This Futuristic Tiny Home Is an Old Dodge Harvest Motorhome in Disguise

Joe Weissbeck is a living example of "never give up." As he says himself, whenever you start a bigger project, do so prepared for the worst because you're bound to run into complications and challenges that will make you want to give up. But you still shouldn't.

With the recent popularity of tiny homes and the ever-increasing awareness of the need to upcycle and reduce waste, you can come across some very interesting and awesome examples of mobile homes, whether tinies or RVs adapted to long-term residency. Joe's stands out for its futuristic yet biomorphic design, structural construction, attention to detail, and artsy interior. It is also a solid example of upcycling and the downsized lifestyle.

Joe Weissbeck has been living in his tiny home outside of Portland, Oregon, for years – at least a decade, by our count. Unlike most tiny dwellers or vanlifers today, he doesn't make a living out of his build or his downsized life, though he did do a couple of video tours a while back, more than happy to chat about his "beautiful life" and philosophy. Unlike the same content creators, Joe is a joy to be around, with very little pretense about him and fueled by the desire to share his joys.

His tiny home is all about enjoying the beautiful life, according to his own rules. It started as a 1970s Dodge Harvester motorhome that Joe bought on the cheap from a friend when he lost his B&B, which he'd also built on his own and called a tepee with walls and a most spectacular interior water feature. That was back in 2008 when the economy went downhill, and it meant for him foreclosure on the house he'd built. The tepee B&B was actually not his first build, though it was the first in which he experimented with different materials, a different shape, and a unique approach to building a home.

The motorhome set him back only $350 and, over the course of three years, working out of a friend's backyard, he would invest another $5,000 on materials to turn it into the tiny house of today. Most materials were reclaimed or upcycled: stuff he found buried in his backyard, leftover wood from another project, furniture items found at yard sales or hotels about to be torn down. Joe takes pride in seeing functionality in an item even when others no longer do, and his house proves it.

Keeping the Dodge chassis, Joe built a steel frame and created an exterior that appears to be made of separate sections joined by thin recessed slices of tempered glass. These recessed slices actually give the house structural integrity and bathe it in natural light without compromising privacy.

The front end features a stacked, V-shaped design, both on considerations of creating more headroom inside and because Joe imagined he'd continue driving the motorhome – and a V-shaped front end is, in his opinion, safer in case of a collision because the other car would just slide off. Five years ago, the 440 Dodge engine on the tiny house still ran, but Joe never drove it anywhere.

The exterior is aluminum sheeting with styrofoam underneath for insulation and a complete wood interior that "holds it together." The contrast is striking but not in an unpleasant way: the tiny resembles a spaceship or some kind of metallic caterpillar from the outside but is more like a log cabin inside.

A firm believer that open spaces keep tiny houses from feeling too cramped, Joe didn't put a single interior wall. Not even the restroom, which is only a porcelain toilet emptying into a holding tank, has a divider and is, because of it, in close proximity to the two kitchen blocks that form the cooking area.

That aside, the interior is surprising both for its artsy vibe and the way in which it feels thrown together in a rush, improvised. In reality, Joe is a very practical man, so whatever is out of sight is unfinished, rougher, or less polished, whether cupboards or larger sections of wood.

In total, the home offers 240 square feet (22.3 square meters), which includes the area of the "loft” bed. It's not a lot, but it's plenty for a single man living 120 miles (193 km) from the nearest city and enjoying the beautiful life.

The tiny home has a bed over the cab area, on a steel and wood frame with an integrated steel ladder, and boasts a large skylight and an equally large sliding window. Underneath is something like a living room, with the original seats and steering wheel of the motorhome, but adapted for Joe's daily needs – including comfy spaces for the cat.

The kitchen is rudimentary but "works," as Joe puts it. It has a two-burner camp stove, cabinets, and shelves, a sink with an on-demand water pump and 30-gallon tank, and even more storage options. Contrasting this makeshift space are pieces of art by Joe himself, discovered over the years of sourcing "trash” for building material, or gifted by friends, a cozy wood-burning stove. A Frankenstein monster Joe bought from Home Depot because he felt "sorry for the guy" stands in sharp contrast to the gorgeous 1912 Cable-Nelson piano that he plays to this day after learning how to when he was 40.

Joe believes that it's never too late to learn something new, that no one should live a life in which they'd build nothing, and that you should never give up on a project just because it's harder than you expected. These three inspired and continued to fuel his determination during the build of his tiny home and keep him dreaming of his next project.

The only thing more inspiring than this motorhome conversion is Joe's attitude to life.