Drawing on his background in architecture and physics, Andy Thomas has created a do-it-yourself kit for people interested in constructing a small home.
The Courtenay resident has been “pleasantly surprised” by the response since he and his wife, Claire Guiot, opened Goldfinch Small Home Design late last year. They’re already leasing a space on Fifth Street.
“There’s been a lot of inquiries,” Thomas said. “The forecasts for the year have been expanded now…I think in general, small homes are increasing.”
The idea for the business percolated with a concept.
“Why can’t we distribute it?,” he said. “As in secondary suites — little, small buildings. The tiny house movement is huge, but that has some issues (such as zoning).”
So the couple looked into secondary suites to determine if they could make things easy for customers, with Thomas providing advice about zoning, building practices, prices and other factors.
“How can we make this more efficient, and cheap and affordable?” he said.
The answer was a kit idea.
“It’s kind of like the IKEA of homes, everything’s pre-cooked and shaped. It’s not pre-fab. It’s like traditional building, but what I spotted from years as a client and in architecture, it’s incredibly inefficient onsite.”
Thomas said labour accounts for about half the cost of building a house. By cutting out the “thinking piece,” his design allows people to nail the pieces together. It took him 15 minutes to build one side of a shed. He gave the same drawing to a carpenter, who took two hours to do the same thing.
“A kit is tons quicker than a traditional build,” said Thomas, noting his design for residential homes meets building code. “Tiny homes aren’t actually legally homes. They depreciate as opposed to appreciate.”
Laneway houses and carriage houses (suite above garage) have “sparked the most interest” among potential customers, he added.
“Because of the laneway house movement in Vancouver, they found about a third of all those built are for family.”
In the process, homeowners have created an affordable house — and an income — and increased their property value.
FMI: goldfinchdesign.com