Tiny

“Tiny House” has become part of the conversation for people looking for affordable real estate, people looking for a scaled-down lifestyle.

A Tiny House is smaller than a shotgun house, a cabin, or a guest house. It’s smaller than your garage. A Tiny House is so small, as my old mentor KDV would say, you have to go outside to change your mind.

A Tiny House is the size of a shed, typically 250 square feet or less. But it has everything. The kitchen is there, the bathroom, the bedroom, the living area. Tiny House owners tend to pour their hearts and souls and creative flair into their design, construction, and decor. You have your Cape Cod, your Victorian, and your California Craftsman styles. You have your high ceilings, your natural lighting, and your energy efficiency. You have your low, low, low, utility costs.

Tiny House owners tend to say things like, “Living small emphasizes home life over home maintenance.”  And “We need to recognize what fills a home when the excess is cut away. Living small can free up your mind, your wallet and your spirit.”

Logan and Tammy Strobel built a to-go version of the Tiny House, 128 square feet, built on an 8’x16’ trailer with wheels. It’s a tall, cedar-sided beauty, fully self-contained, with an alcohol-burning stove, composting toilet, and walls insulated with natural wool. “We designed our home”, says Logan, “and it fits us like tailored clothes.”

Good thing their Tiny House is a to-go version, because it went. The Logans towed it from a city lot in Portland, Oregon to country property near Mt. Shasta in Northern California. A garden hose and an electrical cord from their pump house did the trick for utilities.

The simpler life, the less expensive life, and the smaller impact lifestyle are all part of the Tiny House phenomenon. If you’re ready to give up the man-cave and the lady-lair, the maintenance and the bills, the entertainment theater, the bonus rooms and frills, you too can leave a smaller footprint. You could make it Tiny.

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Doug Love is Sales Manager at Century 21 Jeffries Lydon. Email escrowgo@aol.com, or call 530-680-0817.