Tiny home—tough clothes.

About a year ago my fiancée, Rose, and I decided to buy an RV, strip it down to the chassis and build a tiny home on top. It seemed a little risky since we’d never made something of this scale, but we had a few friends with a lot of willpower, so we did it!

When we first set out to build the home we never imagined using an RV as the foundation. A little research proved trailers to be pretty expensive though, so we widened our search and within a few weeks, were the proud owners of a 29ft, 1988 Regency. It was literally our first car.

A bumpy 3-hour ride across Ontario led us to the beautiful farm where we’d work on the home. The entrance to the barn we planned to park in was across a field of tall, wet grass, and a lot of mud. The RV has a 454 big block engine, which I knew was pretty powerful, so I figured we might be able to make it through. It was May though, and everything was drenched from April’s showers. In fact, it was still raining. We managed to navigate down and around the barn into the closest field before getting stuck just 15 feet from the entrance. Damn.

I hopped down from the driver’s seat and cringed as cold water seeped into my shoes. Shoulda’ worn boots. I walked around the vehicle to inspect the situation and felt my legs getting wet from the tall grass and shortly after that, my jacket too. Then realization set in. If I was going to build a tiny home on a farm, the first thing I’d need was a set of proper clothes to do it in. I looked up from the half-sunk muddy tire, and a farmer was standing there with a wide smile across his face. “Adam,” he said and extended his hand for a shake. I noticed his beautifully filthy pair of Tough Duck overalls and never felt like I’d needed anything more. Noting the brand, I shook his hand and smiled back.

Adam offered to tow the RV into the barn and just happened to have arrived on a massive tractor. I’d never seen tires so big and the 2-year-old boy in me gleamed as I watched it effortlessly tug the motorhome inside. We’d made it!

Right after that, we went straight to the local hardware supply store to pick up our first pair of Tough Duck overalls as we knew they could handle what was coming. The store owner laughed when we decided to leave the store in our new getup and tossed us each a Tough Duck hat, welcoming us to country living. To this day Tough Duck has become our standard work attire for all work on our farm and home.