At Home with Bela Fishbeyn in Boulder Creek, California

It’s been a while since we’ve shared a home tour on the blog, and we couldn’t be more excited to be back to share Bela and Spencer Fishbeyn’s tiny home with you! We’re so inspired by tiny homes, and this one happens to be an Airbnb as well. We guarantee you’ll want to stay here by the time you get halfway through this post. Or maybe you’ve already decided? 🙂

“We started thinking about tiny homes as a way to beat housing costs in the San Francisco Bay area. Why rent a tiny apartment for thousands of dollars when we could buy a luxury tiny home for way less? We worked with New Frontier Tiny Homes to custom design our home down to the inch. Our daughter was about a year old at the time, so we needed a home that would accommodate a toddler. We also wanted the home that would serve as an accessory dwelling unit and rental property whenever we finally buy a foundation home, so we made sure not to skimp on the finishings. In our mind, this was a long-term investment, even if we only end up living in it full-time for a few years.

After only six months of research, design, and building, our custom home was completed—not bad compared to the timeline and headache of custom building a foundation home! Currently, it’s positioned in Boulder Creek, California, just 10 minutes away from old-growth Pacific Redwoods. We rent our land and own the home. In a few years, we may move the home north to Mendocino or south to San Luis Obispo.

Since our home is so small, we meticulously designed all the rooms to feel distinct and separate from one another (can you believe that we have six rooms in our tiny house?!) Each one has special features to make the room exciting and refreshing.

Spencer used to work as a chef, so our kitchen is full of artisanal products like carbon-steel cookware from Blanc Creatives and a Tsukiji Masamoto chef’s knife. We try as best as we can to find inspiration and lifetime quality in the tools we use everyday.

I think our favorite, though, is the master bedroom. When you’re lying down, the giant picture window behind you opens up to the sky, so you can stargaze while you’re laying in bed. We also arranged a unique design on the ceiling to expand the sense of space. Combine all this with the most comfortable mattress in the world (our Airbnb renters ALWAYS comment on how much they love it!) and it’s heaven to sleep in our little den!

We splurged on sheets as well as some Icelandic sheepskins from Black Sheep (White Light). So many of the sheepskins available these days are dyed and over-treated, but these are pristine and beautiful reminders of nature’s complexity.

When you own very few home goods, you can usually afford to be as selective as you want! I remember when we moved into our first apartment. It was impossible to completely fill it with meaningful or interesting items, but with our tiny home it’s been the complete opposite.

We’re big fans of having our daily ritual and cleaning products be part of our decor as well. The Ordinary for skin care and Public Goods for home products have been great for us. Great labeling and the products are top-notch but consumer direct.

For both indoor and outdoor furniture, we love the quality and craftsmanship of Article. Both our bar table and outdoor table are from them as well as the most comfy daybed ever!

We’ve lived in our home for almost two years now! It’s been a blast and, though the inside of the home hasn’t changed much, our outdoors have changed tremendously. We built a big cedar deck just outside of our garage door, set up a xeriscape zen garden and other landscaping, added a canvas belle tent, and a big outdoor table.

We’re always looking for ways to expand our living space more into the outdoors. This obviously helps to keep our house from feeling too tiny, but the outdoors also brings its own sort of peace. As much as we can, we try to view our home as having more to do with the whole world around us, instead of just a set of walls.”

Thanks so much for sharing your tiny home with us, Bela! You can read more on her blog, Tiny Migrations, and follow her on Instagram here.

Credits // Author: Bela Fishbeyn. Photography: Bela Fishbeyn and Ryan Tuttle.