hey there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny and unique homes and showcase
stories of people living alternatively today we're traveling to one of the most expensive
housing markets in the United States but we're interviewing a young homeowner who
found a way to live for a fraction of the cost in the first legal tiny house on Wheels Adu in
San Jose California tasia's motivation for going tiny dates back to the beginning of the pandemic
due to his job he often needed to quarantine but wanted to be close to his family to help out when
needed having a tiny house on Wheels parked in his parents backyard just made sense if you like
these kind of videos make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification Bell so that you know
every single time we publish a new video but right now let's take a tour of tasia's legal tiny house
make this house
hi my name is Tasia welcome to my tiny home on wheels
the reason that I was first inspired to even pursue this is because I wanted to see just
how much I could minimize things and see how I could make that transition to just living more
minimalistically up until that point I'd just done a lot of living with roommates I kind of
was getting to the stage where I wanted my own space and that's when I started looking into
really the best solution for me in a place like the bay area where housing is so expensive and
that's when tiny houses kind of entered my radar I was able to find a really great Builder called
Forever tiny homes they were great in working with me to be able to get it exactly how I wanted
this is actually the first permitted tiny home on Wheels in San Jose California San Jose passed
a tiny house ordinance in May 2020 and I started thinking up of the idea of a tiny house in June
and the city was very willing to work with me because no one had done it before I had
to submit something akin to architectural plans but a little bit simpler they had a checklist
I had to go through so that's what we have here and this is actually what the city came
to inspect and when they approved it and we were kind of able to come to this standard that now
exists that will hopefully make it a lot easier for people to have one of these in their home
so I've been living in this tiny house for about 16 months now I was very fortunate to
be able to place it here where my family already owns property I wanted this to feel like a space
where one could feel at home where I could have friends where I could really just like
live in it and not feel like I'm trapped you know because of the the size restriction and
so with that in mind my budget was between 75 to 100 000 I will say this is more of like a luxury
apartment on Wheels I knew how much I was able to spend and wanted to take full advantage of that
without going overboard overall the house itself plus all the work to kind of get the parking pad
ready and the permitting all came out just under I'd say 90 95 000 which I was super happy about
this area where the tiny home is placed is a neighborhood in the
middle of Silicon Valley where housing prices are pretty high I couldn't just
really go out there and buy a house for one two million dollars whatever it may be
I'm about to give you a tour of my tiny house which is located on the
back part of my parents property right here next to the main house come on in
so as we enter here through the front door we'll first say hi
to Indy who's always there to greet every visitor
what was interesting about bringing this house in is because it's a tiny house on Wheels I was able
to kind of knock down this gate and have them just back it up into a parking pad that we created one
of the reasons I picked a tiny house on Wheels is because it's not on a foundation it's much
easier to get the permitting it was much easier to just get it set up and the costs were much
lower so the parking pad just basically consists of four concrete pours that we put down there's
cinder blocks that the house is sitting on and then as you can see over here at the wheels we
have them on these kind of Jack arrest things that make sure the house doesn't go anywhere so
it's nice and secure on its own parking pad this is composite wood siding so there's no
plastic in this it's like a wood meld have a nice little window here to get lots of airflow
these are tinted on the outside but from the inside you're able to see perfectly clear out
the power line runs under the house goes through under this concrete pour and it
comes out and it's plugged into an RV Connection over there and then down here if I remove this
you can see that line I was talking about and there's also the RV hose that's the drainage
output for the house and it goes right into a RV sewer clean out that I had placed there and
it basically just feeds into there and goes under the house and connects to the city sewage system
this is a shared backyard space connected to the main house I have a younger brother who's
finishing up college and my parents are in this house so this was actually the basketball hoop
where I would play since I was a little kid so it's been kind of nice having the same backyard
space so he and I will play basketball out here after our days just to unwind hang out a little
bit the tiny houses really brought me closer to my family and just having a space like this
that we can share while still having our own spaces to retreat to has been really great
foreign we have a gazebo over here which interestingly was already here before the
tiny house even got here so a lot of the exterior detail and the exterior entrance
of the tiny house was based on how this was sat in the backyard so I basically just converted it
into an outdoor living area put up some lights to kind of add to the vibe we have a dart board
in there seating area for board games for hanging out even have a projector set up that I can pull
in and out this is my telescope one of the really cool things about having an outdoor space is to be
able to use this on clear Nights This is called a dobsonian great place to start it looks really
big and it looks intimidating but this is the best beginner telescope you can get it's just a
great little piece to have and show people when they come around just the magnificence of what
we're living in out here so I use this often almost every night whenever it's clear foreign
for the HVAC I'm set outside I chose not to have it mounted on the house because just based on
some trials that I did sometimes it shakes the window a little bit or shakes the house
coming down further this way we have some plants we've got an apple trees pomegranate tree this is
actually a persimmon right here all the way over here under all this foliage if I move it aside
you'll see I have a hard water regeneration system basically I have my water connection going to here
first it filters out all the hard water cleans it out for me sends it back under through right
into the connection into the house and I get nice fresh clean water and it's been great we have my
tankless water heater out here the service access for it it's also great which means I don't need to
time my showers I try not to waste much water at all but it's also nice having this because there's
no limit to how much hot water I can have at one time so it's been really great to have something
like this and then I will squeeze into this corner and you can see where I have my gas hooked up
that is the main source of power for the house in terms of the stove and the tankless water
heater and you'll also see that I have my tow hitch which normally came with the house it's
removable I took it down and put it under the house for storage if I ever want to
put it back on it's just a few bolts on either side probably about 45 minutes of work with a
hand or two holding up the weight and then the house is ready to roll out if I ever needed to
all right now that you've kind of seen the exterior of the house and everything going
on there why don't you come on in and I'll show you the inside as well we have the kitchen here
it's got a three burner gas stove top with the added oven it's great you can have all three
going at the same time and when you're not using it just put this down and it's just additional
counter space the counter itself is a quartzite material so it's pretty lightweight but feels like
marble still and it's just been great I wanted to make sure I had a space to food prep to be
able to just kind of move around and then here we have a workstation sink probably one of my
favorite parts of the kitchen the sink itself is big enough it's double wide but when I'm not using
the whole thing I have a cutting board side and I have a dish drying rack side and you can actually
just remove all of these and I usually just Stow them down here and once you do and take out the
vegetable strainer you'll see it's a giant sink so you can put all kinds of dishes in there just make
sure you don't pile them up I have my Nespresso coffee machine here lots of PODS behind you over
there use it every day in the morning when I want to grab a coffee and get out real quick
one other thing I'll mention is all of my drawers are soft closed so it's a nice little
touch that I wanted just to be able to open and close them I have all my utensils some
pots and pans and all my Tupperware down here makes the kitchen feel more luxury
and over here we have the great room area right now I have my work table down I can
also put this up and use it as like a homework space I'm actually a clinical researcher I work
in Ophthalmology I'm at Stanford University and we try to help people with blinding diseases we try
to find different cures where they're blindness when in the past we didn't have the technology
to really offer them any treatments on the side I started my own Consulting business to help people
get a tiny home like this in the Bay Area some artwork on the walls these are actually posters
from NASA JPL and they actually imagine what it would be like in the future if you could actually
travel to these different planets and stars out there so it's just kind of something inspirational
I like having on there and I will mention this is the one plant I've managed to keep alive
over the last year and a half my friend Corinne gave it to me and it's really thrived in here
and in terms of the small touches of the house I have a lot of these little
3D printed busts that my friend Adam made for me all my favorite
philosophers Anna peppered throughout the house to give it some character
and over here we have the interior view of the double-sided sliding door it can open on both
sides so you can choose to redo the layout of the house probably the one feature of this that gets
anyone not just tiny house aficionados is that the blinds themselves never have to be cleaned on
their own I can just open and close them they're self-contained within the housing of the door so
it's a cool little touch and probably my favorite little piece that I made for the house itself is
this photo shelf I actually saw this idea on a different tiny home build and so I highly
recommend having a personal touch like this it means a lot to me I basically took an Ikea Shelf
cut some Plexiglas to the right size screwed it in with The Gap whenever friends come in we'll take a
Polaroid and have them sign and throw it in there so this is basically like a guest book for me
the one thing I knew I wanted to fit in a tiny home and not compromise on is a record player I
wanted to have it just for that sound quality and just for that Vibe I have my record collection
down here have an amplifier the turntable is a U-turn turntable highly recommend it
and the speakers are actually routed along the side of the door they're both up there
this is Indie space she always takes my seat so this is basically her seat now
everything in here including this light I sourced myself this is actually from Home
Depot I think it adds in another nice little touch to the house gives it a modern look I'm
really happy with the design decisions I made and I got lucky and that they all worked out
and then if we turn around here we'll have the stairway there's storage under these
stairs there's cubby holes down here and two main cupboards basically this is just full
of miscellaneous items in here this is where all my hanging clothes are nice and organized
I have about 15 years of movie stubs that I've collected randomly in this uh
box from a navy surplus store so just little things that I'd like to save and have
over here is a double Pantry honestly I think I have more storage here than I really need
this is an apartment size fridge it holds more than enough for two plus people got a
freezer on top fridge on the bottom has my water filter in there as well and then I chose to put
the microwave above it just to keep everything compact I have a little Simply Safe system on
here just to further secure the house because it is a detached from the main house so that gives me
some confidence especially if I'm traveling to be able to turn that on moderate from wherever I am
and then if we hop in here I'll show you the bathroom it's a full bathroom in the bathroom
be like an appropriate size was really important to me a lot of tiny homes that I was looking at as
a concept tended to have a smaller bathroom I was able to come up with a floor plan for the bathroom
and really work with Arlene at Forever tiny homes to be able to design a space that didn't take up
too much room but gave me enough room to be able to use this space to change to have a full shower
in to have a toilet with a bidet and a sink with storage and on the side I have you know four
shelves full of toiletries and other items that I can store in there there's no lack of storage in
this bathroom over here I have a little piece that my friend printed out for me I was lucky enough to
be on Jeopardy when Alex Trebek was still host a couple years ago and her grandma graciously
saved the newspaper article and she framed it and gave it to me for my birthday and I thought what
better place to display this than the bathroom so that's why that's there all right we're gonna
head on upstairs one of the reasons why I picked stairs instead of the ladder here is just for
to be able to provide the mobility in case I had guests over or someone else was using the space
and they needed to be able to come up the stairs versus use the ladder and as you'll notice this
last step here it transitions into this place where you can just put your knee on it and go
straight in nice and cozy I can definitely sit up here and read it's designed mainly for sleeping I
really like this space especially because it gives this kind of Treehouse feeling like you're just
nestled in here I also have this Skylight that I put up here and the reason is because it gives me
much more head clearance now that I have that here and at night actually you can see a lot of stars
when you have the Skylight open it's beautiful the Skylight actually itself has a shade so it's
able to be fully closed as do both these windows these are Shades that I installed myself and these
are completely light blocking so when I put them down during the daytime no light passes through
and they're great I highly recommend them you can get them in lots of different colors to match the
interior of your house and I got them in this gray to match the Cabinetry downstairs I have shelving
on this other side here some books that I'm currently reading alarm clock and a couple game
systems that are connected to the TV on the other side so I can access it from down there as well
thank you what I enjoy the most about living in a space like this is there is no wasted space
here so I had to really plan out exactly the things that were important to me and cut out
the things that weren't it showed me that I can live with kind of minimalistic means
I'm able to have friends over and really have them enjoy the space as well size itself isn't
necessarily a constraint it's fit me well I like to adapt and challenge myself with these kind of
things so you can certainly be comfortable in a tiny space if you make it your own
thanks for watching this week's video please make sure to like share
and subscribe and I will see you soon with another tiny or unique home tour