semi-trailer tiny house

Mike stands on his semi-trailer roof looking glum as he stares at an arrangement of bricks on his roof

Bricks are Holding my Roof Down

There are bricks sitting on my roof right now, holding it down. They’ve been there a while.

This is the story of how a forklift I never saw, driven by someone I’ve never met, before I ever owned this trailer, ended up dictating five years of my life.

When I bought this ex-refrigerated semi-trailer there was visible damage to the ceiling. I didn’t understand what I was looking at. What had happened was delamination — the outer fibreglass skin had been separated from the foam core, and once that bond is broken the panel can’t hold its span anymore. It sags. What looked like a cosmetic dent was a structural failure, and everything that followed came from it.

In this video I go through the whole saga honestly: the purchase, why delamination matters so much in a semi-trailer build, the $8,000 fix I couldn’t afford at the time and can no longer do at all now that the house is built up to the roof, the leaking skylight, the resin advice that made everything dramatically worse, the rebuild that finally worked, and where it all stands four and a half years later.

If you’re thinking about building in a semi-trailer, this is the single most important thing I can tell you: do not buy one with internal roof damage. And if you do, fix the roof before you build anything inside it!

Quick visual tour: Inside our semi-trailer tiny house

If you follow my blog then you’ve seen most of our place before but for those who are new to my Tiny World, this is a short showcase of our place as a visual tour with no talking and a good jumping off point to dig deeper if you are interested how I did it.

I realised just recently that this video was intended on going out a couple of years ago but then Living Big In A Tiny House showed up and partly did the job for us! Of course, when you build a place and live in it, you want to showcase different stuff, so this is Mike the Builder’s look at our place. 😊

sketch-style illustration of a tiny house village

Why Build Your Tiny Home Alone?

When you build your own tiny house, you mostly do it alone. Out in the weather, figuring it out as you go, quietly wondering if you’re the only one crazy enough to be doing this. I’ve been thinking about how it doesn’t have to be that way.

This video is an idea I can’t shake: what if tiny house builders had a shared, covered space to build alongside each other? Somewhere to pool tools, resources, and knowledge, and to actually connect with people doing the same thing, instead of going it alone. And what if that space could grow into something bigger, a proper tiny house village where people build, help each other out, and eventually settle in as a community.

It started while I was staying at Heidi’s parents’ old farm that’s been lived on and worked for over 90 years, and it got me thinking about how these kinds of places could be perfect for exactly this. I get into the covered build space idea, the shared storage, the community side of it, and even how something like this could one day be brought to a council as a model worth testing.

If you’re building tiny, thinking about it, or sitting on land that could be repurposed for something like this, I’d genuinely love to hear from you in the comments.

Why our tiny house has no rubbish bins (and how we ditched them)

If you’ve watched our videos, you’ll know that there’s no traditional rubbish bin in our kitchen. In fact, there’s no bin anywhere in the house. And I haven’t done the usual “take out the trash” routine in over four years!

Instead, we built two little chutes into the kitchen counter — one for rubbish, one for recycling — that drop straight down into the wheelie bins underneath. Open the lid, in it goes, done. No smell, no wasted bench space, no bin to squeeze around in a small room.

In the new video I have a bit of fun showing you how they work, how we made them, and give an honest four-year verdict — including the bits I still haven’t finished off properly (there’s always something!). Full video below. 😃👇

Rustic guesthouse DIY build wrap-up, episode 4

The final Build episode in our second semi-trailer project (P2) is a progressive update looking at the evolution of the guesthouse bedroom and bathroom. Mike does the final major edits to the industrial space to reveal a beautiful view and an attractive space for him and Heidi to offer guests some comfortable hospitality!

Follow along to see how Mike achieves some of his affordable and creative solutions that you can apply to your own projects! This episode features the final touches on the bedroom space including a DIY murphy bed, some funky ceiling and detail finishing and a major overhaul of windows in the bathroom. All in time for some visitors!

Semi-trailer guesthouse build update, episode 3

The third episode in our second semi-trailer project (P2) is a progressive update looking at the evolution of the guesthouse bedroom. Mike aims to craft a space that belies the dark and unfriendly nature of this industrial container into a cozy guest quarters.

Follow along to see how he achieves some of his ideas with affordable and creative solutions that you can apply to your own projects! This episode features the completion of the overall bedroom space, some funky ceiling finishing, easy-to-DIY cabinet-making, lighting tips and ensuite bathroom progress.

Big Tiny Adventure