What does it take to buy and repair a used houseboat and turn it into a successful Airbnb? Nicole Young reached out to me because she was a listener of the show who also happened to have bought two different house boats and retrofitted them to be used as Airbnb hotel rooms. I've been wanting to talk with someone about houseboats for a while, and Nicole was the perfect guest.

This is an exciting time in the tiny house movement, as cities and states across the country are looking at legalizing tiny houses in some form. There are many strategies that advocates of tiny houses are using to push for tiny house legalization. I recently heard from a listener, today’s guest Dan Armstrong, about something called RILUPA, or the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. There have been several examples of churches and nonprofits using this law to legally build tiny house villages. Dan is here to explain what RILUPA is and how it can be used to help forge a path forward for tiny house villages.

Cubist Engineering made a splash with The Sturgis, a gorgeous tiny home built with some very innovative materials like Cross Laminated Timbers. Mike Haney has an engineering background so I asked him to come on the show to explain what CLT’s are and how they can be used for building tiny houses. Plus, a look at Cubist’s transformable trailer that can be converted into a permanent foundation.

Lil Wing is a metal triangle on wheels with a putting green grass landing, and it was the most unique tiny house I saw at last year’s Big Mass Festival. The builder, Chris Schapdick of Tiny Industrial, specializes in smaller tiny homes that are easy to tow. In addition, he is the author of two books about tiny house living. In this conversation, we’ll cover the ins and outs of building towable tiny houses, why Chris decided to share his process on Instructables, and what we can look forward to in his upcoming book release.

Miranda Aisling is returning to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast to update us on the upcoming Big Mass Tiny House Festival, and her plans to turn an unused public building in Beverly, Massachusetts into a community art hotel. Plus, what to do when you realize that there are mice living inside your tiny house walls 🐭

I learned about Terry’s work through Alexis and Christian of Tiny House Expedition. Terry is in the process of creating an urban tiny house village in Lake Dallas, Texas, in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. After working on this project for some time and running into a lot of red tape, the project is almost done. The Lake Dallas Tiny Home Community will have 13 parking spaces for tiny houses on wheels and a communal washateria (a place to do laundry). There is a lot to learn about how to advocate for tiny houses in this type of zoning structure, and Terry calmly and patiently answered all of my questions about real estate development. I hope you’ll be inspired to use Terry’s knowledge and apply it to your own cities and towns!

What natural material has the tensile strength of steel and can grow 12″ in a single day? Bamboo! On today's show, I'm chatting with my friend Palo Coleman about alternative and old-school building methods and materials that are better than what we do today. We'll also go in depth on Shou Sugi Ban, which is the (now popular again) technique for preserving wood by burning it.

Jewel is leading the conversation on inclusiveness and diversity in the tiny house movement and is a wonderful interview guest. We talk about a wide range of topics, from her own tiny house and the special features inside it, to some issues that persist in our housing and financial systems. There are many problems with housing in the United States, and there’s been systemic racism built into our housing system and financial structures for a long time. I think it’s important that as we build the tiny house movement we do what we can to prevent this movement from reflecting the system at large by keeping these kinds of things in mind, and Jewel has some great suggestions on how we can all move forward.

On today’s show, we will be exploring the possibility of heating your tiny house with compost. Not long ago, I came across a book called The Compost-Powered Water Heater. It's only about 140 pages and I read it in one sitting. Author Gaelan Brown details the experimentation and the work that has been done in harvesting the heat from a compost pile and using that to heat a greenhouse, barn, or even a hot tub. I was surprised to find out that the author also lives in a tiny house, built on the back of a flatbed truck, named the Dodge Lodge.

Brenda Mason downsized from a 3100 sf, 5 bedroom home to a 310 sf converted motor coach tiny home in just 31 days. Brenda is passionate about helping others downsize their own lives, and she recommends doing it fast! In this conversation, Brenda shares her take and tips on downsizing, plus reflections on the emotional attachments we all have to our stuff.