For the Rest of My Life.

“We can’t help you.”

Twenty-two, in my apartment, and on the phone with the fourth mortgage lender who’d sympathetically take my call. I was a week into my attempt at convincing someone to lend me enough to build a tiny home – my brilliant (naive) solution to a mortgage-free twenties. I’d end up never securing that loan.

Rejection is usually my sign to start anyway.

I drafted the 380-square-foot home on graph paper. With colored pencils, I tediously differentiated between windows, siding, and cedar in bright pink, teal, and chartreuse. I purchased materials with what I saved from rent after moving into a 10-year-old 5th-wheel whose black water would decide to leak spontaneously as if out of spite. Slowly, a home would come together in a patchwork of YouTube, Budweiser bartering, and subcontractors who thought me trying to ‘give the middle-finger to suburbia’ was honorable. Two years and around $36 thousand dollars later, The Molly was christened.

But there was no code book for tiny homes. I knew that each stage of the tiny home was to code, from egress to plumbing, but without inspection stickers, OKC couldn’t legitimize the project. “I’m about to retire” became a common phrase from the permitting office. I decided to campaign my cause for alternative housing in Oklahoma City, interviewing on the 5 o’clock news which then led to a few speaking engagements and the founding of my first LLC, Tiny is Now. Six months later, I sold my tiny home.

That experience walked me through the side door of what became an innate passion. The word “home” breathed differently after the tiny home experience, and I needed more of it. The following year found me researching local builders and developers, cold emailing whomever I’d find local buzz about. This is how I came to sit in front of Blair Humphreys, co-owner of Humphreys Capital and developer of Wheeler District, and their builder, McAlister Construction. Each meeting came with its own hope and ultimate dead end. Four years from my beginning and I was hearing those same words, “We can’t help you.”

I resolved to hang my hat on building being a part of my past, not my future. Unable to puncture the building scene, I resigned myself to a career in non-profit operations. By 2021, I had five offers into a JD/MBA program and had accepted a full ride into OCU Law with the intention of coming alongside non-profits through the legal services I would offer.

Then Building Culture, one of three building firms in the country working in residential mass wall masonry, called asking for help in business development and operations. I immediately said yes with the initial pitch as eight hours of  work weekly. I leveraged this into a full-time role within the year. Back in my own skin and with blazers and courtrooms in the rear view, I chose to continue my education through OU’s MS in Interior Design program while pouring every ounce of my operations and building experience back into the field I love. My goal was give the firm everything I had for the next season of my life, soaking in everything I could about the industry in the meantime. But things hardly ever go to plan. In the summer of 2022 I was let go from my position.

The next week I founded James Grey Homes - a building company that lets homemakers have a seat at the table of construction. We just celebrated our first year as a company and I could not be prouder. Working with homemakers has been the best part of this past year. The wave of support from our community leading us to the cool projects we get to work on is a close second. 

I do not regret the time and turns it has taken me to get here. Each step has forged a standard of empathy in my work and in everything James Grey touches. Home building becomes house building when it lacks empathy for the families we serve.