Daniel Ott is one of the first tiny home builders in Ontario, working to change the housing market by designing and building legal tiny homes (which is no small feat under the Ontario Building Code, one of the strictest codes in North America). Using his unique UpSizeDown Method, Daniel and his team at True North Tiny Homes not only design your tiny dream home, but they also help you get prepared to thrive in it.

Did you know that cob is one of the oldest building materials around? According to my guest, Dave Olsen, most cob houses are tiny houses because they take so long to build! Cob is a mixture of clay, sand, straw, and water that hardens into a thick, load-bearing, structure. Think curved, earthen walls and whimsical building shapes. Dave Olsen has been building with cob for over 20 years and has developed his own technique, called “Fast Cob”. Dave tells us about the benefits of Cob building, how to do fast cob, and more.

If you’ve been following the tiny house movement for any amount of time, there’s a good chance you’ve come across a story about someone getting ripped off by a tiny house builder. Heck, I’ve interviewed several people on this show whose builders have gone bankrupt or not delivered on what they promised. This week, I’m interviewing Frank Olito, the resident tiny house expert at Business Insider. Frank has also noticed this trend in the industry and has focused his reporting on it. In this episode, you'll learn about what happens when you work with a bad builder, what recourse you can take, and how to avoid bad builders in the first place.

Meet Melissa and Jon Block, the sister-brother team behind San Diego’s first ever tiny house village called Tiny House Block. In this interview, Melissa and Jon will share the journey that they took to go from a couple of backyard tiny homes, to a dedicated piece of land with 25 tiny houses. Surprisingly, the majority of their homes are rented long-term, and they’ve had to figure out how to manage a community, including difficult tenants, disputes between neighbors, and more. I hope you stick around!

Deek is Back! After kindly agreeing to be a guest on the second ever episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, Derek Deek Diedricksen is here to talk DIY Treehouse Building. We’re not talking about 50,000 tiny homes in the trees. No, we’re talking about DIY, backyard treehouse building anyone with some tools and some trees, and a dream. Deek has built many, many treehouses, and he’s got tips, tricks, and hacks to share to make the process quicker and cheaper. Deek always has a lot of projects ongoing, so he’ll fill us in on what’s happening in the world of Relax Shacks.

If you’ve been listening for a while, you know I love to feature new and innovative ways to build tiny homes. Well, today, I’m featuring something that could be considered a very “old” way- Timber Framing! Clara and Edwin Bobrycki not only designed and built their timber frame tiny house- but they also cut down all the trees and milled the lumber for the entire frame. It’s no easy task, but Edwin and Clara will break it down for us so we can learn what it takes to build a timber framed tiny home.

When it comes to designing tiny homes, Vina Lustado is the real deal. Her iconic Sol Haus and Sol Pod homes are beautiful, light-filled examples of high tiny design, and Vina has lived tiny for many years and in several locations. As a California resident, Vina has seen the destructive and traumatic effects of wildfires and has answered the call in the best way she knows how: By designing a pre-fab tiny home that can be permitted as an ADU in California and has several fire-resistant design elements.

Living off-grid is especially challenging when you're on a 50-ft sailboat in the middle of the ocean. My guest today is Rick Moore, whose sailboat, the Sophisticated Lady, is fully set up to live off-grid for months at a time, with solar and wind power, a water desalination unit, and even a garden on board. Rick walks us through his systems and helps figure out how we can apply them to tiny house living. Stick around!

Darin Dinsmore is the urban planner and landscape architect behind the amazing Tiny Camp Sedona, a small pod of tiny houses available for nightly rentals outside of Sedona, Arizona. Darren is just getting started applying his skills as a developer to tiny house communities. He’ll let us in on the projects he’s working on now, how he approaches developing tiny house communities, and what he’s excited about for the future of tiny homes.

If you’re hoping to move around a lot, a moveable tiny home isn’t always the best option. While vans and school bus conversions take the spotlight, my guest Tom Roszko set his sights on a medium-duty ambulance. In this conversation, we’ll learn why used ambulances actually make a fantastic starting point for a conversion, how to find them, and other tips for a DIY, super mobile tiny home. Plus, Tom shares details about his solar, water, and off-grid living in his home.