At first, Greg, Stephanie, and their two dogs lived in a 16-square-foot model they built in the spring of 2013. “Although it met basic living needs and was dirt cheap for our first two years together,” Greg says, “it was a little cramped for that many occupants. We knew at some point we would design and build a larger tiny house. In between build #1 and #62, we learned a thing or two about tiny house design, and attempted to integrate as many of these lessons into the design goals as possible.” 

The result was the San Juan, Greg and Stephanie´s personal tiny house which has traveled more than 5,000 miles to different tiny house festivals across the country. Besides serving as their personal living quarters, the San Juan is a model house they use to showcase their building talent. We asked them a few questions about their home.

Greg: The roof is a good case of form follows function. It is quite common in tiny houses to have a shallow roof over the loft for more headspace, and then have the roof steeper over the other portion to reduce volume, materials, and add style. This is normally accomplished by building a 3/12 dormer over the loft and then transitioning to a steeper 10/12 or so gable over the other parts. Flashing dormers is a nightmare, and very angular, so with the curved roof I could achieve the same effect without all this crazy flashing, while making the transition from steep to shallow very easy on the eyes.