Introduction – It's Not a Tiny House Podcast

Wyatt: [00:01:13] You need to be careful that they're all traps every time there's money involved, in my opinion today. Moving forward. This is not how we're starting the podcast.

Barna: [00:01:23] No?

Wyatt: [00:01:24] What are you looking at me like that?

Barna: [00:01:25] I don't know. I was just thinking about something else. What are you thinking about? Bloom's taxonomy of learning.

Wyatt: [00:01:31] Ok?

Barna: [00:01:32] Yeah, familiar?

Wyatt: [00:01:33] I'm not enough to here I can't let you talk about it now.

Barna: [00:01:36] OK, well, Jeremy and I were talking about it and this was honors whatever classes we had to actually do every step. But you got to do it in order.

Wyatt: [00:01:45] So say the name of it again.

Barna: [00:01:46] Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning. Anyway, there's multiple levels and knowledge is just the first level. So I think that and that's where most people stop, right? You start with knowledge like, hey, I know about this or that or whatever else. Well, then you have to understand. Right? So it goes up to actual like analysis.

Wyatt: [00:02:07] Sure.

Barna: [00:02:07] So people never get to the analysis stage. So all these people who are like this thing happened and their analysis is the world did it to me right.

Wyatt: [00:02:18] Versus your involvement in the world.

Wyatt: [00:02:19] And I mean, that goes all the way into into the stoicism versions of philosophy to write like your actions created a result.

Barna: [00:02:26] Yeah. So, I mean, as long as you're willing to accept that all the things that happen to you are yours at some level, are your responsibility not I mean you can't control everything, but it's your responsibility. Everybody else is just like no wasn't me.

Wyatt: [00:02:40] You got to be a participant in your life? And that means you have to understand, like if let's just say you're talking about playing Mario. If you jump into the hole, you're the guy who hit A or B or whatever the hell it was, right?

Barna: [00:02:52] No, man, no, no.

Wyatt: [00:02:54] It moved.

Barna: [00:02:55] I told it what to do. The control failed before we hit the controller. Sticky. It's sticky.

Wyatt: [00:03:01] Before we before we chased this rabbit..

Barna: [00:03:03] It's not because I'm eating donuts while I'm playing.

Wyatt: [00:03:04] Well, that's why we're always drunk playing, Mario. That was the only way we would let ourselves warp. But that's another story for another time.

Barna: [00:03:11] Me, I bought the book and I just won the game and moved on.

Wyatt: [00:03:14] See what fun is that? If you're only here to conquer, not to play. I mean..

Barna: [00:03:18] I'm here to win.

Wyatt: [00:03:20] Sound like Thanos or whatever from that movie we just watched. That that being said, and now everything's been tested. I think we can probably jump in to..

Barna: [00:03:27] Start an actual podcast.

Wyatt: [00:03:29] Jump into the actual podcast. Which..

Barna: [00:03:32] ..has no title.

Wyatt: [00:03:33] Which has a title..

Barna: [00:03:34] ..kind of..

Wyatt: [00:03:35] Which is a working title I think that we're going to run with. It's not a tiny House podcast right?

Barna: [00:03:40] Now, is it "It's not a tiny House podcast podcast". Is podcast part of the name. Is it is it just what it is?

Wyatt: [00:03:48] Ok, let me let me narrow that back in and reign it. And it's not a tiny house, which is a podcast about tiny houses that are not technically in your traditional sense of the of what a tiny house is. This is like traditional old cabin in a modern world.

Barna: [00:04:05] Yeah. It's not on wheels. So so the reason it's not a tiny house podcast is because

Wyatt: [00:04:11] it's actual houses.

Barna: [00:04:12] Yeah. People think it's something on wheels that if you were going to pull into a neighborhood and ruin it. Right. So there's a reason for that is because if it's the reason a tiny house is on wheels, it's because then you have to comply with no code.

Wyatt: [00:04:27] Exactly right. So you're an RV, right. And why we are here is to talk about what makes it a tiny house. Initially, what we're here to talk about, right, is, is to talk about the changes that we need to see moving forward. If someone were to be interested in and appealed, appealed to by the tiny house movement, the RV movement, the mobile, the nomadic gig worker movement, all of these various things. And you have to realize that you obviously still need to live somewhere. We are here to work towards an informal education which allows you to kind of be that shade tree person who knows how to figure out housing on a smaller scale. So if you don't want to take out a quarter of a mill and have a house that you know you don't spend time in, you've got to cook, you have to clean it, you got to heat it and cool it. And you want a different lifestyle. This is a version of education that's going to be a little bit, like I said, informal. This is people who are doing it.

Barna: [00:05:26] Informal as in in the middle of it. Yeah. Fighting that fight every day, fighting that way to everything from city council to, you know, suppliers to figure out what you can and cannot afford this month because prices change or whatever. Yeah. So down to the nitty gritty details, not just, oh, we built a pretty cabin and look how nice it is.

Wyatt: [00:05:46] And that's it. Right. So so that's part of the issues. It's part of the information is going to come out of motivation from, OK, if I build one on wheels, you know, what are my hurdles. If I build one without wheels, what are my hurdles? What's local code requirement going to drive me towards? How do I navigate local government? How do I deal with building inspection? How do I deal with the various levels of material procurement, if you will, and the variables that are actually inside of that business and inside of the business of construction in general? And because of because of our experiences thus far who we are and what we bring to the table, you may or may not choose to listen. Right. So my partner on our current project, Bana, we all each have our own. History, our own credentials, past successes, past failures ..

Barna: [00:06:34] I was going to say are you going to actually introduce yourself.

Wyatt: [00:06:35] And I'm Wyatt Wyatt Reed.

Barna: [00:06:38] So I'm going to use this line, but I will last name to. I just can't pronounce it. Let's come on the street out of, you know, first Fast and Furious.

Wyatt: [00:06:49] Now we're doing fast and Furious references?

Barna: [00:06:51] We are.

Wyatt: [00:06:53] So who we are right. Why you're going to maybe want to participate and listen or why you're not. You might you might be interested in who we are, what we bring to the table. You very well may not. I mean, if you're not, go enjoy. What did I call that show earlier? I don't even know the name of it. The Walking Dead and go about your life inside your mini mansion. And it's going to be great.

Barna: [00:07:13] I think you said "living dead".

Wyatt: [00:07:14] I call it the living dead because I don't watch TV guys. I don't have a television to know what the actual titles of of show. Right. TV's sooo old school.

Barna: [00:07:22] I've three TVs.

Wyatt: [00:07:23] Right. Well you get old.

Barna: [00:07:26] That's part of it.

Wyatt: [00:07:27] Older than me. No, I mean not by much but. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about who are going to benefit. Right. If this is a podcast that's going to be driven towards a younger demographic of people that are facing student loan debt, credit card debt, car payments, you know, a work a work situation that may be ever changing or we're going to talk about how that relates to a generation of, let's just say our parents, who then can help understand our life, our struggles, the things that we've learned thus far, the things we'd like to change and see differently in the future. And we're going to talk about our initial content as well. So that's kind of a basic rundown.

Barna: [00:08:04] Yeah, well, we're also helping anybody that wants to do anything related to building. Right. Housing, right. In today's small town, big city, whatever. So it helps them. You know, it could be you could be sixty years old. You want to move your parents into an ADU and an accessory dwelling unit. Right? I mean, they have to go over the same hurdles as a 20 year old, that doesn't want to have the lifestyle, I need, you know, two thousand square feet know and a huge loan to deal with for the rest of my life.

Wyatt: [00:08:37] Right. And so, you know, we'll we'll do the nuts and bolts stuff. But, you know, for those wanting in the first few minutes to figure out what they're going to learn about as we move forward. So you can decide now if it's interesting or you can, you know, cut bait and walk away with that. Obviously, you know, now that we're going to talk about our informal education changes that we need to see and let's go into who we are a little bit about our history and why, you know, you may or may not want to participate in something like this. Do you want to go first or do you not want to go first?

Barna: [00:09:04] I don't want to go first. You just keep going. I don't know why I'm here.

Wyatt: [00:09:08] So history credentials, past successes and failures. Again, I'm Whatt. For those who aren't, you know, watching this. So you can't tell who the hell's who. This is my voice.

Barna: [00:09:20] History, born and raised, northern Minnesota started in construction and carpentry around the age of 14. I'm a rural, small farm town kid from I call it the middle of nowhere. But it's it's the only region in Minnesota without a natural lake. So I think farmland think ice hockey. And that's basically my where it's where it all started credentials. You know, I started in this when I was like fourteen. I had a friend of mine whose dad was a general contractor who I've had the benefit of doing a lot of work for over the years. He took us in as kids. You know, we started pushing a broom. I think I can still remember the first time it was like, hey, you know, throw your tool belt on, put a hammer in it, because we actually got to participate in the build, climbing around in rafters, you know, building houses from from fourteen all the way through high school every summer, all the way through college every summer. And then very short stint using my bachelor's degree that I paid way too much money for right back into construction for my adult career with one other stopover, you know, doing some T-shirts, making starting trying my hand in business, made some designs, did some T-shirts, saw some success there, but moved around the country and failed every step along the way at some varying degree. Right. Something didn't work. I didn't think about it well enough. I didn't build my plan well enough. Now we're here with a ton of stuff that has failed, at least in my head, is how to make stuff and how to build stuff.

Wyatt: [00:10:51] So I know how not to do a lot of things. And we're learning every day how to do more and more and more things like we've talked about in the first few minutes. This is a real time education podcast about what we're talking and learning about now, especially when it comes to how to navigate projects that are a little bit more current in the building landscape, things like small houses, small structures and how to get stuff done. So that's that's what I bring to the table. There is one other fun success that I had, and I have to talk about it a little bit because I decided at one point I was going to build a house one hundred percent out of pallet wood and pallets and I put that up in northern Minnesota and I watched it all winter, not fall over and actually work and hold together, and I was like, this is pretty cool if I added a few other elements to it. You know, there are ways to build things that the people aren't even thinking about. And we can accomplish a ton of stuff with a lot of creativity and a hell of a lot more hard work. That's who I am, which is the guy that likes to just show up hands in the mud and build stuff. So with that, I can tell us about himself and then we'll move on to what we're going to do with this thing and who we're talking to.

Wyatt: [00:12:04] My name is Barna Kasa. I'm from a small town, and that's why I moved back to to retire for the third time. It didn't work out either time and it's not really didn't stick, you know, like five years ago. So anyway, I'm from a tiny town from a in a socialist country. I loved capitalism before I knew what it was. So Where I'm not the the builder. Why it is I build businesses. I currently have six and this is a semi new venture with Wyatt to to build. Well we have several projects going on. Yeah. On smaller houses. One is currently a hotel that we're building out of shipping containers, but we work together on a couple other projects beforehand.

Wyatt: [00:12:55] So what we've got here is what I would consider me to be an entrepreneurial thinker. And you've got Barna more specifically as an entrepreneurial like actor. Right? Like he knows how to actually execute, start the business, build a business.

Barna: [00:13:10] Somebody has to.

Wyatt: [00:13:10] Yeah, somebody has to write. Like, I'm I'm way too hairbrained for this stuff. And I'm like, just give me some wood and some saws and shit and like, I'm cool. But he'll he'll help educate us all on the nuts and bolts of the business portion of how this stuff really needs to operate and work, especially if you're going to consider what we're what we're really working towards, which are larger picture kind of things to talk about development.

Barna: [00:13:33] I do the boring stuff like, oh, let's find the septic engineer and the surveyor.

Wyatt: [00:13:38] And I'm like, what?

Barna: [00:13:39] We're gonna let's get the numbers. Let's get the marketing plan together. And just the boring stuff that nobody really thinks about when they go after a passion project like, oh, I want to do this and here's the problems I want to solve. Like, cool. How are you going to do that?

Wyatt: [00:13:56] Well, I got some hammers, right? I have lots of two by fours and I have another shipping container. Or for me I found a pack of pallets because that's what I had access to and I had all the other stuff and that's how that started.

Barna: [00:14:10] I just like buying stuff. So I'm just like, oh, I bought a couple acres in Florence, but several properties in this area after I quote unquote retired and almost lost my mind after six months. So you built a vacation rental business out of a vintage mobile home park. It was five units and was basically ready to be scraped, brought those all back from the dead. Really like enjoy. I enjoy like the design process of it and do something nobody else has done. Yeah. So that's also the you know, the challenge was also part of it. I mean, we could have done easier things.

Wyatt: [00:14:46] That we've talked about, that we could have done things a ton easier. And that's another thing. And it's a perfect segue way for who we're going to benefit. Right? We're going to benefit people that are like don't have, not necessarily the gas in the tank, but the time maybe, or expertise or the confidence to to send this stuff forward and really stand up in front of a group of strangers and be like, hey, I got a new idea. And who we're going to benefit is people that are really looking for alternative housing opportunities and also those that can be made less expensively. Right. So I think it's a great thing where we're going to we're going to talk about the benefits. Right. Who are going to benefit? I think personally originally was made to benefit me. Right. Solve your own problem first. That's one of the books. That's one of the things you're going to read in all the entrepreneurial books. First scratch your own itch. Right. I needed a house, but I couldn't get a payment plan. I couldn't get a mortgage for it because I'm a small business owner that doesn't have a ton of history and I don't have a job technically. Right. So but I'm a builder, so I needed a house that I could build affordably for myself.

Wyatt: [00:15:52] And it needed to have the opportunity to move. It needed to have the opportunity for space. I needed some storage. So a tiny house, you know, traditional tiny house on wheels was the picture. Because I have tools as a carpenter, I can't live inside that trailer size thing. I can't move any of that shit around. So we built and designed a new housing style using some of the same old tricks. Right. So you got shipping containers involved. You got traditional stick built stuff involved. You've got zip panel construction involved. And anybody that is looking for an alternative housing style where they can if they choose to save some money. They're going to benefit, so that could be a millennial that's fresh out of college lives, single or Gen X or Y, I don't even know at this point where we are, what letter. But Z, get those guys in there. Are we starting back over at a soon? What are we going to do? Is it a one? It does matter. Like do numbers. If they're like, I need a bedroom with a cooktop, a bed, shower and a bathroom. Cool. Like, you know, that that doesn't cost, you know, what a traditional house is going to cost, right?

Barna: [00:16:57] Well, that's part of the issue right now is a traditional house. Even in small town Colorado, you're looking at three hundred thousand dollars and who can afford that? And that also drives up rental prices, because now if I if I'm an investor and I buy a three hundred thousand dollar house, I have to rent that out for three thousand dollars a month to cover my mortgage and all my taxes and the other stuff. So who can afford three thousand dollars a month for rent? When you know there's a solution. And literally you're barriers are nothing more than a couple words in the city code. And it's right. It's a city code, says minimum square footage. Eight hundred fifty six. Right. So or whatever that number is, could be fifteen hundred if you're inside and HOA or whatever. Right. So there's a number in your local code that prevents you doing. Yeah. From what you want to do and what's perfectly fine for you and get you where you want to go. Yep. But there's a group of people who are pulling the strings and part of this podcast is to let you know that you are one of those people.

Barna: [00:18:03] All you have to do is show up.

Wyatt: [00:18:05] No, your your lack of involvement is allowing them to yank a string that you would rather not, right, let them have. So by showing up, being diligent, going going to bat for yourself inside a local government conversations to work on housing code, to work on these various things.

Wyatt: [00:18:21] And that's that's the important approach to this, that you just have to start somewhere. But before we finish, like, who benefits? It could be it could be the younger person that literally says what I said earlier needs what I said earlier. Right. A bedroom that has the pedigree of this or an older, older person to the in-law suites are a big topic of conversation. We call them ADUs accessory dwelling units that are subservient it small living unit to a larger structure.

Wyatt: [00:18:47] So if mom and dad have a house, you park your ADU, quote unquote in the backyard, you hook it up, you have your own independent housing unit. Now, certain codes and certain areas have restrictions. So you need to figure out what that code reads, how to navigate some of that stuff. And what we're really talking about, too, for our larger project is essentially having a community of ADU size housing, right? Yeah, big picture.

Barna: [00:19:17] And there's multiple ways to accomplish that. Depending on what your city code is. Right. But we're we're still fighting that fight.

Wyatt: [00:19:25] We're still fighting.

Wyatt: [00:19:26] So the best part there is is that like we are going to proactively show a couple of different options and models for how this can be accomplished. What it really boils down to is you're going to have to do some work if you're that interested in it, to figure out your local code. But we can show you and talk about how we found it in our local code and how we navigated it so that you can kind of see same a different how to where to look and what to do.

Barna: [00:19:49] And it's going to be part of this podcast as well as in the show notes we will provide you with all the information that we have. So we know where our local code is. And there's a couple of major websites that have that or what website you need to go to to actually buy the, you know, nationwide code book that was called the IRC, or?

Wyatt: [00:20:08] Yeah, IRC, or international residential code. You got IRC, You got IECC, which is your energy codes, and then you've got commercial code.

Barna: [00:20:17] That's all a book you can buy. Yeah, right. You seriously go to a Web site, you buy the book or you go online, you find your local code, you search it, you will help with what sections you kind of or what word you got to use.

Barna: [00:20:29] But we also have information on the reports you can use to back up what you want to do. Yeah. So you need you need some facts to back up your wishes and we'll help provide all that.

Wyatt: [00:20:41] And also what's important here is where, right? We are not in a major city. We're not in San Francisco or not in Denver. We're not in a major municipality where so many people believe change starts and takes place. We are in rural, low population, middle America. So.

Barna: [00:20:56] Population four thousand.

Wyatt: [00:20:57] Right. So there's four thousand people in the town. Right. So. Well, I guess what we're saying to you there is like don't get bogged down on the fact that you're not in a super progressive, super populated area. We're in a very conservative corner of of Colorado, if you will. And we can do it here. You can do it there. And you're going to have you know, I'm not going to tell you that you're going to have a hundred percent blueprint, but you're going to have a napkin sketch of how to how to actually accomplish this shit and make a difference in your local communities so that those all those kids that left after high school and what got their college degrees and maybe wanted to move back to a rural area, you might be able to be the person that provides an opportunity for them to do that. And that's that's really what's going to what's really going to make your small town thrive, just like we can make ours do the same.

Barna: [00:21:43] So we're rolling into this automatically, right. That all the all the opportunities that are actually available in small towns, it's on where everybody goes like all small towns can't make it here. I got to move to the big city. No, you don't. And that's I lived in big cities. I lived in Memphis, Columbus. I lived in Denver. Yeah, there's opportunities there. There's probably about ten times the opportunity in a small town where there's lack of competition.

Wyatt: [00:22:09] Yep.

Barna: [00:22:10] So you can basically start any business in a small town like Florence.

Wyatt: [00:22:15] Yeah.

Barna: [00:22:16] Because there's just nobody else doing it or everybody's retired or all. Like I started this business and there's nobody else doing it. So I can charge whatever I want and I can show up whenever I want. You're not going to go anywhere else because there is nobody else now. So opportunities are plenty.

Wyatt: [00:22:34] They are abundant.

Barna: [00:22:36] Government is accessible. You just walk in to city hall.

Wyatt: [00:22:40] You walk in, you make your appointments, you talk to who you need to talk to you. You got to keep in mind, like right now you got to look at the the the landscape of business owners today. Right. They're aging out. So not that many years. You're going to have an opportunity to own your own business in a small town, a hell of a lot easier than trying to do it at three thousand bucks a month to start your own business in a major city also. Right. So economically, you've got an opportunity just in that. But also like like Barna said. Just go to a small town and go, man, this town really needs X and start the business, you can do that today. We have access to information. We have access to all kinds of stuff. Not to mention, like he said, our government officials, you can you can actually access them in a smaller town because there are fewer people. They got less going on truthfully.

Barna: [00:23:28] And really, local laws have a bigger impact on your life than federal laws. Nobody pays attention. And that's part of the problem. Right before we showed up, right, before showing up to every single meeting, who was there, what what is the demographic that was being represented? And the demographic is typically rich, white, old. Right. And they're retired because they have time to show up. So it's a it's definitely time investment.

Wyatt: [00:23:56] Folks that have bought their time. Right. And rightfully so. But yeah, what we noticed that there were no 30s and 40s. There were very few 50s somethings, you know, inside of these meetings because..

Barna: [00:24:05] Zero twenties.

Wyatt: [00:24:06] Zero twenties guys kids jobs, X, Y and Z, like there's a reason for it. What I'm saying is that if you don't get involved, you can't pull the string. Right. And that's a really, really important thing. And so so I want to finish this one real quick with, like, the initial content that we're going to that we're going to bridge into and we're going to do this in chapters. Right. So we've touched on how, you know, there are business opportunities in small towns. There's there's a whole host of conversations to be had. But the first two to ten podcasts that you're going to hear from us are going to focus on and drive mostly around housing, jobs, economy, local government navigation, overcoming new ideas that you might be bringing to this area. And that's going to be packaged inside of the first like things. So we're going to keep ourselves between the ditches, so to speak, on on that topic, the conversation.

Barna: [00:24:52] We'll try.

Wyatt: [00:24:53] We're going to try. They're just going to be they're going to be some rabbit holes. We're going to chase it. But it's important to understand, like in the first two to ten, you're going to get where we are up to date current with our obstacles for a project inside of rural America building smaller, more affordable housing and how that affects the jobs in the economy, what you can bring and how to navigate your local government so that you know who to talk to, how to talk to them, how to how to, you know, present your ideas inside of that room and how to make sure that you're diligent and follow up.

Barna: [00:25:22] And who you need.

Wyatt: [00:25:24] Yeah.

Barna: [00:25:25] Who you need in the corner and how to get them in your corner and all that, too. And I just I just like you show by yourself, like, oh, I got all this right.

Wyatt: [00:25:34] And you don't show up once.

Barna: [00:25:36] Yeah, You need you need some other people backing up with credentials and that might cost a couple bucks or partnerships. But it's also not just about building one tiny house or one ADU. It's we're talking about going from what we actually did or you know, you did. Going from a prototype.

Wyatt: [00:25:53] Well, yeah, we're on it.

Barna: [00:25:55] We're doing multiple prototypes right now doing going from a prototype, proving that prototype working and then expanding that into a small scale project, but all the way up to forty plus units. So we're going to get into everything from all right we're building affordable housing apartments. Right. We're building single family homes that are three hundred square feet and we're building three hundred. You know, we're building single family homes that are fifteen hundred square feet, if we get to that point. Or that's what the market demands.

Wyatt: [00:26:24] And how and how what we've kind of compiled at this point from a design concept on how traditional housing does not equate to where we are, what we were bringing to the table from a design concept. I also like, we got to stroke our own stuff. We've come up with some stuff that other people haven't yet, but they'll see it. They'll learn about it. We'll figure out how this how this can work. And that's part of the the the next two to ten is overcoming those new ideas and making sure that people are understanding that new is progressive. New is not bad. New is not scary. New is taking an old idea and adding a new trick.

Barna: [00:26:59] And I was going to go throw that into the what what is old is new again. Right. So you go like, hey, we're doing it. We're doing a shipping container house. Well, OK. Yeah, go to Pueblo, take the central city exit, you know, go east. And what do you have an entire neighborhood made out of train cars. Right, right. Same size as a shipping container. Pretty much. An entire neighborhood built out of train cars. So let's not pretend that you do not have a template to go from or or this is not a this is a historically super new thing that you want to live on smaller square footage. That's what people had I mean, the property I had.

Wyatt: [00:27:40] The railroad housing for sure.

Barna: [00:27:42] Railroad subdivisions. Right. So I actually had to join all the lots together to make make it go with the current code because the old railroad lots were designed for somebody to throw down a train car and turn it into a house. So and now that's not allowed.

Wyatt: [00:27:59] Right, that's not allowed. We've changed all that.

Barna: [00:28:00] Well, the entire town is based upon we're not going to do that anymore.

Wyatt: [00:28:03] We're not going to jump into that one at the end of this. We're going to just leave you with the idea that..

Barna: [00:28:07] We'll cut that out.

Wyatt: [00:28:08] Yeah, we're cutting that.

Barna: [00:28:08] Sage will cut it out.

Barna: [00:28:08] Ahh, we don't need to cut it out. But, the initial content, who we are, what we are, what we're bringing to the table, what you're going to listen in here, that's that's what this initial podcast was about. And I think we've accomplished what we're going to what we're going to push forward on. We're going to raise the white board and hit podcast number two. We still have to figure out some of the finer bullet points on exactly where we're going to start with this for you. But now you know what to expect if you made it all the way through this podcast. So thanks for checking in.

Barna: [00:28:35] We got to do one more thing. We need a word soup for Sage at the end that he can edit together for things we might have in the future. So that means follow us, like us, share and subscribe, follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or wherever you consume your podcasts.

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