Bigger is not always better and it’s nice to have options. Or that is how artist Joe Hawley chose to live in a tiny house with a couple of shipping containers for an art studio.

When Hawley bought an old one room schoolhouse in the hills of Cloverdale, California, he chose to live in the smaller 600 square foot teacher’s cottage instead of the larger schoolroom because it was more practical to heat and cool. Now the schoolhouse is his art gallery and for work space he has installed a couple of old shipping containers that he uses as a studio.

In this video, Hawley and his partner Wendy Free talk about their choice to live in a small space, climbing a ladder to bed and how they’ve built in options to create flexible space: the cargo containers, french doors to bring the outside in, and how they may buy a bedroom on wheels when they no longer can climb up to the sleeping loft.