DIY Tiny House, 8 Years of Minimalist Living
After 8 years of living in a 12×12 tiny house that I built from reclaimed wood, I’m reflecting on what simple living in the country taught me about minimalism, what is needed and not and what I really require to be happy.
Living in a tiny house isn’t for everyone, but the tiny house experience gave me peace, harmony, healing, joy, a strong sense of connection with nature and the financial freedom to pursue my dreams.
In 2017 I moved from a 2400 sqft house in urban Durham, NC to a 12′ x 12′ tiny house with no indoor bathroom on 3 wooded acres in Efland, North Carolina. I did not look back nor did I miss the city or the square footage. I embraced the tiny house experience.
Now I am embarking on a new chapter, building a 1200 square foot house on the same land.
My tiny house has been moved from my place to a new home with a new owner.
Here’s a brief walk through from the night before the move:
https://youtube.com/shorts/7BPwVZAmhsM?feature=share
In this post, I’ll talk more about the pros and cons of tiny house life and why I’m transitioning out after eight years. I’ll also break down the cost of building the tiny house and the economics and the logistics of day-to-day life.
Building My DIY Tiny House
I am fortunate to have carpentry skills. I grew up with carpenters around me, and I also had my own residential remodeling business in Durham for over a decade. Having these skills meant that my labor cost was free, just my time.
Materials
In the process of remodeling older homes built in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, I was able to save some really cool old lumber and other artifacts. As my collection of reclaimed materials grew, I started to make furnishings and folk art and sell them. This prompted people to start gifting and donating me materials when they saw the work I was doing with them. I also took it to another level with dumpster diving construction sites where old houses were being gutted, and curb picking old furniture and making stuff out of it.
When it came time to build a house, I had an abundance of materials to choose from. My ethos in building the house was that everything was going to be salvaged or reclaimed. That I wasn’t going to buy new stuff from a box store. I was able to achieve that goal with the only things I purchased being: electrical wire, plumbing pipe (and some of that was salvaged or leftover from jobs), nails and screws, and some insulation. For the finishing touches, I did purchase other things, such as a stainless steel sink, a faucet, a two-burner gas cooktop and a couple of light fixtures from Habitat for Humanity.
The total out of pocket cost to build the house was in the hundreds of dollars, ballpark $500-600.
Tiny House Cost to Build, Materials Used
Since this was only a 12×12 structure. I was able to complete it within a few months. That’s working part-time on it. I built the house on 6×6 pressure-treated posts set into concrete. Those were 6×6 scraps donated to me. For the framing, I used two-by-six framing lumber salvaged from a 1920s house that was being gutted and renovated in Durham. The exterior sheathing is a crazy patchwork of plywood scraps that I had salvaged or saved and planks of various dimensions. The exterior siding was salvaged metal roofing. All windows were salvaged from construction sites and came out of houses built in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The front and back doors were also antiques from around the 1920s.
My finished floor was tongue-and-groove pine flooring that came out of a warehouse building in downtown Durham that a friend of mine was renovating.
Probably the most time-consuming aspect of finishing the house was the beadboard. I used antique individual 1-by-4 beadboard planks. That was a lot of individual planks to lay to cover the whole house going up to 12 feet high and working with the gambrel roof (a barn-shaped roof) for the end wall cuts.
All of my trim was antique pine. I used pieces of a salvaged antique piano for an inset bookshelf. I poured a concrete countertop, building a mold and setting various artifacts that I had found or salvaged as accents.
The Financial picture and How I Bought The Land off Craigslist
I built my tiny house on 3 acres of land that I bought off of Craigslist for 53k. I contacted the seller and they gave me the address. I came out and walked the property and fell in love with it. I made them an offer that same day. I was working primarily as an artist at the time with not a very big income. So I proposed seller financing to them, and they accepted.
A Hiccup- Before we had everything signed, they told me that they had a cash offer coming in, and that they might take that if it was good. My heart dropped. There was a delay of a couple of weeks, but then they came back to me and told me they would go forward with my seller financing offer.
I paid a few thousand down, whatever I had in my bank account. We financed the remaining amount with a payment for the balance due after 5 years. I paid $268/month for 5 years to live on 3 acres of land in the country.
Fortunately, I had a rental house in the city that I sold in order to give me the remainder of the balance at the end of five years. If I had not had that as an option, I probably could have gotten a loan from a bank.
After I paid off the sellers, my expenses were incredibly low. They weren’t very onerous in the first place, with a $268/month mortgage. My only other expenses were for propane, gas, and electricity. The property had a septic system and a well when I bought it, which was one of the selling points for me. There had actually been a mobile home here that was very run-down, and I had it hauled off.
What Financial Freedom Enabled
My extremely low expenses allowed me to build a business around my art made from reclaimed materials and travel to shows with my work. I built up a successful business on Etsy And also sold my work at weekend art events and some gallery shows.
I also had great flexibility to travel because with no overhead, whatever I was making I could save and have the ability to take trips. I spent chunks of a few winters in Puerto Rico. I traveled to see my kids in Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona. I spent time in Chicago, Nashville and NYC.
The economics of living in the tiny house definitely facilitated freedom to do a lot of different things for me. I started my real estate investing business from the tiny house as well and have built it up into a business that closes 40 or so deals per year with a team of 5. With less pressure of financial overhead, there’s more flexibility to be able to take some risks.
Tiny House Cost of Living vs Traditional
Monthly Costs: Tiny House vs Traditional
Tiny house: $350/month total
- Propane: $33
- Electric: $150
- Internet: $80
- Property tax: $83
- Water: $0 (well)
- Mortgage: $0
Traditional house: $1,740/month total
- Mortgage: $1,200
- Property tax: $200
- Electric: $200
- Water: $60
- Internet: $80
That’s $1,400/month in financial breathing room. Even when paying the $268/month land payment, I saved $1,100/month vs traditional living.
Day to day tiny house life- what’s it like?
The Layout
I had a 12×12 space with a very small kitchen in one corner. Very much like a small studio apartment. There was a sleeping loft that was wide enough for a double bed and went the length of the house, roughly 6′ x 12′.
Because I’m tall, I built the gambrel roof so that the headroom was pretty good up there. About five feet high.
One of the great things that I did was to build a porch on the back side of the house that looked out on a creek below. My porch was 8 ft x 10 ft. I had a standing desk set up out there, and I did a lot of workouts and yoga on the porch. Zoom meetings too. It gave me an extra space for 9 months out of the year in North Carolina. (And I still did workouts there even in the cold.)
Despite being only 12′ by 12′, there was a feeling of expansiveness in the house. I made a couple of choices that facilitated this. The half of the house that did not have a loft had a 12-foot-high ceiling, which made it feel very open. I had plenty of windows, including two in the upper part of each end wall. And I painted the interior a flat white, which makes things feel open and light..
For furniture, I had a compact love seat and a very small antique sewing table that I used for both eating and as my work desk inside. Two chairs. Keeping the furnishings minimal also helped to make the space feel open. I once had a Thanksgiving dinner in there with eight people around a folding table in the middle of the house. I also had a birthday party on the back porch with eight people around a folding table.
I created a garden space and patio in the front of the house with outdoor chairs that was usable 9 months out of the year.
Overall, a very nice living experience, and I felt I wanted for nothing. I had a closet upstairs for my clothing and another on the first floor to store office things, shoes, and miscellaneous items.
The Kitchen
The kitchen was tiny but very functional. A small L-shaped countertop in the corner that included a deep stainless steel sink and a two-burner gas cooktop that was designed for an RV. Beneath the cooktop, I had a shelf for a high-quality convection toaster oven that served me well for baking and heating things up. I added an instant-on small hot water heater underneath the sink. I put a tiny exhaust fan above the stove for when cooking got steamy. I had no problem preparing a full complement of meals and different types of dishes in my kitchen. I have a background in restaurants and I love to cook.
For the living space, I found an RV mount for a TV and I mounted a small TV so that it would flip up in between the joists for the loft and be hidden from view unless I was watching it. I planned in space between the love seat and the ladder to the loft where a dog crate or a dog bed would fit. It was very cozy to sit on the loveseat and watch a movie.
Heating and Cooling
For heat, I purchased a blue flame propane heater off of eBay for about $100. That thing cranked and was plenty to heat the entire space on the coldest winter days. For AC I initially started with a window air conditioning unit in one of the upper windows, but I later graduated to a mini split which was better for cooling and allowed me to reclaim full natural light from that window.
What about the outdoor bathroom?
As I mentioned earlier, I was fortunate to buy a property that already had a septic system and a well in place. I built a small structure just big enough to hold a toilet with a little porch on it. I had an enclosed porcelain toilet that flushed into the septic system. On the little porch, I put dual metal antique wash tubs that I found in the basement of an old house from the 1920s. So cool!
Outdoor showers are the best!
The shower was built off the other end of this bathroom shed, which we called the WC (affectionately known as the “dub-C”) . I used reclaimed pressure-treated decking and I created a gray water drainage system. We used only Dr. Bronner’s soap and natural body care products. I got a tankless hot water heater that I put inside the structure with the toilet. Instant hot water, no matter what the season. And the cold showers were extremely cold because of the well water, especially in the middle of winter. I would get an exterior brain freeze- The water hitting my skull was so icy that it produced the same effect as drinking a slushie too fast!
I had some incredibly magical moments in that outdoor shower. From ice-cold showers in the morning waking me up better than 5 cups of coffee could have, to being in a warm shower in the darkness of night hearing the owls calling and seeing the sky lit up with stars. The well water is silky and I believe it helped my skin. No chemical treated city water.
Being naked outside is exhilarating in itself, scratching a primordial itch very satisfyingly.
The pros and cons of tiny house life
What I loved about living in a tiny house
Nature connection (living outdoors most of the time).
One of my intentions when choosing the tiny house was to spend a good chunk of my time outside. My indoor space was very comfortable, but I spent a lot more time outside than I would have if I had had a large house with lots of room. This made me closer to nature and more grounded.
Decluttering = mental clarity
It’s a really wonderful thing to know where everything is and find it in an easy way without clutter. It’s also great to be able to clean up the house very easily because there are very few things, and everything has a place. Super great for my ADD brain because it really helped me to stay organized.
Solitude as an introvert.
Living in the woods with plenty of physical space around me and lots of peace was an amazing gift to give myself as an introvert. Living in the city where you can see out your window and into your neighbor’s window in a neighborhood is not ideal for me. I really love a lot of physical, mental, and emotional space.
Financial freedom
As I mentioned earlier, I created a lot of financial space and financial freedom for myself – freedom to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do without worrying about money or paying a big overhead. I was also able to save money and put a bunch away. I even bought a new Tesla after driving junky old trucks for years.
Cold showers made me resilient
Cold showers were not a mandatory part of my tiny house life, but it was a choice I made and it was a good choice for me. Conditioning my nervous system and waking me up every morning ready for the day. I developed mental fortitude by getting up even in the middle of winter and going outside naked to jump into some cold water, even when I didn’t want to. I never regretted it after I got out feeling awake and alive!
Custom built just for me.
I built my house, every square inch of it, and everything was exactly the way I wanted it, tailored to me. That’s a pretty amazing experience. I wasn’t adapting myself to a pre-existing space. I was making a space for myself, every last detail.
Cons of living in a tiny house
Relationships
I’d say the biggest con of living in a 12×12 tiny house with an outdoor bathroom was the dating aspect of it. I was single for a good portion of the time that I lived there. I imagine some women that I talked to from dating apps immediately swiped left on me when they found out I lived in a 12×12 tiny house with no bathroom inside. Some braved it, but it’s not for everyone.
Even for two people who like being together, a 12×12 space can feel cramped, especially in winter when you can’t use the outdoor space.
When I first moved in, I had recently ended a long term relationship, so it was all about me. Later though, when I wanted to share my space, I began to crave a bit more. I’d recommend that couples have a satellite space when sharing a tiny dwelling.
No indoor bathroom. Peeing outside is easy for a guy. I rarely used the bathroom except for #2. For women it’s a bit more of a process to get up in the middle of the night in Winter and walk outside to the bathroom and sit on a cold seat. (I did have a heat lamp in there which made it not so bad, but still…)
Cooking- Though I made a great variety of dishes and had a lot of fun cooking in my tiny kitchen, it had its limitations. You can only bake so much in a toaster oven, even a big one. And preparing meals with a partner gets a little cozy.
Space for yoga and stretching.
I do yoga regularly, and in winter my tiny space could get a bit cramped, especially with a dog in the space who wanted to share the yoga mat. Workable, but I craved a bit more elbow room.
Cooling the loft- Since heat rises, the loft was always toasty and cozy in winter. In the middle of summer, it was challenging to get it really cool, since the cold air drops. My mini split was across from the loft on the opposite wall, and I’d have it set to oscillate. It worked fine, just not as cool as I would’ve liked on some of the hottest summer nights.
No dishwasher. Not an extreme hardship, but I washed my dishes by hand every day for 8 years. I didn’t want to sacrifice cabinet space for a dishwasher.
Workspace/ living space. The table I worked at was the table I ate at. I’ve worked from home for the past 4 years. It’s nice to have a bit more delineation between work and non-work space. I would pack up all of my work stuff and put it in the closet at the end of the day so as not to wake up and have it be the first thing I saw in the morning.
What I Learned from living in a tiny house
Best lessons from 8 years
Minimalism rocks! Everything you own requires energy to maintain and keep track of. Having an invisible connection to things, even things you don’t see is a micro energy drain.
We don’t need as many things as we think we do. I purged a lot of stuff- kitchen stuff, clothing, wall hangings, furniture. I didn’t miss it. A few good things. Stuff that works, as Guy Clark said.
We don’t need as much indoor space as we think we do either. I went from 2400 square feet, to 216 square feet. I was very happy..
Being outdoors and connected with nature is a great source of peace and grounding. I was barefoot in the woods daily, naked outside in the outdoor shower, in tune with plants and trees and insects and birds and mammals in a deeper way than ever before. This was all very healthy for me. I like to say I became semi-feral, barefoot most of the time, naked outside in the shower, peeing outside. I came to dislike having to pee in a toilet when I was in “civilized” settings.
I got clarity on what I want in my next house. What’s essential for me and what’s not. Living in a 12’ x 12’ will make a 1200 sq ft house feel like a mansion, and will lead me to manage the space well.
Would I do it again?
Heck yeah! I have had mixed feelings about ending the tiny chapter. I was very happy and could have gone on indefinitely.
What would I do differently?
I might go a little bigger and include an indoor bathroom. My mom’s tiny house is about 430 square feet and it feels more spacious and she has a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a full sized stove and a good sized kitchen. So maybe 12’ x 30’ or something like that.
Who should NOT do tiny house living
If you don’t like being outside a lot it may not be for you.
There’s the ladder thing- Many tiny houses have ladders. Don’t get a tiny house with a ladder if you don’t like climbing up and down them.
People with an attachment to a lot of stuff. If your things are important to you and having them around you in your living space makes you feel good, then you should have a space that accommodates your things.
If you’re an extreme extrovert and you like to have people in and out of your house a lot, and to entertain, my situation may not be good for you. You could, however, join a tiny house community with multiple tiny houses on a property and a common space and shared gardens, etc.
Why I’m building bigger now (1200 sq ft)
I want a dedicated office space, just for work and work stuff.
I want an indoor space where I can spread out and do yoga or calisthenics without tripping over my dog or bumping into table legs or the couch.
I want plenty of space for me and my girlfriend to cohabitate without being on top of each other.
I want a bigger kitchen for preparing meals and also cooking with my partner or friends and family.
I want a dishwasher
I want a guest space for my kids to stay in when they visit.
I want to be able to entertain friends and family indoors if the weather doesn’t allow for an outdoor gathering.
What’s next
My house has been moved off site to its new home with a woman who was very happy to receive it and called it her dream home and her forever home. That makes me happy.
I am in the process of working with a builder to erect my new 1200 square foot home. I will use reclaimed wood accents in the new house, which I will do myself, but I’m letting someone else do the main construction.
We are also building my mom a 496 square foot new tiny house. Orange County wouldn’t let her stay in her current one, but that’s another story. We have had a tiny house compound with 3 tiny dwellings on my 3 acres for the better part of 10 years, my mom, my daughter and me. Also another story for another post.
I’ve been staying in an RV for the past few weeks since my house was moved. I’ll continue this part-time during the construction while also spending time with my girlfriend on Emerald Isle, NC.
Are you considering tiny house living? Have questions? Feel free to reach out in the comments or via email. I’m also working on a tiny house guide- from construction to lifestyle. It should be available in my store soon.
If you’re wondering about how seller financing works and want to understand more, I can help with that too.
If you’re considering the tiny house life, I highly endorse it.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
Great story, Mark.
Thanks, Mark! Are you a tiny house dweller?