They Turned Their Garage into a Tiny House & Rent out the Main House

When we bought the property, it was just a total blank slate. So the backyard was an asphalt pad and a big rotting deck. The front yard was just weeds and there was nothing growing here. We were really interested in creating a lush oasis back here and something that could also feed us. I'm Becca. And I'm Anthony. Welcome to our ADU here in Portland, Oregon. This is our property. We bought the craftsman bungalow in the background here in 2016, and it's a 1925. It was a fixer upper. We had to do a renovation on that for about three years. And then after that, we wanted to convert the dilapidated garage into our ADU. This is an average city lot, so we're really intentional about how we utilize that space to make sure that it provided privacy, but also made it feel like we were able to enjoy the outdoors. And so we'll just start here with one of our favorite parts of the whole backyard, and that's our hot tub space. We spend quite a bit of time back here, especially whenever it's a little bit cold and dreary over the winter and spring months. And then over on this side, we have our communal veggie patch. It's early spring still, so we don't have anything flourishing quite yet. But we wanted to locate the veggie garden and a place that was going to be easy access to both tiny homes. And so it's located here in between both of them. And we love to grow tomatoes. We have a bunch of cilantro growing right now. We have some culinary herbs. And then just behind the veggie garden, we have the space that was created for the tiny home. So this is our friend's tiny home. Originally, it was the driveway into the garage. And these guys brought their their tiny home up from Arizona. And they also built out the deck around it to really make it feel integrated with the garden space. Everybody kind of has a communal space, but there's also individual spaces as well, so they can sit out here and drink their coffee or sit in their hammock while we're enjoying our hot tub or or whatever that might be. And it's really cool because that used to just park a car and now it provides a great spot for our friends to live quite an upgrade. Then we move into the truly communal area of the yard. And so this is central to all of the homes, the big house, the ADU and the tiny house. We have the chiminea that's for, you know, fires on cooler nights. And then we also have the larger dining table where we can all have barbecues and just enjoy the space together during the summer. Let's go have a look inside. So our ADU is about 370 square feet. It was the garage originally on this property. We converted it into a studio. One of the main things that we wanted to do to make it feel open and bigger than it really is was to vault the ceilings. And so that was one of the really important design elements that we were thinking about, as well as connecting to the outdoors. We actually live in this space here and we Airbnb out our big house. So we create this space really for us in mind. And I think you'll see that as we go around some of the things that are important to us and some of the influences throughout our travels. We really try to incorporate into the design of the ADU. So we are currently in the living room. We just have our nice sofa here. These are actually art that we bought when we were in Mexico City, actually with Brad and Kate, our friends in the tiny house. They went on that trip with us. Underneath our sofa is one of the areas where we can store some items. So we have some plastic tubs that are small enough to slide underneath. Good little storage spot. This is our dining area, small dining area we can seat for here. We have just a simple piece of plywood here and then four legs from the company called Floyd. And it just uses a ratchet strap to connect the legs together with tension to create any kind of surface into a dining table. Eating healthy is one of my top priorities, but summer has been super busy and that makes it challenging to take the time to cook a balanced meal. Fortunately, Factor makes it easy for me to get back on track with chef crafted real food with their ready to eat meals delivered straight to your door. Every single Factor meal is dietitian approved. They're made with lean proteins, healthy fats, whole grains and two types of fruits or veggies per meal. For all you with microwaves, you'll be delighted to know that Factor meals are ready in just two minutes. No prep or cleanup required. So you can eat well even on your busiest days. But if you only have an oven, no problem. It's still super easy to reheat. Mmm, that's delicious. And I think you'll love it, too. Head to Factor75.com or click the link below and use code TinyHouseFB50 to get 50% off your first Factor box. Plus free breakfast for a year. That's code TinyHouseFB50 at Factor75.com TinyHouseFB50 at Factor75.com New subscribers only? Varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while the subscription is active. Now we're entering into the kitchen zone. And so this is set up very much like a big house kitchen. The only difference really is that we've used more of apartment sized appliances. And so we have a 24 inch cooktop and oven instead of a 30 inch. And we have a dish drawer instead of a full size dishwasher. So we have, you know, a drawer that's for bigger dry food items underneath the dishwasher. We can do like, you know, spices and that kind of thing here. Another feature of the kitchen is we've built all of the cabinets in the same material as what you'll see on the floor and the ceiling. It's called Baltic Birch Plywood. And because we were using the Baltic Birch Plywood and you can expose this beautiful edge, we didn't need to put hardware on the outside. You can actually just carve out these little poles and it just makes a really clean aesthetic. One of the other items that you'll see here is that we didn't do upper cabinets. We actually like to keep the space above the counter open again just to make the space feel more open. And also we're a little bit minimalistic. We don't like to have a lot of clutter. We have our one set of dishes that are really precious to us that we bought in Mexico City, and we want to display those and have everything out in the open, easy to grab. And we've done the same thing, actually, with our pots and pans. They're just out here hanging on the wall. So everything's just easy. And now we're entering into the bathroom. So this is our bathroom, and it also functions as our laundry room. So down here to my right, we have a combo washer dryer that you see a lot in Europe. They're not so common here. We have a little cabinet above for all the things that you might need in the laundry room. On this side, it's just our vanity space. The top is actually just an IKEA top. It's just one of those walnut veneer tops that you can get at IKEA. So inexpensive. We have the vessel sink and a wall mounted faucet here. And then over on this side, we have our shower. And one of the things that we wanted to incorporate was a skylight above the shower that was built in. And you can actually open it to vent as well. Whenever you're looking at alternative lifestyles, you know, it's just very different from American society where, you know, you want more and more and more. And I think we've continued to find that as we kind of strip back those layers of what it is that we really need, the more minimalistic that we live, the more rich our lives seem to be. We spend more time together than we ever have. We've traveled more than we ever have. I think our savings is actually probably better than it ever has been. Yeah. We met about 15 years ago at a wedding, actually. My cousin's wedding. Yeah. We've been married for about 12 years, originally from the Midwest, Kansas and Missouri. And we've been living out on the West Coast for 10 years. I am an interior designer and I worked for some architecture firms. I also did some freelance work last year. Anthony and I decided to take a break from our careers, pursue some travels and exploring the world. And that's kind of where we're at right now. It's really unique, I think, to be able to live in an American city, but not look out and see cars in a street to look out and see a garden more like what you would get if you lived in a more rural area. And then over here we have our tiny wood stove. When we were designing the space, this was a really important part of the overall kind of feel of the ADU, as important as it is whenever the weather is nice for us to have this amazing outdoor space and it feel very flowy. Portland is also known for its cold, dark winters. And so when it gets cold and dark, you really want a small space to feel as cozy as you can. And this wood burning fireplace really accomplishes that. This is our little bedroom nook over here. We have storage underneath the bed. So we have these baskets. This is actually where we keep a bunch of our shoes really close to the front door. And we also have our TV, which rotates to face the living space. It is really nice. Yeah. When you're sitting on the couch, it rotates to face the living space or you can even lay in bed and watch a movie if you want. And then over here, we have a really nice size closet for a tiny home. We decided to do a custom organization within the closet to maximize the space. And so we have long hanging storage on the left. We have some shelf storage here. We each get two drawers and then we've split up for a shorter hanging storage on the right. It's starting to get a little bit warmer now in Portland during the summer months. And so we actually put the mini split in after our first year here. And it's really great for the space. It heats it up and cools it down really quickly. And it's actually super energy efficient, which was important to us. And so we're able to enjoy comfortable weather inside the house all year long. So this is one of our most favorite features of our tiny home is the panoramic door. It has three panels that can open all the way up whenever we have nice weather. And it really helps us feel connected to the garden. And for privacy, we're able to have these blackout curtains that completely go across. And so at nighttime, we have complete privacy. And so you see, it makes quite a bit of difference being open and closed. Portland has been very progressive in alternative living situations and alternative kind of dwellings. This being one, an accessory dwelling unit. I believe Portland was maybe the first in the nation, definitely one of the first in the nation that allowed people to convert or build ADUs on their property. And so that was definitely a factor in us moving to Portland is we wanted to be able to set this community up, but do it legally. Like the last thing you want is to get a letter in the mail saying all of your hard work is is not able to be done here. And there's a fine or, you know, you just can't inhabit the building. And what was really cool is as we were hoping that our friends would bring their tiny house up here, that's when the city of Portland started looking at tiny houses differently as well, whereas they were kind of in a gray area to where you didn't know if you were going to be able to keep the tiny house on the property or not. They started to pass some legislation that allowed tiny houses to actually be legally parked on properties. We had been interested in a little bit of financial independence, but it has become so much more than that through doing the Airbnb, living small, realizing we don't need a lot, actually. And if you can do that and you can create some passive income, we've actually been able to open up all these other possibilities for what our lifestyle could be. Thanks for stopping by Tiny House Expedition. I'm Alexis. And I'm Christian. And this is our DIY tiny house on our homestead in Oregon. Looking for more tiny inspiration? Watch these videos. But if you're looking for something specific, visit our channel homepage to browse tiny homes by category. And don't forget to subscribe. Hope to see you soon.