking about the storage and thinking about you know, what a person needs and you know, what to watch out for, to, you know, sometime items, you can't have everything that you would like, in that space. And it's really our responsibility to kind of understand that and relate that back to the client that is asking for these items in their home and just being there for their that support for them, you know, so that they do end up getting that home that they
want. And that is functional at the end of the day.
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's an interesting point of just like, meeting to be almost like the bad cop who says, like, "You know, sure we could squeeze this in, but it's gonna, it might affect your quality of life everywhere. And you might consider omitting something that you want, but isn't as important as some other things."
Absolutely. And it really is always a continuous conversation with folks saying, "Hey, I know you really want this, we can do it. Here's what that would look like, Here's what it looked like, if we didn't do that."
Yeah. Yeah. Where did the name Lionheart come from?
That was my idea. And that's the strength in the name and having pride in what we do. And the loyalty and, you know, the courage to do this, and be there for, you know, everybody in the community. And that's kind of where that whole Lionheart stems from is just having a heart of a lion.
Nice. I like that. So one thing that that continues to be a challenge in the tiny house movement, you know, we've we've all seen, things are really moving on the legalization front, and particularly in Portland, but but all over the country, piece by piece, state by state it seems to be moving in the
pro-tiny house direction. One area where where I haven't seen very much movement is in is in the financing, in that, you know, a a tiny home is affordable, but it's very difficult to get a loan for it. And so it ends up being not available to those who really need an affordable home. What have you seen, you know, your clients, you know, coming in with? Have you seen any creative financing options? Or what and what can you do as a builder to help make that more accessible?
Absolutely. So I can talk a little more to the flexible options and like things that people have done that are a little outside of the norm. And then I know we have a partner that Richard will, will chat about as well. So we actually financed our home, and we used in unsecured line of credit. So basically, what folks can do is be credit approved and have a line or a loan that they get depending on their bank, depending on what they're
approved for. And they can use that for basically whatever they want to. And your home is not collateralizing that. So basically, it's like having just a whopper of a credit card. Typically the interest rates are a lot better. But that is what we did to finance our build originally. And that gave us a great kickstart. So there are definitely places you can do that for larger amounts and I've
seen folks go with that. We of course, have a few clients that have been further along in life than we have and were able to do cash. So that's obviously always an option. But definitely looking at alternative financing is a great idea. Well, things are still progressing and becoming more tiny friendly, but typically, yeah, either an unsecured loan or line of some sort. I've also seen folks who have owned their truck outright, they have a beautiful new truck and they refinanced on that to
get the cash from it. And because they have that available so just looking at what assets you have, basically, yeah, yeah, your your credit, your, you know, belongings what have you. There's there's lots of possibilities if you if you get creative.
Nice,
And then we're Lionheart homes, we actually have financing available through a partnership with Liberty Bank of Utah.
Okay.
And that's really great for you know, potential clients, because we kind of have that involved with us that we can send them, you know, through that partnership and have that available. And, and really, what allowed us to get to that point is being very detailed in our inspection process and who we work with to provide those detailed reports, you know, this bank is comfortable with financing because of they know the quality and what gets put into this home. So to be able to back it.
Rght, because these, the Liberty bank is actually doing like more mortgage like loans like 10, 15, 20 year loans.
Correct.
Right.
Yeah. And that's, that's a big, that's a tough nut to crack, because that's, that's what actually make would make a tiny house affordable is to, you know, for someone to be able to finance it over the course of, you know, 15 years or more like a like a mortgage.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Do you know what the interest rates are like on those loans? Are they significantly higher than, you know, just like what people are getting for a single family?
Sure. So the last time I checked, I was going through their previous brochure, I haven't looked lately for their current rate, because primary did just change a few weeks ago. So that is going to change. Everything lending related, of course, yeah, but I believe they were around 8%.
Yeah. Yeah.
Which isn't horrible. Obviously it's a lot more than a mortgage, but it's a lot less than a credit card.
Yeah, certainly a lot less than a credit card.
Yeah.
Well, one thing that I like to ask all my guests is, you know, what are two or three resources that that helped you, when you were building your tiny house that you'd like to share with our listeners,
I think, if anybody was interested in potentially doing a DIY build themselves, and they wanted to design something, I know, for us, in our design phase of designing our house in our Duchess model. Like I said, we took us about eight months to design, we used Google SketchUp. And we taught ourselves how to use that program. And that
helped tremendously. I mean, we rebuilt the house, I don't know, probably eight to a dozen times on SketchUp just have to really tweak everything before we actually were doing it in person physically, and like having to move things and adjusting. It really saved a lot of time and materials and frustration, just doing it on the on SketchUp.
Nice. And did you just, like learn from YouTube? Did you take a course like how did you learn SketchUp?
Yeah, basically, just YouTube, just a bunch of tutorial videos on. You know, we, we got it to a good, you know, I don't think we're complete professionals at, you know, Google SketchUp, but we got enough understanding of it to make, you know, that model happen. So...
Nice.
I have to be a complete nerd and say our local library was great. We actually did a lot of research on just different techniques for things that we were already familiar with, and just really wanted to brush up on and, you know, they have great ideas for, you know, air movement and you know, more
minut things. There's just so many resources out there that are free and, you know, accessible to folks that you can, you know, read ebooks and things and read about, you know, different, you know, types of physics and things that go into processes that you're, you know, are a little more well rounded if, if you're, again, trained to DIY things yourself, and really get down into the nitty gritty that it takes to do that.
Nice. Well, Richard and Cassie Saide, thank you so much for being guests on the show. This was really fun.
Thanks so much for having us. It was great.
Thank you so much to Richard and Cassie Saude of Lionheart homes for being guests on the show today. You can find the show notes, including photos of their various homes that they've builtt and lots of links to social media accounts and more, plus a complete transcript from this episode at thetinyhouse.net/219. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/219. Well, that's all for this week. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and I'll be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.