Our customer Rachael and family took on an interesting project during the pandemic shut down. Rachael & Michael’s son Austin was moving back home to start grad school, and they decided to build out a separate space with him, for him. What they originally thought was going to be a glorified shed, became a full on professional-style ADU, inspired by their first find, a set of double doors complete with sidelites advertised by Second Use as a “tiny house wall”!

Double french doors with sidelites as sold by Second Use Building Materials.

The doors provided the inspiration for a much more grandiose building than originally planned. And as the project grew, they started thinking of it like more of a “tiny mansion”! The family was dedicated to buying as little new materials as possible. Some of the items they bought used or repurposed include: lumber, nail gun, nails, oak flooring, granite countertop, doors, sink, tile, drywall, lights, shelving, the awesome spiral staircase, and they even used an old glass shower door as the railing for the loft (topped off by a beautiful antique handrail).

The family starts the build out of their ADU for their son to live in while he studies for grad school.

Mike even calculated the amount of materials reused, as well as hauled/lifted/installed by the family, “Construction industry standards estimate the average weight of a two-level home to be 275 pounds per square foot. We built a 300 square foot two-level (tiny) home. That’s 82,500 pounds, or 41.25 tons, our tiny house weighs. Six months to build means my son and I raised, moved, lifted or set into place a tad less than 7 tons of materials a month, or 3 1/2 tons each, per month, for half of 2020. Quite a work out!”

Tiny House kitchen and living space built with as many reused and repurposed building materials as possible.

They even found another exterior door at Second Use to use on the other end of the home!

  • Etched door at Second Use
  • Etched door installed!

Rachael says of this wonderful project, “The best part of this project was the time we spent working together planning, building, and designing. My husband was able to teach my son all of his handyman skills he has developed over the years. We all feel quite accomplished having made such good use of our time during quarantine. All said and done, we are proud of our accomplishment and super pleased with how it turned out.”

  • Always make room for pups!
  • Excellent spiral staircase!
  • Shower door turned railing!
  • Chef’s tiny kitchen!
  • Reused etched door
  • Sleeping loft

We love a good ADU built with reused building materials! Thank you for sharing your stunning project with us! Best of luck on the deck and trim and finishes.

“We love perusing the aisles at Second Use-  our imaginations run wild and creativity overflows. “
-Rachael