Was: Shipping Pallets
Now: Tiny House
Who: Michael Janzen
Day Job: Online marketing VP
Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Maker of: Tiny Pallet House
Square Footage: 100 square feet
Site: tinyfreehouse.com and tinypallethouse.com

It’s no mistake that Michael Janzen’s house looks like it fell of the back of a truck—it’s made out of shipping pallets he’s collected around Sacramento, California. Shipping pallets are a cheap and easy substitute for grade lumber; the hardest part may be sussing them out. Janzen finds his abandoned near Dumpsters or on Craigslist. Almost daily he blogs his exploits and construction tips at tinyfreehouse.com. Post by post, his 100-square-foot home is taking shape. Equipped with a bathroom and kitchen, it will neatly accommodate his family—Janzen, his wife, and young daughter—when completed. With living, eating, and sleeping all in one room, it’ll be a snug fit but a grand extension of Janzen’s philosophy.

A tiny house is eco-savvy, since reusing shipping pallets keeps them out of the waste stream, however Janzen is driven by a kind of personal sustainability. His goal is to live simply. He looks at the housing crisis and sees people trapped by too much stuff and too much easy credit. “People are waking up like I woke up and realizing that buying into a life of debt isn’t freedom.” So, raising a fist for liberation from consumerism, Janzen challenged himself to build a house out of scavenged materials: flattened tin cans for the roof, Styrofoam packing peanuts stuffed in old plastic grocery bags for insulation, and, of course, pallets for framing. A DIY advocate, he is more than happy to share his process. These instructions were adapted from instructions he posted on tinypallethouse.com.