Retired Veteran Family Embraces Bus Life As Ultimate Retirement Adventure

Hi there. Welcome to my channel, where I take you on tours of unique homes and showcase stories of people living alternatively. Today we're taking a trip to Florida to meet up with a couple who had a dream of simplifying their life. They started by building their very own backyard tiny home, and then it evolved into a thriving tiny house business that has some very unique designs. They'll take us on a tour of some of their tiny houses, explain how they managed to keep costs low to build affordable tiny homes for others and talk about how they found freedom through the tiny house movement to pursue their passions and spend more time with family. But before we jump right into this video, make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you know, every single time we publish a new unique home tour. My name is Govinda and I'm Krishna Jeevani. We're the owners of Simplify Further Tiny Homes out here in Lake Butler, Florida. And we're excited to show you our facility. Most people live lives that they really do not like. They're put into a nine to five position. I remember working probably 10 different jobs and all, all of them really sucked and they weren't fulfilling. It's not what I wanted to do with my time. Once I found the idea of, Hey, I could downsize a little bit. I built my first one in my backyard. We lived in it together for probably about six months. We were able to start getting ahead and then we just kept getting ahead. And so we decided to let's build another one. We used our COVID stimulus checks. We used our tax returns. We used a student loan that I had and we pulled it all together. I think for $9,000, we put that tiny house together. And then when it was done, we thought let's put it on Airbnb. And we were completely shocked within two weeks. I think we were booked out two months, a hundred percent. And it just kept going from there. And so we were like, wow, we discovered something huge. By the time we had three or four on Airbnb, he was able to quit his job. And that's when we were like, let's do this full time. Let's build tiny homes. We started hiring some local friends to work with us. And then we started to sell them. The business just completely took off. We've been doing this for four years. Now we build models that we developed and then we also do custom designs for people. One of the main ways we keep costs down is we're out here on a 14 acre farm. Basically my overhead is almost nothing. We pay our guys really well. So they're motivated to work long hours and all sorts of ways like that. And then also getting connects with local suppliers, which gives us a huge discount. So those are three like driving factors of how we get our prices quite nice. So we have 14 acre property here. We have two airplane hangers that are our warehouse. And then we have a showroom outside where we pull the tiny houses out when they're ready and available for sale. We currently have one vacation rental on the property that we rent out for short term. Over here we have one of our building facilities. It's a Kwanzaa hut. So it's a 16 foot tall structure with 14 foot opening doors, which is really difficult to find in here. We have our builders that are solo builders. So each builder builds their own tiny home. We have five of them currently working here and everyone does their own building on their own schedules, which is really, really nice. And they really love it. I work with Simplify Further. I've been working with them for about three and a half years. You just come to work whenever you want, you get it done. As long as you finish it within that timeframe, you're fine. It's a different way of working because it lets you manage your time and it really shows not just in the worker's personal life, but also it shows in the product. We take a lot of pride in the work that we do. And then the second shop is run by a manager and he has a couple of crews that he manages and it's kind of a more traditional way of doing it. Hi guys. My name is Premanjana Weltmer. I work here at Simplify Further. I'm a builder and I run a crew of about eight people. So this is kind of my design on a few aspects, but actually this is based off of one of their award-winning models called the Rasa. It's actually on a 24 foot trailer. We decided to go with a gold inlay with kind of like a white etched wavy line in there to kind of provide some privacy and still kind of match the color and kind of complete the look. Not a whole lot to see here as this is still kind of in the production. We have tried and true models that are here and available to people, which we found that they're hot sellers. And then we've also tried playing around with things. So we've added customizations that we think are going to be beneficial. And then we also let the customer come at us and say, Hey, we saw this. We like this on this model. We like this on this model. Can we put one of them both together or they can just completely design the whole thing from the ground floor up. The more you have, the more you have to pay for, the more you have to clean a larger house or whatever it is. And I think people are starting to really feel that and feel like this is too much. It's taking up too much of my life, too much of my energy, too much of my money. And I don't want it anymore. You can simplify your life in so many different ways and tiny homes are a tool for that. You can put a tiny house in your backyard, you can put it on Airbnb and then you can replace some of that income to give you more time to spend with your family and more time to explore the world or take time off and do what really matters in life. And then there's also the tiny home dwellers that simplify their lives in a huge way by living in a tiny home that frees up so many things. You don't have as many belongings to take care of and manage. You have way lower bills, way lower debt. You know, you don't have this huge mortgage that you're paying for 30 years of your life and you're able to spend your time doing what really matters. So tiny homes are a great tool. So this is our showroom. This is where we have all of our completed models. Customers love to come out here because they can get ideas for if they want to put in a custom order. This one will be different than the next and vice versa to have a huge community of them readily available where they can get their hands on, see the materials that are being used, see what they get before they buy is a huge plus or what's even better is all these are available. So you can literally come out here, pick one up and take it home. You don't have to wait for six months or longer for something to be built. Let's walk into this one. This is a 20 foot by eight foot tiny house. This is a variation of a Rasa, which is our Airbnb model. And the only difference on this model compared to our standard Rasa is we've brought the lofted space down. You can actually have a bedroom on the ground floor and you still have a lofted area where you can hang out, sit, watch TV and so on and so forth. Everything else about the model is pretty standard. You have your kitchenette, the mini fridge goes underneath there and the secondary loft and a bathroom behind there. So one thing we do is we deliver nationwide, which means that we are driving across the country with our tiny homes pretty frequently and often we'll do our own deliveries. So instead of renting a truck all the time, we figured what if we had a truck that we could drive ourselves and we could stay in with our family when we deliver. So we have a Ford truck here that we're adding a tiny home to the back. We're trying it out for the first time. We're the, you know, the Guinea pigs, they say, and then if we can figure out a product that really makes sense for other people, then it's something that we can share with the masses. This right here is our 2024 E450. It's a Ford truck and we basically built a 14 foot long, 11 foot tall tiny house on the back of the rails. We actually built it from the ground up on an empty chassis. It gets about 8.4 miles per gallon and that's fully loaded with all of us in it. This truck actually has a weight limit of 8,000 pounds is how much of the payload capacity is. All said and done, including all of us in it, all of our stuff, we're right at about 6.6. So we still have about a thousand pounds breathing room and that's including the solar, the batteries, like the works. So this is pretty standard tongue and groove, pine tongue and groove. It can also be built out of cedar, but it's polyurethane. I think there's about six coats on it to really help waterproof it. And then it switches from the wood to a traditional home LP smart siding, which is a Bourne band kind of look. And then underneath there is our storage and this storage compartment has all the battery banks. It has a propane tank for the stove. It has a water pump. In case you park next to a river like this, we can actually pump the water right out of the river and have a hot shower or use it as a kitchen sink. But on the back over here is the exterior shower, which is both hot and cold water. And it is pretty cool to bring all the amenities that we're used to in our home out on the, on the campsite with us. And this is one of those things that we really just felt like we couldn't live without. And another thing is the mini split over here, which is a 9,000 BTU unit, which does heating and cooling. The main entrance side is right here and it's pretty much a standard home construction. You'll see a, an exterior light, you'll see an exterior outlet, GFI protected. You'll have a pretty standard slider window. The one thing that I really do love is this exterior door. Not only is it impact rated for about 160 mile an hour wind, but has built in blinds, which is pretty nice to be on the road to have both the privacy that you need and the view that you want. Okay. So I'm going to take it from here and give you a tour of the inside. So this is the inside of the tiny house camper. One of the main focuses here was to fit our family of five. So me and my husband have three kids and we knew that we needed to be able to accommodate all of us because this would be a family camper as well as a tiny home delivery truck. But oftentimes we do our own deliveries and we bring the whole family with to explore. So we wanted to be able to fit everybody. What we did was we went to a junkyard and we got these seats out of an old SUV. They were the third row of an SUV seat and they were just big enough to fit here so that you still had a hallway and then you can fit three seatbelts here. We've got two car seats as well as sleeping five people. So we have two queen beds and then we have a third spot up here that could be converted as a sleeping space, but right now we're using it for storage. So our priorities in the kitchen space was to be able to have everything we needed. So we put in this small little range, so it has four burners and an oven. We have a little sink with a drying rack on top and then we have our mini fridge and freezer here and the countertop was big enough to fit our espresso machine over here. So for the sleeping space, we have two queen beds, one below and one above. We have a little bit of storage underneath the bed and in between the seats in the bed here. And then we have built in storage up there as well as the TV up there. And then we're still working on adding more storage to this space. So I think we're going to build a whole built in cubby space on that wall over there so that all the clothes can be stored there. And then that'll free up more of our storage above the cab. So one thing a lot of people notice is that there's no bathroom in here. And because our priority was to fit a family of five, we decided to save on space by putting the shower outside and eliminating the toilet. We do, we do have a composting toilet that stores away underneath that we can use in emergencies. But when you're camping at RV parks, you can just use the amenities that are there. If we do ever make this as a product, we'll gear it more towards two people in which case you can fit a shower and a toilet inside. Welcome to our Rasa model tiny house. This is a 20 foot by eight and a half foot tiny house, 13 and a half feet tall and about 10,000 pounds. For our short-term vacation rentals. We love to have a beautiful exterior space for people to spend time outdoors. So this one, we built a front porch with a hammock, a little seating area and outdoor clawfoot tub, a picnic table and a fire pit. The exterior is LP smart siding with board and batten trim painted and sealed. And then we have a pine tongue and groove feature. That's also stained and sealed for the exterior. We've got metal roofing on the roof and it's fully insulated floors, walls, ceiling. We love to design our tiny houses with big windows to let in a lot of natural light because you want the space to feel open and clear and beautiful. The tiny house sits on the trailer. It stays on the axles and it hooks up just like an RV. So it has a 50 amp plug for electric connection, a three inch plumbing sewage outlet and a garden hose for water. Okay, now come with me and I'll show you the inside. Welcome to the Rasa model tiny house. This tiny house was designed for short-term vacation rentals. So what we did was we put two queen size lofts to sleep for people. And then we have the small kitchenette here that has just everything that you need, but not too much that it takes up too much space. So we have a two burner cooktop stove set into the countertop, a mini fridge storage underneath in the kitchen. We like to do open shelving instead of cabinets to put large cabinets up top, really closes off the space and you don't need a ton of storage for short term stays. So we find that you get enough storage down here that you can just kind of put a little bit extra things up there that look nice. And then you're able to put a nice big window to let in a lot of natural light as well as a washer and dryer combo unit. As we come into the bathroom, you'll see, we have a 36 inch shower pan with full tiles around. We've got six foot, six inches underneath the height of the ceiling here. So it's accommodated to fit even very tall guests. And we also have a vent in the ceiling that goes to the exterior, which is really important to keep humidity down and allow your tiny house to last a really long time. We have a 30 inch vanity with a marble countertop and a standard flush toilet over here. We have a little bit of storage for linens and a laundry basket. Now let's head upstairs. I'll show you the loft. We have two lofts here and we're able to fit a queen bed in both lofts. Each loft has two windows, both opening windows. One is the egress or fire escape window. And the other one just adds in a little extra natural light in this tiny house. We have an a-frame roof with the a-frame roof. You get a little bit of extra height right in the center of the loft so that you can sit up nice and tall on the bed. My husband's six three and he's able to sit up nice and tall, right in the center of there. And as you can see, I'm sitting here on the low side and I'm five three. So it's a pretty comfortable height here in the loft. Now we're on the other side of the house. We've got an open floor plan for the living room that combines with the kitchen so that the guests have a beautiful open space to spend their time. When I'm designing short-term vacation rentals, I love to make sure that there is a unique feel to them and a unique touch because the whole reason that someone would book a tiny home instead of a hotel is for the unique experience. So when I decorate them, I usually pick a theme and then I bring it throughout the whole house. So as you can see, this one is decorated with a beautiful Eastern theme. The height under the living room is six foot, four inches so that you're able to accommodate all sorts of guests. Thanks for watching this week's video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please make sure to like share and subscribe and I will see you soon with another alternative living story.