Читать книгу Knitbook: The Basics & Beyond - Chris Schapdick - Страница 10

Why should you trust me to teach you how to build a tiny house? In order to explain that, I need to tell you how I got started in the tiny house realm. My entry into the tiny living world didn’t come from a background in the construction world. I was not busy building things; instead, I had a desk job that I didn’t like. I realized that I wanted to do something different with my life, something that had less to do with sending e-mails back and forth all day long, analyzing spreadsheets, and creating PowerPoint presentations. I wanted to spend my time creating something tangible instead of having a career based on nothing but zeros and ones. I had a need deep within me to do something substantive, to build with my hands.

That career crisis was coupled with my having a daughter who was growing up in a very suburban environment just outside of New York City. I witnessed how that conflicted with my own childhood experience. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My childhood was filled with camping trips, fishing, skiing, snowshoeing, and all kinds of outdoor activities. I had the privilege to spend a lot of time in nature, and that left a big impression on me. Now a father myself, I was seeing my daughter not experiencing enough of that in her own life. Though we had been doing a fair amount of camping and other outdoor activities, it dawned on me that it would be ideal to have a piece of land that my daughter and I could travel to that would always be there and available for us to camp and spend time on—a dedicated retreat from urban life.

An aerial drone shot over my Catskills, NY, property. It was truly the retreat I was looking for with my daughter.

My daughter running around outside the same tiny house that I build in this book.

My research led me to a rural area northwest of New York City. It was suitably far enough away for the land prices to be affordable, and I purchased a property there in 2013. This was right around the time that Jay Schafer’s The Small House Book fell into my hands. Although my intention had always been to use my new land for weekend camping, I started to wonder about what kind of structure I could build on the property. The land had been affordable because it was zoned for recreational use only, meaning that no permanent structures could legally be built on the property. Realizing that I could have a house built on a trailer instead of a foundation got the wheels in my head turning.

At this time, the tiny house world was nascent. All the tiny house TV shows and media attention that came later hadn’t happened yet. Tumbleweed Tiny House company out in California was one of the premier manufacturers and suppliers of all things tiny house at the time. So I bought some plans from them with the thought that I would build an entire tiny house myself. Unfortunately, the prospect was intimidating, and the land that I had purchased was a ninety-minute drive from where we lived, making quick construction sessions impossible.

Right around the same time, as if they were reading my mind, Tumbleweed released what they called an “Amish Barn Raiser.” This was a shell of a house that they would build for you. In other words, they would do all the framing and sheathing, and you could opt to have them put the roof on, put windows in, and so on. The more you paid them to do, the less you had to do yourself. This appealed to me because it meant that I could effectively create my own space and vision of the tiny house while still having a significant part of the construction taken off my plate. Ultimately, this also saved me lots of time on what would have been a rather large structure to build as a beginner. (If you are curious about that first house I worked on, you can check it out at www.tinyhouseinthecountry.com.) When you compare that structure to the scope of the one in this book, we’re building something much smaller here, so the time frame, labor, and materials are not the same. That’s preferable to biting off more than you can chew for your first build. What you want to do is get comfortable, and once you are, you can build more adventurous structures if you wish.

Hauling my first tiny house shell all the way from Colorado to New York.

Although I started with a premade shell, it still became very much my own customized living space. My daughter and I needed a two-bedroom house, so I turned that house into a two-bedroom. There’s a loft sleeping area for me, and then there’s my daughter’s separate bedroom in the back of the house. It still became a very personal project, even though the framing had been done for me. That is what I’d like to mimic in this book for you. We’re going to slowly and carefully build the shell together, then see the possibilities for that shell and finish the build together, while allowing you the flexibility to take your build in a different direction.

Once I completed that first tiny house, I took it to a tiny house show in New Jersey in 2017. It was a great experience. I had many people come through the house voicing their approval. What I had accomplished seemed to resonate with folks. At that show, I won the coveted “Best Tiny House in New Jersey” award. It was such a validation for me; I had done something that I had never expected to do, and I was being recognized for that work by experts. Building that first home pushed me beyond my comfort zone and indicated to me that perhaps I needed to shift my life and my priorities to do something more meaningful with my time on this planet. So I left my day job to do just that.

Now I write books like this one and build tiny houses as part of my company, Tiny Industrial. I enjoy being part of the broader community and helping others achieve what I did. Coupled with the books and the building, I also got my life coaching certification. Although I specialize in relationship coaching, I’m open to helping people work through what they want to do professionally. I’m sure that I’m not the only person who’s ever pondered doing something like this with their life. I’m thrilled about what I’ve accomplished, and I want to impart that excitement to others who are looking to change the trajectory of their lives. Think of this book as more than just a how-to book—think of it as something that can potentially have more significant ramifications in many areas of your life. This project will be good for your self-confidence, mindset, and sense of clarity for your life and dreams. Perhaps that’s a lofty goal to get out of a how-to guide to building a tiny house. But hey, let’s dream big and let’s think bigger!

Hard at work customizing the shell.

This is my first tiny house build next to the camper build in this book. The many differences are obvious!

This award helped me believe I could and should make a career out of tiny houses.

Dream as big as you want to.