Exploring Alternatives

Pam and Dave bought an old disassembled grain silo and converted it into a stunning round tiny house. They lived off-grid in the home for 4 years using solar power for electricity, a well for water, a composting toilet, and propane for heat and hot water.

The barn home has a small mud room for coats, boots, and cleaning supplies, and then the main round space is an open concept multi-use space with a living room, dining room and a kitchen with a pantry built into the staircase. Upstairs they have a bedroom and a bathroom with special touches like a sun tunnel oculus to bring in natural light, a round cedar tiled floor, and best of all, the stunning round peak ceiling!

Building in a circle was challenging but the couple came up with clever solutions like using tongue and groove wood vertically so that it would go around the circle. They also came up with unique ways of finishing things off, like using rope for trim, and cutting plywood into pie shapes to make the ceiling.

The silo is 500 square feet, and 19 feet in diameter and 20 feet high. It's made up of corrugated metal pieces that are fastened together and it is set up on a heated and insulated concrete pad. The interior has 2x4 stick framing with spray foam insulation.

1 day ago | [YT] | 90

Exploring Alternatives

Growing food in a small garden can produce a surprisingly big harvest, whether it’s on an urban balcony, in a tiny yard, or even on a countertop or windowsill. It feels pretty special to learn and practice the timeless skill of growing your own food and to be able to eat fresh veggies right at home within seconds of picking them. You get to see the full life cycle of it, from seed to seedling, to harvesting and eating. And there’s something deeply comforting and reassuring when you know how to produce food for yourself.

It’s also just a great excuse to spend more time outside, and it gives you a deeper appreciation for all the work that goes into producing the food that we buy and eat every day. But gardening can be a bit intimidating, especially in a small space where you might have limitations on size, sunlight, rules, budget, or even just not knowing how to start.

We’ve been growing food on our urban balcony for the past 3 years and we’ve completely fallen in love with small space gardening. But it has been a steep learning curve and there has been a ton of work, research, and trial and error along the way.

So to give you a head start on your own gardening journey, we’re sharing some of our best tips and advice that we’ve learned so far from our experience, including, things we wish we’d known, how to get started, important things to consider, how to save money as you go, some pros and cons, and more!

4 days ago | [YT] | 88

Exploring Alternatives

Kate has been living full-time on this super charming tiny houseboat since 2020. In this video, she shares a full tour of her home on the water, as well as her experience as a liveaboard in a marina, including some of the challenges, the monthly expenses, the incredible community, the renovations and maintenance, how the systems work, and more!

The house boat is approximately 550-600 square feet, and includes the main level and the loft bedroom. Kate's houseboat is connected to city water and hydro electricity, and she has a septic tank for waste. She also has a high-speed internet connection at the dock which allows her to work from home.

Living on a boat year-round in Canada is not easy because of the harsh winters so to prevent ice from forming around her home, Kate has several bubblers installed around the pontoons that prevent the water from freezing. She also has a heat trace line to prevent her water line from freezing and she heats her home with a mix of the wood stove and electric wall heaters.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 138

Exploring Alternatives

This is an epic renovation transformation! A row of 6 derelict emergency exits at the back of an 1880s heritage building were repurposed and renovated into modern tiny houses in the City of Montreal. Each tiny home is 350 square feet and has three floors. The first floor has all of the amenities like a kitchen and dinette, a tiny bathroom, and a combo washer dryer. A curved staircase leads up to the second floor which houses the living room and home office with a sofa, TV, folding desk, and storage space. Another set of stairs leads up to the third floor which is the bedroom and closet area, with a double bed with integrated storage, a dresser, and an open closet.

These tiny homes were designed as long term rentals for students or for anyone looking for a tiny home in the City of Montreal. It's an impressive project that managed to create new homes in underused spaces, and is part of a broader movement towards densification to help provide homes to more people in the city.

1 month ago | [YT] | 115

Exploring Alternatives

Check out our latest video about Steve and Christine who have created their dream home on the water – what they call the "last affordable home in Vancouver" – and they've lived there for just over a year with their dog Lozen and their cat Kitten. They say that despite the unexpected renovations, living on the water has turned out better than they expected. They love the community and neighbours at the marina, the proximity to both natural spaces and city amenities, and of course the affordability compared to a home on land.

1 month ago | [YT] | 75

Exploring Alternatives

Shadow built this incredible floating island with salvaged and reclaimed materials. The island is made up of several floating parts including a 2-story float home, a floating chicken coop, floating gardens, and even a floating compost shed! He's been living on the water for 17 years and working hard to protect the Widgeon Slough area in BC, Canada. He gathers wood from the river to use as firewood, he grows some of his own fresh food in barrel gardens, and he collects fresh water from a nearby spring. He filters his greywater on a floating raft with multiple plant and husk filtration layers, and he composts his food and human waste to ensure that nothing goes overboard.

2 months ago | [YT] | 125

Exploring Alternatives

Have you heard of the 100-mile diet? This is the 100-mile house! The goal with this build was to source and salvage as many materials as possible from within a 100-mile radius to reduce the carbon emissions associated with transporting building materials, to re-use materials in order to reduce the environmental impact of building with new materials, and finally, to support local builders and craftspeople by paying them a fair wage for their work.

2 months ago | [YT] | 127

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.

2 months ago | [YT] | 126

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.

3 months 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.

3 months ago | [YT] | 112