Tiffany DaSilva 0:00

The most satisfying part is seeing you know, someone come up to me and say, oh, you know, you don't know how to do that, you know, and we run a flooring business and sometimes my installer doesn't know how to do things or subcontractors. And I'm like, Just give me the hammer. You know, I got it like, you can go home.

Ethan Waldman 0:15

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 287 with Tiffany DaSilva. Tiffany is a passionate real estate investor and loan officer with a love for tiny living. She's here to share her incredible journey of building her own 20 by 8.5 foot handcrafted tiny house while she was still in high school. Tiffany story is truly inspiring from learning carpentry, plumbing and electrical work to overcoming challenges and societal prejudice as a young female builder. Perseverance and dedication to tiny living are sure to inspire and educate us all. So without further ado, let's dive into the world of tiny living with Tiffany.

All right, I am here with Tiffany DaSilva. Tiffany is a real estate investor and loan officer with a passion for tiny houses and unconventional living. While still in high school, she made the leap to purchase a tiny house trailer to dedicate to her very own tiny house build. Three years later, she's officially finished her unique self built tiny house. Tiffany, Welcome to the show.

Tiffany DaSilva 1:33

Hi, it's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too.

Ethan Waldman 1:36

And thanks. Thanks for being here. So tell me tell me about the tiny house you built like what's you know, what's the size? What are the features? Like? Yeah, run me through it.

Tiffany DaSilva 1:36

Yeah, of course. So my tiny house is 20 foot by 8.5. I think it's like 100 inches, I know that I didn't want to go over the size limit, you know, to be able to drive it anywhere. Turns out, I'm not going to do that. Anyways. Pretty sure I built it pretty good. I just don't want to risk driving it too far around. Yep. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, everything was hand built, framed out with wood. I mean, me and my dad did most of the work myself. But it's a pretty small, tiny house compared to most that I see here and there. But it works for me, me and my husband live here. So doesn't bother us. And it's small enough for the both of us.

Ethan Waldman 2:27

That's awesome. So how did you get into tiny houses in the first place?

Tiffany DaSilva 2:31

Yeah. So I guess everyone kind of goes through this phase where they are on YouTube at two in the morning, and they're just bored out of their minds. And I happen to run across a little tiny house video. And it was like, wow, I was shook. You know, I was amazed. I was like, This is crazy, people will actually do this, you know, and they're able to build it themselves. Because with most other forms of non traditional living, you have to deal with counties permits this, that and all that jazz. So I knew that that kind of took me away from a lot of other options. As soon as I found out about tiny houses on wheels specifically, that kind of convinced me to, you know, now I'm set this is it. I did a high school project on it eventually. And it was like, wow, I really liked this tiny house stuff, you know? And, yeah, from there, I was like, That's it. I'm building one, you know, I won't have to pay any mortgage or rent. Thank God, I made this decision three years ago, because things are crazy out here. However, we are still trying to buy a property. But beside the point, we do have a tiny house so we don't have to pay, you know, the ridiculous fees that come along with owning a home or renting a home.

Ethan Waldman 3:40

So, taking on a full Tiny House build is definitely I would say unconventional for anybody to do themselves. But especially for a high schooler. It's not not usually what you see high school students doing. Did you face any kind of ridicule or pushback from your friends or your peers? If people say like, What the heck are you doing? Or were your friends kind of like? Yeah, cool. More power to you?

Tiffany DaSilva 4:07

Yeah, um, that's actually a good question. This is gonna sound really sad, but I didn't really have much friends in high school, because I decided to leave sophomore year to work full time to save up money to build my tiny house. So I was doing online schools as a loner, but the little friends that I did, have they, you know, are way better. And they definitely supported they thought it was cool. I did have a few people question how an 18 year old girl specifically was going to be able to do it and I said, Just wait and see. It'll be finished eventually. Three years later, here we are. But yeah, I don't think I got too much backlash. You know, I had one friend with a really sort of negative opinion but that's beside the point. You know, and everyone else loves it. Now that my friends get to come over, so cool to see their reaction you know, like step by step they saw I mean, it was just a frame now they get to see it when it's finished. Although they have told me they wouldn't live in here, because it's a little too small for them. But I know it's not for everyone, but it fits for me.

Ethan Waldman 5:10

What would you say are you know, you already brought up the fact that you know, people at the at the at the hardware store people at the lumberyard, like, I know, immediately looked down on a woman builder. And then to add your you're a young woman builder. But I want to flip that on its head, like what are the what are your advantages? Like? What are the kinds of things that that you can do that nobody else can do that situation?

Tiffany DaSilva 5:38

So that's a really good question. I don't know, I feel like I've been getting all of like the punches thrown at me. But at the end of the day, I don't think I would change it. Because now being where I am, I can do so much. And I know how to do a lot of things. And it's always the most satisfying part is seeing, you know, someone come up to me and say, oh, you know, you don't know how to do that, you know, and we run a flooring business. And sometimes my installer doesn't know how to do things or subcontractors. And I'm like, Just give me the hammer, you know, I got it, like, you can go home, you're gonna pick up though, because I'm going to put it on my paycheck. So it's really nice to have that, you know, feeling that really nothing can stop you. Yeah, but I do get some weird looks at Lowe's and Home Depot sometimes. But people there kind of got used to me after making however many trips a day that I needed to. So I actually meet someone's constant, I made some good friends. But, and also to, it's helped, obviously, in the content side of things, because I don't think it's very common to see a woman doing this stuff. So, you know, my goal, thankfully, is to kinda help empower, you know, other women, especially young ones, which I don't see a lot. I know, women are badass, and so we can do anything, but seeing younger people just get into it, I think would be really cool. And hopefully, that's what I can inspire to do.

Ethan Waldman 6:55

We'll take me through your build you you mentioned or I think it said in your bio, that it was about three years start to finish. How did you approach working on it was like it kind of nights and weekends thing? Or did you do like, you know, a couple of weeks full time every so often.

Tiffany DaSilva 7:13

It's kind of a whirlwind, to be honest with you. I'm a very Hustler, I guess is what you would call it. So I'm always doing something. When I first started building my tiny house, I was actually working three jobs to like help pay for this and some other stuff as well, which I'll get into. So timing was definitely an issue. In terms of approaching it. It's definitely overwhelming. did give a few panic attacks here and there. But um, you know, YouTube was my bestie. So I just went on there anything that I didn't know how to do, I would either ask my dad, because he's a very good, you know, Carpenter, or I would just go on YouTube and look it up myself. And so instead of looking at like the full build as like, oh, my gosh, you know, we have to do all of this. I was like, Okay, today, we have to, you know, do the sub floor, focus solely on the sub floor, you know, or painting, you know, that's all I did. For a certain point, I didn't try to mix match things, because it would get overwhelming at times. And I was learning everything from scratch. So it was a lot of information to indulge. But yeah, I mean, you know, I just kind of went for it. Eventually, it took three years because I did have the opportunity to purchase a property and add a mobile home to it to have some cash flow coming in. Because I do invest in real estate. So it got to a point where I had to hold all build on the tiny house for about a year and then you know, work on that other project. And then I came back to it so and you know, during the tiny house build actually remodeled two full houses. So that's probably why it took three years.

Ethan Waldman 8:52

Wow, like for hire.

Tiffany DaSilva 8:54

Yeah, like me. And sometimes my husband would come out and help but you know, I built all of this. And then I actually remodeled my mobile home from scratch as well, which was the whole other learning curve. And then we also remodeled another home as well that I was investing in. So a lot of remodeling. Yeah. After while getting into it, you just run with it.

Ethan Waldman 9:16

Yeah, no, it's true. I've I've had similar kind of experiences once you've done one and you start to want to just renovate and remodel every every space. So you mentioned you know, so you have a very successful TikTok channel. I know you're on Instagram and YouTube. So you kind of have the dual role of being a real estate investor, but also kind of being a content creator. Which do you see? Like, which one is your day job and which one is your hustle?

Tiffany DaSilva 9:48

Oh, boy. Ah, I have a lot of day jobs and I have a lot of hustles so these are the only two things that I like to focus on. You know, you gotta keep it interesting in life but I would def Only say probably the real estate investments just because it does bring in a little more income. Yep. You know, being a loan officer, all that stuff. And, you know, the channel, The TikTok and all that stuff is definitely more of a hustle. But they kind of go on par, you know, I'm just speaking from, you know, the effort that I actually put in. Yep. Not necessarily what I get out, because it's a little unbalanced. But, you know, thankfully, I've been able to create an amazing following. And it's just really helped me kind of push me to finish this thing, too. Because now that I don't have anything to work on, I'm like, wow, I need to buy another house to like, or, you know, start building another tiny house. The goal is doing a van conversion. But I don't know if I'm ready for that one yet.

Ethan Waldman 10:45

Yeah, nothing is square inside of a van.

Tiffany DaSilva 10:47

Exactly. And I feel like the whole electrical thing is what stressed me out the most here and I know in vans, you have to very meticulously wire things, you know, and make sure that the solar power works. And that to me, just kind of scaring me, but at the same time, I already built one house. How hard can it be to build half of a house that already has a shell?

Ethan Waldman 11:11

I, I just met you. But I think you've got it.

Tiffany DaSilva 11:17

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, hopefully.

Ethan Waldman 11:22

Yeah. So I mean, I'm sure that they're, well, actually, I'll preface this by saying like, I would say that a lot of people that I interview on the show, I think a lot of a lot of people that I've encountered who are kind of going tiny, tend to be actually like older people who are like maybe reaching the ends of their careers or wanting to downsize after raising a family and having kids and all that kind of stuff.

But you know, you you live full

time in your tiny house and kind of kind of okay, well, actually, that's the question. So do you live full time in here?

Tiffany DaSilva 11:58

So the answer, yes. But we're in a kind of particular situation right now, because we couldn't find a property to actually park it on. So you know, since the goal was to kind of purchase something. Yep. As we all know, the market is crazy right now. So it didn't end up happening that way. So we had to kind of rent a space, you know, next to my mom's house. So that's where we're parked. Right now. Everything works. However, we don't have a septic system. Okay, so we have to carry a little, I call it a poop tank. So anytime we have to shower, or at least do number two, we have to go over to my mom's house, because I don't want to clean it. But we do have like an emergency basis. Yeah, I know. That's TMI, but it's kinda like we live here. But if we have to, you know, take a shower or something, we have to go to a parent's house, which thankfully, they live across the street, so it's not that bad.

Ethan Waldman 12:51

And did you consider going with a compost toilet?

Tiffany DaSilva 12:54

I did. Like I said, the plan was kind of to park it in a place where the house would be fully functional. I never really intended for it to be like a remote type of thing. So you know, I wanted it to be like a normal house, obviously downsize by a lot. So I never really considered it until now, you know, because we're kind of going through that issue. Yeah. But I'm still in the mindset of, you know, we're looking for properties and things. So it's one of those you invest in it, and maybe you'll buy something, you won't need it anymore. So right now it's working for us, so I'm just gonna keep it how it is.

Ethan Waldman 13:33

Got it. Got it. Nice. Well, I was the other question that I wanted to ask is like, what's your pitch to other other young folks? On tiny living?

Tiffany DaSilva 13:43

Yeah, um, oh, all my friends have heard this view. And well, yeah, it's, I mean, honestly, I know, it's not for everyone. And I just say that because my house isn't for everyone. But I think tiny living itself could be for anyone. It's just because it's so custom built to me. You know, there are bigger tiny houses, like the conversation that I had with my friends the other day, they need like a huge bathroom to like, do their hair in and stuff. I'm like, listen, girl, I'm a little low maintenance. Our sink is this big. And it's enough for me to brush my teeth. And that's fine. So, you know, this tiny house might not be for them. But I've seen tiny houses where I'm like, is that actually considered to be a tiny house because they're so big, or they're so luxurious, which is awesome. I love to see it. But I would tell people, you know, for one, you're probably not going to have a mortgage payment, or unless you finance your tiny house, but it'll probably be a lot lower than an actual house. And if you have your own property, or if you rent it out, it's gonna be a lot more affordable. Plus, I just love having that sense of like, I'm free because I can just take my house anywhere. So it's like, you know, I'm getting bored of living here. Let me just take it to New York one day and you Get out there for a few years and then come back or whatever I want to do. So, I mean, there's just so many benefits to it. I don't know, there's just so many benefits to it. But those are my two big ones. Because I know a lot of younger folks struggle with, you know, maybe not wanting to live in their hometown for that much longer. And also to not, you know, with the crazy housing market, people are kind of struggling to pay for things, especially housing. So, you know, why keep stressing over making you know, your rent payment on time? Just live tiny?

Ethan Waldman 15:33

Yeah. What was your What was your favorite part of the build, you know, in terms of all the different tasks, and what was your least favorite?

Tiffany DaSilva 15:42

I think my favorite was framing, which I think might shock people a little bit because they're like, oh, you know, maybe I like to do more of the feminine touches or the decorating? Absolutely not. I hated doing the feminine, the finishing touches. I feel like if they're just so tedious, and everything has to look perfect, and I am not a perfectionist at all. So for me, like the framing is like you get to pick up a hammer and a saw and you actually get to do you know, like the big work. Yeah. And also to you just see so much progress so much faster. So you know, we would build a wall in the day, and they'd be up the next. Yeah. And it's just a lot more satisfying because I think it's what people think women can't do. So the fact that I could do it was even more rewarding. And then my least favorite had to be the air conditioner. It wouldn't work. I tried it, the mini splits. I said, You know what, the installation is too expensive. I'm gonna do it myself. I can do it. Hype myself up. Didn't work. And then I wasted all the fluid that was in there. So I had to hire somebody anyways. Oh, no. Yeah, so that wasn't learning curve. Maybe don't try to cheap out on everything. But I did meet a really nice guy who helped me and he didn't even charge me for it. But I paid him anyways. Because I was like, ah, that's just not even fair. So I made so many friends to throughout the build that I mean, I just wouldn't trade it for the world.

Ethan Waldman 17:09

That's awesome. And I mean, again, you kind of build an entire tiny house, you really learn how to do everything. carpentry, plumbing, electrical, roofing, just everything.

Tiffany DaSilva 17:21

Oh, yeah. 100% roofing was a rough one. We did have a leak at some point. And I had to figure out what I was going to do about it. I think it's not leaking anymore. Because we've never had water coming here anymore. So fingers crossed, it stays that way.

Ethan Waldman 17:36

What What kind of roof did you put on the house? Um,

Tiffany DaSilva 17:38

everything is metal. So on the outside, the whole inch of it is metal. I call it my little tuna can because it's gray. Eventually it'll paint it maybe.

Ethan Waldman 17:48

Nice. Nice. Okay, so like a corrugated metal roof.

Tiffany DaSilva 17:52

Exactly.

Ethan Waldman 17:56

Do you plan? Do you like what's your next build? do you think you'll build something from scratch again?

Tiffany DaSilva 18:04

maybe never say never right? Um, eventually I do. I guess my end goal is like, I just love tiny houses so much and what they have to offer, not just to me, but like to the community, you know, environmentally wise, there's so many benefits. Yeah. Yeah, you know, affordable housing is a huge one to which we need a lot more of, and just downsizing, I feel like you live a little bit of a happier life. And this might not be, you know, everyone has this opinion. But I feel like you just live happier with less and less, you know, consumerism less, just less in general. So I think that there's so many benefits to it that I really resignate with that eventually, I do want to build out a tiny house Park. And have you know, lots for other people. Because here in Florida, it's pretty open, in most you know, compared to most other states about tiny houses. But I feel like we're lacking the affordable side of it. Because a lot of people take took tiny houses. And they made it into this, you know, cute little, you know, Airbnb thing or whatever. And I'm all for it, you know, I have to pay for the affordable housing somehow. So I do want to eventually have a mix of both. But the end goal is to have a tiny house Park, which isn't exactly a build, I guess. I'm probably just design and maybe coordinate them and maybe do more of the hardcore structure. But I think I have to focus on the bigger details if I want something like that to work out.

Ethan Waldman 19:35

Those are some big details. Big details when you add new skills.

Tiffany DaSilva 19:39

Exactly. Yeah, something that I didn't learn when I was building this one out because there'll be a lot more going on. How much did you spend on your build? So the whole thing got to a point where I just kind of stopped counting. And I don't say that like as a negative thing. It's just like, I probably won't go over my budget, which I made three years ago granted when I did start Rent lumber prices were absolutely ridiculous. So my goal initially was to spend about 15,000. I think it's probably at like 18 or 19. Now, but that's including, you know, furniture, and basically everything that we need to live in it. So take that how you will, it's pretty dang good considering most other housing prices and just tiny house prices in general after they're already built.

Ethan Waldman 20:26

Super Reasonable. And was that like, all new? Like, did you use any salvaged or reused efforts at all? Yeah,

Tiffany DaSilva 20:34

so I mean, from that 15,000, obviously, I did all of the labor. So in labor cost, that's I can't even add that in. No, you can't, you can't add that. Yeah. But in terms of material, I would say a lot of things was like half and half. Thankfully, my dad, like I said, Does carpentry and we do know a lot of people that work in that kind of home remodeling segment. So like my cabinets, for example. They're soft close, they're black, which I was like, I want black cabinets. Even if I have to spend $1,000 on them. We happen to find some that someone was throwing away nice and they are the nicest cabinets like these are expensive, and they're a little dinged up. But I said you know what, put them in there. And they're like the perfect color the countertop, too, we actually made out of huge, like, two by four porcelain slabs. Cool, because I didn't want to do granite. I felt like it was kind of outdated, a little bit depending on the style. And it's way too heavy. You know, and I wanted to keep it under the tiny house limit. And I didn't really have an a notion for how much things cost or not cost scuze me how much things weigh. Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that I was gonna keep it under the limit for the tiny house, or for my trailer that I purchased. So I said, You know what, we own a flooring company. Let's do something crazy with it. So I just kind of took them from our showroom and put them in there. Nice. But yeah, I mean, a lot of it was half and half the flooring was also given given to me obviously. Maybe not a backsplash. I don't want to do that in here. But like other things, I would just kind of go to the, you know, home renovation store and just purchase whatever I needed.

Ethan Waldman 22:13

How does that work? Do your countertop with with porcelain slabs? I've never heard of that before.

Tiffany DaSilva 22:18

Yeah, I guess they're really popular in like other countries, from what I've heard, but a lot of people and like I did a lot of research and I couldn't find anything on using like huge slabs of tile. A lot of people would either use very small ones or like little 12 by 12 tiles like this big. My countertop is probably like eight feet long. So we use two huge pieces. Wow. And we install it just like a regular tile. And it hasn't I mean, like I've stepped on it before to like reach the top of the cabinets. And nothing you know, happened we had to do the plywood, the cement board, then set it and then make sure that you know there was actually thin set no hollow spots, because if we stepped on it, obviously it would crack. Right. Exactly. And then we cut out obviously the sinkhole, but it worked pretty good. I'm actually pleasantly surprised. I think it's one of my favorite parts of the tiny house to be honest.

Ethan Waldman 23:11

Yeah, well, it's, it's cool when you when you do something unique in your house and kind of get to use a building material that you maybe wouldn't normally use that that ends up being kind of a feature of the house.

Tiffany DaSilva 23:22

Yeah, it's definitely a showstopper for sure. Especially the color and the like the style. It seems like everything that I wanted in terms of design, I just was like finding here and there. So, you know, had to DIY a few things and get creative with it. But a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out how I was going to do that.

Ethan Waldman 23:40

Yeah. Are there any other kind of unique features that you that you'd like to tell people about your journey?

Tiffany DaSilva 23:46

I love telling people about this. I have a shoe closet that fits about 37 pairs of shoes.

Ethan Waldman 23:53

Oh my gosh,

Tiffany DaSilva 23:54

yeah, I'm, I wouldn't call myself a minimalist in some aspects. So when I was like, you know, I'm gonna live tiny. I said, my shoes need to come with me. I need my high heels. I need all of them. And so I built out this closet that actually has like pull out racks because where I used to live, I had a whole walk in closet. So to downsize, you know, obviously was going to be a feat. And I said, I think I can do it. And everyone doubted me. This was the one doubt everyone had when I said I was going to do this. Yep. And, you know, I custom designed everything to measure and everything. Not sure if the engineering was quite there. Sometimes they get stuck on the way you know back but it works. And I have my full walking closet that I used to have a normal house in my tiny house.

Ethan Waldman 24:44

Nice. That's awesome. And I hopefully I wasn't able to access the photos that you sent me before the interview, but but I'd love to have a photo of the shoe closet. Hopefully there's one in there. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well one thing that I like to ask all my guests says, you know, what are two or three of your favorite resources, it could be like YouTube channels, or books, or really anything like something that helped you out on the way that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Tiffany DaSilva 25:11

Yeah, of course, um, I think mine is probably going to be a little different, you have to actually go out and talk to people. And, you know, if you're going to Lowe's, you might be surprised at how many people are gonna think it's cool what you're doing, and they want to help you the best they can. So they'll sit there and do you know, 30 minutes of research with you as to see, you know, what might work best for what you need. So even though I didn't have knowledge about certain products and items in this and that they would like, actually take their time one, I think they kind of saw me as like, you know, oh, you know, she's younger, maybe she needs some help. But I also think that they thought it was really cool. I actually befriended the guy who ordered the roofing for me at Lowe's, and he always just tells me like, Hey, how's your tiny house go, and so, okay, eventually, I want to have a barbecue with like, everyone that helped out. But definitely, like, just talk to people, you know, at like hardware stores, even if they don't know about tiny houses in particular, they definitely know their their trade or their product. Yeah, yep. Number two, obviously, YouTube Academy gotta love it. Just sit down, you know, binge watch a bunch of tiny house videos, eventually, something I'll click in here, you know, and just kind of niching it down to each individual step. If you don't know how to do flooring, for example, there's individual videos that will teach you how to do each and every item. Is isn't really a resource, but I feel like you have to have a good support system. So family, friends, people who you know, when something gets frustrating, and it will get frustrating, because you can't figure something else or you know, you've tried 50 times and it doesn't work. You need to have that kind of base to kind of push, you know, push you and maybe, you know, exchange some ideas, maybe you didn't think of something. And that's, you know, obviously if you have a handyman Dad, it helps a lot. But he wasn't there for the full build. And the part that he wasn't there, I had to kind of figure things out on my own and just, you know, have some cheerleaders behind me to encourage me to get through it.

Ethan Waldman 27:10

Awesome. Well, Tiffany de Silva, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Tiffany DaSilva 27:15

Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Ethan Waldman 27:19

Thank you so much to Tiffany DaSilva for being a guest on the show today. You can find the show notes, including photos of Tiffany's build, and links to Tiffany's TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. It's all there, and a complete transcript to boot. That's at www.thetinyhouse.net/287. Well, that's all for this week. I will be back in two weeks with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.