My name is Jannes and amongst other things I love nature and efficiency. Because housing has been the biggest expense for most of my independant life. It became my interest to search alternative solutions. My personal housing started out with buying an old wooden house because it was not considered expensive compared to most others on the market. Yet as I soon discovered, the notary office and especially the bank ask ludicrous fees for their services. Yet as most people do this just the same I continued. So the 120.000 house would cost 195.000 in the end. And basicly I bought land, the house itself was old and cheaply built. So I started tearing the old interior. Planning to bring the house back to life. All in all I spend over 80.000 euro’s and all my free time while also working full time paying for all these expenses + paying back the loan.
3 years in I was completely exhausted and still not finished. Partly because I wanted to do it too perfect and beautifull. But mainly because having to pay for it all took so much of my time. I decided this project was not making me happy and I wanted a different life for myself.
And so the journey of looking into natural and alternative ways of building began.
I bought 5 books about natural building and started to build a little house with hempcrete on a rubble trench foundation. For insulating the roof I used straw. 18 square meters with a bed above the kitchen. The whole thing only took 3 months to build and I didn’t even work full days. Including a water reservoir in stone under the house. And so my monthly housing expense dropped under 100 euros.
This way of living makes it possible to work so much less for money and to work for passion. And in this start-up period you can take pressure of your business, It does not need to generate money. Where otherwise you work full time and are often too tired to start anything next to it. For me, living tiny is so much more than living alone. It’s about being able to truly make something of your passions. If for example you like singing or painting. This could be a profession, but to be able to make a good living with art it takes time. Tiny living provides this time.
Over the years I kept learning about natural building. Paints, earthen floors, building with clay,…
Now I am building a tiny house for a client, with an other one in the pipeline. And after that, maybe one for you.
I like the challenge of matching a design to anybody’s needs in a tiny space. For in a big house it is quite easy to fit it all in. But the more tiny it gets, the more challenge to make all space functional tailor made to the owner.