For Chloe Barcelou and Brandon Batchelder, building a tiny home wasn’t just about having a cute, compact place to live — it was a way to get out of a rut. As production designers working on film sets and photos shoots in the 2010s, it seemed like they were continually struggling to scrape together enough money for basic necessities.
“We were sharing the same vehicle to go to multiple jobs, juggling this really insane schedule and feeling like we worked all the time but never had enough money to make ends meet or even spend quality time together,” said Ms. Barcelou, now 35, describing the couple’s life in Nashua, N.H. “It was just this frustrating situation of, ‘How do we get out of this?’”
When they were tapped to design the sets and costumes for the 2015 independent movie “Aimy in a Cage,” it was both a dream job and a lifeline. Between the money they earned and the materials they could reclaim from the set after shooting was over, they figured, they would be able to build, well, something.
Wanting a home of their own that would allow them to stop sinking money into rent, but lacking the resources to buy a conventional house, Ms. Barcelou happened to see a tiny, towable home online, which seemed like a possible solution.
As soon as she mentioned the idea to Mr. Batchelder, he embraced it. “Not to be overly dramatic about our situation, but it felt like we could never be homeless if we built a house on wheels,” said Mr. Batchelder, 44. “It could always go with us, no matter what was going on in our lives.”
Mr. Batchelder, a skilled carpenter, spent the next few months designing the home. But with a flair for the fantastical, no simple shed would do. Taking inspiration from the 2004 Hayao Miyazaki film “Howl’s Moving Castle,” oceangoing ships and steamer trunks, he designed a structure that could collapse for travel but then expand with a pop-up roof and pop-out walls to become a home of about 280-square-feet with a 10-foot-high ceiling inside.
Searching on Craigslist, the couple found a car hauler for $1,000 to use as the rolling base of their home. After placing their own posting on Craigslist looking for a place to build their tiny house, they received a response from homeowners in Hampton, N.H., who were willing to let them use part of their yard, and electricity, for free.
The project attracted the interest of HGTV, which filmed construction of the shell of the house, including a manual hoist for the roof that Mr. Batchelder devised with an old ship’s wheel, pulleys and rope, for the show “Tiny House, Big Living.”
The basic structure was complete in just a few months. “We called it a wooden tent,” Ms. Barcelou said. “But there was no plumbing, no electric, no shelves, no anything.”
Over the following years, the couple continued to add one creature comfort after another while also learning from their mistakes — such as having to replace the exterior siding and insulation when they didn’t control indoor humidity. Even once the home was largely complete, they started over, renovating and reorganizing the space inside.
In its latest iteration, captured in the book “Tales of a Not So Tiny House,” which is to be published by Rizzoli this month, the kitchen is designed as a highly efficient space in the round. A device Mr. Batchelder calls “a not so lazy Susan,” provides storage as well as slide-out steps under the refrigerator, to access shelves above. Around the sink, they built storage shelves that double as drying racks with drains.
To go with their composting toilet and a folding metal sink in the bathroom, they built a shower out of scrap metal, which they bought for $20 and adorned with rivets to recall a submarine. The shower door has a porthole-like window made from an old crockpot lid, which they bought for $1.
Sourcing most of the materials from junkyards, thrift stores, trading posts and the side of the road, they also built elaborate storage walls with pipe and repurposed trunks, which open to reveal shelves and netted storage compartments.
Building the original structure cost roughly $10,000, and they have since spent about another $10,000 on renovations, they estimated.
Currently, the home is parked in the yard of Ms. Barcelou’s parents’ house in New Hampshire, where it is connected to water supplies by heated hoses and electricity with a heavy-duty extension cord. The couple lives in the house full-time and contributes to the family compound by paying $500 monthly rent. But whenever and wherever they want to go next, they can simply collapse their tiny house and take it with them.
Even after living in such a small space for a decade, they rarely feel like they need more. “Every time we make an improvement, the space feels a little bit larger,” Mr. Batchelder said. After all the improvements and changes, he noted, “it’s amazing how much bigger it is in here now.”
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