Artisan Crafts Beautiful Tiny House from Salvaged Trailer

One of the best parts about building a tiny house yourself is the sheer amount of customization that you're able to accomplish. Down to the smallest details, you're able to tailor your living space to very specific needs that might not be met in a conventional house, or even in a prefabricated unit built by another company. This ability to tweak and modify can have jaw dropping results when put in the right hands.

Travis Skinner's Leaf Spring Tiny Home on wheels is a testament of what can be accomplished when a talented multidisciplinary artisan takes on the challenge of building their own tiny home. What it lacks in footprint is easily made up with sheer beauty and fantastic craftsmanship.

This gorgeous tiny home had humble beginnings. The trailer that it is built on was originally a 1984 Terry Taurus camper that Travis and a friend were able to salvage for free. It was heavily water damaged and beyond repair, but the physical trailer was still functional. After stripping everything down to the floor, Travis had the perfect base to build a tiny home for himself.

"It kind of took the name The Leaf Spring because the leaf springs on the trailer acted as the connection between the axle and the frame. It was kind of what gave the tiny house its jurisdiction."

While many folks might scrutinize every detail of the planning process when taking on a project like this, Travis instead decided to take the process as it came. Bit by bit, the project inched along, but Travis didn't get caught up with what had to be done further down the road. It was this almost improvisational process that resulted in the tiny house's ergonomic layout.

"I had no design. I just put the walls up and then I put a table inside the walls and I sat there and had tea and thought about where I wanted windows. Then when I was like, "I want a window here", I got out a saw and cut a window." While Travis doesn't necessarily recommend this process for everyone, it helped him make a space that felt right. A lot of times people who decide to do their design process exclusively on paper or in CAD software find that the element that they thought worked in the design project feels awkward when actualized. By designing the space while he was building it, Travis knew exactly how the end product would feel.

One of the important aspects to consider when building the tiny house is the climate that you’re intending to park it. Living in the Pacific Northwest, Travis knew that moisture was going to be an issue, so he implemented a design that would allow for good ventilation that would air the space out. “I used a rain screen siding, which means that there's a furring strip on each stud member and it holds the siding out. There's a mesh net at the bottom and then holes at the top. Through convection, heat pools in the bottom and circulates and pulls it out. In the northwest the best thing to do isn't to just try to keep water out, but to design for when it gets in.”

Travis’s house is special in that practically everything is handmade. Travis is a multidisciplinary craftsman in both woodworking as well as smithing. Before you even enter the building you are greeted with a breathtaking front door lined with cedar shakes and hand cut wooden handles. “You know, in any house doors are one of my favorite parts, you know it's the portal. It's the entranceway and so I wanted to build some cool doors.” 

These handcrafted elements continue inside the house. Even the hardware and brackets used throughout the house were hand forged and then welded together, while the shelving used for storage in the kitchen is crafted from salvaged wood that he managed to get from odd construction jobs.

For plumbing, Travis kept it simple. The house is off-grid, so water is kept in jugs and used in a gravity fed water system, which works perfectly for doing dishes and cooking in the sizeable kitchen that he built over the tongue of the trailer. To make the space feel as big as possible, Travis opted for an open concept layout. At the back of the trailer across from the kitchen, he built a large wrap around bench and fold out table that acts as both a desk, and a sizeable dining room table for when he has guests. 

Above this dining room/living space is Travis’s bedroom loft. He designed it like a futon frame with strips of wood with a little bit of space in between each that let the mattress breath. With all the humidity in Travis’s climate, it was an important precaution to make sure that mold wouldn’t grow. To get up, Travis has ways. First, an almost invisible ladder  that he’s built into the wall with sturdy shelving, and forged handles at the top that he’s able to pull himself up with. The second, and his preferred method, a set of money bars on a slow incline that act as the house’s rafters.

While Travis’s home is a lot smaller than most, he sees it more as a feature than a hindrance. Being a big fan of the outdoors, he likes that the smaller space encourages him to be outside more. It’s also allowed him to create a jaw dropping space with an insane level of quality that didn’t stretch him too thin. Like many folks who’ve decided to downsize, he’s found that living this way has brought him freedom.

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