hey there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny spaces and showcase stories of
people living alternatively in today's episode we're going to meet a couple that's no stranger
to living in tiny homes or having a nomadic lifestyle they're going to explain why each of
these petite abodes are useful in different ways and how they can rotate through them seasonally
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make this house
hey I'm Natalie and I'm Lucas Welcome to our van toad
foreign ER and I live in here full-time seasonally we have lived in all sorts of different types of
tiny homes so our first house that we lived in together was 400 square feet it was a little
cabin in northern Minnesota and then from there we've lived out of our tents we are both outdoor
Educators and Wilderness guides and so being in a tent for weeks or even months at a time
is something that we have done over the last 15 years of our professional career and then
we bought a sailboat a 1977 Columbia 30-foot sailboat on Lake Superior and that was home
for three seasons so we would get six months out of it per year and obviously it freeze over too
cold to be in there so in the time that we had our sailboat we were building our tiny house which is
our I'd say our foundational home it's our home base it's currently in Minnesota and then the van
towed is our space where we can get out and travel really easy to get around and play outside it is
the most simplified version of all the spaces that we have lived in and so it's the exact parts that
we love need and want so the van is an essentially accumulation of 10 years of small living more or
less which is kind of cool our three priorities for this van is we wanted a bed that was always
set up we needed a garage space because we didn't have storage for our bigger toys and
we needed an office space or a living space and like we wanted we valued the open floor plan
it is a mercy Mercy printer van she's a 44 wheelbase wheel big nice and compact
has the taller roof to it Lucas is 6'3 so it's nice to have that Headroom in there
so we found the van locally to us in Oregon for we've got it for 31 000. I would say total right
now the van you're looking at we're probably about 10 grand in on just the building materials
it's about 18 to 22 miles per gallon so Up on the Roof we have 200 watt solar panels there is a
vent up there and then also a rocket box so lots of paddling gear and extra bags for Adventures
so this is the kitchen you'll notice that it's not inside it is outside and this is
on purpose we have experience over the years of what's really valuable to have inside and
what's really valuable to have outside with the van we're dominantly going to
be an arid warm mild climates and so we have the two burner Coleman stove with a propane
water station with some fresh water and a five gallon tank and some soap so
this table totally disassembles rolls up fits in the back really nice if we absolutely have
to if it's raining or super windy which has happened we can cook inside the van it's not
as comfortable but it's doable all right so coming back to the side of the van there's a
couple things I want to share with you in terms of what we modified the windows are all added
so we added three there's two on the side of the bed and then there's the one on the sliding door
here this window on the side here we're fairly happy with in the morning if I'm not wanting
to get up because it's a little cool I often will perch up next to the window and watch the sunrise
so come on back into what we like to call the garage this is one of three components of how
we designed the van so I'd say the garage and the bed are the largest parts of the van we
sat down and asked ourselves what toys what do we want with us and so the bikes the surfboards
and the stand-up pedal boards became the things that we wanted and so the design stemmed from
the shape of each of those things so the surfboards all fit on the side right you
can't disassemble them maybe you can take off a fin but they have to go all the way in so it
made sense that they would be on the side each of these are pretty big drawers that come out
which is pretty awesome and so if I take this off you can just tell that you know this all slides
out these are just the stand-up paddle boards and the pumps Lucas has figured out based on
handlebars based on how tall the frame is how they would fit in here because it really is
um like playing Tetris of making sure that these two bikes can fit next to each other
um and not scratch each other ton and make sure that they fit next to the surfboard so the storage
space is designed based on the actual gear that we have and the size of it and the shape of it
all right so let's head inside to toad I like to call the tiny house the two-step tour this
is the one step tour something that makes me feel at home is cozy and simple just being
able to relate that back here so like why I love like the cedar ceiling paneling and you
know having Earth Tones and things that are like easy to switch out things I'm not really going to
get sick of because anything relating to Nature is going to make me feel so good so like having
just like natural wood colors around there's a lot of correlation between the van and the
tiny house and even parts of the sailboat as well that it's like oh this is comfortable to
me this is aesthetically pleasing to me I think maybe our threshold of what's comfortable and
what's uncomfortable has evolved over the years but we have to remind ourselves that we can be
comfortable and that we're allowed to feel comfortable one I think that's why we've had
no qualms about you know building out a van and having a queen bed set up all the time like that's
a that's a creature comfort that we deserve but it feels really good to have a bed to crawl into
this is kind of an open space that can transition right so changing space sitting
space and workspace so working full-time on the road it's really important to me and to
Lucas that we have a place to stand Standing desks are very important to us there's an
arm that comes out a table attached and it can also attach here if we want it to but this is
my workstation which is really nice and if we're both in here one person will be here and actually
the bed almost doubles as a standing desk so we'll be back to back between all of the years
of how we've lived we're fairly used to working right next to each other so here we have shoes
something that we have in the tiny house is wood that was given from a friend or has a unique story
behind it but I'm pretty sure this came from a friend and we just tried to leave it as natural
as possible because we like the natural aging of things because it just makes a hominess to it next
to it you have all the dry Foods we like the clear bins because you can actually see what's inside it
it helps me when I'm at the grocery store to not over Buy so right now we have a cooler because
that's what we had I'd say there's definitely some frustration points here because ice it melts we're
in a warm climate like right now there is a you know an inch and a half of uh water at the bottom
that I need to drain sometimes I have ice packs that if I'm at somebody's house I'll pop in their
freezer but again those only last you know at most two days eventually we'll we'll switch over to a
refrigerator and be able to use our solar with that it is nice to have just a few places to hang
a couple coats a couple extra items of clothing so it's pretty cool the surfboards right we can't
take them apart but they extend out into this space right here so when they're in here they fit
when they're not in here we all of a sudden have extra storage in terms of water we don't have a
a big water source or a big tank anywhere the big one that we have is in the outdoor kitchen which
is a five gallon tank but then I have a couple of different small ones and it's easy to get at easy
to refill none of my spaces have been with running water so I'm just very water conscious and having
these small jugs again are easy to fill up and I just love being aware of how much water I'm using
so the biggest lessons that I think we've learned over the years as we've lived in small homes and
then right they keep getting smaller and smaller is our systems continue to get more simple and we
value that so much definitely less is more what you do have are quality they're things that you
use they're things that function well having that Simplicity just goes such a long way because now
there's room for us to live our lives I want to say that I went surfing and not that I had
to fix my my water system because some gasket broke what's important to us is being outside
adventuring being with our family and being able to travel and not have to worry about
the systems that we live in I don't know if I could live this way with really anybody else
we have really similar morals and values I want to go live my life and I want to be with people
and I want to explore and so creating that space like that together has allowed that to happen
thanks for watching this week's episode we hope to one day also do a tour of Natalie and Lucas's tiny
home so make sure that you subscribe so that you know every single time we publish a new episode