Local Man Makes Big Change Into a Tiny World

“What do I do, where do I find work? and they said, ‘you don’t.’ And I said, ‘you don’t?’ And they said, ‘nope. You won’t find anything in construction for, we’re figuring the next three to five years, unless you’re willing to go overseas.’ And I said, ‘I really don’t want to go overseas because I would like to stay within 500 miles of my family and stuff,'” he said. “Well you have to take a look at your skill sets and come up with something that you can do and the best suggestion we can tell you is create something that you can do by yourself and market by yourself and build a business.”

It was like the answer came right out of a book.

“I was at a seminar and picked up a book on tiny houses and I read through it and I said, you know I can build tiny houses,” Wilkins said.

Ever since then, he’s been pretty busy, averaging about four tiny houses as year. The very first house he sold was where he found his niche.

“A guy called up from an online furniture store and said, ‘I want a non toxic house, can you do nontoxic?’ And I said, ‘well I’ve never done it before’ and he said ‘that isn’t what I asked,’ he said, ‘can you do a nontoxic?’ I said, ‘yea I can be educated, I can do them, just a different specification that’s all it is,’ and so that’s how I got started with the first house and that’s also how I got started in my niche that I have of building nontoxic tiny houses,” Wilkins explained.

Jim is the only person in the country who build nontoxic tiny houses and they make up for about 70 percent of his sales. There’s been quite a bit more competition since he’s started in the business back in 2007.

“When I first started, there was twelve builders nationwide that were doing tiny houses, now there are over two hundred builders,” he said.

The competition hasn’t taken way from Jim’s edge, he’s been featured no HGTV twice.

“The airing came on the show [and was] right when my phone started going off,” he said. “My sons and I were involved in the video and we were joking around and doing things bringing some action besides the build to it and people were laughing at us.”

So let’s say you wanted to buy a tiny house, who much would it cost you?

“Any place from 30,000 to 150,000 going up, the air stream right now is going to come in close to 145,000 by the time we’re done with it,” he said.

With that price point, millennials and mostly women have been his most popular consumer.

“Millennials are really getting involved in wanting tiny houses because they don’t want at mortgage, they don’t want a thirty year mortgage on a house,” Wilkins explained.

Eight ft. wide, thirty ft. long 250 square ft. and nifty storage is all some folks really need to live and what Wilkins loves to make his living.

“This is my passion, building tiny houses.”

You can check out some of the houses, including the Ravenclore house that was featured on HGTV on the Tiny Green Cabins website.