Amongst family and friends, I’m known for crazy ideas and pursuing challenges full throttle. My largest scale and most ambitious project began seven years ago at age sixteen. Paired with an innate curiosity in building a house, I was struck by the increase in Santa Cruz’s homelessness as witnessed on my commute to school. Lacking monetary resources or knowledge of home building required I get creative, and also inspired many naysayers along the way. Luckily, I developed perseverance.

Four years later, the 117sq. ft. tiny house called, “Ruby” was the culmination of my wild idea and prompted an invite to speak at TEDx. Ruby now resides in Austin, Texas as part of Community First! Village – a twenty-seven-acre planned community housing 250 chronically disabled and homeless residents. When I set out to build Ruby, I had no idea the reach NerdGirlHomes would achieve. In addition to raising $16K and cultivating 250+ donor relationships, the project received media coverage by more than 20 outlets and garnered over 110,000 website hits from all over the world.

My experience with Ruby exposed lessons in grit, creativity, moxie, and collaboration that I’ll forever carry in my tool belt. As I learned with Ruby, it takes a village to accomplish crazy ideas. That being said, no idea is too big.

Link to NerdGirlHome’s Website