About Us

Our Story:

Hi, we are Macy, James, Hazel, Miles, and the dog version is Denver (AKA ‘D’, Denny, Ando and more… he answers to anything really…).  We met in architectural school, but didn’t know each other, we were a year apart. Macy went on to do life including building a tiny house. James went on to do life including perfecting his crafts. James was leading a work function several years later. It ended in a happy hour. Before we knew it we were caught up in conversation and life planning. Then it all started unfolding. Now it just seems to keep going!

After one years of dating (to the day) we welcomed our dog Denver into the tiny home, shortly after James moved in. Then Hazel came 9 months later. Followed shortly by Miles. Now our family is complete and we are taking on the world together in our own way.

Macy

is a stubborn advocate of anything she’s interested in. Right now includes ‘right sized’ housing, child education, animal welfare, tractors and her family.

James

is a techy savant who would never boast about his own accomplishments but he’s far ahead of his time when it comes to all things tech. He’s also a licensed architect but mostly tinkers with the online business he started – custombrandshop.com.  In a word, he’s a tinkerer. A successful one!

Hazel

is a very independent and opinionated girl.  She’s a smart, savvy, extroverted, confident, crafty individual and also pretty much the bravest person I know! She’s into drama, crochet, purple and orange (nearly 10! at the time of this writing)

Miles

is a comedian and a daredevil. His favorite thing is to be goofy and make people laugh and he won’t stop until he gets a giggle! I think he would like to live in the matrix because he’s harnessing his powers of using technology for good. (8 at the time of this writing)

Denver

is the dog that is ever grateful to just go along. He’s the handsome one of the bunch – a blue great dane. He’s a goof ball who just aims to please and hits the mark all the time! Favorite hobbies include sleeping, drooling and long pets at the beach. (10 at time of passing (5/10/23 :()

The House:

Macy designed the 196 s.f tiny house in 2011, and started construction before dating James in 2012 (Photos of the build process here). James didn’t run away at the idea of dating a ‘tiny house person’ and instead picked up a hammer and helped! (You can see photos of the original and renovation here) Our home is built atop of a 24′ gooseneck trailer.  The back patio sits on a 5′ extension (beaver-tail). Later it was turned into our children’s’ bedroom bringing the final home to 232 s.f.  It was built for just under $13,000 (including the addition, original total was $11,416). It has functioned as a testing ground for lots of ‘green technologies’ like a composting toilet and radiant heat floor. We have lived full time in the home since June 2013 until we downsized again in 2017 to another self built micro house designed for travel.

The Travel Trailer:

Our next adventure was rebuilding a 1966 Aloha Travel Trailer (you can see the whole process in photos here). What we thought it would be a simple flip ended up being a total rebuild! (Final photos here). With that came the opportunity to customize it to us perfectly. We wanted something we could live off grid indefinitely if needed so we could take a National Park tour with the kiddos – because ‘why not’!? We’ve learned that living starts now, there are a million reasons to put something off and not as many reasons to move them to ‘now’. We like to handle the important stuff now. This felt important.

13 months and 40,000 miles later we landed ourselves back in Idaho with a whole new perspective in life. 

Our Newest Adventure:

We came back to a town that felt very foreign to us. After seeing the most beautiful places in the country we knew that we had outgrown the town that we grew up in and decided to find a new home base. Or maybe that town outgrew us and we wanted to get back to the basics. We found what I think was a very good deal on a property that inspired us, so we scooped it up. We’ve been living back in our tiny home tucked away on the Palouse, completely off grid since 2019.

About the site:

I started blogging my adventure simply because a goal of mine was to blog. I honestly never expected anyone but maybe my mother to read my site, and even that was a stretch.  Eight years later and millions of views, I have had the unbelievable experience of being called inspirational. That stuff goes right to your head you know! So I keep blogging. Life changes. People have babies. Houses get modified. We save money. Travels happen. We buy property – debt free! We build, we learn, we grow! 

And so we go!

Thank you for stopping by.  To go back to the main blog click here.