Macy Miller cover

You may have seen Macy Miller hinting about something a few weeks ago. The time has finally come for me to be able to share that with everyone! Even though tiny house festivals are starting up again, I thought it would be great to put on an online event that anyone worldwide can attend without having to travel. It’s called the Tiny House Summit and it’s a completely free 3-day online event. In this excerpt from the Summit, Macy shares why tiny houses are important and I thought it was too good not to share with the podcast audience. If you’re feeling unsure about your choice to go tiny, this interview will help you feel more confident and be a better advocate for yourself and your own lifestyle. You can see the lineup and register for the Summit at tinyhousesummit.co.

In This Episode:

  • Overview of the tiny house movement
  • Understanding your reasons for living tiny
  • Why legalization matters
  • Overview of building codes and housing types
  • Benefits of living tiny

Links and Resources:

 

Guest Bio:

Macy Miller

Macy Miller

Macy Miller—mother, teacher, and staunch advocate of living little—designed and built her family’s tiny home in 2011. Her now iconic tiny house has been featured in Time and Dwell Magazine. She’s influenced tiny house enthusiasts around the world while lobbying for change in International Residential Code to allow for tiny living. Her family recently embraced life off-grid, nestling their tiny house into the landscape of North Idaho, where they are thriving on a mountain aptly called Paradise.

https://minimotives.com/

 

This Week's Sponsor:

Precision Temp Logo

PrecisionTemp

PrecisionTemp is making one product to solve two issues that I know everyone deals with in a tiny house: running out of hot water and heating your tiny house. PrecisionTemp has made the amazing TwinTemp Junior propane tankless water heater, which provides unlimited hot water for your tiny house and hydronic heating. This means you get warm heated floors, so there are no cold spots. It's designed specifically for tiny houses and features whisper-quiet operation as well as high efficiency. If you want more information on how PrecisionTemp can help make living tiny easier and more comfortable visit precisiontemp.com. While you're there, use the coupon code THLP for $100 off any PrecisionTemp unit plus free shipping.

 

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Macy Miller is legendary

Don't miss the Tiny House Summit!

 
 

Macy Miller 0:00

I think that tiny homes are a great solution for a lot of people for a plethora of different reasons. And the hardest part about choosing to go tiny, for me has often been other people's opinions about it. And so over time, I've kind of gathered these. I don't know, reasons why, why it's fun and important and why it's a good choice. And I just want to share some of those with you and give you a little bit of ammo for your arsenal to kick back when people push back on you.

Ethan Waldman 0:33

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 is episode 233 with Macy Miller. And this is a special one because this episode, this interview is actually an excerpt from an upcoming event that I have been working on, like a crazy person all summer long. And I'm finally ready to tell you all about it. It's called the tiny house Summit. And it's a free three day event where you can hear 30 Tiny House experts give their best strategies on how to plan build and live tiny.

After all we've been through the last three years, tiny house festivals are starting up again. But I thought it would be great to put on an online event that anybody in the world can attend without having to travel. Oh, and did I mention that it's completely free to attend? Now there is an option to purchase an all access pass that will give you the recordings, extra bonuses, downloads, and a workbook of the event. But no purchase is necessary. It's completely free to attend. And I just hope that you'll get a ton of value from this amazing event. Now if you're saying alrighty then sign me up, say no more. Well, it's really easy. All you have to do is go to tinyhousesummit.co. Again, that's tinyhousesummit.co and register on one of the 500 registration forms that you'll find there on that page. The dates for the summit are November 4th, 5th and 6th and there are a ton of details to share with you about it. But the really basic thing, the easiest thing, all you really need to know is to head over to tinyhousesummit.co where you can register for the event. From there, you'll receive emails from me with more details of how you can view the summit, how you can participate and wow, I'm just so excited about this. I hope you can tell.

So anyhow, back to this interview with Macy. Macy is one of our 30 amazing experts for the Summit and her session, I just thought it was too good not to share with the podcast audience. In this session we are talking about why are tiny homes important. If you're feeling unsure about your choice to go tiny, this interview will help you feel more confident and be a better advocate for yourself and for your own tiny house hopes and dreams. I hope you stick around.

I'd like to tell you about the sponsor of today's episode PrecisionTemp, PrecisionTemp is making one product to solve two issues that I know everyone deals with in a tiny house, running out of hot water and heating your tiny house. PrecisionTemp has made the amazing TwinTemp Junior propane tankless water heater, which provides unlimited hot water for your tiny house and hydronic heating. This means you get warm heated floors, so there are no cold spots. It's designed specifically for tiny houses and features whisper quiet operation as well as high efficiency. If you want more information on how PrecisionTemp can help make living tiny easier and more comfortable, visit precisiontemp.com. While you're there, use the coupon code THLP for $100 off the TwinTemp Junior plus free shipping. That website again is precisiontemp.com coupon code THLP for $100 off the TwinTemp Junior plus free shipping. Thank you so much to PrecisionTemp for sponsoring our show.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Tiny House Summit. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman and today I am here with the legendary Macy Miller. Legendary. Macy Miller is a mother teacher and staunch advocate of living little. She designed and built her family's tiny home in 2011. Her now iconic tiny house has been featured in Time and Dwell magazine. She's influenced Tiny House enthusiasts around the world while lobbying for change in international residential code to allow for tiny living. Her family recently embraced life off grid, nestling their tiny house into the landscape of northern Idaho, where they are thriving on a mountain aptly called Paradise. Macy Miller, welcome to the Summit!

Macy Miller 5:01

Thanks for having me, Ethan.

Ethan Waldman 5:02

You're so welcome. I'm so excited that that you're you're presenting here today. And I always have to say like, you were like, a couple months ahead of me in the build. And I was always like, "Oh my gosh, that Macy Miller, she's like, so, she's moving so fast. I gotta catch up."

Macy Miller 5:24

It's funny, because I felt the same about you. We were racing each other.

Ethan Waldman 5:28

We were racing.

Macy Miller 5:30

You were like the first person that I was like, "I'm gonna get in touch with Ethan so I can ask him, How do you do this?" And then

Ethan Waldman 5:36

Yeah.

Macy Miller 5:36

Just the whole way through. Great. It was great.

Ethan Waldman 5:39

Go from there. So we've got you've got a presentation for us today. What, you know, what are we talking about?

Macy Miller 5:46

You know, what I tend to focus on when I talk to people is why tiny houses are important. And when you approached me with this summit, I was kind of like, well, that's the choir I'm... But it's it's important that we know as tiny house advocates, why it's important. So we can become better advocates, not just for ourselves, but for those who come behind us. You know? And so this whole presentation is designed to give you ammunition for your arsenal, when people start to push back. Really, when people push back, it's generally out of a place of concern. Like, my folks were super concerned this was the path I was taking. And that kind of takes your legs out from under you sometimes when you're in the middle of it, and you're having a hard time justifying it, personally. It's good to have some information in the background of why it is important so that when people raise those concerns, you can put them to ease, I guess,

Ethan Waldman 6:49

Yeah, I like that lens of looking at it as advocating for the lifestyle, not necessarily to change laws or anything like that, but more just for the people around you and advocating for yourself.

Macy Miller 7:01

Yeah, whether tiny houses are in their future, or whether they're just somebody who might disagree with them at a council meeting, but not really understanding the reasons. The more you understand, the more you can share that with other people and the more logical it becomes for everybody. You know? But I don't think tiny houses are going away. It's just how fast can we incorporate them as a legit housing type that people can choose to kind of free up some income and some time in their world? Because I think that's important right now, that people sort of regain their their lifestyle. So that's what I'm presenting on today. Just kind of overview. Some of it might be old news for those watching, but maybe you'll learn a thing or two. I don't know.

Ethan Waldman 7:46

I think we will.

Macy Miller 7:49

So, do ou want to just get into it?

Ethan Waldman 7:51

Yeah, let's get into it.

Macy Miller 7:52

All right. Let's see how this goes. So who am I? I'm Macy Miller. I'm that girl in the picture, or this one on the screen. I don't know how it's gonna show up for you guys. But I built my tiny house in 2011. Tiny houses weren't a big thing at that point. I had been building for a little while before I stumbled on a guy named Jay Shafer. Who obviously like is, well, maybe not obviously, but he is kind of the grandfather of the modern tiny house, movable tiny house trend. But shortly after that, I found Ethan and a couple other people. But I still live in my tiny house. It's been a decade later. In June, we passed a decade. I now have two kids. We have a dog. We have two cats. And if you see them, they're in the room with me. So they might pop up at a time or... I'm not in control of them. You might see them.

Ethan Waldman 8:46

That's real tiny house life right there.

Macy Miller 8:47

Yeah, we're actually in our classroom right now. I just set this up this morning. I homeschool my children as well. And so we're building them a classroom in our barn and so we're testing our internet right now. First time, but this is where I live. I used to live in downtown Boise, Idaho, right downtown on State Street and 31st is like right in the heart of it. And I lived there for four years tied to the grid. And then my partner and I, we built an RV. James is my partner. We built this little tiny RV and we took it to the road for a little over a year to see, you know, the town was kind of outgrowing us. So we built our own careers to be location independent, tested them on the road, and found a new home base. We ended up moving about six hours north of where we were to Moscow, Idaho. I bought six acres, and we moved off grid. So we've been working out that lifestyle for the last three years or so. We're doing pretty good. It's easier than I expected. But that's where that's where we came from. And where we're going. We're starting a permaculture farm up here of sorts.

So I want to talk about the tiny house movement as a whole. You guys probably know quite a bit of this, and the What, the Where, When, etc. Let me see if there's... I can, yeah, I can do that. So Jay Shafer, way back when, he's the one who came up with the idea of of this movable structure. And that's not to say that's the only type of tiny house. There's cob houses, there's alternative houses. This is just a small house, you know? It doesn't really matter what it's built out of, from my perspective, it's just something that's right sized housing. The wheels are only important to you if they're important to you. But they don't have to be.

So small houses, where are they? They're everywhere. You might not see them. I still get messages from people that are like, "Hey, I moved to Boise and I've been looking at a tiny house for the last 10 years and I didn't even know there was anything here." And I'm a very vocal advocate who lives in Boise, Idaho for a long period. And it just it doesn't, you know, when people open up to this idea, you don't really know how far reaching it is. It's everywhere. It's global at this point, but it's actually, it's centered mostly in the United States and Australia. Oddly enough, the countries with the highest footprint size of houses. It's not that odd. It's a response.

So when and why? Why is that happening? So humans historically, you know, they have lived in small houses. This is how we used to live as a species. And then the Industrial Revolution kind of came along, made things different. The amount of people living in a house has gone down, and the amount of houses have gone up, and the square footage of houses have gone up. So it's this exploding effect happening across the landscape. And I believe that tiny houses and tiny houses on wheels are 100% a response to that. And you may think that the pendulum is swinging too far. Some people may think that. But it's got to start somewhere. You know, I've lived in 230 square feet for 10 years. I thought it'd be too small too. But it's grown with my family. And it is a response to this, though.

And the whys of? My least favorite thing is when people are like, "You missed the whole point of tiny houses." I have had multiple points of living in my tiny house through the years. It did not start out as a family house. But now it's a family house for us. It may be you're trying to save money, and maybe you're trying to save time, and maybe you need to go to school, you love your job, you work so much that you're never home. So it doesn't make sense to have a big house. It could be retiremen,t could be ailing family members, children. Any number of reasons. There's no one point to living in a tiny house. There's nothing you can miss. All you need is to listen to your guts, and to go forward. But when you're hit with these things about you 'miss the whole point', it's good to have your why written down in your brain somewhere so that you can respond with the...

Ethan Waldman 13:05

Yeah, what was your why? Out of curiosity.

When we started?

When you started, yeah.

Macy Miller 13:10

Yeah, when I built it was 100% about education. I was taking my architectural licensing exams, and I had all this theory, you know, but I had never applied it ever. And so I really wanted to understand how the systems integrated. And then of course, I had gone through a divorce and was looking at bankruptcy. I ended up avoiding bankruptcy. Thanks, tiny house. And then I lost my job in the recession as well. So I had kind of a lot, but my number one reason was the education of it. And of building you know, not just, I don't know, it applied directly to my field, which is architecture. I never thought I'd live in it for more than... I thought it'd be a trick to get two years out of it. Because I was just a single lady, and I was like, "This is gonna be so hard. It's just 200 square feet." And now I live there with four human beings and three animals. Which does sound a little ridiculous, but it works for us or we would change it. But yeah, everybody's got a different why, and it seems that everybody has an opinion on what your why should be. So I guess, prepare for that in some way, if you're easily shaken by other other folks.

So functionally, I wanted to talk about the functional attributes, typically of the bathroom, the bedroom, a kitchen, and some sort of living space. And why that's important is, as these get legalized, places are doing it differently, and it seems to be the lowest hanging fruit to take away any mechanical spaces. So take out the bathroom, take out the kitchen, and sure you can have a tiny house. You know? But we need those rooms if it's going to be a house. So, as things go forward, and they get legalized in different areas, there's different methods, it seems, that everybody's taking to do that. But the number one way seems to be take out the important parts that you need to live your life. And then you can do it. And so that's not going to work. And as we're looking at legalizing them and pushing them forward in our own jurisdictions, we need to understand that the rooms matter, the type of rooms that you have. You can't just remove whole sections of how we need to live.

And then the wheels. The wheels only matter if they matter to you. There's good reasons why the wheels matter. Honestly I wonder, had Jay Shafer been allowed to just build his house on the ground because he had, as I understand, he had the property. And he had the desire to build a small house, and they wouldn't let him. So the workaround was to put it on wheels. And that was okay, because he was used to living in an Airstream and whatnot. But I wonder if he hadn't been pushed down that route, how much longer it would take movable tiny houses to have caught on. But the fact is, they are and our society has changed. There's the internet, there's location, you know, like short location jobs, traveling nurses, traveling contractors, there's a necessity for the wheels now, to have a house that's as flexible and movable as we are as creatures. But the wheels only matter if they matter to you. But you can't again, just take them off and say, "Sure, you can do that." Because it's a new housing type that is responsive to the needs of people today. And so the wheels have been a big sticking point for 'we need to get them legalized in this way'. And this is important.

I just want to do an overview of the building codes.There's three main types of three main building codes when you're looking at the structure. IRC is the International Residential Code. ANSI, I don't remember what it stands for, but it's what governs vehicles.

Ethan Waldman 17:00

And then National Standards Institute.

Macy Miller 17:03

Thank you. That's not the one I deal in because it's for vehicles. I deal in housing and buildings. And then you have HUD. HUD has already sidestepped. It's a federal government housing and urban development. They step in and they kind of make sure housing is fair. But they don't really regulate housing. They regulate the mobile home industry and manufactured housing industry, because that's an industry historically, that hasn't been fair. And so HUD was started to make sure things were going okay. HUD is not associated with tiny houses at all. They have taken a clear stance that it's not their molehill. It's not, it's not their thing to deal with, which I believe is true.

And so you go back to IRC and ANSI. Which one is it? It's a vehicle if it has wheels. But it's also a house, which should be IRC. And my answer is, it should be both. You can meet both codes. It's possible. But if you're going to make it meet one, it's a dwelling and it should be residential code. That International Residential Code is what governs any structure that you're able to live in. So if we're gonna get legitimized, it needs to be in the IRC. I'll have a little more on that later. But that's the three main codes and what they do. And why that matters comes up.

So that's building code. That's when you build the structure. You still have to deal with zoning codes, because you can't buy a lot in a neighborhood and build an industrial facility. It's not allowed. Zoning exists in every city and county across the US, just about, and the whole job is to determine what's an appropriate type of building for this use. I have been told by inspectors, "Zoning is variable. We can deal with zoning. That's a location deal." You have to get into the building code from a national level before you can address the zoning, though. So you can't put the cart before the horse and address zoning. Where we're at in legalization right now is somewhere in between. Because we have a legitimized IRC code for movable tiny houses but it's not adopted everywhere yet. So some places are addressing zoning, where other places still have their heads in the sand and they're waiting for somebody else to come up with a solution that they can repeat that works for them. And so there's a whole bunch of different options out there. And we can talk more about that if you want a little bit later. I was trying not to get too in the weeds on the codes.

And then, oh, one thing I wanted to mention is housing types. You know, a lot of people they really want tiny house communities. And there's a historical precedence that housing islands are not successful. It does not matter if they're high end houses and this is the gated community surrounded by whatever, or if it's a trailer park. One type of housing concentrated in one area will fail over and over and over again. It just takes time. And there are successful stories of that too, but by and large, they always fail. The the most successful type of housing strategy is intermingling. People don't like it. They have this idea that, "I want to live with a bunch of rich people," or, "I don't want to live with snooty people." But really the human creatures we are we like to integrate with all different levels. And that's the successful housing models. And then the other one worth mentioning, because this is where I feel like tiny houses should be really pushing. I mean, really, we should be pushing all of the directions, but I think there's power in the accessory dwelling ADU model. When I work with cities, that's the model that I push with them to have because there's code there. Everywhere already has ADU standards and regulations. They have to allow one parking spot and they have to do this, that, and the other. Everybody's kind of got the outline. And there's nothing different between having an ADU and an ADU pad. And then we'll talk a little bit later about tax models and stuff. The ADU model would clear up a lot of things that are stumbling blocks for different jurisdictions.

Ethan Waldman 21:30

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Now with that ADU model, does that sidestep the IRC or ANSI codes?

Macy Miller 23:10

Nope, still have to follow those. Yeah. And they're different. In a lot of ways, I think it would make it simpler because you can use the Appendix Q. It works, it's copacetic the whole way around.

Okay, so lifestyle, why is important? When you get back to like, talking to family members about why you're going this direction or co workers, whatever it might be. Again, I'll use Boise as my starting point. My house was under $12,000. It would be hard to do that now with lumber prices, but it's absolutely possible. I watch the marketplace, I get deals, still. And you could still build very inexpensively a tiny house versus Boise, Idaho's average housing costs is over half a million. I can step into a $30,000 house. I can't touch a half a million dollar house. And a lot of people are in that position. So just the entry level costs, it's more accessible. I don't love to focus on finances, because to me, that is the least important metric of why tiny houses are good. But it's real. I do not spend very much money on housing, and I haven't for 10 years. So it's really easy for me to say that's the least important metric. But it is a very important metric. At the same time, you have debt. This is kind on the financial side. If you stop having large housing costs, you can crush debt costs, which leads you that much further to financial independence and owning your own time again, which became a real issue for me. I didn't like how many other people owned my time before I did. And that was a sticking point that worked really well to tell my family like, "I'm good at my job and I love my job, but I don't love how much I have to give to my job regardless of if I want to or not." So you can work less hours, obviously. If you don't need as much money you can choose to back that down. Or maybe you have a job that you love and you just don't need that giant house. So whichever one resonates for you, because it takes all types to make this world. Tiny houses are good for anyone who thinks that they might be good for them. And if you don't, don't go tiny. That's as clear as it gets. You know? If it's not interesting to you, don't do it. But it's not fair for other people to tell you their feelings about it.

My favorite is that it has given me the opportunity to follow my passions deeply. We do so much stuff that I could never fathom doing. And on the more standard... Had I kept my office job and kept my 2500 square foot house, gosh, I just think I would be hating life right now. It never felt like the right path for me. And so in a way, I'm really glad it all crumbled so soon, because this has been just a phenomenal path to take. More than that, you can reuse, like my whole building is basically reused materials. So I didn't get any more raw materials out of the ground to build my house. You don't have to do that. That's a benefit of going tiny. And then the one that I pushed with the local jurisdictions when I talked to them, because their whole job is, "How do we make all the businesses successful?" You give people time and spending money, that's how. And that's what a tiny house does. Your community becomes your living room. And I don't even think twice about going down to the coffee shop and spending my money to buy things that I wouldn't have the time or money for in that previous lifestyle. And so tiny houses aren't just good for the individual, they're good for the community that they live in. And I think that's an important point to share with local, I don't know, leaders, and family members.

The family connections, like I feel like that's obvious, but I'll do this. This comes with a grain of salt, because it'll either make or break a relationship. And there are a lot of couples that move into a tiny house and decide that that is not their cuppa. And that's okay! There's nothing wrong with that. But it'll get you to that quicker. You know, there's, there's definitely... I think after the first year of dating James, I was like, "I feel like I'm further in this relationship than had we been dating for 10 years on that other life path." Because we just know the ins and outs of everything. There's no room to close the door and storm off. You've got to address your issues, you know, you're sharing space. I think that is a benefit and not a drawback. A lot of people would disagree with that one. But gosh, if I'm gonna break a relationship, I want to do it quick so I can move on.

And it's not just for you personally, that like sustainability is something I think that brings a lot of people to the tiny house world, but it's not just like ecological sustainability. It's the human animal, like the path we're on as a as a species isn't sustainable. It's not filling our buckets emotionally. We're all stuck being cogs in somebody else's machine a lot of times, and sidestepping some of those standard paths gives you another option. It's a great way to cover those Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that base level, food, water, shelter, like, in a way that you just don't even have to deal with it anymore. It'snot a constant bill. When you have it, you just have shelter, and period, and then you move on, and you rise up that staircase towards self actualization. But a lot of people never really fulfill that bottom rung. And how can we expect society to get better if we're constantly struggling for basic needs? Of course, there's compact footprints,. The best thing you can do for the planet is use less. It doesn't matter how green you make your building, smaller will always be better.

And then, as far as healthy communities go, I keep using Boise as an example because Boise is one of the fastest growing cities in the country and I happen to have personal experience there. It is very hard to find a rental. And there's no alternatives for people. If there was a legal path to tiny houses in Boise, which we, I have been working with them on a project, it would put landlords in check. Because there's a ton of developers just buying up properties and renting them out there. And it's a tricky spot to be put in. But allowing tiny houses will allow a different way to keep those guys in check. You know, if if we had the ability to just build our own house again, like it used to be, they would have to mind their P's and Q's and keep rents fair. And so not only that, a lot of the people who are too stretched out on their mortgage, could rent a place in their backyard or start an ADU and generate income. The house for individuals can kind of start to recoup some from their investment by charging a tiny house owner rent. And that creates healthy communities, when people are engaging with each other in a copacetic way, instead of a forceful way, like it's sort of become in a lot of places. It makes for a more sustainable community and a more charming town, I think. So there's a lot of hurdles.

These are my kids, by the way, Miles and Hazel. They're lovely. They have never known life outside of a tiny house, they were born into this lifestyle. And I think that's funny for them. But aside from that, so so there's a lot of hurdles. And the biggest hurdle, I think, that I hear that jurisdictions are dealing with is, how do we tax these? Because they're different than a ground bound house, which is taxable as real property. Whereas vehicles are taxable as personal property. And those are two totally different things. It's something that needs to be worked out, and different places are doing it in different ways. And that's TBD how that's gonna get figured out. But that's one of the the hurdle blocks ahead of us. And then the other one is inspections. You know, when you meet a code, you have to have it inspected. So tiny houses are tricky, because do you have it inspected where it was built or where it's parked? And you start having to talk like... You have to cast a net. And who do we trust to inspect this? Or does it need to be done every single time it's moved? And that's where you get these organizations starting up that can inspect it at a blanket like NOAH and PacWest, they will do it at a blanket,. But it still might not be accepted in your town. Like you have a NOAHcertification. Okay, we don't take that, you know?

Ethan Waldman 32:39

And my understanding is that those two certifiers are certifying to ANSI codes, not to IRC codes.

Macy Miller 32:47

But my understanding is they have the ability to certify to IRC. But What's tricky about that, you know, the code is national, but there's amendments made locally. And so yes, it's every place except like Michigan or something is based on IRC, but they make their own amendments to it. So you can certify to the whole national code, but you've also got a... Tthat's a lot to expect a nationwide company to manage, to know every local jurisdiction's addendums to that code. It's doable, I mean, it's all there. It's a lot of reading. But usually, locally, they make those addendums for site specific reasons and they need to be followed as well. So how to inspect is something a lot of people are working out. And I'm surprised at how okay a lot of the cases out there are at just being like, "Yeah, we'll work this out, like, do you have pictures?" It's been very... I don't know, all of my experience with it so far, they've worked very well with the homeowner, the tiny homeowner. And then the zoning methods, you have places that are allowing them as emergency housing, because they're in a crisis situation without enough housing. But that kind of is a backdoor method, it sidesteps a lot of code issues. So I don't see it as like a sustainable method. It's a short term method. Some people are doing it. I mean, everybody's kind of approaching it from a different stance with their own set of circumstances to handle. And it feels like they're waiting to see how these kinds of case studies go so they can replicate what works and change what doesn't. And it's kind of a funny time to be in the tiny house world. You and I were in it way before there was such a thing as a code But that's one of the biggest hurdles we have behind us. Not only do we have social proof, we have TV shows that show that this works. We make money, you know, we make our income showing people that this is legit. And there's just too much out there to be disregarded anymore. I remember when they're like, "This is just a fad. Give it a week." You know?

Ethan Waldman 35:09

Yeah.

Macy Miller 35:09

And it's, it's solving way too many problems than it's creating, and it's gonna keep going. I have no doubt about that. So it's just figuring out how. And that is... Locally, that happens. Like that's the point we're at right now is everybody has to figure it out in their local community. We already have the IRC appendix adopted, which is the only crowdsource, excuse me it was the first. There's been more since this, but this community crowdsource code change and The International Code Council that had never happened before. Tthat amount of organization for citizens like you and me and us to just decide this needs to happen, we're gonna raise the money and we're gonna make it happen is unbelievable. And it blew their minds that people were that engaged with building codes, something that is laughed about being so boring. But they're not working for people anymore, so individuals are crowdsourcing and tiny house appendix was the very first one adopted and crowdsourced solely by the community.

And then community integration. It's already happening, whether they make it okay or not. You're hard pressed to find somewhere that doesn't have a tiny house or too hiding around underneath a tree somewhere.

Ethan Waldman 36:35

Yep.

Macy Miller 36:36

So I don't know. So that's my spiel on why tiny houses are important and the issues and problems they solve. What I encourage you to encourage others to do mostly is not block the path, because I think that's the biggest stumbling block. Because people just don't know and when people don't know, they, they can raise their hand and they say, "Well, I'm not sure." Depending on how it's done, it's not a challenge to their property values. It's not anything like that, like those are the reasons that, that people kind of speak up, and they're just not sure how it affects them. So the more we can talk, and educate and show the benefits of it, I think the less reluctant people who will never live in a tiny house will be,. It's it's hard when people who are not invested in this in any way, shape or form, oppose it. Because they're not sure how it affects what they have invested in, you know, and so the more we can talk about it, and the more confident we can feel.

I think the better and then, of course, support your local initiatives, everything is happening local at this point, it's a lot of the national visibility and changes that need to happen to happen have happened. And now it just needs to trickle down through the local communities. And that's all. I think that's all I had.

Ethan Waldman 37:59

Awesome. Well, I have one other thing that I want to bring up, but I think we're gonna save it for the Bonus Session. So thank you, and we'll see you in the bonus.

Macy Miller 38:12

All right.

Ethan Waldman 38:13

Thank you so much to Maisie Miller for being a presenter at the 2022 Tiny House Summit. To view Macy's presentation, she actually had some beautiful visuals to go along with it, and 29 more so a 30 total presentations from 30 experts register for the Tiny House Summit. It's happening November 4th, 5th, and 6th, it's completely free to attend. And you can do that over at TinyHouseSummit.co. That's TinyHouseSummit.co. Thank you so much to PrecisionTemp for being a longtime sponsor of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast. And as always, you can find the show notes from today's episode, including a transcript, some photos and more over at thetinyhouse.net/233. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/233. I really hope that you register for the Summit. It's been a ton of work and it's going to be amazing. 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

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