Exploring Alternatives

In this video, we’re doing a quick visit of a wonderfully hand-crafted 26-foot long x 8.5-foot wide tiny house on wheels that’s really one of a kind. Nick built this tiny house with an eye-catching asymmetrical exterior that combines cedar shakes and metal siding for a modern look, whereas inside we find a more cozy and traditional interior that’s minimalist but still has some clever layout and design features that make the house functional and beautiful. It’s all in the details for Nick and as you’ll see in the tour, he incorporates lots of natural light, built-in storage, comfort, and practicality.

1 week ago | [YT] | 123

Exploring Alternatives

In this video, we're touring a laneway suite in Toronto, Ontario. It was originally a cinder block garage that was converted into a backyard suite with the original garage on the main floor and a 1-bedroom apartment addition built above it. The garage is approx. 400 square feet and the apartment above is almost 500 square feet, but a chunk of that interior space is taken up by the staircase.

The interior of this unit feels bright and spacious thanks to some clever design features like a floor-to-ceiling window in the dining room, a skylight, and frosted windows in the bedroom and bathroom to bring in the maximum amount of natural daylight without sacrificing privacy. There's a sparkling clean and modern kitchen, a dining area that seats four, a living room with a custom sofa and built-in TV, and a large bedroom with a Queen sized bed and en suite bathroom. All of the doors are pocket doors to save on space, and there's quite a bit of storage in the bedroom with two built-in closets as well as a laundry closet. Additional storage under the bed could also be used.

The idea behind building accessory dwelling units in backyards and laneways is to increase the density of the neighbourhood by adding more housing units to the existing area. It's one of many solutions that cities are using to create new living spaces and to densify the population in urban spaces.

While they are an exciting and new tool that homeowners can use to invest in their property and create an additional living space on their property for family members or for rent, they are not the ultimate solution to the housing crisis. You have to be a landowner to build one, they are not severable (can't be sold separately from the main house), and they can be expensive to build. So it's just one of many ways options to create new housing in our growing cities.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 82

Exploring Alternatives

Check out the beautiful Darfield Earthship in BC with a tour from Mark, a structural engineer who works on alternative structures. He shares his experience living in the Earthship and info about how they can perform in different climates.

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 112

Exploring Alternatives

The Black Star is Toronto's first shipping container home, designed and built by Carl and Ana. It's a hybrid structure with three used shipping containers forming one half of the house, and the other half is a conventional build, but it's floating above the restaurant that the couple own, using pillars to support it.

This build turned out beautifully and we loved checking out the interior and exterior design. We also chatted quite a bit with Carl and Ana about the process of building this home, and the advantages and challenges of building a house using containers.

They say the biggest challenges were insulating the containers, connecting them to another structure, and finding a way to drop them between two buildings and from a narrow alley way.

1 month ago | [YT] | 86

Exploring Alternatives

Follow ‪@mollycnorris‬ on Youtube! She lives off-grid in a tiny yurt on a piece of land that she bought with her two brothers in New Mexico. She bought her yurt secondhand for $2,800 USD including the wood stove. It’s a traditional Mongolian yurt from Groovy Yurts that was handmade and hand painted in Mongolia with natural materials like wood lattice and cotton canvas. The yurt is a circular home that measures 13 feet in diameter so it’s a very tiny house but Molly has organized and decorated the interior beautifully with a small entrance drop zone, a tiny kitchen, a custom loft bed, an open closet space and dresser for storage, a small reading nook, and floating shelves for books, the battery for her solar panels, and her satellite internet. For water, they truck in water from a nearby spring and then use that to fill smaller jugs that they can carry around the property. For a toilet, they have an open-air outhouse. And for bathing, they built an outdoor tub that heats the water with a fire underneath.

1 month ago | [YT] | 188

Exploring Alternatives

Check out our latest video about Laurie & Dan ‪@freedomforestlife‬! They are growing 80% of their own food on an impressively abundant 3-acre off-grid homestead in the South of England. They grow vegetables and flowers in permaculture gardens, they grow tree fruit, berries and herbs in a food forest, and they grow winter crops in three polytunnels. They also cultivate mushrooms by inoculating logs and forage for chestnuts in the woodland on their property. They use a variety of growing methods including no dig beds, back to eden wood chip mulching, no chemicals or sprays, they plant heirloom seeds, and they make their own compost. Their land is off-grid so they collect rainwater, and they also pump well-water using electricity from solar panels.

1 month ago | [YT] | 207

Exploring Alternatives

Here's some inspiration for anyone thinking of growing food in small spaces this summer!

2 months ago | [YT] | 228

Exploring Alternatives

Check out our latest video about Anne-Marijke who's been living in her tiny house on wheels in Australia for 2 years now. Her decision to go tiny was primarily based on financial security and retirement. The cost of renting or owning a home was much more expensive than a tiny house, and would have prevented her from being able to retire until she was 80 years old.

As an alternative, she bought a tiny house shell from a builder, and with help from her daughter, she built the inside of the tiny home with no previous building experience. Doing it this way, as a partial DIY build, saved her a lot of money since she didn’t have to pay for her own labour for the interior portion of the construction. The total cost of the build was approx. $60,000 USD.

2 months ago | [YT] | 102

Exploring Alternatives

Growing season is here! Here's some inspiration for anyone thinking of growing food this summer!

2 months ago | [YT] | 147

Exploring Alternatives

Catherine and Wayne's Freedom Cove is one of the most iconic and creative homes we've had the pleasure of visiting in all our years of exploring alternatives. Sadly, Wayne passed away in 2023 before repairs could be made to the main float home, and it is now sinking and unsafe to live in. There is a fundraiser to help Catherine rebuild the float home, and while we don't usually share fundraising links, we feel that Catherine and Wayne shared their home with so many news stations, YouTube channels, and every day folks from around the world that we'd love to show them some love in return. Here is the GoFundMe link for anyone who is interested and able to pitch in: gofund.me/5d895f6a

And in case you haven't seen their video, here is the link to check it out: https://youtu.be/4ts15BW-6hw

Thanks so much y'all!

3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 714