Building a Tiny Home and a Tiny Home Lifestyle

| By Bonnie Willow |

What could possibly persuade a sane adult - make that two sane adults - to choose to live in a space the size of an RV? And why would two sane sixty year old non-carpenters embark on the project of building their own tiny house on wheels?

Its a trend, you may think.

We are that couple of questionable sanity, and we admit it’s a trend…one that’s practical and enormously fun. Designing a livable tiny house is a somewhat new field with endless room for creative invention.

Duane Elgin wrote the groundbreaking book Voluntary Simplicity in 1981, beginning the Voluntary Simplicity grassroots movement. It had a huge impact on us then. People worldwide were galvanized around the idea of paring down their crazy rat-race lifestyle. A variety of reasons attracts people to this concept:

• No mortgage
• Low or no power bills - can go off the grid
• Easy and cheap to maintain
• Less waste created via daily living
• No need to dig up the earth for a foundation
• More available time and money to relax and do what we love

This is many steps above RV living. We’ll fully insulate our home, putting in skylights, solar panels and a generator, and making the interior homey. We’ll equip it with small, energy efficient appliances, which we’ve gathered on our website: www.tinyhomeproducts.com This website was created to help us keep track of and purchase the unusual products needed for a tiny home, and to blog about our progress and setbacks.

Eventually we’ll retire. At that point, it’ll be a good to have an easy care, low cost home. Yes, we would drive each other nuts if we both stayed cooped up at home all day in a 250 square foot space. But the goal is FREEDOM to be out and about, gathering with friends in a coffee shop, hiking, making art and gardening. We intend to live on our patio as much of the year as weather permits.

Our first exposure to a real live tiny house was at the home of Gerry Brown, owner of Wishbone Tiny Homes in Asheville. (www.wishbonetinyhomes.com) His very first tiny house was parked in their yard. Touring it, we were impressed by how beautiful and comfortable it was. Though it was the size of an average RV, it was stick built of solid materials. The interior was cozy, well-lit and lined with sanded polished wood, in Gerry’s signature carpentry style. He told us most tiny home residents also have a shed to store excess belongings so the interior remains uncluttered.

In our case, we plan a large insulated shed to use as an art studio.

Curious, we read up up on tiny homes. Tiny House Nation TV video episodes helped us to understand the ins and outs of living in a small space. It became personal for us when Gary attended an in-depth workshop by Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. The idea of building a debt-free tiny home began to sound like a good investment for our future retirement years. We could build one partially of recycled materials, with the help of a carpenter. We could move it anywhere that its legal to park an RV. There are numerous location options. One intriguing option is the new concept of tiny house communities, such as the Village of Wildflowers community in Flat Rock, NC. (www.thevillageofwildflowers.com)

Next we spent a few focused weeks researching, then determined our budget. To bring this complex project into completion, we developed a plan of attack:

1. Decide where to place the house and determine its orientation to the sun
2. Purchase the floor plan and construction blueprint from Wishbone Tiny Homes
3. Build doors on our garage, to create a workshop
4. Measure the area where we’ll put the trailer
5. Clear the area, trim nearby tree branches, level the earth
6. Order two types of gravel and spread them evenly to create the foundation
7. Buy the trailer and position it so it can be towed out someday with a house on it.
8. Begin ordering the main appliances for the interior. In a tiny home, every inch matters, so the house interior will be built around the appliances.
9. Consult with Wishbone and our carpenter, to make a plan for beginning the actual building.
10. Give thanks that this kind of opportunity exists!

We’re making progress. We picked a utility trailer custom-made for tiny homes by Wishbone.

Ordering the gravel was an educational experience. We learned that we needed a layer of “road bond” first – gravel mixed with cement dust,. The day they delivered it, rain was pouring like a waterfall. Mud prevented the truck from being able to back all the way to our site. So they dumped a mound of dense, heavy road bond nearby and left it for us to spread out over the 24’ x 10’ space. We had to pay for someone to help us. We got it done, though, singing “shovel sixteen tons and what do you get….” It felt appropriate. Next comes the top gravel, and then the trailer delivery.

You know how people usually say that building projects take more time and money than you plan for? It’s true. We can attest. But its worth everything we are putting into it, for the sense of real accomplishment and future benefit we are creating with our tiny home.

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Bonnie Willow and Gary Deetz live and build their tiny home in east Asheville. Bonnie runs The School of Peace, Gary is a store manager at Fifth Season Gardening and is owner of Earth & Spirit Permaculture Design & Consulting. They run the website www.tinyhomeproducts.com.