Ethan Waldman 0:01

Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, the show where you learn how to plan, build and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman. And this week, we'll be doing a 2022 Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast year in review show. I'll be talking about my favorite episodes of the show that you may have missed, what has been going on in my life and with my tiny house this year, and what you can look forward to for 2023 on the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast. I hope you stick around.

But first, I wanted to let you know that registration for my interactive eight-week tiny house course called Tiny House Considerations is now open. This is like if you want to build a tiny house or buy a tiny house in 2023 and you want the most attention for me that you possibly can get, this would be the course. It's a small group setting, my co instructor is Lina Menard, multiple-time podcast guest and just a really talented builder and designer. And we take a group of about six or seven or eight of you through the Tiny House Decisions framework and help you plan all of the systems, all the building methods of your tiny house. It's it's quite an experience. And it will really help you get your tiny house off on the best foot possible. Registration is open now. There's $100 early bird discount that's happening if you register before the end of the year. So before January 1, and you can learn more over at thetinyhouse.net/THC. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/THC. I know what you're thinking, but that stands for Tiny House Considerations. So check out thetinyhouse.net/THC and I hope to see you in class.

All right, let's jump right in.

I would say the biggest highlight for me this year was launching the 2022 Tiny House Summit. Over 2100 people from around the world learned from 30 of my favorite tiny house experts to plan, build, and live tiny. The summit was completely free for the weekend and there were two bonus days on Monday and Tuesday. And I've never done anything that got such wonderful glowing feedback and reviews. My goal was to create something for free that could help really help people on their tiny house journeys. And I think I think this did it. So if you saw the summit, thanks for coming. And if you missed it, you can actually still buy the All Access Pass that will give you all the recordings plus a whole bunch of bonuses like a workbook and more. And you can learn more about that at TinyHouseSummit.co.

I had never done a tiny house summit before or put on an online event quite of that size and it was, it was humbling. It kind of made me feel in awe of this week's podcast guest Renee Seevers, who puts on in person Tiny House festivals. And after doing an online one, I just can't imagine organizing an in person festival. But yeah, Tiny House Summit was was really great. And I think I'll probably do another one for 2023. In fact, if you head over to TinyHouseSummit.co you can sign up for the 2023 Summit, just kind of save your seat so that way you don't have to worry about it later.

So that was probably the biggest highlight for me business-wise and teaching-wise of what I did in the tiny house space. But I also made some big changes in my personal tiny house. If you've kind of followed my journey, my tiny house had to move at the beginning of the pandemic, the land changed hands and the new owners for various reasons. They claimed that they couldn't get liability insurance on the property with the tiny house there, even though I had my own insurance for the tiny house. It didn't make sense, but but I was, I wanted to be respectful and it was fine. It's their land, they can they can decide whether I rent it or not. And so I moved my tiny house back to my parents' house behind the barn where I built it and I wasn't living there. And so the tiny house was just kind of in a holding pattern.

And fast forward to May of this year 2022 I had rented it out a little bit. I had done some, I rented it month to month to someone and that kind of got the bug back in my, back in my ear of, "Hey, I'm not using this tiny house right now. And it could really be a source of income for me." And this is what I've always talked about how tiny houses are so adaptable, that you know, you can build a tiny house or buy a tiny house and live in it for a period of time. But when you're done with it, if you're able to hold on to it, you can really turn it into a source of income that could help you buy another house or travel or you know, all these other things. So we moved my tiny house to a new spot and listed on Airbnb and I got bookings immediately. It really blew me away actually how fast it booked and it continues to be booked. It's December now and I don't have a single free day until the middle of January. Moving the tiny house into place, though was was quite an adventure. I did hire a driver. And I was really glad I did because I had to have the tiny house essentially winched into place in the corner of the lot where it is. And I actually did a whole episode all about getting the tiny house ready for Airbnb. I talked about the move what I had to do, I struggled over deciding whether or not to replace the tires or not. Lots of things like that. And so if you're, if you're curious to hear more about that whole process, and that experience, that would be episode 222 of the podcast. So you can go to thetinyhouse.net/222. That'll bring you there or if you're already in a podcast app, just scroll back, scroll back a few episodes and you'll find it. That was this year, kind of in the fall.

And you know, in my personal tiny house, there are some kind of maintenance things coming up. The main one is that I need to reseal the countertops. Anyone who read my Tiny House Decisions book knows that I used this kind of special material on the counters. It's called Valchromat. And it's it's a, it's an MDF like product but it's impregnated with wax so they call it the the the 'poor man's granite' countertop because it's got that kind of solid color look but you kind of have to treat it like wood. And I definitely have noticed that the Airbnb is a little bit harder on the house than I would be when I'm there and so the countertops are definitely in need of of resealing. Another big one is that I need to finish resealing the outside of the house. We did the side that was kind of exposed to the sun the most, because the stain had really faded. And now the other side definitely needs it. So once once it's summer, the challenge, of course, is that I need a dry, a dry few days to do the staining. And anyone who's been to New England knows that the weather can change quite drastically. So that'll be something to look out for just some maintenance to do. But the tiny house is really humming along. And I'm really grateful that I was able to find an awesome landlord, who hosts the house, the spot where I'm parked has water and electricity. So it really was - it wasn't plug and play took took quite a bit of work getting everything set up, but but I was able to do it.

Alright, let's jump into the real fun part, which is the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, which you're listening to right now. And I'll share, I'll first share just some fun stats that I collected mostly from Spotify and Apple Podcasts. They have like a dashboard where I can log in and kind of see some stats about about the year. So this year, I published 47 brand new interviews. That's 1811 minutes of content. And the show now gets about 20,000 downloads per month, which still blows me away and I thank you all for for being there for listening and and I love hearing from my listeners I know, tangent, but you can always email me at podcast@thetinyhouse.net. I love I love feedback. I love guest suggestions, all those kinds of things. So just some some little tidbits. So the number one show of this year, the show that was downloaded the most number of times was actually an episode from way back in 2020. And that is my interview with Joshua Becker. It's called an introduction to minimalism with Joshua Becker. And and it is just what it sounds like a really great introduction to the field. The movement of minimalism and Joshua is a really gracious guest and kind of a famous minimalist in his own right. So that's episode 118. The tiny house dotnet slash 118. The number one show of this year of 2022. It's called How to Eliminate $30,000 in debt in two years. And this is episode number 205. It features my interview with someone who converted a somebody's kind of backyard shed into a tiny house, and we're able to eliminate a whole ton of debt.

So that was the number one show of the year, the top five countries of the show? Well, the number one was USA, Canada. And then according to Spotify, Indonesia, number three, edging out Australia for number four, and the United Kingdom for number five. So to my Indonesian listeners, I didn't know you were there. But But welcome. All the rest of you, I kind of knew you were there. But I'm excited that the show gets listens from around the world. It's really exciting.

According to Spotify, I don't know if this is real. I don't know how much I'd really count here. According to Spotify, 90% of my listeners discovered the show in 2022. That doesn't fully make sense to me. But you know, if you're if you did discover the show in 2022. Again, welcome. I'm glad you're here. And Apple podcasts has told me that 72% of my listeners are not following the show. So what that means is that you just kind of went in you maybe listen to an episode, but you didn't hit that follow button. And and whether you're in Spotify, or Apple podcasts or somewhere else, I do encourage you to hit that follow button. That way, you'll get the newest episode of the podcast delivered to your podcast app every week. I publish on Friday mornings. And that way, you don't have to seek it out. You don't have to search for it, you'll just you'll just have it. Whether or not you listen to it, that's up to you. But at least you'll have it it'll be there in your podcast app. So yeah, hit that follow button, hit that subscribe button, follow Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast. And if you keep listening, I'll keep making them.

Alright, let's get into some of my favorite episodes of the year. And these are ones that that maybe you have missed or are worth. Our let's get into my favorite episodes of the year. This is kind of like trying to pick between your favorite children. So I'm not going to do it in any particular order. But these are just five episodes that I really enjoyed doing, enjoyed the conversation meeting the guest. And I think that something good came out of it some some higher level of thinking or inspiration or ideas were kind of reached. So without further ado, I'll just jump into it. So the first one that I want to share is called Vintage Airstream to Beautiful Tiny Home in 2 Months! It's episode 225. And the show notes kind of say, "How do you renovate a vintage Airstream in two months when you have no building experience?" The guests are Allison and James. They not only made their vintage Airstream livable in two months while working full time. But they also taught themselves how to do the carpentry and electrical work and found a parking spot all in that time. They have a really cool lifestyle and are just really down to earth and realistic about what they can and what they can't do. And we talked about how they did it on such a short timeline. So so check out episode 225 with Alison and James. Again, you can go to thetinyhouse.net/225. You can also just scroll back in your podcast feed and find that episode.

Alright, so the next one is going to be my interview with Callie Brauel and Nathan Huening. That is How to Turn a Farm into a Tiny House Community, episode 215. So they built built a tiny house on wheels and they wanted a legal place to park it. They fell in love with a piece of land and decided to buy it and embarked on creating a legal tiny house community. It ended up being a much longer journey than they ever thought it would be. It took nearly two years and actually hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. But they tell me the tale and share what they learned along the way and their tiny house community sounds incredible. It's truly one of the ones that I would love to visit at some point in my life because it just sounds so awesome. So that's episode 215 How to Turn a Farm into a Tiny House Community.

All right, number three, How and Where to Find Affordable Land for your Tiny Home. This is my interview with Dave Denniston; it's episode 220. And if you're looking for inexpensive raw land for your tiny house, you don't want to miss the episode. Dave Denniston is a raw land broker and on this interview, we just I just kind of pepper him with questions like from the very beginning, What should you look for? What are the legal implications? What is a closing? Like all these kind of basic questions that you need to answer for buying land? We go through it with Dave and Dave was actually also one of our awesome experts at the Tiny House Summit. So I've kept in touch with him just because I think that he does such great work. And so that's episode 220 of the show How and Where to Find Affordable Land for your Tiny Home.

The third is my conversation with the gentleman who coined the term cohousing. The episode is called How Cohousing can Help Solve Affordable Housing and Homelessness. It's episode 228. And I loved this conversation, it really got me thinking about the value and benefit of cohousing. And I just think this is such a perfect modelr for tiny house communities and for living small in general, it doesn't have to necessarily be tiny houses. But check out that interview. It's it's show 228. So thetinyhouse.net/228.

And finally, just from a couple of weeks ago, my conversation with Matt Paxton from the show Hoarders. The episode is called The Bumpy Road to Minimalism, Practical Tips from Hoarders Star Matt Paxton. It's episode 240. And it's cool because Matt, you know, though he was an expert in helping do these these hoarding cleanups, he really wasn't a minimalist, but when he married someone who's kind of a prominent minimalist, and they blended their two families together, so seven children, and just about his journey, committing to a minimalist lifestyle, doing it with a family, and it's a good one. He's a great storyteller, just really comfortable behind the mic, probably from his years of being on TV. So that was a fun one to check out. That's thetinyhouse.net/240. You can also just again, scroll back in your podcast feed, and you will find these five episodes.

And again, I'll say, there's no there are no bad episodes of the show. I you know, if I do an interview, and I really don't like it, I just won't put it on the show. So there's a lot of good ones. And, of course, those show numbers, you know, 240, for example, those are sequential. We don't do seasons here. So there are, there are close to 250. Now episodes of the podcast, and I encourage you to scroll back in that feed. There's a lot of good stuff there. I started the show in 2018. And Tiny House stuff doesn't really go bad. It's not like the interviews expire. It's not like current events or news, there's just a lot back in that feed. So I encourage you, if you're doing a road trip, if you're working on building a tiny house, grab those episodes go through, pick and choose see see what interests you. If there are certain people in the tiny house world that you really like and you want to kind of hear more about how they think, chances are I've, I've probably interviewed them. And if I haven't interviewed them, I'd love for you to suggest them to me. You can email me. It's podcast@thetinyhouse.net. That's kind of the the guest hotline, as you were, as it were to suggest, suggested guests suggest a topic for the show. All that I do love hearing from my listeners.

So just some quick other highlights. I got to meet my podcast editor Andy Rinaldi. So I guess I should back up. So I have a team that helps me put on this show now and I wouldn't be able to do it without them. So first and foremost is Andy Rinaldi, he actually takes these raw interviews, cleans them up makes me sound way more intelligent as a host makes our guests sound super polished, and cuts it all together. He's been doing that for several years now. And I actually got to meet him in person. We obviously don't live in the same city. But he traveled to Vermont this summer, and we got to have a beer together. And that was awesome. Really awesome to meet Andy, somebody who's probably listened to me talk more than most other people in this world. So Andy, shout out to you. And then the other person who I couldn't do without is my assistant, Emilie wise. Emily writes the shownotes, uploads the pictures, makes sure the transcript is readable and make sense, and a whole lot more than I'm probably not saying here. So Emily, thank you so much for all the work that you do on the show. You and Andy, couldn't do without you. Super grateful to work with you. And, you know, just want our listeners to know that there are some awesome people helping me do things here behind the scenes.

Well, that's that's basically it. I hope you are all having a happy, healthy, safe holiday season. And we will see you in the new year, I think we'll pick right back up with new shows. There'll be no no break in content. If you're picking up, you know, the listeners do kind of drop off over the holiday season. So I do encourage you to kind of go back and check out the interviews that you might have missed that came out around Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, etc. There's still some good ones out there.

And yeah, that's that's about all for this week. And if you do one thing after listening to this show, please follow the show, hit that follow button and Spotify hit that follow button in Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. So you get a fresh episode of the show each week. That was probably the biggest surprise digging into the stats for this show is learning that 72% of my listeners don't follow the show. So we can we can improve that, we can work on it and that way I can deliver a freshly baked episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast to you each and every week. I am your host, Ethan Waldman and I will be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai