Couple Built Floating Tiny Home and Won’t Go Back to Living on Land

• Sarah Spiro and Brandon Jones live in a floating tiny house on a North Carolina lake.
• The couple estimates they spent about $90,000 building their floating home.
• “Our only bill, since we’re off-grid, is the $5,000 a year for our mooring fee,” Spiro told BI.

For a couple who enjoys water sports and spent most of their dates on Fontana Lake in North Carolina, a floating house was the perfect place to call home.

“We would pass by these floating cabins all the time. And in my mind, I was always thinking, ‘Gosh, what do I have to do in life to get one of those?'” Sarah Spiro, 27, told Business Insider. “That would be my ultimate dream — having all my hobbies right at my doorstep.”

Luckily for Spiro and her partner, Brandon Jones, 40, they managed to turn that dream into reality three years ago when they bought their first floating home on the lake.

It was a complete renovation: While the roof and the studs of the home were original, almost everything else had to be replaced. “It wasn’t livable at all, so we had a lot of work to do,” Spiro said.

But after two years, the couple had an opportunity to build a new, bigger floating home from scratch — and they jumped on it.

“It seemed like a win for us because we could size up slightly, have a guest room and a place to host our friends and family,” Spiro said.

This also gave them a chance to rent their first, smaller floating home for extra cash — which they did for one summer — before they decided to sell it off, she added: “We ultimately realized that we’re just not landlords. It’s so much work.”

Building a new floating home

There are strict rules about building floating houses on Fontana Lake, which is managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA.

“You still have to buy an existing one in order to build a new one,” Spiro said.

In their case, there was a permit for a floating house to exist on a specific spot on the lake, but the structure didn’t exist anymore because it had collapsed and was removed some years ago, she added. All the couple had to do was buy over the permit.

The TVA did not respond to BI’s inquiry regarding the number of floating homes on Fontana Lake, but it’s estimated to be around 400, per the Asheville Citizen-Times.

In the harbor where the couple lives, there are only about 20 homes, Spiro said.

“There are about five harbors in total on the lake, and this one, by far, is the least populated. There are a couple of them that have 150 or more — they’re kind of like small towns,” she added.

Two months from start to finish

The couple took only two months to build their new 360-square-foot floating home, which came with 400 square feet of dock space outside.

While having prior renovation experience helped, Spiro says that the biggest motivation for them to complete the build quickly was needing to finish it before their jobs got busy. They said that things get busier with work between late spring and fall.

Spiro works as a guide at an outdoor adventure company, while Jones is a marina manager at the Fontana Lake marina.

“It was really quick, but we were working on our house every single day, eight to 10 hours a day, just nonstop,” Spiro added.

The couple lived in their previous home — located in the same area of the lake — during those two months of construction.

“That was another big motivation to get the house done, because we were thinking every single day that we’re still living in the previous place, we can’t be renting it out,” Spiro said.

How living on the water works

Spiro estimates that they spent about $90,000 to build their floating home

“We didn’t do a great job of keeping track of everything,” she added.

Apart from the house permit, the couple also has to pay a $5,000 mooring fee yearly. The mooring fee varies across the different harbors, depending on the amenities they offer, Spiro said.