A Creative Couple Converted Their Garage into a Tiny House on a Budget

Name: Rachel, Logan (husband), and two cats (Lobster and Rocko)
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Size: 700 square feet
Type of home: Converted Garage

Rachel Stroly and her husband first shared their Atlanta home a few years ago, which is full of colors and thrifted finds. Impressively, they managed to furnish their entire home for about $4,000! In this post, they share their equally impressive garage makeover, which they use for guests and Airbnb. Though full of color and pattern, Rachel and Logan still kept to a tight budget, purchasing reused building materials from Atlanta’s Lifecycle Building Center and only buying secondhand furniture.

What’s your favorite thing about your home? We built the Tiny Garage House with eco-friendly principles in mind. A lot of the building materials came from a local non-profit (@atl_lbc), which saves a lot of construction materials from the dump and re-sells them at a great price—some of it used, some brand new!

All of the wood from the ladder and loft come from there along with our kitchen and bathroom sinks, the bathtub, the wooden floors on the loft, and other odds and ends here and there! In addition to the construction materials we used, everything in the house is energy and water efficient (look out for the Energy Star and Water Sense icons on the items you buy for your house!).

On top of that all of the furniture is secondhand (sourced from Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist). There are eco-friendly tips posted in the tiny house so we always encourage guests to be “green” when they are staying with us. For example, by the end of the stay, try to have less trash and more recyclables in the bins. Or try to use the bidet instead of toilet paper!

In regards to the decor my absolute favorite thing about the home is the wallpaper! Wallpaper can be expensive, so doing a wall or two in a tiny home is much more affordable and I love the character it adds to the space.

Describe your home’s decor style in 5 words: Boho, cozy, thrifted, colorful, plants.

What’s your least favorite thing about your home? We wanted to use the entire footprint of the garage to create this tiny house that we rent out (through short term rental sites like Airbnb), which means we have no access to it as any traditional garage storage anymore. More space for guests! Less space for us…

What’s your best small space trick? Get creative with storage! We use IKEA TRONES, which are made for shoes, as clothing storage in the bedroom. Fully utilizing any cabinets, drawers, and areas under furniture (the ironing board is stored under the couch, extra blankets under the entertainment center). I also put a lot of mirrors around the house to make the space feel bigger.

This submission’s responses were edited for length and clarity.