California skiers are in the midst of a four-year drought that has wreaked havoc on Tahoe ski areas, with some heading to Jackson Hole, Colorado, or Utah in search of powder. But take a page out of professional snowboarder Mike Basich's book and build a portable tiny home instead. Basich already has an awesome, off-the-grid, 228-square-foot self-sustaining home near Truckee, California, but faced with poor snow conditions, he wanted to expand his options. And while some people just fork out the cash for a trip to a different state, Basich took $6,000, a 16-foot trailer, and a host of good ideas to create a tiny house on wheels built for chasing powder.
Basich's tiny home in California, called Area-241, is a gorgeous design complete with solar panel, wood-fired stove, and awesome outdoor hot tub. For his traveling tiny home, Basich started with a 16-foot trailer (bought off Craigslist for $2,000) that could be easily pulled by his Dodge diesel truck. Using materials collected from garage sales, corrugated metal for siding, and cheap windows from the Habitat for Hunamity nonprofit home improvement store, ReStore, Basich was able to build his dream mobile home for around $6,000.
Construction took about 2 weeks for the exterior and framing of the trailer, and 1 week to outfit the interior. Because the goal was to chase snow in Alaska and other frigid environments, Basich took extra care on the isolation, using both hard foam board and silver bubble wrap. It doesn't take much to heat the trailer, but Basich still installed a small fireplace and propane heater to be safe. In total, there is about 128 square feet of living space on the trailer's bottom floor and approximately 40 square feet in the loft.
Basich proves that while fancy adventure vehicles are nice, they aren't necessary if your main goal is to chase snow. But if you want to live the Basich-approved nomadic lifestyle, just make sure you have a cute husky puppy, lots of friends willing to join you lakeside in Alaska, and enough of a green thumb to grow plants in your kitchen sink. Check out all of Basich's epic photos below.
Here's what it looked like to build the tiny home, which took about 3 weeks:
Behold, the inside of Mike's tiny house on wheels:
And here's what life on the road looks like (complete with a hot tub, a piano, and a really cute dog):
Head over here to watch 3 videos of Basich's trailer, and some great shots of snowboarding in Alaska.
· MTN Life Design: Mike Basich's tiny house on wheels [Snowboard]
· Area-241 [Facebook]
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