GALION — Jarrod Roelle is a big fan of the tiny house concept, and now he has built one of his own. A 98-square-foot home on wheels which sits on a five-and-a-half-acre lot south of Galion.
He calls it his “paradise in the woods.”
“I just started looking at ideas online and fell in love with the tiny house look,” said Roelle, a 2004 Galion High School graduate. “I always wanted to build something like this, even as a kid.”
In January 2018, Roelle bit the bullet. He bought a 1996 pop-up camper, gutted it and basically tore it down, except for the flatbed trailer. Then, through trial and error, he started building. No plans or blueprints. Just research and plenty of ideas.
“I just started building it according to what I wanted to do,” said Roelle, who is a painter at his father’s longtime business. “Directions and blueprints confuse me anyhow, so I was better off doing it that way. Once I started figuring things out, I was on a roll. Then I couldn’t stop.”
Roelle spent evenings and weekends in the backyard or garage of his Galion home, transforming that trailer into a diminutive dwelling. He framed the walls, which are tongue and groove pine, and laid down plank flooring. But the arched rubber roof presented a challenge.
“Getting that correct was definitely difficult, but I just love the look of it,” he said, admiring his handiwork on the ceiling of the cozy quarters. “It just has that old gypsy wagon look to it. It caught my eye from the beginning, and I knew that’s what I wanted.”
Friends and neighbors regularly monitored his progress throughout the eight-month long project, and often stopped by to check it out. He earned the Biblical nickname “Noah,” even though his wooden masterpiece was crafted for land, not water.
Roelle kept the cabinets and countertops from the old camper, which are stained aspen, and added a two-burner propane stove in the kitchen. Although there’s an electric hook-up, the olive-green house with only five windows is heated with propane – for now.
The 34-year-old and his wife, Casey, who originally wanted to travel in the house, abandoned that idea of because of the weight factor. When they bought the country lot a year ago, they decided to park it there, adding an outhouse just a stone’s throw from the front door.
Roelle said he’s proud of his accomplishment, which put his DIY skills to the test, but really doesn’t know the overall price tag.
“I was too scared to total the receipts,” Roelle said. “I got so stinking nervous I couldn’t do it. But it was worth it. It was worth every penny.”
The miniature abode, he said, is still a work in progress.
“For now, I just enjoy coming here and watching the owls and the deer,” he said. “And buying this woods, it couldn’t have worked out any better.”
