That Time ‘Living Big In a Tiny House’ Came to Visit Our Shipping Containers

Did you see the episode?  If not, you can watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZURIKHf6Es&t=7s.  Bryce & Rasa condensed our story into 16 minutes better than we could have hoped 🙂

 

Eek – We Blew Living Big in a Tiny Home Off

I remember that I had received a message request through Instagram early in 2019 from Rasa, Bryce’s partner the gorgeous soul behind the camera.  She had asked if we were interested in being featured on their YouTube channel. To be honest, I had never even heard of Living Big in a Tiny Home.  We don’t really follow the tiny house movement; we just live our best life every day in our own tiny home. 🙂

So when Rasa sent that first message and a couple of clips of what the video would look like, I have to be truthful when I say, I didn’t even open the links. 😦  I read her messages, told her I would let her know and then forgot about it all. Life was so busy in the early part of 2019 as we had just come out of a long hard winter and were dealing with some issues with a couple of our kiddos.

 

Thank Goodness Bryce & Rasa are Persistent

Fast forward 6 months, and Rasa reached out to me again.  She said that they had just returned to the states and would love to film our home.  At this point, I had still not ever watched or heard of Living Big, but I did take the time to click on her links and watch the video clips.  Watching what they produce, it seemed surreal that they were reaching out to us. We had never expected anyone to think our house was as amazing as we thought it was 😉

I responded that yes, we would be interested and to please let us know what they were thinking and their time-frame.  I didn’t hear from her again for a couple of weeks and so didn’t think much more of it. Like I said, it had seemed too good to be true, so it probably wasn’t true 😉  Later we learned that they actually film or travel to their next filming destination EVERY SINGLE DAY. No wonder she didn’t have time to respond back – Bryce and Rasa are so very busy sharing people’s homes and stories.

Late August, I received another message from Rasa asking if they could come and film our home the first Saturday in September – just 2 weeks away.  Dave and I talked about it and said, sure, why not. Let’s do this! knew that I needed to do some homework and research what their show was about and what to expect.  I clicked on one of their videos and then told Dave, this is a BIG deal. Look at these videos and these gorgeous houses that they film all over the world. Oh, my goodness.  What have we signed ourselves up for?!?!?!

 

We Are Just Ordinary People

We live in 2 shipping containers that we love, but it really isn’t anything special.  After watching just a few more of their videos, I knew that we needed to make sure our windows were washed and the dead lawn mowed and get our home as ready as possible! We tend to keep our home very tidy, but we do live in the woods, so bugs and leaves and spiders and all the dirty things tend to get everywhere all the time.

 

Is This Really Going To Happen?

Again, I didn’t hear anything from Rasa after we settled on the filming date in September.  Dave and I worked to get our home ready, but because of the ‘radio silence’ weren’t even sure if this was really going to happen.  We figured if it didn’t, at least our house was spick and span to go into the long winter ahead. 🙂

Saturday morning arrived and so did Bryce & Rasa – we couldn’t even believe that this was really happening!  They had driven from their previous shoot in Colorado just two days before. As soon as they got out of the car, we asked how they were doing, and Bryce said, ‘tired.’  Oh, my mama’s heart went out to these two lovely people that had chosen to drive from Colorado to our little town in Washington State to film our home.

Immediately Bryce started asking us questions and soon discovered that our home was more than just a couple shipping containers stacked like legos that we lived in.  We had a story. An amazing story of perseverance, joy, love, and hope.

Bryce and Rasa spent the better part of 2 days filming our home and listening to our story. They cared.  It was genuine and you could feel it. After the first day of filming, we asked them if we could take them to dinner.  We also offered our son’s room for the night as he was away at his grandmas. Bryce & Rasa ended up using our home as a base camp for the better part of a week as they traveled North & South of our home to film other tiny homes & stories.

During their stay with us we talked and laughed and learned so much about the tiny house movement and cooked and built a friendship. Bryce is a permaculture encyclopedia and Dave learned so much from him in a short amount of time.  Rasa is an amazing cook and made us the most delicious dinner right out of our garden.

 

Behind the Scenes of Living Big

Have you thought about how Bryce and Rasa live to travel and shoot so many tiny homes?  They literally spend the majority of their time living out of a rental car. They shoot or travel every day of the week for months on end.  They edit in the evenings and throughout the night to make their weekly episode deadlines. They shoot hours and hours of footage on each home they visit and condense it into 16 minutes. They own what they can carry in suitcases, for the most part.  They seldom get the opportunity to cook home grown meals and rest in a real bed that isn’t a hotel bed. They truly are angels sent to tell all of our stories…

 

Our Shoot in a Nutshell

I’ve read so many of the comments on the YouTube episode.  So many questions and because not everything can be included in 16 minutes, here are the highlights of what you didn’t see:

1. We found our property on Craigslist from a private party for cheap.  When we purchased it, it was a goat trail along the side of the mountain.  Dave & I have done all of the landscaping ourselves, mostly by hand. We have rented a small excavator a couple of times and we had an old backhoe that didn’t have brakes and almost killed Dave 5 times, but mostly, we do things the old fashioned way – one rock or shovel scoop at a time. 🙂
2. We pay for things as we go to continue building out our property.  We both still work the same jobs we have worked for years. Dave has been at his job for 29 years and I am an accountant and have worked for the same company for 9 years.  When we want to add a rock wall or a greenhouse, we can because we don’t have a mortgage. Because of Dave’s health, our home and property is our stay-vacation destination and we spend so much time enjoying the gorgeous valley we live in!
3. We intentionally built with only 2 containers because we wanted TO BE MORTGAGE FREE when we completed our build.  We accomplished that. We love our home, but yes, building a home out of Shipping Containers is definitely more expensive than a traditional stick built home of the same size.  Live and learn 😉
4. Dave has always wanted a shop – doesn’t every guy wants one?  In 2018 we built him his shop so that he can work on his projects and stay busy and active.  He has an enormous crane in there that is his pride and joy and everything he needs to keep his creative juices flowing and his mind as healthy as possible. 🙂  We have recently turned the living space in the back of the shop into an Airbnb when our kiddos aren’t home and to create passive income 🙂
5. Our shoot was in September, so our seasonal creek behind our home was dry.  The ‘Ferris wheel’ looking thing is actually a water wheel that plays a ‘not so sweet’ melody during the rainy months. 😉 It is essentially a large piece of garden art made from a pipe reel, galvanized buckets and an old bicycle.  Dave loves to create!
6. I didn’t intentionally do the majority of the talking.  Dave talked lots, especially in the beginning when Bryce and Rasa first arrived, but after a couple of hours he was tired and his words weren’t working as well.  You don’t see this because the video is actually edits that cut out his stuttering and loss of words and replace it with me explaining a lot of things. When Dave watched the episode, he just kept saying over and over – I am not the same man I used to be.  He sees how much he has lost. It is heartbreaking to see the strong man you love and admire and who is a hero in your world be so vulnerable and weak. I am glad that Rasa & Bryce protected Dave from the ugly comments that would have been made had they left all of Dave’s stuttering and difficulty talking in the episode.  A lesson to be kind always, because we don’t know what other people are battling.

 

Angels in Disguise

God gifted us with angels.  Angels that were wanted to share our story.  Dave and I told Bryce & Rasa, that while we were so honored that they wanted to film our home, it was our story of love and perseverance, even when all seems impossible that we wanted to share.  Our prayer was that if by sharing, we could touch just one person’s life, then it was all worth it.

Bryce uses the word amazing a lot.  Honestly, it is Bryce & Rasa who are amazing and the work they do to bring tiny homes and their stories to life, are a true testament to their selflessness.  Dave and I feel so blessed to have been able to spend a week with them. We were also able to learn how to support them in their journeys just a bit. As a Patreon supporter, we sponsored Bryce & Rasa for $1 per video or an average of $4 per month.  Being able to spend time with them and seeing the sacrifices they make personally so that they can share tiny home stories – let’s just say it isn’t all glamorous living out of a rental car and suitcase. You can learn more about being a Patreon here https://www.patreon.com/livingbig.  For those of us that love what they do, please consider sponsoring their work – Dave and I thank you, personally!

Thank you, Bryce & Rasa for your love and friendship.  Until we meet again…

Beyond Blessed,

Jaimie & Dave