Pepe Romero and Eugenia Diaz, each 35, know a factor or two about making dramatic life-style adjustments.
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The couple moved from Spain to Los Angeles in 2012 after ending college, Romero advised Insider. Diaz had a background in medication, however she pivoted into beginning a purse model in 2014. As the model grew, Romero left his job at an architectural agency to assist handle the enterprise.
Five years later, in 2019, the couple determined to close it down as a result of they wished to vary their life-style.
“We built a camper van and traveled around Europe for a few months when the idea of building our own house came to mind,” Romero stated.
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Part of the choice was impressed by their expertise of reworking the camper van, Romero stated.
“When we bought our empty, second-hand cargo van, all the quotes we received to transform it into a camper van were very high. We could not afford it,” Romero stated. “We were forced to build it ourselves and after that, we realized that anything can be done if you try hard and study it.”
When they wrapped up the van conversion, they realized how a lot they loved working with their arms, and determined to deliver that very same ethos to a brand new undertaking: constructing a tiny cabin.
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“When it came to building a house, hiring someone to do it was not what we wanted as we had already tasted what it felt like to do things by ourselves,” Romero stated.
That’s how the couple got here to construct a tiny cabin in the countryside in Alentejo, Portugal. The cabin is tucked away in a small city of round 30 folks, most of whom are aged people who’ve lived right here their complete life, he added. The cabin sits on the facet of a non-public grime highway that results in the land of a next-door neighbor.
“I have many years of experience in architecture design, and Eugenia is a designer by trade, but none of us actually built anything until we built our van,” he added.
Originally, the couple had been on the hunt for a run-down residence they might renovate on their very own.
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“Renovating an existing structure felt like something that was easier to do and more achievable, but all the ruins that we came across were not what we were looking for,” Romero stated.
Many of the buildings they discovered had been unlawful and poorly taken care of, he stated.
“After a few months, I said to Eugenia that maybe we could search for an empty piece of land, so we could design and build what we wanted from scratch,” Romero stated. “We found our property in a couple of weeks, signed the agreement, and moved with our camper van to live on it.”
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The plot that Romero and Diaz purchased measures nearly 1.2 acres, however the cabin occupies solely a small portion of the land.
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The couple wished to decrease their price of residing by being self-sufficient, Romero stated: “For that to happen, we needed to grow our own food, so land size was kind of important.”
The house additionally meant that they weren’t too near their neighbors, giving them the privateness that they wished, he stated.
“After these first couple of years living off the land, we realized we didn’t need that much space to grow our food,” he added.
The couple declined to share how a lot they paid for the land.
The couple drew up the design plans and constructed all the cabin on their very own, with barely any exterior assist.
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Romero stated the primary few days had been the hardest.
“I remember thinking to myself when we first started building the platform, ‘Did we just bite more than what we can chew?'” he stated.
Thankfully, they turned pals with the earlier homeowners of the land, who had been variety sufficient to help them.
“Having them around those first days helped a lot,” Romero stated. “It was great and a huge push, as those early days were the most complicated ones.”
The couple began constructing the tiny cabin in December 2020 and lived out of their van in the early days of the construct.
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The climate was a problem of its personal.
“December had the rainiest winter that our neighbors in this area could remember,” Romero stated. “It was cold, humid, and muddy.”
There was barely any electrical energy, because the couple solely had 350 watts of photo voltaic panels put in on the roof of the van.
With much less daylight in the course of the winter, the photo voltaic panels weren’t sufficient to get them by means of the entire day, he added: “We would need to charge the battery of our power tools every time the sun got out.”
Romero and Diaz ended up transferring into cabin in January 2021, even earlier than it was accomplished.
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Although the van was good for touring, it wasn’t essentially the most comfy to reside in in the course of the chilly, Romero stated.
“I think we only had half of the front door installed and no windows, but we taped the openings with plastic and started living in it anyway,” he stated. “We were definitely way out of our comfort zone.”
The accomplished cabin has an oblong structure, with a sleeping space in the loft that may be accessed with a ladder.
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Although it is tiny, the cabin matches every part they want — together with a residing house, sleeping space, kitchenette, and bathroom, Romero stated.
“Although I like to think that we can achieve anything we set our mind to, I was scared because we didn’t know if it was going to come out ok,” Romero stated.
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For him, essentially the most memorable a part of the construct was once they had been accomplished putting in the cabin’s black facade.
After returning from a stroll with their husky, Aspen, on that very same day, Romero noticed simply how good the cabin seemed for the primary time.
“Knowing that we did that, with our own hands, was extremely rewarding. I will carry that feeling with me forever,” he stated.
For Diaz, the most important problem was including the ending touches to the cabin.
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“The finishing touches are what take the longest,” Diaz advised Insider. “We were already living in the cabin and it made our progress even slower. The last 20% of the build took us 80% of the time.”
Due to the restricted house, the couple stored to a minimalist design and tried to include space-saving furnishings wherever they might.
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The couple opted for a retractable picket eating floor that may be stored in the wall and pulled out solely when required, Romero stated.
Although they’ve a compost bathroom in the cabin, Romero and Diaz use an outside bathe.
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The cabin is related to the water grid, however the couple plans to gather rainwater and retailer it in tanks in the longer term, Romero stated.
“We also have plans to build a well, as our area has a lot of underground water,” he added.
The two of them are actually 90% self-sufficient, as they develop most of their meals in their backyard.
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“I wanted to have a garden for a long time, so being able to grow my own food and see the progress in the garden was very rewarding,” Diaz stated.
They do not eat meat typically however once they do, it is normally from a farm close by, Romero stated.
Sometimes their neighbors, who elevate chickens, can even pop by to supply them contemporary poultry, he added.
Since they’ve began sharing their journey on-line, the couple has obtained messages from followers asking for recommendation on the right way to construct one thing comparable, Romero stated.
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Those questions turned their subsequent enterprise enterprise: The couple is promoting a information on the right way to construct a cabin.
“We decided to write this guide to help others replicate our design,” Romero stated. “All our knowledge and research for every step of the build is in that guide, where we explain step by step in words, pictures, and drawings, what we did, how we did it, and why we did it.”
The e-book features a full supplies record, alongside suggestions in regards to the components of the cabin that they might have accomplished in a different way, Romero stated.
The 130-page guidebook is available on their web site for €399, or $390. The couple has bought greater than 600 copies of the information to this point, in accordance with a display seize of their retailer dashboard that Insider considered.
The couple has since constructed a workshop subsequent to the cabin and is planning to construct one other home on the land.
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The couple makes use of the workshop for his or her solar energy generator, woodworking house, and further storage, Romero stated.
“We are going to start building our final home now, and it is going to be a major project,” Romero stated. “I feel that everything we did until this point was to prepare us for this. It is going to be the project of our lives.”
