With no background in construction, Alek Lisefski fulfilled a dream for himself and his girlfriend by building their dream home: a 240 square foot house.
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Alek Lisefski, a graphic designer from Iowa, wanted to live a more sustainable life with a smaller carbon footprint. Last year, he embarked on a quest to build his own dream home: a 240 square foot tiny house. Since he had no background in construction and had to learn pretty much everything from scratch, he documented his journey on his blog, the appropriately titled www.tiny-project.com. After 6 months of construction, his dream home was up and ready, and pictures of it started circulating the web. His $30,000 project got featured on Treehugger.com, MSN, The Huffington Post, and many other online outlets. I got a chance to chat with him about the whole journey, and even got a (tiny) tour of the house itself!
In this interview, Alek talks about:
• What it was like building a tiny home from scratch
• What he learned in the process
• The legal complexities of tiny homes
• Why the small living space isn’t the biggest challenge
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I think that this a great idea and would personally love to do it but in my geographic area, not feasible. When I see these homes, I automatically think of small camping trailers. Why reinvent the wheel?
I think the idea is to have a more permanent dwelling than a camping trailer, so that we can foster a life that is inherently more sustainable and connected to nature as a default, as opposed to as a side note. I get what you’re saying though, looking at their house gave an urge to go camping 🙂
Alex, that makes sense.
Great piece Alex! I wrote some articles for GMP about my wife and I and our journey into simplicity.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/cc-wife-live-tiny-home/
Thanks Mike! And thanks for sharing your journey and insight through that courageous process 🙂