This truly is a home to let all of your cares float away.
A couple from North Carolina have revealed how they went about constructing a tiny 360sq ft floating house on lake so they can live off grid, with their monthly expenses now coming in it at just over $1,000.
Sarah Spiro, 27, and Brandon Jones, 40, spent two months and $90,000 bringing their well proportioned design to life and in a video for YouTube channel Tiny House Giant Journey, they say they couldn’t be happier.
Revealing her favorite part of their unique lifestyle on Lake Fontana, forestry technician Sarah says in one clip: ‘The tranquility, the peacefulness out here. It’s just our cup of tea all day long. We absolutely love having the peace and quiet.
Sarah Spiro, 27, and Brandon Jones, 40, spent two months and $90,000 bringing their grand design to life
Revealing her favorite part of their unique lifestyle on Lake Fontana, forestry technician Sarah says in one clip: ‘The tranquility, the peacefulness out here’
To keep the abode in place, four mooring ropes run from each corner of the structure
Outside, the tiny home has 400sq ft of deck space for the couple to relax on and for their dog Iko to stretch his legs
The spaces include a living room, a kitchen, a master bedroom, a bathroom-cum-laundry space and an elevated platform accessible via a ladder which doubles as a guest bedroom
The washing machine sits next to the tub and macerating toilet
‘We love having so much easy access to nature around us. You’re really part of that nature and and in sync with it especially being off grid here. It feels like we really ebb and flow with those cycles and and that’s something that I feel has improved our quality of life drastically.’
During the YouTube video, the couple reveal how they built the foundation for their home from scratch on the shoreline and then they worked around the clock to finish it on the water.
To keep the abode in place, four mooring ropes run from each corner of the structure to the mainland.
The indoor spaces include a living room, a kitchen, a master bedroom, a bathroom-cum-laundry space and an elevated platform accessible via a ladder which doubles as a guest bedroom.
Outside, the tiny home has 400sq ft of deck space for the couple to relax on and for their lagre dog Iko to stretch his legs.
To save on building costs, the couple did most of the work themselves and they also sourced materials as cheaply as possible from sites such as Facebook Marketplace.
Sarah says one of her favorite objects in their home is a copper kitchen sink, which came with all of the fixtures for just $350.
Before building their current home, Sarah and Brandon constructed another smaller floating cabin on the lake.
From their first build, they said they learned lots of skills which helped them the second time around.
For a short time they rented out their first cabin via Airbnb before recently selling it.
Now their yearly mooring fee is $5,000, which works out to $416 a month.
Their other monthly expenses include $20 for the septic take to be pumped out, $45 on gas for the washing machine and the two dinghies, $110 on Starlink for their high-speed internet connection and $36 towards a new propane cylinder.
During the YouTube video, the couple reveal how they built the foundation for their home from scratch on the shoreline and then they worked around the clock to finish it on the water
To save on building costs, the couple did most of the work themselves and they also sourced materials as cheaply as possible from sites such as Facebook Marketplace
Before building their current home, Sarah and Brandon constructed another smaller floating cabin on the lake. From their first build, they said they learned lots of skills
In terms of their day jobs, Brandon works on the lake managing Fontana Marina, while Sarah works for the National Park Service on a seasonal basis as a forestry technician
Meanwhile, a solar panel system means there is no charge for electricity.
Overall, this adds up to $664 a month, with groceries and other expenses bringing the total to just over $1,000. During the summer months they can also cut back on food costs thanks to the lake’s abundant trout stock.
In terms of their day jobs, Brandon works on the lake managing Fontana Marina, while Sarah works for the National Park Service on a seasonal basis as a forestry technician.
Her commute involves taking one of their two dinghies to shore, before driving for around one hour in their car to her duty station.
To supplement their income, the duo have ventured into the world of social media and they regularly post videos to YouTube where they have more than 18,000 subscribers, and Instagram where they have over 147,000 followers.
While Sarah says she wouldn’t change anything about their home life, in one of her Instagram posts, she shares five small downsides to living on a lake.
Firstly, she says rowing their dog to the shore to go to the bathroom can sometimes get tedious, while in at number two she says ‘dropping things in the lake’ is a constant fear.
She says on the matter: ‘This is something that we’ve got a lot better at over time but I mean it doesn’t matter how careful you are, it just happens on occasion. [It] just comes with the territory [but] it kinda sucks.’
The third downside to living on the water, according to Sarah, is that there is ‘definitely more maintenance involved with a floating house than there is with a normal house [and] anything on the water is going to deteriorate quicker.’
The fourth downside Sarah gives is the fact that there is no food delivery service available, while her final gripe is that they don’t have any physical address so they have to get things delivered to the marina which isn’t always possible.
Looking ahead, the couple say they see themselves on the lake for ‘the foreseeable future’ but their long-term goal is to retire early and spend ‘a couple of decades’ sailing around the world on an ‘epic adventure.’
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