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!