if you're passionate about tiny houses
chances are you will have already heard
of tiny house expedition a couple of
filmmakers who are traveling in the
United States in their tiny house
filming the documentary series living
tiny legally today we've had a chance to
catch up with the couple here in
Vancouver to find out about what life is
like for them in their own tiny house on
the road
[Music]
hi Alexis hey how's it going Christian
see you mate nice to see you
it is incredible for me to be seeing
this tiny house now in person this has
got to be the most travel tiny house in
the world right now doesn't it I think
so yeah we're about 28,000 miles and and
I think the next one below us might have
been tiny Australian journey 25 oh that
was twenty I was about 25 so yeah we
think we just passed them so yeah feel
it definitely feels like we've done a
lot of miles for the house so many tiny
houses that get built now I just built
to be parked up in one spot and never
take advantage of the fact that they're
on wheels but you certainly cannot say
that about this house can you absolutely
not it's been two years of pretty much
continuous travel twenty-nine states and
one Canadian province now when we first
started dating we took this really great
road trip to Michigan of all places and
on that trip we learned we really love
to travel together and that we work well
in small spaces and at that time was
just a tent in a car but got us thinking
of how we could do more of that and both
of us and particularly me was in a time
of big change in my life I had been
divorced for about a year and was
looking for a way to turn a fresh leaf
and to have more adventure and more
flexibility and also to be able to own
my own home Christian got me down the
path of researching tiny houses on
wheels and several months of doing
research non-stop I came out of it
deciding that I wanted to build my own
home and that I wanted to travel to
visit all the great community projects
that were using tiny homes to make a
difference in the community or
filmmakers and I saw that I didn't think
anyone was really telling that story and
I'm kind of an all-or-nothing person as
Christian would tell you so I gave him a
call and I said hey you know I want to
build a tiny house and I want to travel
around with it to do this documentary
film do you want to do it with me and I
said yeah absolutely
yeah you had me a travel
was so yeah it was the the travel aspect
and the meeting the people and all of it
sounded like something I would have to
absolutely be into so it was absolutely
worth worth are worth our while to build
the house and make this journey tell me
a little bit about what actually went
into building this home a big thing that
took a lot of our time during the build
was material gathering because we use a
lot of salvaged event claim materials so
the great thing about that is you get to
save things that would otherwise go to
the landfill in many situations you
could add a lot of character to your
house and save money but it takes hours
and hours if not weeks longer to build
and well actually before you even get to
build to collect the materials prepare
them and then build them like even just
this decking this decking turned into
also our flooring inside but this was
given to us by a friend who had it just
in a tobacco barn on a piece of property
in North Carolina and it had probably
been sitting there for like 50 60 years
everything in our house has this kind of
story to it you know it's all connected
to other people we know and people we
don't know
so because of them we've been able to
build this house we have two propane
tanks that one is for our hot water
heater and one is for the propane stove
that's inside the house and then there's
another box that's basically where our
external water heater lives so how big
is this house actually so it is a
hundred and thirty square feet it's on a
20-foot trailer but it's only like
seventeen and a half feet of house on
the inside because we wanted a porch you
under the front porch so we feel like
you know this is one of the things that
makes a home how do you actually find
traveling so much with a house this size
have you run into any problems on the
road so far
problems most of all a couple of
problems but most of the problems have
been like with the actual mechanics of
the trailer we had a rim crack so we
basically gives us a flat tire one of
those was on the way to Burning Man
that's a story in itself but as far as
the like structural part of the trailer
with the house on it it's been
it's been fun the biggest thing with the
house is it gets dirty you know it's
it's filthy
we actually again after Burning Man we
actually had to pull this into a car
wash and wash the whole thing off which
was great so it's at that point again
where it just gets it just gets Road
grime and stuff but it's nothing that
just can't be you know cleaned off
that's all the sort of stuff that you
don't even think about potentially how
cool that when your house gets dirty you
can actually just pull it into a car
wash and spray it down how many people
have it that easy cleaning your house
yeah we were the only house with the car
wash that well I would love to go inside
and check out the rest of your design
welcome come on in thank you all right
so this is it yeah welcome this is
amazing
this letter oh my gosh I love what
you've done with the wood in this yeah
the wood for this lighter actually came
from trees that fell in a tornado in
North Carolina right on a property
behind my parents house
we call it tornado would we call it
tornado would and you'll see the
countertop and actually the one thing
you can't see is all the two by fours in
the house actually came from all of that
wood and I just noticed there is another
person up here how's it going hi I'm
Bryce what's your name Garrett Garrett's
my 10 year old son and he's a part-time
dweller so when he's not with us he's
with his dad in Raleigh North Carolina
but he gets to come out on school breaks
and right now he's with us for the
summertime sleeping loft it was
important for us to give him that space
and we involved him in the design
process so he told us you know I need a
table and a toy box and then he came up
with a really good idea because he was
learning about simple machines at school
so he said what about a toy box on a
pulley that way he could bring toys up
and down without worrying about falling
from the ladder so that's a brilliant
idea buddy
so so we made that all happen for him
and and he seems to enjoy it pretty well
so since Garrett isn't with us full time
the necessity was to have a ladder so he
could actually get up to his loft so we
made it so it actually sits on the sofa
right here so he can
to its loft but when we're not using it
we'll take the ladder out sometimes
we'll set it here or set it outside
put the cushions out and make it so
we're gonna actually you know all hang
out on the sofa yep and we have a slight
l-shaped sofa it's a very tiny house
though it's not a full l-shaped but it's
big enough for all of us to lounge
and for a 62 man to take a nap I can
totally check on that yeah but and it's
also full of storage just like every
other sofa and we made the sofa so is
taller so that we could sit at our table
mm-hmm that folds up here and we can all
sit and have dinner and if we have a
guests over we can pull up a chair so or
even - we've had dinner with five
believe it or not it was a little tight
and so Christian designed this table
based off that IKEA table you see in
every tiny house right except that he
made a very important change which is
this part right here I made it just big
enough with the drawers the drawers
actually just go out one end so I put my
hard drives in it so there's as of now a
little bit over 24 terabytes of storage
in this table right now and it's got
power on the bottom so all I have to do
is come under here and grab my USB cord
plug it in and everything's on and I
just start working and then I put a
little another outlet over here just
guess I need to plug in my computer so
it works really well yes believe it or
not we've edited two documentaries from
radio cable but next two hard drives
shoes are important I think more
important to me because I have more well
yeah I think we're now we're even even
but we do like downsizing but you know
there's so many occasions for shoes so I
was really thrilled when Christian had
this idea for our shoe rack behind you
we can fit 20 pairs of shoes in a very
small space a vertical space that's only
about a foot or so wide and all the
shoes are in bio holds so the funny
thing is depending on how bumpy your
road is is how many shoes fall out and
you're definitely right for tiny house
people you have a tremendous number of
shoes amongst the two of you almost
ridiculous so another special feature of
our living space is our
unusual staircase what you might not
realize is a staircase but because I'm
sitting so yeah so the bottom step we
actually knew we were gonna make it so
you could sit down at this table right
so this this is actually a seat right
here it's also storage that opens up and
believe it or not it also moves but what
we did for the second step and this took
me forever to figure out we made it so
it slides out from the wall is that just
can't leave it in there exactly yeah so
I built it so it has enough you know
wood behind it where the pressure the
downward pressure actually makes it so
it'll stay just fine and it's a piece of
inch-and-a-half oak so it's it's
perfectly stable so this is our steps to
get upstairs so you just do this makes
it super simple and we also have a
regular queen bed so it's nine inches
tall and we only come up here to sleep
yeah so it's downstairs is to hang out
up here is to sleep so it's perfectly
fine for me and we spent quite a bit of
time making these beautiful light
fixtures at a plumbing pipe upstairs and
they feature some really beautiful
Edison bulbs and it was a pincher
success story you know you hear about
people doing Pinterest fails but this is
one where we sell the inspiration made
it happen on her own but because we only
sleep upstairs we never turn them on so
anyway you live and you learn and then
behind us here we have your beautiful
kitchen with this incredible butcher's
block countertop look yeah this is also
that what we call the tornado wood this
I actually spent like four days or
something cutting it all gluing it
together and making this big countertop
which came out amazing Christian really
slaved away making this and the most
stressed out I saw him probably the
whole build was when he had to cut the
hole for the sink it was like the one
chance you get it to not mess it up and
so what we ended up doing was taking
that piece of wood and creating a
cutting board with it so this is it
usually hangs on the wall but we when we
we can put it here I like Roger cook
quite a bit do a lot of cooking and
that's why we made the decision to do a
oven so we have a 20 inch apartment oven
that has even has a broiler drawer which
is great so I even made us a great
little Thanksgiving feast from this
small kitchen and then it looks like
you've done some really clever stuff
with your storage there as well yes we
love our kitchen shelves
it's a beautiful live-edge tornado wood
and cushion came up with a very clever
dish rack here this used to be a
grilling basket that we took apart and
our plates fit perfectly see they're so
snug snug in there which is great for
travel so all the plates stay put when
we move and we have a basket for our
bowls that this also stays put when we
travel this is screwed down so it's nice
and snug so we really only have to take
off the rest of the items during the
travel because that's definitely another
thing that you really need to think
about in this space as well you're a
traveling tiny house so actually
thinking about how everything is going
to be secure and stay secure when you're
traveling it's a big deal like this one
this is actually our bathroom door and
we have a little latch right here so
it'll actually keep what's behind the
door safe so let me show you what's
behind the door this is our pantry space
it's built into our bathroom wall which
is a non structural wall the bathroom
door not only keeps everything in the
pantry and when we travel but also
latches over our closet door to keep it
snug while we're moving so surprised
this is a closet space Christian made
these beautiful milk crates
we each have three the closet also has
some great hanging space which is nice
particularly for Christians dress shirts
very clever idea and meanwhile whole
Christian has been trapped in the
bathroom are you alive hey this is
actually a pretty big bathroom for such
a small tiny house that's definitely a
decent sized shower yeah it's actually
the pan in the shower is actually 34
inches deep by 36 inches wide so it's a
super big shower and then I see you've
got the composting toilet there as well
yeah this is actually a nature's head we
used to have an actual self built
composting toilet but it took a lot of
maintenance so what we've decided to do
was to get a nature's head because it's
we were emptying the other one out maybe
every four uses five uses and this way
it can be two weeks to a month depending
on where we are so so it works great so
we like this a lot one thing we also did
is we had somebody actually volunteer
the build of these cabinetry so there's
little little cabinets in here it's got
our you know our bathroom things but the
best thing is is that an Alexis uses
this everyday is this just a piece of
wood right here on the wall and this
actually goes over and it comes down
over the toilet so if I need to use the
mirror and shave I can use it right here
but like I said Alexis use this every
day and once she's done she puts all her
stuff away and then puts us right back
up one of the things that really grabs
me about this home is how functional and
homey you've made it while still
actually being able to travel with it
full-time that is a real accomplishment
thank you very much you know my favorite
thing is wherever we travel I wake up in
my bed which sometimes leads to
forgetting where we are but wherever we
go we have home with us and we feel at
home so living in a tiny house is one
thing but traveling with it full-time
like we do is a completely different
story
but I think we've come to the
realization that we're probably gonna be
traveling for a really long time you
know started out as a documentary and
community outreach project and that's
our project tiny house expedition but is
now just completely morphed into a
lifestyle a lifestyle of of travel and
right now we are working on living tiny
legally part three which is our
educational documentary series Christian
and I our team of two and every single
day we live dream and
tiny-house community and we feel
incredibly lucky to have this
opportunity to travel and to experience
our growing movement in such an intimate
way and to really give an opportunity to
showcase the positive impact tiny homes
can have in every community so yeah so
we feel really passionate about that and
we do think that in our little way that
we're making a positive impact and and
this that's why we do what we do already
over the last couple of years I've
really enjoyed following your adventures
I really can't wait to see what's next
for you both
whatever it is though I'm sure it's
gonna be really exciting and I'll be
right there following you thank you so
much for showing me your beautiful one
yeah no problem
our pleasure this is a tiny house on
wheels and what I especially love about
the tiny house expedition project is
that those wheels are being put to
exceptionally good use with an
astounding 28,000 miles already behind
this house and many more to come I am
very excited to see where this journey
takes them
you
[Music]