hey guys jenna here welcome back to my channel where i feature alternative and creative homes
in today's video tour we meet an inspiring young woman who built her own beautiful tiny home
to achieve financial stability through creative home design
welcome to the inside of my tiny house some highlights of her tiny home include a modern
and minimalistic style an open floor plan a sunlit shower and her burnt wood siding
mariah showcases some unique design ideas throughout this video
all of which make her home seem a lot larger than it actually is
if you're interested in more tiny house design
tips i recently produced a video of my own tiny house for extra space storage
where i feature some of my favorite design tricks to help a space seem larger and more functional
i'll put a link to it below in the description
and i hope you'll check it out after watching this video tour
hi my name is mariah hoffman and this is my tiny house lola
before i built my tiny house i was living in the bay area and i was a few years out of school out
of undergrad and i was just feeling pretty lost i was trying to figure out my next direction in life
i felt like i was lost creatively financially i was really having a hard time and also just
kind of emotionally i was just trying to still sort through some some things in my life that i
just wanted to heal from and process through and i went out for a run and i ended up stumbling across
a tiny house in person and this woman walked out she was very gracious and she let me you
know come inside and see the space and that's when everything clicked for me okay this is it this is
what i have to do ever since i was a little girl i was always fascinated with architecture and design
i wasn't sure if i wanted to be an architect but i just knew i wanted to build my dream home one day
through life you know i experienced some challenge when it came to my family and
financial instability emotional instability when it came to kind of my adolescent years
and in that time i started to realize you know building a safe home for me was in part a desire
to learn architecture hands-on and to learn construction in the design process and the
other part was really just a real need for a safe and stable home and a stable livelihood for myself
that required a lot of personal reflection in terms of understanding what safety looks like
to me what does it feel like so that process was really important for not only just designing the
house but also understanding what my objectives are my goals for the whole journey it's been
really powerful to see that process help other people in their lives and so i started my company
micro modula which is a creative studio and now i get to help others explore their own realities of
home and so through my own practice of this home i've been able to kind of identify my creative
voice and my own business as well i've been living in my tiny house for about three years
and the first year of that was actually still as i was finishing the build my build process
was definitely a journey it took over five years to finish my house from start to finish
i really spent the first eight months just planning my build 98 of the work in my house
was self-performed so it was a huge learning curve i had close to zero building experience
i barely use a drill and i really wanted to just dive in and start to learn kind of like the basics
i began using a makerspace actually here in san diego which was incredibly helpful at the time
and a makerspace is essentially a co-work space and in addition to the actual tools and classes it
was an amazing network and a community of other builders and just like any house i mean people
i think often don't realize a tiny house even though it's small you still have to go through
all the standard construction phases just at a smaller scale and i was able to save quite a bit
in terms of labor but that doesn't include sweat equities of my time but the total
cost to build was about uh 12 384 dollars from start to finish including the trailer as well
this is my tiny house lola so i built my tiny house on a 20-foot trailer a used trailer that i
modified by welding a new frame my trailer has double axles and that can support about roughly
eleven thousand five hundred weight capacity and i actually clad it with a traditional japanese
burning technique called tusugiban and by actually burning the wood you make it naturally bug fire
and water resistant so it's a really awesome technique for cladding that kind of naturally
has a resilience to it and so i really was curious and i wanted to try that technique on my house
here we are on the deck of my tiny house and it's just a great added feature because you can
extend the outdoor space directly in front of my house i love sitting out here having my coffee
having a little fire and the best part was i made this all from scrap material from my house build
so because i actually welded my frame using steel i was able to add these extra large
beautiful windows that are custom aluminum windows with tempered glass to really maximize the view
and open up the space inside we're here on the outside around the back of my tiny house where
i've got my on-demand hot water heater and also added bonus a little outdoor shower so great for
san diego if i come home i just need to rinse off my feet i've got this as well as my indoor shower
we are here in the back of my tiny house and this is what i call my garage it actually sits
underneath my bed frame and i use this to store all my tools and materials and paints and anything
else that i need for my build so i'm super excited to show you one of my favorite features
of my tiny house which is my custom welded door so i actually made it using weld on hinges
and also some two by fours for the handles and just paneled it from there
welcome to the inside of my tiny house as you can see i kept with the minimalist clean aesthetic in
my house i really wanted to make sure that even though it's a small space that it felt as large
as possible and so i really didn't do a ton of built-ins i really just tried to keep things
as modular and you know fold down as much as possible to really keep the small space open
so above my windows i actually use what's called polycarbonate twin wall
and the reason i use this because i wanted to have consistent natural filter light in my small space
and i realized this really allows a small space to feel bigger
so even with my curtains closed i get this nice filtered light and i also get the sunset coming in
i really wanted a long kind of multi-functional desk in my tiny house so i actually made
this using just birch ply and some hinges that fold flat
flush with the wheel well it actually opens up the space for just different options
so this is my multifunctional desk and kitchen table so i use this for working on my computer
having dinner and things like that and this table also folds flush over my wheel well
which opens up the space even more so i decided to go with custom aluminum windows
with a double slider on either side and in both sides of the house as well for cross ventilation
another way that i was actually able to just save on some costs was making my
curtains using just canvas drop cloth so this is my bedroom area of my tiny house
as you can see i've got a bit of storage i actually chose to go with a half lofted bed
to maximize storage underneath and directly below this is my garage outside so these great little
cubbies serve two purposes one is storage for my clothes the other is extra seating
so on my bookcase i get to display different architectural books that inspire me
and also artwork from people that i love so i've got two pieces of art one for
my sister and one from my partner who are both artists and it's just
just a nice thing to have that you know little special artwork that really personalizes my space
this is the bed of my tiny house and it's just a twin size bed that fits right in this back wall
so i decided to go with the twin bed because it was the most compact for this space i think
definitely if you have the option to fit a queen if you do a lofted bed that makes sense but since
i did a half loft i really had the real estate just for a twin size so that's what i have to work
with here and yeah it works out i really wanted to keep my interior paneling very minimalist
but also you know reference and honor the structural frame of the trailer so you can
see i left pieces of the frame exposed and then i paneled it with this birch paneling which i think
fits really nice and i carried that through the walls as well as the ceiling for my electrical i
decided to go with exposed conduit for a couple reasons the first is because it allows me you
know to adapt it over time if i ever need to add another receptacle i could do that and also just
made more sense with a steel frame so i wouldn't have to run wiring through the metal frame
so here we are in my kitchen of my tiny house and this unit i actually got from ikea
and i love it as well it's super compact and it fits perfectly in my space and i just use a single
propane burner got my sink got my utensils and i'm good to go i wanted to make my kitchen shelving as
modular as possible so i used actually this retail grid wall and i made these custom birch shelves as
well and i keep my dishes and pots and everything up here and then for my backsplash i carried the
sugibon element inside as well and added that in a small space every square inch matters so in this
tiny little niche between my kitchen and the shelf i was able to fit my pantry i'm really excited to
show you one of my favorite spaces in my tiny house which is my shower so let's take a look
i really wanted my shower to feel modern and clean so i've got the skylight above which
allows for natural light i've got these niches that i actually just built within the frame and
then i've got this nice beautiful modern shower head the roof of my shower is actually a custom
skylight that i made using the polycarbonate the great thing about this skylight is that allows for
this awesome natural light in my shower and i can open it up for ventilation in terms of my toilet
i actually have a nice communal bathroom on the property that i'm able to use and then eventually
i'll be adding a compost toilet so my tiny house is parked kind of in the outskirts of san diego
and it was actually just through connections at the maker space that i was able to connect
with a friend of a friend who had a property and they were willing to let me build and park
i knew that being a young woman of color entering
architecture construction fabrication and building it just i didn't see enough examples of it growing
up and it was something that when i was moving through this process i really realized that
i wanted to see more examples of it and i wanted to be that example for other people as well
and so now that i you know was able to kind of do this with my life and with my creative
process i want to continue to aspire others and other young women especially of color to
to find their voice in this process and to and to be brave and to
and to trust your own vision and to trust your your own voice and story that you have
because everybody has a unique story to tell especially now
thanks for watching this video guys check back next friday for an all new
alternative or tiny home tour
you