Meet Laura and Dan, who had been living in living in their vans when they met and were both content creators. They found a Portuguese farm, that has a 100 year old abandoned barn on it and are now turning their farm into a beautiful off-grid homestead.
You can follow their journey with the links below.
https://www.youtube.com/@theoriginhomestead
Links
In just two years, Kelly and Beau sold their house in the suburbs, bought 7 acres of raw land in Texas, started a permaculture homestead, and transformed a 16′ x 48′ shed into a beautiful and functional small home where they live, work online, homeschool their kids, and run their growing homestead. Their goal is to be debt-free in their 30’s so they carefully spaced out each building project to avoid financing and stay out of debt. In this video they’re going to give us a full tour of their shed to house project, including the spacious open-concept kitchen and living room, the kid’s sleeping lofts, the single bathroom they have for all 6 humans in the house, and the outdoor laundry room, and they’re also going to talk about the building process and why they chose to convert a shed into a house.
For more on this couple check out their youtube page
As you plan your future that may include; off grid living in a tiny or small home, or living off the land, or homesteading, as many in the tiny and small house movement are doing, this video by, DIY Homestead Project provides some great food for thought. They visited, Jake, a vegan marshal arts athlete in Tempe, Arizona, to get a tour of his home's amazing garden he created to get some ideas and input for their homestead not far from Tempe.
DIY Homestead Project is a young couple, Derick and Hannah, who have purchased land and built a 24' feet long tiny house from scratch in the Arizona desert. They are also digital entrepreneur nomads and promote a minimalist, debt free, lifestyle. They have some really great "How To" video's about their journey and we will be sharing some of those video's for those of you planning on building your own tiny or small home paradise.
This particular video shows how Ben Jamaya designed an above ground system to treat his kitchen sink water, which is consider black water. His approach is pretty complex and not sure if it’s over kill or not, but it’s definitely food for thought, and some folks might enjoyed nurturing this type of system like gardeners enjoy their focus. His above ground approach could be done at ground level with multiple ponds with fish and streams with plants that the treated water them runs into a buried holding tank at the end, which holds the water for watering plants, garden, or lawn. I don’t know about you, but I find this approach in saving money on a septic system and using the recycle water for a good purpose rather than flushing into the septic system or sewer, very interesting.
Having been a luxury home builder since 1977, this approach is new to me, and it’s a fun learning process, but I assume this approach would not work for black water from toilets. However, if this kitchen black water filtering approach is acceptable with the health department, along with the grey water filtering systems we are also looking at, which would filter the water from the shower, bath sinks and washing machine (which I plan to share some video’s on that) are acceptable with the health department, along with the composting toilet, the homes could be totally organic and not require an expensive septic system. I know some of our prospective build-job clients would not go for an organic approach, but I believe some will, since it saves water, puts used water to good use, and it’s approved by the health department. It’s definitely worth exploring and working up designs and the cost of these options.