This was the first time we met in person. We needed to get a selfie.

      Chris Schapdick is a pretty curious fellow. To be frank, he has just a little bit of that mad scientist look about him, a zany “Gene Wilder as Frankenstein” vibe. I intend that comment to be a compliment, though.

      Chris has a gleam about him of an individual who is very bright and who has many onion-like layers. Chris, like myself, was probably a total nerd in high school, but it’s those people that you want to align yourself with. The dorks of yesterday are the innovators, pioneers, and often the bosses (perhaps yours) of today. They are the ones who were never afraid to go against the grain, who have always done so, and who stick their necks out, take chances, and willingly sprint down the path less chosen. Heck, a lot of ’em, like Chris, grab proverbial machetes and blaze their very own paths. Quite honestly, you are cut from the same cloth if you’ve made the rather wise choice to pick up this tome.

      Even adventurers need a bit of guidance sometimes, though, and that’s what you’ll find within the pages of this book. The sum of Chris’s experience in the tiny house world, building and experimenting and learning, is collected here in easily digestible, thought-provoking, often entertaining and always useful chapters that cover everything from the philosophical reasons to go tiny to the pros and cons of different trailers and building materials…and everything in between.

      When years back, Chris decided, “I’m going to start a business based on tiny houses and micro gypsy wagons, all from scratch!” it was not your normal nine-to-five by any means, and certainly a chancy, gutsy, move—yet Chris has done remarkably well, and there is no reason why you can’t go down that path, too, by combining your own sense of adventure with the confidence that the facts and advice in this book will give you.

      So read heartily and drink from this fountain of micro-architecture geekiness. Mr. S is your more-than-capable tour guide from here on out, and he’ll be taking you through the journey of what tiny living is all about, why you might want to consider this path, and how to do it.

       —Derek “Deek” Diedricksen

       Author of Microshelters and Micro Living, former host of HGTV’s Tiny House Builders, and creator of YouTube channel relaxshacksDOTcom, www.youtube.com/user/relaxshacksDOTcom