For Chloe Barcelou and Brandon Batchelder, building a tiny home wasn’t just about having a cute, compact place to live — it was a way to get out of a rut. As production designers working on film sets and photos shoots in the 2010s, it seemed like they were continually struggling to scrape together enough money for basic necessities.

“We were sharing the same vehicle to go to multiple jobs, juggling this really insane schedule and feeling like we worked all the time but never had enough money to make ends meet or even spend quality time together,” said Ms. Barcelou, now 35, describing the couple’s life in Nashua, N.H. “It was just this frustrating situation of, ‘How do we get out of this?’”