You Can Try Small-Space Living on for Size at This Tiny Home Village in Florida

When Krsna Jivani Balynas and her husband, Govinda Carol, set out to build a tiny home in Alachua, Florida, they had almost no construction experience. "We wanted to build one for fun," says Krsna. "Govinda had minimal experience, but we learned from watching YouTube videos and consulting friends."

"We spent time thinking about the layout, but really, we designed as we went along because we bought everything secondhand," says Krsna, who worked with Govinda to source the home’s trailer, windows, sinks, door, and shower at resale shops and on Facebook Marketplace.

After the tiny home, named Shanti, was completed, the couple listed it as a vacation rental—and something remarkable happened. "We put Shanti on Airbnb, and within two weeks it was booked for a month out—and it kept going from there," Krsna says. "People loved it—the reviews were full of praise."

After their initial success, the couple decided to build another tiny home rental—and then another—and it wasn’t long before income from the properties replaced the income from Govinda’s nine-to-five job in information technology. "After just a few months, he was able to quit and build tiny houses full time," says Krsna.

Today, Krsna and Govinda, run their own design-build company called Simplify Further Tiny Homes, and they manage 12 tiny home Airbnbs in Alachua. "We own five of the tiny homes, and the rest were purchased by friends, family, and neighbors—we manage the houses we don’t own for a profit split," Krsna explains.