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Korean Adoptee

10 Reasons We are Converting an Old Shed into a Tiny Home

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If you’re new here my name is Christina. I’m a Korean Adoptee living in rural New England with my husband and two young children. We are passionate about DIY and home renovation. Our newest project is converting an old unused shed on our property into an off grid tiny home.

This might sound out there for some so I wanted to share a few of our reasons why we are doing this.

  1. I’m obsessed with tiny homes and have been for the past 5+ years since I first heard about them. This would satisfy my curiosity with them.
  2. Our kids will enjoy having family sleepovers in the tiny house and when they are older even friend sleepovers.
  3. This tiny house would serve as an off grid back up to our main home should we ever need one.
  4. It will give us a taste of what designing and building a functional living space is like. It will also give us an understanding of the systems required to be off grid.
  5. It’ll serve as a guest house when more space is needed.
  6. The tiny house is a short or longer term housing option for friends and/or family members in the future.
  7. This tiny house is essentially a prototype for future tiny home endeavors we have planned on separate lots of land and properties.
  8. Creating and building this tiny house will give my husband and me a great creative outlet.
  9. This shed was totally unused and just sitting there so we figure let’s make it into something useable and beautiful!
  10. And, last but not least. The number one reason for doing this is to explore tiny living in a hands on way. We pack our essentials and stay however long we want.

In Conclusion

Making this tiny house is a fun and creative project that our family can enjoy for years to come. Thanks for reading!

-Christina

We are Building a Tiny House!

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It has been at least 5 years since I first heard about tiny house living. Since then, the obsession has only grew. The idea of paring down to only the essentials is so appealing. Youtube channels like Tiny Home Tours and Living Big in a Tiny House just feed my obsession featuring tours of all sizes and shapes of tiny living.

I have mentioned in earlier posts that our farmhouse has been a beast to tame. Our house is big and spacious which was equaling full of stuff and constantly cluttered. It has taken me over 5 years and a massive decluttering to establish some semblance of routine and order.

Post-pregnancy loss depression

I want to share a story here. It was fall of 2019 and I had just had a miscarriage during our family vacation to California. When we returned home I was silently spiraling and feeling completely out of control. The house was always chaos, I was working my usual schedule at my company, and was just lost and overwhelmed.

By January of 2020 we were hard core house hunting. Now, looking back I’m sure I was experiencing some post-pregnancy loss depression. It was my second consecutive miscarriage that took place within 6 months of each other. I felt like nobody understood what I was feeling so life itself was just too much.

At the time, my answer to those feelings was to downsize our lives. Downsize our possessions, our inventory, the amount of time spent on maintaining this size of property. Smaller house meant less to clean. Smaller property meant less lawn care and snow maintenance. It seemed like the solution.

After a few months of searching, the pandemic hit. In March of 2020 the world halted to a stop. I closed my business for 3 months. We all of a sudden found ourselves staying home. For as awful as the pandemic is there is some silver lining to be found.

For my family it gave us the break we weren’t taking on our own. Like many American families we take 1-3 vacations per year that equal about 4 weeks in total. Between those planned vacations we don’t really take time off like we should to recharge and re-set. The pandemic forced us to slow down and take stock of the real issues that were going on.

Present Day

Fast forward 18 months and the pandemic is still here. We are all back to work and school and things are feeling much better. I have a new home management system that is a game changer for staying on top of the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly tasks. I am currently pregnant with our 3rd child and we have projects galore which we really thrive on.

Shed to Tiny House Conversion

On our property we have a large shed that was stuffed with junk. It literally holds nothing of value that we couldn’t find another home on our property for. The shed is about 24′ x 10′ and sits on a concrete slab. The inside is studded and beamed on the ceiling. It is basically an empty shell with a great view of the mountains.

Our future plan is to buy some additional land and put off grid tiny homes on it for short term rental properties. We figure this shed we have is the perfect jumping off point to learn about the process of designing a functional tiny home and investigate the systems needed to make it off grid.

Thanks for reading!