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It’s not many teenagers who start building a house while still in high school, but Aunika Day said she’s always wanted a place of her own. Now, the 16-year-old Forrest Bird Charter School student is working to make that dream a reality.

Day first got the idea to build a tiny house a few months ago while visiting family, she said.

“A tiny house just really seemed like a great idea. I thought I was a genius for that,” she said. “Then I realized it's a big right now — it's a big movement.”

When she returned from her trip, she told her parents and they agreed to help her with her plans. The tiny house is now her senior project, which she hopes to complete within a year and a half with the help of her mentor, Hillary Dececchis.

Dececchis currently lives in her own tiny house, which she started building in 2016 after her children had moved out. She moved in the fall of 2018.

“It got even more [backing] when Hillary told me she had her own tiny house and then I was — oh my gosh, I was over the moon,” Day said.

For the past two months, Day has been working on her tiny house design, a 295-square-foot home built on a flatbed trailer. She’s trying to build as much as possible using reclaimed materials and has been in the process of contacting contractors and other locals to do that.

Often, she said materials that are still in good condition from buildings being remodeled or demolished are thrown away — so she’s working to make use of them instead. So far she has a sink, shelves, a door, windows, some siding and the trailer the house is being built on.

Day is hoping to keep her expenses to around $10,000, she said. While the tiny house will be on wheels so she’ll be able to move it, she plans to keep it mostly stationary.

She also plans to use the tiny house while in college instead of living in a dorm, she said. And because she’s building the structure herself, she gets to prioritize the design elements that are most important to her.

“I really want my bed to be a space where I'm comfortable. So I want to be able to sit up in my bed and move freely,” she said. “So I have to make my roof a little bit taller than I hoped, but that's alright. I want to get into cooking. So I really, really want a nice kitchen.”

Day plans for an open layout and windows that will help to keep the space from feeling too cramped, she said.

When she first started building her tiny house, Dececchis said, she was often asked why she didn’t just buy an RV.

“[For] almost 30 years I've lived in this climate and I want something that felt solid and is warm in the winter and cool in the summer and had the feel of a house,” she said. “People are really surprised when they walk into my house. They're like, ‘it feels so big.’ It's got high ceilings, it's cozy, the aesthetics are beautiful. It just doesn't feel like an RV at all. It feels like a little home.”

The first year before she began building, Dececchis started getting rid of many of her unnecessary items, she said. She gave away furniture, a piano, artwork and other items.

“There was some emotional work that had to be done,” she said. “My children had first dibs on anything they wanted. And surprisingly, there wasn't a lot.”

As she continued, that process became easier, Dececchis said. Living in a 270-square-foot home requires her to be mindful of what she brings in, but she has everything she needs.

“As rooms started emptying out, I could feel the space in my life opening up which was a real motivator,” she said. “I have everything I need and love in there.”

During the spring, summer and fall, Dececchis spends a lot of her time outdoors, she said. Day said she’s excited at the prospect of living in her tiny home, along with a garden she plans to keep eventually.

In the winter, tiny homes have the advantage of being easy to clean and heat. Dececchis uses a wood stove and estimates it cost her less than $200 for the whole season.

Dececchis also has some costs for electricity, internet and water, she said, but those are minimal.

One ongoing challenge for tiny homeowners is that depending on the location, zoning ordinances may prevent residents from living in them. In Sandpoint, houses are limited to a certain amount of square footage.

Generally, tiny homes are treated as trailers, and so Dececchis was only able to build hers after a change in county zoning that allowed properties to have two trailers instead of one.

“I think with the state of housing, you know, in this area that we should make that option legal and available to people,” Dececchis said. “It's a huge step if you are on the brink of being homeless, and this is your option. It's a good one.”

In Dececchis and Day’s cases, the tiny home was simply a good decision for their lifestyle. Day said she hopes to finish her design within the next two weeks.

“I'm just super excited for starting the actual build,” she said. “[I hope to] start my build when the weather gets a little bit better.”

Anyone interested in donating materials for Day’s build can contact her at (208) 217-1538 or aglday@icloud.com.

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