In a mere 245 square feet, a Texan man created his dream tiny home in his own back yard in that now draws friends, family and Airbnb visitors looking to spend a night in an unconventional setting.
Daniel Salas, who travels frequently with his wife, said he built the backyard home out of a storage shed he bought off of Craigslist.
In the span of five months, he transformed the unit into a livable space that he now rents out for $74 a night.
Their unique property was inspired by an old barn that was transformed into a standalone tiny home that the couple fell in love with.
Salas told Newsweek: ‘Me and my wife love to travel. We started visiting more Airbnbs around Texas and further afield and were fascinated by this one home we stayed in about an hour north of here.’
‘We liked the intimacy. With a smaller space, we spent more time together. We said then, one day, we’d love to have something like this in our backyard.’
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic settled in, Salas, like many others, found himself with some extra time on his hands.
‘I started doing a lot of research and preparing my backyard because I knew I wanted to create a tiny home. I was doing a lot of planning and rearranged my yard into the space I wanted to use,’ he said.
About a year later, in Spring of 2021, a Craigslist ad popped up that caught his eye.
A man who lived nearby was selling a relatively new shed. When Salas inquired after the item, the man said he would sell it to him for $1,200 on the spot if he could remove it that day without disassembling it.
Salas found a way to transport the shed to his home about 45 minutes away and even went so far as to take down his backyard fence in order to successfully maneuver the shed into the backyard.
He told his wife, to whom the purchase of the shed was a surprise, that he took down the fence in order to work on it over the weekend.
‘Then came Monday and she came to me and said, “There’s a storage shed in the front of our house,’ and that’s how she found out that I bought it,” he told.
For the first summer that they owned the shed, the couple used it exclusively for storage. But after saving up $25,000 to pump into the project, they got to work.
‘I had to run plumbing, get the permits, electrics, everything. I used the contractor who had renovated my kitchen the year before,’ said Salas.
The pair took several months to complete the tiny house, and when it was complete, they decided it needed a little more space, soo they busted down the back wall and extended it another eight by twelve feet to make space for a bedroom.
After another six weeks, the home was complete and ready to receive family for the holiday season.
But by the end of the renovation process, the couple had spent about $40,000 and thought to themselves: ‘let’s see if we can get this rented.’
Once completed, the home had a fully functioning bathroom and kitchen. It also runs on its own power and has air conditioning and a TV.
The couple welcomed their first visitors to the tiny home on New Years’ Eve 2022.
Now, the pair have visitors from all over coming to stay at their competitively priced tiny house.
‘I joined a couple of Facebook groups, and I started getting people from all over asking me questions and wanting to come and stay,’ said Salas.
‘Friends and family come from out of town and want to stay in our house. It’s been pretty popular – from a small idea, it’s grown really big.’
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
