Upstate high school students build tiny home that is now up for auction

GAFFNEY, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - For a few high school students in Cherokee County more than 150 hours of work went into last semester’s project in George Duncan’s Level 3 and 4 building class.

“I took six high school students and by providing them a little bit of supervision, they were able to accomplish something that a lot of adults couldn’t accomplish,” said Duncan.

Inside the 448-square-foot tiny home everything is brand new, including the potential careers of those who built it.

“Looking at it now, I never thought we could do that or build something like that,” said Turner Smith.

Smith is one of the six students in Duncan’s building construction class at the Institute of Innovation that built the tiny home from scratch. It was during this project Smith knew he wanted to make this his career and will head to Clemson University next year in the construction management program.

“It’s just amazing when you walk in and you can say you actually built it,” he said.

A former social studies teacher with a construction background, Duncan came up with the idea for this project last summer.

“It builds confidence,” he says. “I can see these kids, I remember when they were doing storage buildings. I could see them unsure of their measurements, unsure of their math. And with this right here they did the plumbing, they did electrical, they did the framing.”

The building process started in early September and the class worked three hours a day for five days a week before finishing the tiny home around Thanksgiving.

“It was actually really special, we really like grew strong together. We bonded really well with the five, six students we had in here,” said Smith.

Now that the work is complete, the home is ready to be auctioned off.

The starting bid is $60,000, and all the money from the sale will go towards refunding the money spent on supplies for the home and will help pay for future tiny homes built by Duncan’s classes.

“It just gives the students a chance to experience all phases of building,” said Duncan.

As for whoever buys the home, Smith has one message.

“I hope they really enjoy it,” he said.

Bids will be accepted until Feb. 3, and for more information click here.

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