We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Darren and Becca Christensen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Darren and Becca, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The housing industry is changing as we know it. We have been renovating, building and investing in real estate for more than a decade and we wanted to create an affordable option for housing and investments that did not compromise quality. There is also a ton of waste in traditional, on-site construction and we felt like it was our responsibility to do better in the industry. Sitting around the Thanksgiving table in 2022, the principles and ideas behind My Chez Space quickly went from a conversation at dinner to a business plan. With all the background that Darren has in the industry, he spent the next couple months designing floorplans, creating build processes and systems, sourcing materials and establishing financing. Every single aspect of our designs was combed through to make sure we were maximizing the efficient use of quality materials and minimizing waste, both of materials and of time. Darren also dug deep into shipping and how we could get our units to customers and developers without many of the common roadblocks (pun intended) of shipping larger units. In April 2023, we began construction of our phase-one factory, a 9,200 square foot metal building fit to begin construction of our prefab units. Darren oversaw the factory build and fine tuned designs and systems, while Becca designed the website, organized administrative elements and began creating social media content. My Chez Space officially launched on August 28, 2023 with our first unit, the Flex 300, complete for guests to explore all the features. We are currently building the Studio 400 and taking orders!

Darren and Becca, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Darren started in real estate as an investor rehabbing and flipping homes. He quickly identified many failure points in homes as he fixed them and built them back better. In 2011, Darren hit a breaking point when his own 4-year-old home was falling apart. This was a mid-tier home built by a big-name national builder. Determined that there had to be a better way, Darren started ground up construction of homes and became fascinated with building science. The science and building practices that make for an exceptionally long-lived, healthy and comfortable home. When he found the limits of what he could do himself, he started to develop using prefab homes. Darren has always had a penchant for efficiency and found that even in the prefab industry, there were significant obstacles. Again, thinking that there had to be a better way, he came to the conclusion that most of the obstacles could be solved by building smaller, not only that, but he could help so many more people in the process. My Chez Space was born.
We’re able to solve issues such as affordable housing, adding flexible space or rental units to existing homes and providing a versatile product that can be used in a variety of ways to enhance personal property or create a business. We can come in cheaper than our competitors by building in a factory where we not only have efficient systems to build quickly, but we’re also able to account for significantly less waste! Absolutely every material and process have been tailored to maximize quality, efficiency, and sustainability, while minimizing cost, labor, waste and time for construction. So for those needing a cabin on their property, an extra home gym or home office space, durable units to create rental properties or even land hacking or creating event spaces, My Chez Space has you covered!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We had known for a while that moving into the prefab world was where we needed to be in our investing and business. The nature of the prefab build process was a no-brainer after having experienced and lived the traditional construction model for years. Our penchant for systems working quickly and efficiently, along with the sustainable aspects of reduced labor and waste, made prefab a simple choice. So began our journey into the prefab world and working to determine how we would leverage this both for ourselves and any business opportunities. Darren searched high and low for companies that were building a product that met his quality standards, but unfortunately was met time and time again with supply issues. Either companies were not operational yet (still gathering capital investments) or they were so far behind on their demand that getting a unit any time soon was impossible. He toured factories and explored partnering with companies to build a factory near Texas that they could produce out of. While continuing to investigate this from the business side, we also wanted a prefab unit for one of our rental properties and found a company that seemed to fit the bill of quality and timeline. There was a brief period of time where we were excited…then came the stress and pains during every single part of the process. The unit took significantly longer to construct than promised, the build quality was not what we had toured, the company installing it did a horrendous job and if Darren hadn’t known the in’s and out’s of residential construction, we couldn’t count the number of things that would have remained incorrect, compromising the building. To top it all off, the communication between parties was atrocious, pushing us over the edge. We didn’t want anyone, ever, to go through that experience, which then pushed us to want to do better.
Beat down a bit from having to fix a brand new prefab home, we knew we had an opportunity in front of us. We also knew we had several hurdles as well. Never ones to shy away from a challenge, Darren dove into problem solving every hurdle in our path, until we arrived at solutions that My Chez Space can offer.

Have you ever had to pivot?

There have been countless pivots in our life. In fact, I would say we see pivots as more of a dance move within life as opposed to a necessary, stressful shift. Each time, we use what we have learned to help us move to the next step in business and in life. The biggest pivot, however, was not one of business, career or life necessarily, but rather of mindset and perspective. We both grew up in families where money and success were surrounded by a sense of lack instead of abundance. Where living day to day and taking care of basic needs was a main priority. Where dreaming big, audacious dreams happened to other people, not to us. Not knowing any different, we live like that as well, day to day just trying to get by. At our very core though, we both desired growth, exploration, adventure and building a legacy – even if we didn’t realize it yet.
We slowly started to interact and see others living more expansive lives, asking ourselves what did we really want to do with our lives and what was possible. Adopting the motto, “if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough”, we began designing plans to do things and live experiences that we had never thought of before. We pivoted from fearing what would happen to imagining and leaning into what was possible. Pivoting from a perspective of lack into one of abundance. A knowing deep within us that we live a life we love right now while we are continuing to build a beautiful life for our future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mychezspace.com
• Instagram: @mychezspace
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089004326502