I think the thing that resonates with people is there's always been an allure to the road trip and getting out there. We live in this amazing country that's got all these great things to see. Most people never get to see a lot of that stuff. But so we have this notion of like taking this road trip. And I think what resonates with people and the smaller tiny houses that I built is that those small structures are very portable. They're sub 2,000 pounds and you can tow them with a variety of different types of vehicles. And at the same time, they're incredibly personal and incredibly warm and inviting spaces that you're not going to get from a mass-produced fiberglass camper that's available out there. Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, the show where you learn how to plan, build and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and this is episode 81 with Chris Schapdick. I met Chris at last year's Big Mass Tiny House Festival, where he brought a very unique tiny house called Lil wing. It's basically a metal triangle with a putting green grass landing. And it's very modern. It's meant to be a little travel trailer. And Chris is actually a tiny house builder with his own company called Tiny industrial. In addition, he is an author and so I thought I'd have him on the show to talk about the tiny houses that he's built, the book that he has that's already out, and the book that he has that's coming. Chris is a great guy and it's a fun conversation so I hope you'll stick around. You'll stick around. But before we get started, if you have questions that you'd like me to answer live on the Tiny House Lifestyle podcast, I've opened a new way for you to submit them. You can now record a question to be answered on the show. To submit your question, head over to thetinyhouse.net / ask and hit the appropriate button. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net slash ask where you can record a question for me to answer on the show. I love hearing from listeners and I can't wait to answer your tiny house questions, whether it's building, living, or anything related to the tiny house lifestyle. Everything is fair game. Head over to thetinyhouse.net/ ask to submit your question today. Alright I am here with Chris Schapdick. Chris is an author, maker, coach, and tiny house builder and likes helping others forge their own path. Chris used to lead a 9-5 office life, which he grew ever more tired of. Curiosity and a willingness to take risks have made this new path infinitely more rewarding since he gets to help people who are struggling to find more meaning and purpose in their lives. Putting his experiences together in a book form has been a way to reach more people to help them as well. Chris Schapdick, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. I'm curious if we could just start with your kind of personal story. You know, what brought you to the tiny house movement and then what what made you decide to become a tiny house builder? Yeah, it's well it's it's as with most things in life they very often happen sort of by accident and and not in a planned sort of way and it's it's the same thing for me, really. I was going back like about 5, 6 years, I was a father of a like a nine-year-old girl living outside of New York City and sort of very heavily populated suburbia here. And I kind of regretted that my daughter wasn't really getting a lot of sort of exposure to nature and to things that I had done as a kid, just camping, fishing, hiking, these sorts of things. So I started thinking about that more and more, and I decided to buy a piece of land sort of a little bit north of New York City with the idea that we would go up there. We would camp or something. It would be a place to, kind of a destination for the 2 of us. And 1 thing led to another, and it was right around that time that I found Jay Schaeffer's book, tiny house book, and that kind of intrigued me. And then I started going online and I found Tumbleweed Tiny Houses. They were sort of the go-to at the time. If you go back a couple of years, there weren't that many companies doing this sort of thing. And yeah, and sort of this idea of like having a place to go camp kind of evolved into well, what if like I built like sort of a cabin there or something like that, that might be better. And yeah, 1 thing led to another and I wound up deciding on a tiny house and building a tiny house. I'd opted for a shell build from the Tumbleweed folks since I was a little intimidated with doing all the framing and roofing and things like that myself. So they offered what was called an Amish barn raiser and I went with that and yeah proceeded to sort of spend the next several years off and on on weekends, kind of finalizing that building and doing, all the various things that need to be done, the insulation, the interior and electrical and plumbing, and coming up with all the various decisions that have to be made during that process as well. But that's kind of like how I got from A to B and now have this wonderful tiny house in upstate New York. That's awesome. So it's a tiny house on wheels. Which tumbleweed model is it? It's the Linden. Linden. I don't think they do that 1 anymore, but yes, it's the Linden model that has a nice sort of two-foot porch on the back of it. And that appealed to me, definitely. And so do you still have that tiny house? Absolutely, yes. That's great. So you finished out the Tumbleweed 1, And then what was the next step to saying, I want to do this for other people. Yeah. Yeah. So when I finished the house, I took it to a tiny house show that was taking place in North Jersey. And I'd never really intended to take the house, I didn't build it to travel with, it was really just built to fulfill the purpose that I just described. But this show was taking place And I was like, well, you know what, like, let's, let's get more involved in the community because I, you know, I enjoy this and let's, let's get together with some other like-minded people. And it wasn't too far away. It's about a 60 mile drive. You know, my, my truck was up for the task of towing it there. And I went to the tiny house show and it was really, I didn't know what to expect quite frankly. And during the course of building the house, maybe 10 people got to see it during that entire time. And over the course of this 1 weekend, I had like 3,000 or 4,000 people trek through the house. And just the feedback and the positive sort of reception that I got from people and the kind words that they had for the house and what I'd done. It's really just very emotionally overwhelming for me. And it gave me a little bit of pause. And I thought, well, I don't ever get this kind of reward or feedback from my 9 to 5 job. I go in there, it's thankless, sure I get paid, but I'm like crunching numbers on a spreadsheet, writing emails. That is not very fulfilling. And this weekend completely was So it had me kind of reconsider, yeah, very large aspects of my life at that point. Wow. That's huge. Yeah, I guess when you're, you know, working in 9 to 5, which I did for a while as well, nobody like treats your work as like something amazing and special, like worth congratulating. But I guess in the tiny house world, because everything can be so unique, everything kind of reflects the builder or the client or both, there is the opportunity to just really impact people with the work that you do. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. That house is really just an extension of who I am, right? Exactly like what you're describing is, it's such a personal thing, right? And when in our lives do we really have that opportunity to create something like that, that's such an expression of who we are and what we hold to be important and so forth. So what was the first, well I guess what was the second tiny house you built after your personal house? Yeah, so The second tiny house is kind of funny because the first tiny house, great reception. I was like, you know, that was awesome. I want to do this again. The next tiny house show that wasn't so conveniently located that I could just kind of drag my house to it. I think it was down in Florida. Like, okay, well, I'm not towing my 10,000 pound house from New York to Florida. That's just unrealistic. So I was like, well, how do I get to have this experience again? I'll build another tiny house. And that's when I started building sort of the smaller, more mobile Vardo Gypsy wagon type structures. And I put that second tiny house together in a matter of like 6 weeks. The first tiny house took like 5 years to build and the second 1 took 6 weeks and off to Florida I went and it was really just a desire to continue to be part of this community and environment. Yeah. So was that the gypsy wagon? Yes. Yes. That was the first gypsy wagon build that I did. Nice. And did you, did you sell that house at the Florida show? I did not sell it at the Florida show. I subsequently sold it, but, but it was, yeah, it was something that, the second build was something that I wanted to sort of... I'd already started thinking about continuing to build these and building more of them for people. So I guess as part of that process when I built the first Gypsy wagon, I documented the entire build and I was thinking, let me do an online course or something like that. Ultimately, it wound up on Instructables.com And I got a lot of nice feedback there. And again, my point there wasn't really to make money with it or whatever. It was just something that I did out of pure enjoyment and the hopes of helping others do something similar. Yeah. And I love that you put this up on Instructables. That website, I feel like it was really big in the maybe late aughts, early tens. And it's a wonderful resource. Like, people post so many cool projects up there. And like, you've got a step-by-step, basically, set of instructions for how to build a gypsy wagon. Now I'm curious, now that you've built several more tiny houses, what are some things on that gypsy wagon that you would do differently? Well, you know, 1 thing that's always been tricky is, you know, when you're working with wood and especially when you're working with plywood, which is kind of the exterior shell of these gypsy wagons, the process of sealing that wood and protecting it from the elements is such an important step. And it's tricky, right? Because there's a lot of sort of marine grade epoxies, but then you want to use the environmentally friendly products, ideally you worry about things like allergies and off gassing and people have sensitivities to all those types of things. So that's kind of, that was a struggle right out of the gate. And, you know, to some extent, it like continues to be 1 where I try to be very thorough and sealing this plywood is something that I've always found to be a bit of a struggle. What's the best way you've found to do it? There's a sort of water-based sealant that I use now that I haven't found in any stores but it's available on Amazon.com and so I apply that to the untreated plywood and that creates sort of a great sort of base layer to then paint over. There's a lot of sealants that I found that were like oils and things like that that subsequently don't lend themselves to being painted over. So that's part of the struggle, right? So, so like, for example, if you were to use like a linseed oil or something, plywood, you know, painting over it with latex paint or similar, typically doesn't lead to a very, very good result. So, the sealant that I'm using now coupled with like a high-grade exterior paint has been sort of the method that I've found to be the most effective thus far. And I would imagine that there's also a challenge slash major importance in making sure that the end grain of that plywood is covered. Well, yes. So that, you know, because that's where water would really soak in. It's, yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. The end grain is critical. And I always make it so that the end grain, well, typically in smaller structures, I can make it so that the end grain is in the corners, right? And then I seal and cover up the corners effectively. But you're also mounting that plywood to the interior framing, and invariably you're putting screws and things through that plywood to mount it to the framing. And then what I do is wherever there's sort of a breach of the plywood and the breach of the exterior paint, I will paint over the screw heads and do whatever I can to restore that integrity. Right. Now, do you offer shells of gypsy wagons to people? It's almost like you're paying it forward. You got the shell from Tumbleweed for your first tiny house. Do you offer that to people? Absolutely, yeah. The shells tend to be pretty popular because people have their own ideas and quite frankly, it's a great way to save money too, right? Because for me to finish out a build for somebody involves my labor, which of course I have to charge for, versus them doing it. So if they're reasonably comfortable with doing the insulation on the inside, for example, or covering the walls with some tongue and groove pine, painting, things like that. If they're comfortable doing that, then yeah, a shell makes perfect sense. And yeah, I do get a lot of sort of inquiries about shells. And the beauty of it too is that you can mix and match, right? You can get a very clean shell where there's no door on the thing, no windows, nothing. Or you can say, well, I'd like a shell, but I want you to put it in the windows, and I want you to put the solar system in for me, and that type of thing. So you can mix and match all those various things to get to both to hit your price point on your budget and to get to a point where you're comfortable with finishing out the rest of the work yourself. Got it. Yeah, I think that is a nice way to both skip some of the heavy lifting and also, you know, as an amateur builder, skip the, did I seal this correctly? Is this going to leak? Is this structure going to fall down? And just get to focus on the aesthetic things that in a way don't matter. I mean, they matter, but they're not, if you do a bad job with your window trim, the house isn't gonna fall down. It's just gonna look bad. Exactly, Exactly. And you can always redo the window trim if you're not happy. Yeah, exactly. Nothing's chiseled in stone here. So there's a couple more tiny houses that I want to ask you about, and then I want to ask you about the book that you just wrote. The first 1 is actually the first tiny house of yours that I saw in person, which is the Lil Wing. Oh yeah, the Lil Wing, yes. And this, like, I'll post pictures of this on the show notes page. I guess it's, it's like, It's a pentagon, it's a five-sided shape, and it's sided and roofed in aluminum, and it's got a green golf, almost like a putting green deck landing strip. So what was the inspiration for this house? Did you like come up with the shape and go with it or tell me about the little wing? I'll be brutally honest here. I built the gypsy wagon that I took to the Florida show that I mentioned. And it was done up really nice. I had the interior all done up, lots of live edge wood. I had sort of flower planters on the outside. And I'd gotten so much, a lot of people were looking at it and they were like, oh, it's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute. Like I kept hearing this and I was like, okay, great. So I wanted to do something sort of like very counter that. Like I wanted Angelo to like sort of swing in the other direction. And I was like, well, what can I build where people won't necessarily, where people will think it's cool, but they won't necessarily immediately associate the word cute with it? Right. And that was kind of the genesis of the little wing design. It was a, it was sort of an aviation inspired thing, right? With the, with the aluminum on the outside. It's always been sort of an aviation buff. So I wanted to kind of recreate that, you know, mid-20th century aluminum space age look kind of thing. Yeah, I see that. I see that. Yeah. And so that was kind of the rationale there. And then at the same time, I'd come across some airplane seats on eBay that I purchased. So it was like, oh, those make perfect sense inside of the structure, right? That's already got this sort of aviation look and feel to it. Nice. And yeah, it kind of, yeah, it was kind of more of a creative endeavor. And you mentioned the deck and the artificial grass on there. I wanted something unique and I wanted something different. And I think it kind of achieved that goal. Yeah, absolutely. And It's aerodynamic too. Yes. Yes. Aerodynamics save you a couple of gallons of fuel on the road. Yes. Yeah. And I think that these smaller structures that kind of bridge the space between a tiny house on wheels and like a camper where you're getting the fit and finish of a tiny house on wheels, but the size and lighter weight, easier to travel with. Have you found that there's a strong reception and people want structures like this? I think the thing that resonates with people is there's always been an allure to the road trip and getting out there. And we live in this amazing country that's got all these great things to see. And most people never get to see a lot of that stuff. So we have this notion of taking this road trip. And I think what resonates with people and the smaller tiny houses that I built is that 1, those small structures are very portable. They're sub-2,000 pounds and you can tow them with a variety of different types of vehicles. And at the same time, they're incredibly personal and incredibly warm and inviting spaces that you're not going to get from like a mass produced fiberglass camper that's available out there. Right. So I think this allure of the great American road trip coupled with this very warm and inviting, small, highly portable structure, I think resonates with people. And I think that's been part of the appeal. Absolutely. Well, I want to ask about 1 more tiny house, which is the Oculus North. So this 1 looks like it's going further toward that full-time living, fully off-grid, full bathroom, but still small for tiny houses these days. You know, there's no loft. It's only 7,000 pounds, so very towable with, you know, a variety of trucks. What was the inspiration for this 1? So yeah, I wanted to build, I'd gotten a lot of inquiries for larger structures, you know, sort of as you're saying, it's kind of like a little bit more livable in terms of having the full bathroom and so forth. So that was part of the rationale for the, for the Oculus design. The other part of the Oculus design was, was again, quite frankly, the workspace that I have, the, the workshop that I have as a 10 by 10 garage door. They don't have the big 15 foot, you know, door. So I had to kind of build inside the box, if you will, versus outside the box. And building inside the box meant that I couldn't build a structure that was taller than 10 feet high. So I worked with things like drop axle trailers to maximize the amount of space that I could get in there. And invariably, it led to, yes, sort of single floor living and the structure that you see in front of you. But yeah, that was kind of the background. And yeah, I'd had some people reach out to me that wanted to do sort of Airbnb rentals and things like that. And this was kind of a good size and feature set that people were looking for in that regard. Nice. And I saw on Facebook that it is actually, or 1 of the Oculus North houses, I'm not sure how many you've built, is available as an Airbnb. Correct. Yeah, there's 1. If you go on Airbnb and you type in Narrowsburg, New York, which is in the Catskills region, that's sort of where the New York state hits Pennsylvania, just north of the New Jersey border. It's available there for rental. And yes, I think it makes for a great Airbnb space. Yeah, it does look like that. I mean, it's got a small kitchen where you could, you know, wash a couple of dishes, make some coffee, but it's not like, you know, a full on, like, cook a meal for 5 people kitchen, but like for an Airbnb, that's perfect. Yeah, it's like camping with none of the hardship for sure, right? It's like, I'm thinking for the next level. And yeah, And I think if you have a small space like that, you know, it's great. It's got the full bathroom, shower, you know, you can do all that. You've got the queen size bed, so you're not like uncomfortable in terms of sleeping. And the rest of the time, ideally, you're outside anyway, right? Enjoying nature, like That's the whole point. So it kind of checks all those boxes. And like you said, yeah, it's got the kitchen, cook yourself something, it's got the 12-volt, fully solar-powered fridge. So yeah, it's kind of a good package in that way. Absolutely. So, you're also an author amongst building all these tiny houses. Tell us about your book. Yeah, the book, I... Well, for 1, if you told me that I was going to write a book 5 years ago, like I would have said, like, no way, that's never happening. But yeah, I was approached by a publisher that was looking to do a book on tiny houses and tiny living. And in conjunction with them, we sort of came up with this concept and the concept was kind of like, well, let's do a book on all the various things and aspects that you need to think about when you're thinking about tiny houses. And let's have it be in a very nice package with lots of pictures to give people ideas. Let's put some checklists in there. Let's, let's address, you know, the, the big issues around tiny living, which, which are, you know, the legalities, the ever changing legality, legalities around tiny living and all the other things that you need to think about. And, and I think sometimes people think like, well, I like tiny houses. I'm never actually going to build 1 myself. I'm going to hire somebody to build it. Therefore I don't really need to know all this stuff, right? And I guess, yeah, sort of, but even if you have somebody build a house for you, you still need to have an idea of the things that you want in there, the things that are important to you and why you're doing something in the first place. Yes, no, maybe. And what kind of insulation material do you want? You know, the ever popular question of like, what kind of toilet do you want in your house? Are you comfortable with? Like, these are all things that you need to think about regardless of whether you ever plan to build a house yourself or have somebody do it for you. So that was kind of the genesis of this. Yeah, absolutely. I think that even if you're planning to hire someone to build your house, understanding all the systems and how they go together will ultimately lead to a better product. I mean, tiny houses are complicated because they're tiny. And I think the more that a consumer can be educated on how they're built, the better they'll do. Yeah. And to some extent, it was also the kind of book that I wish I'd had when I first started out on this path. And it just simply didn't exist. And I ran a lot of Google searches. I watched a lot of YouTube videos. To some extent, this book will certainly save you a lot of that, a lot of time in that regard because it tries to be all encompassing in that sense. Yeah. And what's the title of the book? The title is The Joy of Tiny House Living. Nice. Available on Amazon and bookstores near you. And so when did it come out and how has the reception been? It came out sort of early summer this year, 2019, and yeah, the reception's been great. I get a lot of people reaching out and telling me that they really like the book and that it's been really helpful in helping them organize their thoughts around what they're trying to do. So yeah, the reception has been really good. Well, that's great. And so you offer consulting as well, correct? I do. Yeah, I do. You know, again, it's my goal is to really help people and I get a lot of joy out of doing that. I think it's similar to what you do. You're always trying to educate people and give people the resources that they're looking for, part by way of these podcasts and so forth. So it's really no different for me. Like I take a lot of pleasure in doing that. And yeah, it's very rewarding when you have people that that, you know, turn around and say thank you and, you know, this has been really helpful. And that makes it kind of all worthwhile to me. Yeah, likewise, likewise. So 1 thing that I like to ask all of my guests is what are 2 or 3 resources that helped you out along on your tiny house journey that you'd like to share with our listeners? Sure. So, well, you know, like I said, the initial nudge for me to get into tiny houses was Jay Schafer. So I want to tip my hat to him being sort of a pioneer of the modern tiny house movement, as we like to call it. So I think that's great. Beyond that, I think this has become kind of possible, like people building their own houses and people doing all these things in part has become possible because of the internet, right? Because before the internet, where were you going to acquire all the various types of expertise and the various types of knowledge that are now available sort of to everybody, right? So it's sort of this democratization of information I think has been so key in making all of this possible. And like I said, yeah, to that end, all the Google searches, all the people who have blogs out there like you do, podcasts, the YouTube videos, all of the people that do that sort of thing, or even the instructable. I wasn't the first person to put up an instructable on how to build a gypsy wagon. I just did my own spin on it. There's other people that came before me and that did that. That all helps everybody else down the road, paying it forward, like you said earlier. Yeah. Yeah, I really like that answer. I think that you've done a good job of kind of embodying that yourself. And so I think that you're doing good work. Thank you. And it sounds like you have another book in the works. Can you tell us about it or is it super secret? No, it's not super secret. Yeah, I have another book in the works that's slated to come out in 2020. And it's kind of a, it's a bit of a supplement to the book that's already out. So the Joy of Tiny House Living is really about, it's not a hands-on book, right? It's more about the concepts, like I said, the legalities, things you need to think about if you're pondering going tiny. The second book is kind of more of a hands-on book, and it actually details and outlines the actual build of 1 of the smaller gypsy wagons. So think of it as like sort of the the instructable that you referenced earlier on steroids and I kind of walk people through building at first a shell and then they could turn that into whatever they want. You know, you want a pool house for your backyard, you want a yoga studio, you want a home office, whatever it is, you could turn that shell into. And then I, for the purpose of the book, I turn the shell that I create and sort of part 2 of the book into the Canberra tiny house that I've that I've built a number of times now and that sort of form factor. Awesome. Well, that sounds like a great book. I look forward to seeing it and reading it. Yeah, me too. Awesome. Well, Chris Sheptyk, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. This was really fun. Yeah, I know. I've had a good time. Thanks for having me on. You can find the show notes from today's episode including photos of Chris's tiny houses at the tiny house dot net slash 081 again. That's the tiny house dot net slash 081. Thank you so much to Chris Schapdick for being a guest on the show. And a quick announcement before we go. If you live in the Northeast and you'd like to come see me speak live, you have 2 opportunities in the next couple of weeks. The first is the Big Mass Tiny House Festival, which is taking place in Beverly, Massachusetts, October 19th and 20th from 10 a.m. To 6 p.m. I'll be there on the 20th and will be leading a live podcast roundtable discussion about building a tiny house from salvaged materials. And the following weekend on October 27th, I'll be at Tiny House Fest Vermont in Warren, Vermont, also leading a live podcast discussion about what the future of the tiny house movement will be. These festivals are a great opportunity to tour tiny houses, to meet people who live in tiny houses, and to learn about the lifestyle from the legality to financing, to building and everything in between. These are a great opportunity for you to learn more about tiny houses and the movement. So again, those 2 events are the fifth annual Big Massachusetts Tiny House Festival, October 19th and 20th in Beverly, Massachusetts, and Tiny House Fest Vermont, October 27th in Warren, Vermont. There are links to both of those festivals on the show notes page for this episode at thetinyhouse.net/ 081. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/ 081. All right, that's all for this week. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and I'll be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast. Thank you.