By Leah Shapiro | Photos by Paul M. Howey
Every morning, Michelle Van Sandt wakes up in the sleeping loft of her tiny house and thinks: This is exactly what I need. Growing up in southern California during the “bigger is better” era of the 1980s, Michelle says she has always challenged that notion and felt concerned about her impact on the environment.
Her interests have taken her around the world, and she has worked as an adventure travel guide, living across the United States and in Costa Rica, and she’s spent a decade addressing issues of social and cultural justice as a filmmaker. “I’ve always downsized and lived out of a backpack or lived out of a tent,” says Michelle. “So living tiny has always been part of my philosophy in life.”
After moving to Asheville in 2009, her interests turned to homesteading and living off the land. When the tiny house movement began, she thought the concept was perfect for her lifestyle. She could own a house that was small and mobile, and one that had no mortgage. She began researching options in the fall of 2014.
Michelle was soon ready design a home on wheels that would fit her needs. Looking locally for a construction team, she discovered Nanostead, a company based in Marshall. She realized it was an ideal match, as Nanostead specializes in services for small-scale living solutions, micro-farming, and urban homesteading.
She asked herself, What do I need? What do I do? The answers, she discovered, were I like to sleep. I like to eat. And I need a bathroom. The designs called for a ton of natural light from the several windows. Instead of a ladder leading to her loft, there are stairs with built-in cubbies for storage. You’ll certainly notice that her kitchen is bigger than what you’d find in a typical tiny house. There’s an oven, four-burner stovetop, large sink, and extra countertop space. “That’s because I like to grow my own food, cook my own food, process, preserve, and can.”
Instead of a living room, which she didn’t see much need for, Michelle opted for a mudroom. As a landscaper coming in from a job, she could enter from the backdoor, hang her dirty clothes in the mudroom, and immediately hop in the shower. This way, the rest of the house stays clean. The workstation where she sits to edit film during the day doubles as a dining room table at night.
The construction of her new home took place last spring and she moved in by June. She calls her home Radhaus, based on the word rad as both the German term meaning wheel and also slang for cool in English.
Michelle says she recently closed on a 4.5-acre piece
of land in Marshall where she will soon be rolling her home from its current spot on
a farm in Swannanoa. “I’ll have goats, chickens, bees, and gardens on the land… In addition to wanting to grow my own food, I also want to grow my own medicine.”
She adds, “For sure it’s a practice of nonattachment and examination of materialism and true need, but it’s what I’ve been doing my whole life—so it’s not been hard. Indeed, I feel like this 246 square feet is quite abundant.”
The sawdust composting toilet next to her house was highlighted in The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. As for fancy gadgets and new technology to make the most of small spaces, Michelle isn’t really interested. “I like simplicity and I tend to look to nature for answers… All of our complex systems—nobody does it better than nature if you just watch. “
