>>MAT: Hey everyone, in this video, we're checking out one of the most unique tiny houses we've seen yet.
It's a beautiful DIY build that was inspired by Mykonos Island in Greece.
The interior is mostly white. It has archways, a painted stone floor, and lots of greenery.
It also has two king-sized lofts, two staircases, two patio doors, and lots of natural light coming in.
In this video, we're going to give you a full tour
and we're also gonna meet the creative couple who built this amazing tiny house.
[Music Playing]
>>BRAELYN: I believe it's everyone's right to build their own shelter.
I believe it's actually a human right,
just like water is a human right. We have access to clean water.
I believe building our own shelters is as well. And,
So we're very strong advocates for being able to choose the life that you want.
[Music Playing]
I built this in about seven months, the main part, and then I
took a lot of time to do the details after that.
The length of our tiny house is 32 feet including the bump outs. It's about
400 square feet including the
lofts and sometimes people don't include the lofts. They're very livable lofts, so
about 400.
>>JAMES: This is our main entrance.
And so we do plan on having two patios: one out one exit and one out this side.
Our main focus for having the lounge area here
is that we found that so many
tiny homes that we we had seen previous to this
the lounge area faces this giant screen.
With this space, as you can see, it looks right out into nature and
I will sit here with a book and lounge, and, right by the
fire which is it, which is behind you there.
It's just wonderful. It's so serene. Love it!
And when these doors are propped open,
you're just hearing the sights and sounds of nature which is why we're here.
As you walk in, you'll notice right away that
one of my photographs we decided to enlarge
and Braelyn was able to sort of enclose the areas as if you are actually in the scene.
As everybody knows
being a tiny houser means that you use all the space available to you.
Behind here is a bump out
that we have access to our electrical panel, which
runs through all the walls
and then our couch here. We are huge into the outdoors
so a lot of our
stuff is underneath there whether it's paddles or
lifejackets and that sort of stuff.
We do have two stairways going up to the two different king size lofts that we've built.
Our storage area for our clothes and such are just right inside the stairs. So I've got my clothing.
All the needs of a normal closet and of course even more as you go all the way down and
of course, we custom-built them all.
They serve the purpose of all of our needs and storage areas.
As long as you don't burn yourself on the stove right next to us. [Laughter]
>>BRAELYN: This is the kitchen right here, very simple.
We mostly eat raw food and sometimes we'll cook something
but the cooktop is plenty fine for that.
We did a live edge
countertop and I had enough left over that I can pull a little bit of extra cutting space
here
to make the kitchen a little bit bigger. We just got a little secondhand
fridge that is actually propane and electric.
There's a freezer that's separate which I really did want and we'll get a bigger one later.
I did build enough space so that we could put a larger one later.
This is the floor that I hand-painted.
I based it off of my favorite place in the world, which is Mykonos Island in Greece.
All the streets there are white
with stones and it's just so beautiful and then all their buildings are white and they have
windows that overhang with greenery and flowers. So I kind of based the whole
tiny house on that.
So this space here is just for the
washer/dryer that we're gonna get. We don't have it. Obviously, it's invisible but
that's coming. So we closed it off like that and then in here is
our little bathroom.
I really wanted a tub because I like to have baths and not just showers.
We will have a shower
head as well and then of course a shower curtain and everything.
So we have this simple composting toilet and it basically
has two chambers. So it has the
urine diverter and then a separate bucket for number two and you just would use sawdust with it.
And then you crank it a few times. There is a little crank that comes with it.
That way it's not electric or anything.
It's the smallest, most simple one that actually looks somewhat like a regular toilet
and that's what I wanted.
It's called the C head so C - head.
I built this little door: one, because I love little doors
but second, because it's easy to take out the composting bucket and then
you don't have to take it all through the whole house.
So this is one of the lofts.
We hang out here and we read books or we play drums and we
watch a movie.
And then I have built a
bridge here. So you can actually go across.
It was just space that wasn't being used.
From when I was envisioning the tiny house,
I always saw a bridge here and I thought maybe it would make it claustrophobic
and it's one of the things that I had to deal with because
I do get a bit claustrophobic sometimes but not in here
because we made a lot of windows. On the bridge, we put
mirrors as well to reflect the light. So I play a lot with that. Also I cut out the
windows in the bridge walls so that it works really well to give it an open, airy feel.
So up here is our what we call moon loft. So I
called this loft, the moon loft, where we sleep and the other loft, we call it Sun loft.
So this is a king size bed and
it's a very, very, very comfortable bed. Because we insulated so well it
works really well both ways.
So in the winter, it keeps it warm in here and in the summer,
it keeps it cool and we have 13 windows all around
and then two big
doors as well. So the cross breeze just really takes care of itself.
There's only been a couple of days where we've stayed in here
that was hot enough that we needed a fan.
One of the things that I really wanted for us was this hammock,
and so I have this place for the hammock. I pull it out and stretch it across and then it
just tucks in back away.
It's all ready to go and you just string it across and then you have an extra place to
hang out and chillax.
>>JAMES: So this is a Vermont Casting
Wood-burning stove, extremely efficient. We found it on Kijiji.
We've now had the opportunity to spend a lot of time
here in the winter and it has
exceeded our expectations.
>>BRAELYN: We are going to go solar and that's our next step.
So we have a bump out in the back
that's for our on-demand hot water heater and our solar inverter.
The outside has
shingling that is cedar shingling and we made it
very difficult for ourselves.
Because of the way that we designed it,
it's got a very curvy flow. I had to cut each of the shingles with
a Jigsaw. So I was up on the scaffolding and just cutting every one of them and it lasted forever!
But it looks very beautiful. And I'm glad that it is that way. It's exactly what I was envisioning
from the start.
We decided to build
with 2x6 instead of 2x4 for the walls and we built
down into the trailer
with the insulation. So we did a drop floor.
So we were able to do
7 1/2 inches of insulation in the floor and 7 1/2
inches in the ceiling and then the walls have 5 1/2 inches of insulation.
We used Roxul insulation.
[Music Playing]
We were stuck in the rent cycle in Toronto for years and years.
We've been together 12 years.
So we worked at jobs that we didn't like
or weren't exactly right, just to make enough money to
cover the rent. It's just
rising and rising and yet nobody's getting paid more.
So it was just getting too much and then my son is 26.
We just had nothing to leave him. So it was a big
motivator for wanting to just get out of that trap.
Because we did this
and we were able to pay off our student loans then start a business.
So it's very beneficial!
We started off with no money.
So we didn't even have a possibility of building a tiny house.
So we built a little model which we worked together on
and it was on a scale of 1 inch equals 1 foot.
So it's very easy to do the math.
Even if you're not great at math, you could design a house for yourself.
>>JAMES: Braelyn had been
making models for 4 years
and researching how to do this.
And we finally were able to find a place that allowed us to build for free indoors,
through friends that I've known for all my life.
>>BRAELYN: Julia and John,
they have a huge collection of crystals, fossils and minerals
from all over the world that they've collected and we have a
crystal shop attached to it.
So together, it's Crystal Cave and we work together, we do digs together,
we do polishing and cutting and then I've just poured myself
into doing all this creative stuff.
So I built a meditation pod in there
and a fairy village. I upcycle a lot of things.
[Music Playing Louder]
>>JAMES: So John and Julia also knew of I guess semi-retired carpenter. His name is John.
>>BRAELYN: He would come about three days a week and just
for several hours and make sure that I
was on track
and he really did help me put the vision of the model into reality.
>>JAMES: For the moment, it is
not legal to live year round
in an organized township in the province of Ontario
but it is legal in an unorganized township.
And so we're currently
looking for land. There's actually two such townships nearby.
>>BRAELYN: Unorganized means you can build basically what you want,
without all the red tape.
So it is actually legal to live, as far as we know,
in a tiny house
in an unorganized township.
[Music Playing]
I did this practice of visualization where every single
morning before I got up and every single night before I went to bed.
I visualized us in the tiny house.
The model helped because you can look in different directions
and through the windows and see.
So visualizing is a huge part of what we
did to bring this about. So we saved and saved and saved and then
I was in an accident a while back and then finally that was settled.
So there was a little chunk of money
and so instead of all of a sudden having to start planning.
It was fully planned and we just went for it.
>>JAMES: The only hiccup
and rather large hiccup was that it meant us being apart for a year and while she was up here building.
So I would come up and visit on weekends and help out as much as I possibly could but
we were just so grateful and so fortunate to have a space in which we could build indoors.
So we took the plunge.
>>BRAELYN: So in total the cost was about
fifty-five, sixty thousand (CAD)
and we're just over the moon that we've been able to do this.
As far as I know, this is our forever home.
We've made it as beautiful as we can and we just poured all of our creativity into it
and so we're extremely proud of ourselves for
taking this journey and
for visualizing this into existence.
[Music Playing]
>>MAT: If you want to follow Braelyn and James,
you can check them out on Instagram @littlestar_tinyhouse and @crystal.cave.canada
Also, be sure to subscribe to our channel and check out our playlists for more videos like this.
Thanks for watching.
>>BRAELYN: It looks like you are sitting on the toilet.
[Laughter]
>>JAMES: Are you asking a question? [Laughter]
>>BRAELYN: and I'm looking right at the camera
[Laughter]
Some people have the dog house and some people have the veggie burger loft. Yeah, and you're all red now. [Laughter]