In recent years, tiny homes have been popularized in the media with many driving factors including financial freedom and its low carbon footprint.

Rowan Kunz, an art teacher, ceramist, and photographer, stands apart from the trendy HGTV tiny home dwellers because living tiny means more to her than a small physical footprint. From the French doors that open up her living room to the woods around her, to the composting toilet that goes back into her garden, she lives within a self-sustaining system to become an active part of her surroundings.

She created a space where the outdoors is no longer a separate entity like traditional ways of living often shape it. She is transparent about the fact that it takes hard work, but to her, living intentionally doesn’t mean doing what’s most convenient. It means doing what is healthiest for you and your environment.

Kunz, her husband, their German shepherd, and their cat live an incredibly fulfilling life on the beautiful wooded land that provides for them and that they have given back to. Kunz embodies a true environmentalist by demonstrating how intentional living extends beyond the four walls of her self-built tiny home in the Catskills.