Not a week goes by without someone prominent somewhere talking about the shortage of affordable housing in Canada. And judging by the housing prices I see, there’s every reason to believe there’s no conventional solution in sight. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’ve lost faith that any government anywhere can make a positive difference in this situation. After all, what can any government do except throw money they don’t have at the problem, hurling future generations deeper into public debt? How well does that usually work?
That’s why I propose a completely different approach, one that combines something that happened across our country more than a century ago, and something I’ve put into practice myself. Let me start with a true story.
The Original Tiny House
Back in the mid-1880s, a family named Taylor hacked their way through dense forest to find Lot 30 Concession 3 in Burpee Township on Manitoulin Island, ON. There were no roads there then, and I wonder how these people even found the boundaries of the parcel they intended to build a life on. At that time and place there was a much greater housing shortage than we have today — no houses at all. Just lots of forest and a burning desire to make a home and life from the opportunity that lay before them, whatever it took.
Over the next five years, or so the Taylor family cleared 15 acres of land (that’s more than 11 football fields) with nothing but axes, saws and muscle, while also building a 16×20-foot “tiny house” more than a century before the term became trendy. This clearing and construction was the minimum requirement to become owners of the property as a “free” grant from the Crown. And the Taylors did this with no stores anywhere, no medical care, and no social safety net. On June 23, 1891, the name Ernest Taylor was applied to the deed through the Free Grants and Homestead Act of 1868.
Is there something for us to learn in 2024 from people like the Taylors, and countless other homesteaders who made housing happen for themselves? Is there a modern equivalent? I think so.
Another Tiny House Story
When I was old enough to move out of my parents’ house as a twenty-something guy in the 1980s, getting into a regular house in the usual way was as completely out of reach for me as it seems to be to many young people today. But I also realized that Canada is a vast country, with lots of available rural land. Could I do something like what hardworking generations did before me, making some kind of home for myself and the family I’d eventually have? I believed so, and found my wife, Mary, who shared in the dream. We jumped right in.
After four years of searching, we found the cheap piece of land where we still live today, the same one the Taylors’ pioneered nearly 100 years earlier. I’d saved $13,000 from cutting lawns and working after school as a teenager, and with a few thousand more borrowed, we bought into the dream, paying $16,500 for 91-anda-
half acres of farmland and forest with no buildings on it. The Taylor’s tiny log house was long gone.
With no previous building experience, 300 miles from by boyhood home, I set up a tent and began working on the 10×20 tiny house that’s still used and useful today. The first night I slept in my handiwork, after months living in a damp tent, it was like the most luxurious hotel imaginable. I see now that I made lots of building mistakes, and I would definitely tackle the project differently today, but there’s a lesson here. Have you ever considered sidestepping a massive mortgage and all that goes with it, relying on your own resolve and sweat equity to solve your own personal housing shortage directly with a tiny house you build yourself?
This sort of thing is definitely not for everyone, but if you have health and you’re sick and tired of waiting for Big Brother to make houses more affordable and available, let me suggest you consider a 21st century version of the kind of thing that others have done before.
A 21st Century Tiny House Story
When my oldest son, Robert was 18, in 1998, he felt the same way I did about the unattainability of housing, so we decided to put the same tiny house bootstraps approach into practice that began with the Taylors and continued with Mary and I. The tiny house Robert and I built together, and that he now shares with his wife, Edyta, and their daughter Lily, on our own family property, is vastly superior to my first attempt, and much more practical. Here are four insights we learned as we built our own tiny houses.
These things never change. I call them the bootstrap basics.
Postpone comfort:
Even ordinary people of today live in luxury that would make royalty of yesteryear envious. And since our cultural expectations are so high, it makes the bootstrap work of building your own tiny home on the cheap seem like an impossible ancient fantasy. But do you really want your love for comfort to stand in the way of a home to call your own? Hardcore rural bootstrapping is dirty, physically uncomfortable and tiring, and that’s
why many never even consider it. But for what it’s worth, there’s no better way to appreciate the shelter of a roof when you live for a while without heating, no real bed, no indoor plumbing, and no hot running water.
Depending on your financial situation, these sacrifices may be part of the deal of the bootstrap approach for
you. But let me quote Christopher Robin when talking to Winnie the Pooh as he faced a scary challenge: “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Invest in good tools:
When Mary and I began creating a tiny house for ourselves, I didn’t have decent tools (nor experience) and it shows in the mistakes I still see today in what we built. If I had to do all this again, or if I was advising someone starting out on a shoestring, I’d definitely recommend directing every penny possible into tools. No
vacations, no coffee shops, no spending a penny beyond the dream. Sounds harsh? Only if you’re not sick and tired enough of your status quo. Good tools are always the foundation of practical self-reliance.
Make it the #1 priority:
Most of us have come to expect a warm home in winter and a cool home in summer all the time, a wide variety of foods, and daily (perhaps even hourly) entertainment. But all these expectations stand firmly in the way of creating your own tiny house if you have limited resources. To make a bootstrap tiny home happen for yourself on a shoestring, you’ll need to be as frugal with your time as you must be with your
money. Yes, you may be able to bootstrap this sort of thing on the side, while you work at whatever day job you have now, but only if you’re willing to focus every other waking minute you’ve got on the project. Think of it as a temporary sacrifice for a longer-term gain. Better yet, do whatever it takes to arrange your life so
your tiny house project is your full-time work. And if you manage to do this, make the work something you do from sunrise to sunset, six days a week.
Climb the mountain one step at a time:
This is huge, and it’s a mindset that will serve you well every time you have a big and challenging project on your plate. While it’s essential to have the end in mind in some ways, too much focus on all that lays in front of you will lead to overwhelmment and failure. Plan for the big picture, but focus on one or two days ahead only.
Mary and I faced a much easier challenge than the Taylors did in building our first home, and our son Robert had it easier than we did. Today’s world is much better suited than ever to bootstrap your own tiny house construction, and people are making it happen. I know them personally through experience and the guidance I’ve provided to hundreds of modern pioneers, many who have taken my online tiny house construction course around the world.
But the main question to ask yourself is simple. Are you sick and tired enough of your current housing situation to take on the challenging but enormously rewarding option of doing for yourself, with what you have, making an affordable tiny house happen, perhaps entirely with your own hands? If you do, then I can assure you that this unconventional lifestyle choice is not only possible, but it’s also an adventure that can
lead to enormous personal growth and precious memories that can’t be beat.
Looking back nearly 40 years, I wouldn’t trade these things for any kind of regular homeownership experience, even if I could have afforded it way back when.
