Laura Kuntz 0:00

So I was hoping to come in about 80,000 and it was about 180,000. So more than twice the budget, people suggested that I put tile on the concrete flooring and so that drove the cost of about another $8,000 and changing the building site. So that raise the driveway costs and the sewer costs the water costs.

Ethan Waldman 0:24

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 today we have an incredible guest joining us. Laura Kuntz is an elementary school teacher and a mother of three grown daughters. She's here to share her journey of building her own tiny house. Since high school Laura has been obsessed with the idea of living in a small home and now as an empty nester, she finally had the perfect opportunity to make her dream a reality. In this episode, Laura walks us through the steps she took to go from being a tiny house enthusiast to a proud homeowner. She shares insights about finding the right location, navigating building codes and permits in the strict state of Massachusetts, and her unique choice of building her tiny house on a foundation instead of on wheels and acting as her own contractor. Stay tuned for an inspiring conversation with Laura about turning a lifelong dream into a tangible, beautiful home. I love to cook in my tiny house kitchen but I don't always love to clean up. And one of my big concerns with going tiny was losing the convenience of a dishwasher. That's why I'm so excited to share today's sponsor with you the FOTILE two in one in sink dishwasher. It's a dishwasher built into a sink, and it's perfect for tiny house living. This innovative appliance is perfect for modern living and compact spaces. With its efficient design. It saves lower cabinet space and fits perfectly into a standard 36 inch cabinet base, making it ideal for tiny homes. But it's not just about saving space. It's about saving time and water to the FOTILE two in one in sink dishwasher offers a quick wash cycle of just 20 minutes, getting your dishes clean in no time. 45 minutes standard and 80 minute intensive washers are also available. Plus it saves nearly 50% of the water a regular dishwasher would consume. With its ergonomic top loading design. You don't need to bend over like you would with a traditional dishwasher, making it perfect for small kitchens. When it comes to cleanliness, the FOTILE two in one in sink dishwasher doesn't disappoint. With five standard washing and rinsing cycles and a 360 degree cleaning system. It eliminates 99.99% of E coli and other common bacteria from your dishes promoting a healthy kitchen environment. Are you worried about installation? Don't be, FOTILE provides a comprehensive DIY installation tutorial online. And they're offering Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast listeners a special extended five year limited warranty. There are over 30 million families around the world enjoying faux tiles full range of cooktops, ovens, range hoods and in sink dishwashers, they've channeled 20 years of experience and expertise into these innovative compact dishwashers is amazing dishwasher has a rating of 4.7 out of five on the Lowes website. Visit us.fotileglobal.com/thlp to learn more and purchase your FOTILE two in one in sink dishwasher today. That's us.fotileglobal.com/thlp That link will be in the show notes to upgrade your tiny home kitchen with FOTILE and experience the convenience of modern living in a compact space

Alright, I am here with Laura Kuntz. Laura is an elementary school teacher and mother of three grown daughters who lives in Central Massachusetts in a rural area. Building a tiny house has been a bucket list item for her since she was in high school. And she is here to talk about it. Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura Kuntz 4:09

Thank you very much.

Ethan Waldman 4:10

You're welcome. So talk to me about this this bucket list item like tiny houses. This has been a lifelong dream of yours.

Laura Kuntz 4:20

So I think that it might have started in high school, we had choices of classes and I took an interior design class. I remember in high school being really fascinated with small homes, and we lived on five acres. And I recall saying to my father, oh, I could build a tiny house in the yard. They'd be so great. And he's like, no, no, no, you can't do that. So kind of been an obsession since then. Okay. So I have, you know, I'm kind of in a place in my life where I've can downsize. I'm nearly an empty nester. And it was a good opportunity for me To complete this.

Ethan Waldman 5:02

Nice, so when did you start? You know, can you talk me through kind of the steps? Like, what did you do to kind of go from just being you know, a tiny house lover or tiny house curious which a lot of us are you somebody who is really on the track to building their own?

Laura Kuntz 5:23

Sure. So over the years, I've watched tons of TV shows, read tons of books. And I was in a situation where I started working an hour away. So I had a very long commute, and I knew that that wasn't sustainable. For me. I had done that for a year. And it was in this, you know, family home of ours that was too large. For one person, I didn't see the need to have all that space, and the money involved with keeping up that space. So I started looking at land that was closer to my job. And I looked in two different towns, because we have a big reservoir between the middle of two different towns and comparing prices of lots in one town was significantly higher than the other and ended up finding a lot that had public water public sewer, right on my path to work. And my father was helpful and you know, speaking to the landlord and seeing the other side, their real estate agent, and seeing if this was a buildable lot, because it actually only had 35 feet of frontage. So that they had gone to get the necessary improvements to build on that piece of land. So that was really lucky. Because if I had to get a septic system that was going to drive my cost out of my budget. Yeah. Yeah, that is really expensive. So I thought, again, this was the beginning of the pandemic, I thought that I could do the builds for about half of what it actually ended up costing. The stipulations in Massachusetts, you know, are pretty rigid. And so I obviously had to adhere to all the building codes. So I kind of I designed the house, I started sketching things out on paper. And I had a friend who kind of mentored me in the beginning of the process, who was a general contractor. And he connected me with a designer, you know, who could actually put the plans on paper CAD designer? So we've sent the drawings to the CAD designer, and they put it in, you know, actual blueprint form. So that was the beginning that I had to get my building permit. And that took much longer than what I realized. So in hindsight, now, I realized that you need a solid six months, just to get your permits in place.

Ethan Waldman 7:51

Wow. So I was curious, it seems like you were you were set on a tiny house on a foundation. And I'm curious, did you consider a tiny house on a trailer? And why did you you know, why did you make the choice that you did?

Laura Kuntz 8:07

Oh, absolutely. I have considered a tiny house on a trailer. That's not doable. I'm not sure if that's doable anywhere in Massachusetts. That's not doable in the town that came from and the town I was going to got a don't allow an RV. Yeah. So that's why I didn't

Ethan Waldman 8:24

Yeah, I've heard that. Massachusetts. I've heard that Massachusetts is particularly like, wrecked on tiny houses.

Laura Kuntz 8:32

Absolutely. And if I had moved to Vermont, New Hampshire, then you can live in a house on wheels. But not in Massachusetts. It doesn't seem like any town. Yeah. I think you'd have to live in a campground if you're going to do that. Okay. So I also consider getting like a prefab of Vermont cottage, and dropping that down. And I think if I had gone that direction, that would have been great. But again, there's like a six month lead time to design that order that have it delivered. So you really have to have it planned out, you know, a solid year in advance. I was trying to get something done really quickly. Which it didn't take the timeframe that I expected.

Ethan Waldman 9:20

Okay, so So we're up to the point where you, you got your building permits, you thought it would you didn't realize how long it would take and it took six months, but this is like, because you're building a house on a foundation. You know, you're essentially building I'm gonna say a quote unquote, normal house, like you have to get building permits and you have to submit plans to the town. I'm guessing they have to approve them. Is that is that all correct. am I assuming correctly?

Laura Kuntz 9:47

Absolutely. So I learned so much because again, I'm not in construction. And yeah, people are great. Actually, everybody was very friendly, and small town, but again, being a small town, things seem to be a little lost in translation. People are only working two days a week and it's very hard to pinpoint people, also being in the pandemic and understanding exactly who I needed to speak to to get certain things in place and not understanding all the permits that they needed. That was a big learning curve for sure. So getting a surveyor out to the land, we actually started pinpointing one location, and then my excavator suggested going to a different location. So we had my son-in-law and crew had cleared the original piece of land. And then the excavator said the other spot on the land was better. So we had, I'd wasted all that money. And in actuality, I went through four different excavators in the process. So there was a lot of delays. The excavating was a huge delay, because that gentleman came highly regarded. But he had kind of overcommitted himself, I think, and was kind of approaching retirement. And he suggested me to a gentleman at the town was also very nice, but completely over scheduled. And I said, Is it okay, if I go on to look for somebody else, and ended up getting somebody that was actually very quick. And when I got the right person, but again, I started in the fall, and then I had to wait until spring for everything to thaw out. And I went from I just, my house was on a slab. So, okay, they had that I thought I would save money that way, which I think I did. And it's awesome. And it doesn't look like a tiny house at all. It's 500 square feet. It's very tall. So it's very deceiving. Okay, and when you when you go inside, it's very open concept. And there's very little I would change about it and very pleased with the way it came out. It was about twice the budget.

Ethan Waldman 12:09

What was your what was your initial budget? And what did it end up costing?

Laura Kuntz 12:14

So I was hoping to come in about 80,000. And it was about 180,000. So more than twice the budget. You know, I reading all these books and whatnot, I was had these great dreams of recycled materials. And in actuality, I ended up using, you know, Lowe's, and Home Depot materials, new materials, not really. I did use some antique windows from the local vineyard. Yeah. But I had really thought that I could use a lot of recycled materials and in actuality, for ease, and you know, structural integrity, I end up using a lot of new mostly all new materials. So I think I economized. But I was going to go much more basic than I actually went. And I think if I had made that home, more of like a one and a half story structure, rather than it's a two story structure, and little things like improvements. I was just going to do a sealed concrete flooring. And then people suggested that I put tile on the concrete flooring. And so that drove the cost up about another $8,000. Changing the building site, it went from being about 100 feet into the property to 300 feet feet into the property. So that raised the driveway costs and the sewer costs, the water costs and everything. So that was about a $20,000 driveway, which is not what I expected at all.

Ethan Waldman 13:48

Yeah, it's expensive. It's everything. Everything is expensive and building.

Laura Kuntz 13:53

Absolutely. I mean, and I again, I know the cost, lumber costs were more in the pandemic. Getting the crew because as my own contractor, so getting all the crew was very challenging and trying to juggle their schedules was very challenging. Because again, I'm, that's not my, that's not what I do for a living. So, trying to be assertive, I think as a person, but also being accommodating because I think I lost a couple of guys when I was too assertive. Ah, but you have to be assertive enough to get the job done. That was interesting.

Ethan Waldman 14:35

It sounds like you could probably do it again and do it a lot more efficiently.

Laura Kuntz 14:40

Absolutely. I mean, I yeah, I love the structure itself. And mostly every all the guys and I say guys, so they didn't it was all men that were working with me but mostly everyone was great. And I would feel very comfortable doing it again. I would like to put a couple more homes on that land if I if it's possible with the planning board for rentals, and my house is really tailored to myself, or one person living. Yeah. But if I were going to do a rental, I would make it more efficiently to people, you know, have. I had two lofts rather than one larger bedroom upstairs? Okay, and maybe a half bath or something. So, the lofts are quite small.

Ethan Waldman 15:35

And how did you how did you finance your build?

Laura Kuntz 15:38

So what I ended up doing, I own a home and I refinanced it. And I took a chunk out of that. Nice and again, so I went through that, and, and then I had to take out another loan, actually, just a small loan to finish because I did go over budget. Yep. Yep. My whole intent was to get my living expenses, my housing expenses, down to about 500 a month. And it ends up being about 1000 a month. So I would like to try again, maybe someday in the future to do off the grid house and see if I can get my expenses down to about 500 a month. Okay. I'm not sure if that's possible.

Ethan Waldman 16:21

It is the idea that you'll Are you going to sell your home that you own? Or you do keep that as a rental? Like how would...

Laura Kuntz 16:22

I would have that as a rental? Yeah, so I have that as a rental. Nice. And that's it's good when I since I ended up refinancing the rent covers the mortgage, I don't make money off of it, per se. But building equity?

Ethan Waldman 16:47

Yeah. Yeah, I think that there, there are probably listeners who are in a similar situation, as you who have maybe owned a home for a little while and are considering, you know, using the equity in that home, to build a tiny home and to kind of downshift in a way downsize. Any kind of lessons or learnings specifically around that kind of setup of like, you know, leveraging a home that you own to do a tiny home.

Laura Kuntz 17:17

Well, the person that was mentoring me, when they started their construction business, that's what you know, he said they kind of refinanced, they kind of borrowed to build one thing and then sold, they were buying and building homes, as spec homes, and then selling them and then taking that profit rolling it into the next build. So and they were able to create a really productive, lucrative business. Yeah. For myself, I think that I learned in order to stay on budget, I had to really be a lot more careful. And I think it was a little bit unrealistic for me, again, building in the area, which I did in Massachusetts, and having such rigid requirements. I think I was a little disillusioned as to the cost involved. I do think I could do a more affordable builds in a different state, like I said, with some recycled materials. And I'm really curious about that. But I think it's great. I always tell my daughters, I have three daughters, and I tell them, you know, buy property rented out, start building your equity. I think that's a wonderful thing. Yeah. And if you can, if you're savvy with finances, which I am not, then, you know, you can bank against that equity. And you can do more things with it. i There's something I want to learn more and teach my daughters is to really be smart with your finances and make it grow. Yeah. So I don't have a lot of money. I don't have a lot of loan, if you will, to pay off the tiny house. Yep. And my goal is when I get when I retire about 10 years that I won't have a mortgage on that. Nice, because that's part of my retirement plan is to not have a mortgage. Yeah.

Ethan Waldman 19:15

Your expenses will go down once you finish paying off the small loan that you took for the tiny house.

Laura Kuntz 19:22

Absolutely, yeah. So that will be just insurance, and utilities that will fit in that $500 month range. Nice. But right now, yeah, I have to pay off my loan. So it's still way less than renting an apartment. I mean, the apartments around here are minimum 1700 a month. So yep. To live on lands and have it be under $1,000 a month. Yeah. I strongly encourage I have I work with a lot of younger women that are desperately trying to buy their own home and They tell them to try this route. Because you can't get an apartment for this kind of money. Yeah.

Ethan Waldman 20:07

Yeah. And then you're not, you know, when you're when you're renting an apartment, you're not building any equity in a place you're paying someone else's mortgage rather than your own.

Laura Kuntz 20:15

Absolutely. And I, I love it. I mean, I, it's very comfortable. It's very clean. Like I said, I designed it for myself. And it's not for everyone, because I have just a, like a cooktop. And I don't have a dishwasher. I have a small fridge. And it's very functional. Because I did a lot of kind of visualizing as to what would work for me and the flow of everything. It's very easy to clean. And so but again, it's tailored for me. So I love it. Not everybody obviously is interested in tiny house living, but it's very easy for a single person to Yeah, it's a rectangle. So I can walk around my home, I can check, make sure there's no damage. I can hose it down. I can do my landscaping. I have a mini split system. It's very efficient. And I have propane only for my hot water. So my that's the best quality in my house is my walk in shower. It's I designed it so you just walk right in, and the floor dips down into the drain. And it's still one of our like a rain forest showerhead. And it's like on demand hot water. You can take like a half an hour shower if you wanted to. And it never runs out. And my propane bill, I think I've paid $25 in the last eight months. So Wow, very easy. Wow. Yeah. That's been great.

Ethan Waldman 21:53

That's awesome. Yeah, it's fun. You can, you can have almost like luxury features in a tiny home, or not luxury prices, you know, like a walk in shower with the, you know, the showerhead and the unlimited hot water, it's like, you might only be able to get that in a million dollar home or if you go to a spa, but you've got it in your tiny home.

Laura Kuntz 22:13

Right, that is absolutely the best and that I really thought about that long and hard. Because I thought it'd be so great to have a little tub, especially in the winter. Yep. And I could not find an affordable tub that would fit in the space, because my bathroom is 16 feet long. It's the width of the house. And then it's only four feet deep. Okay, so I could not fit a tub in that space. Or at least not one that I want to spend the money on, because you can find them for $500. But I didn't want to spend that. So it ends up being great. And yeah, the only negative I think I would have is that my I got to a veggie sink like a small think. And it's a little too small. Only negative. I noticed that like when I'm washing dishes, it kind of splashes out too much. And I really couldn't use a little bit larger sink. Yeah. But other than that, it's been awesome.

Ethan Waldman 23:19

I want to talk about, you know, being your own contractor, because I think that that is it's almost like a middle ground between doing your own build where like you do it. And you know, just hiring a company to be the contractor and say like, you know, I'm going to pay you this pile of money, you're going to build the house. Can you like for someone who's listening who might not even be familiar, like, what does that mean, if you are your own contractor.

Laura Kuntz 23:48

So when I went to get my building permit, the, trying to remember that title of the gentleman to get my building permit, but the building inspector, he, you know, kind of raised an eyebrow about me being my own contractor and I had to sign a waiver saying that I'm responsible for all of the subcontractors that I have liability insurance, if anybody is to get hurt. And I do have special insurance on what I did at the time on the property that I think they classified it as rental property at the time. So it's just covering liability for the property during the build. And so I did like I said, I did have to sign a waiver saying I was responsible and that I would check that all the subcontractors have their own liability insurance. So I had verbal conversations with all the contractors saying yes, they have their own liability insurance. So like I said, I had a mentor in the beginning that got me started connected with like the a framer that would work and I got the excavator on my own. So like Got a bunch of the guys on my own. And then I had references for some of the other guys. And some of the codes and whatnot. My mentor kind of told me and I gotta look out for this, then you need to look out for that. And then some things I just Googled, yeah, I actually didn't know the code for the bathroom. And I was within an inch of being too small, between like the toilet and the wall, and the window and the shower. So I didn't know those codes until we had already framed it out. And it's very interesting, because the framers asking me questions, and saying, What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And I'm like, okay, you know, as crazy I was at the site every day. And I would either have to discuss it with a framer, or make decisions on the fly, and sometimes call in my mentor and just say, What am I supposed to do about this? So I, you know, highly recommend knowing somebody if you're going to do it on your own, or somebody that has done it, to bounce things off of because to go in blindly, could be risky. But I feel confident, doing it again, on my own completely on my own this time, because now I know exactly what to do. So yes, you you're liable. And you need to, you know, anybody can do it. I imagined, at least in this in the town where I was building, you can do that for yourself. And what you save is, it's 100% markup, if you have a contractor, so you're gonna save, you know, a lot of money right there. Doing it yourself. My house would have been, you know, easily twice as much. If I hired somebody to do it. So highly recommend doing it on your own? Not rocket science. Yeah. Yep. One thing, you really have to keep track of just all the paperwork and the schedule, and you're constantly communicating, like I was teaching, and I would get phone calls from the plumber, the electrician, and you need to have answers right away. Yeah. So that was a little challenging, right? But like I said, everybody was really great.

Ethan Waldman 27:06

That's awesome. Do you? Are there any resources that you kind of know of, or use that you can, you know, share in terms of being your own contractor? It sounds like having that, you know, mentor was very helpful for you.

Laura Kuntz 27:19

That was very, very helpful. And I could not thank him enough. But I think, you know, I know, there's some books out there about outlining the process. And, literally, he had written me a list, like a timeline of what needs to happen first. And I think if you Google things like that, that for me, was really important. Because a couple of things I learned when to get toward the end, you know, the different guys need to sign off at different times. So, you know, such and such, the plumber can't come in until somebody else comes in. And they, you know, insulation has to come in after the sheet rocking and all these things. So that timeline right at the end gets really crucial of scheduling your guys. Because if one guy isn't available for a month, now, you've just lost a month waiting for him. Yeah, so I think in the beginning, starting out early, so you have all your permits in place, and at the end, being right on top of getting your guys lined up. So that you're not just wasting time because I wasted months at the back end. And because my guys were busy, they had gotten and doing a small house, they were busy with bigger jobs. So I was kind of at the whim of, you know, waiting for them to come and finish my little job. So, and my, my electrician was at 40 minutes away, and he was great. But right couple times, I had to wait for him to finish doing something else. So

Ethan Waldman 28:58

Yeah, it does sound like the timing everything out, is really important. Because you know, your electrician has to drive 40 minutes and they get there and then something is not ready for them. Something's not in place, and then they can't, they can't do the work.

Laura Kuntz 29:12

Absolutely. And they you know, you don't want them to be frustrated either. And waste their time. So it's really important to be on top of that and just constantly communicating with the guys. One thing that I thought was funny as a woman was the only issue that I had, or it wasn't really an issue, but I thought was funny. Every time I went to the lumberyard, which was numerous times, they didn't really remember me coming in there and I and they said, you know, what's your contractor's name? And I said, it's me. It's under my name. And they said, Yeah, but but who's doing the build? And I'm like, it's under my name. And they couldn't find in the computer and I said, I need the same roofing material that I bought last time. And they said, Well, if I'd have trouble pulling it up on the computer every time, and then I'd go around to the inventory. And the guy would say, Hey, cutie, let me help you, you know, put that in the car, and I'm like, I'm good, I can get it. And then like, well, who's gonna help you take it out of the car when you get there? And I'm like, I'm good. I have it, you know. They were, that was the only place where I really felt like, on one hand, I felt empowered. When I would pull up in my overalls, and I would borrow my son's big pickup truck. And on the other hand, I felt frustrated, because I'm like, Really, guys, you know, because I've been in here like five times. And yeah, I've told you this information.

Ethan Waldman 30:45

As you were saying, as you were telling me that story, I literally like facepalm. And I like put my palm over my face. I was like, I can't believe that. Again, I can,

Laura Kuntz 30:57

Oh, my gosh, like it was, it was so fun. And I loved it. And I strongly encourage anybody, but you know, women, especially to try to do something like that, like I said, because I know rent is crazy expensive. I have several co workers who want to buy a house, and in that are super handy and smart and would be very capable. I think people don't understand that that's a possibility. You know, yeah, for anybody.

Ethan Waldman 31:32

Well, that's really awesome. Any other, you know, resources that you might like to share with our listeners that have helped you out along the way, either in tiny houses, or contracting or anything like that?

Laura Kuntz 31:43

I think, again, like just asking lots of questions and being it's funny, because I think you, when the guys are doing their work, you should be, you know, interested, but not in their way. And learning a lot and having answers ready to go, but also not being intrusive. And then it was a really fine line of staying in contact with the guys and having all the information at the ready. But also not bugging them too much. And understanding that they have a schedule to keep. So just being organized in, like I said, I had read, like every kind of tiny house book, I could find in watched every kind of TV show and podcasts and everything, because I was so passionate about it. And so I think eventually, some of it sunk into my brain a little bit. But, you know, if I, if there's any parents out there that have young children, I encourage you to teach your children how to hammer how to measure how to do all these things, because I really wish I actually knew how to do the building myself. Yeah, as I'm kind of watching. And I wish so badly that I actually had the skills to do some of the work because when the guys weren't available, I was just stuck, waiting. And so if you have children, I really encourage people to teach their, their, you know, their children or their loved ones, how to do hands on things. My father, my brother, very handy, and can do a lot of renovations. But I was never able to learn those skills as of yet. So I'm really hoping in the future to learn some of those skills for myself. With the finances, I think that all you know, all people, especially younger people should learn as much as they can. That's not a strong point of mine. Learn how to make their money work for them. And that's, again, something I want to learn more of, because the sky's the limit when you can make your money work for you. We all try

Ethan Waldman 33:54

I think that you're you're pretty far ahead of most other people. So don't don't count yourself out. Well, Laura Kuntz, thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. This is it was really fun to get to meet you and hear about your tiny house journey.

Laura Kuntz 34:09

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Ethan Waldman 34:14

Thank you so much to Laura Kuntz for being a guest on the show today, you can find the show notes including a complete transcript and photos of Laura's beautiful tiny home at thetinyhouse.net/275. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/275. There you will also find more info about our wonderful sponsor, FOTILE and their two in one in sink dishwasher. There is a link on the show notes for this episode, so you can visit their page and learn more about this awesome appliance. Well, that's all for this week. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and I'll be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai