2 Tiny Homes Connected w/ Sunroom! Retiree's dream home to manage MS

Hi, I'm Christine Morris and this is my tiny house. We are located in Maple Valley, Washington. I am now retired, thank goodness, finally. I retired at about 68. I'm planning for the next 20 years. I decided to make life simple and plan for whatever might happen in the future. And I built a tiny house so that I could be secure that I'll never ever have to leave my home. Because that happens a lot when you get older. I love being outdoors. I love camping and fishing and hunting and being in the woods. And I love animals, which I have a lot on the property. So I just decided to make the things that I like the best how I'm going to live. And here I am. I was diagnosed with MS 12 years ago. That complicated life a lot. And that was the other reason for the tiny house is I needed smaller spaces to walk from here to there. And if my disability progresses and if I get to the point I can't do things, everything in my tiny house is now set up so I can still eat, sleep, function with comfort. And that was my goal. That was my goal. I actually have two tiny houses. I have a 24-foot bedroom bathroom for my roommate. And my house is actually a 32-foot fully complete kitchen and a loft. Those two are connected by a wonderful sunroom that sits right between the two and creates a very relaxing communal area. I have actually lived in the tiny house for seven months. We are sitting on seven and a half acres in Maple Valley that I rented 20 years ago. And there is a house existing on the property. I lived in it for the last 20 years until the two tiny houses created by Seattle Tiny Homes were completed. And now I'd like to invite you in to my two tiny houses for a quick tour. First, I'd like to introduce you to my front porch. It is fully enclosed because we get a lot of weather this direction. And we're able to sit inside and dry with it weathered outside. I made a plan for my coats, my shoes, my shoes, coats, and hats out here where they're still dry and inside. But I'm not taking up any space in the tiny house. Welcome to my sunroom. This, I would like to say, is my most favorite spot in all of the tiny houses. But it's one of my favorites. And the reason I like this room, and probably the reason it was built, is I love the outdoors. I love the woods. I love the sky. I love the weather. And the more glass I could have, the better I liked it. I made it out of cedar so it smells wonderful. It's a very relaxing room. In fact, most people say this room has a zen to it. And I like that. The other thing I like in this room is a lot of my mementos from my past family life are in here. And when you downsize to live in a tiny house, you have to be very selective of what you're going to keep. So I selected certain things, like the blue bowls up here. Those are from my godmother, aunt, and my grandmother. And those were probably bought in the 1920s. And I keep them to remember them. Let's see, over here I have stuff from my dad. His belt, his harmonica. When we were kids and went camping, this is what I heard. So dad's harmonica is still in there. And I remember sitting around the campfire when I'm in here. And it's fun to have the memories that have been shared over my life still in this room. One of the unique things of a glass and cedar sunroom is you are literally being heated by the sun. So during the construction, my contractor and I looked at ways to deal with that. So up here, even though it's winter and covered, I have a big box fan. Once it reaches 85 degrees in this room, that goes on. And in combination with this ceiling fan, it sucks the hot air out. Then both the sliding glass doors can get opened, the screens shut. And with the fan, I have wonderful air flow in here. And I can probably be in here 65 to 70% of the days. When it gets over 90 or 80, yeah, it's a little too warm. But that's why I have air conditioning in my tiny houses. As I mentioned, I have a covered front porch. This is my very relaxing, comfortable fire pit. Watch the sunset room. And it's fully covered, but yet you're outside, so you get the benefit of all the weather. I've rented this 7 1⁄2 acres for 20 years. I basically live on 3 1⁄2 that has been developed with the garage, the house, and now the shop that you see out there. I encourage my landlord to make the property work for him. Let's rent some things. So he put containers out there, which he rented. We rented some RV space. He worked with this business to get things going. And I manage the property in fixing it up, cleaning up, managing the business, collecting rent, taking care of everything. I did that for the property owners for the last 20 years. I have talked to them that I'd like to stay here, even though I don't want to live in the bigger house. But I had somebody to rent it. Would you let me rent it, and would you let me build this? And so it was a long proposal letter of everything that had to be done. And after two, three months of discussions back and forth, they said, yeah, let's do it. Plus, it's another source of rental income for them. It's a second rent. The landlord is very happy with it. I'm happy with it. And I love living here. Our rent here, and I negotiate. I had to negotiate with my landlord because my landlord wants market rent. I can't do market rent. I don't get paid market rent. And Dan doesn't either. I negotiate $1,000 a month rent. So mine is $500. Dan's is $500. Dan Lyons is my roommate. He's a fishing buddy that we've fished together for 20 years. He moved in as a roommate about 15 years ago. And as a single guy with some family, but distance. So I felt that I just couldn't say, Dan, you've got to move out when I decided to build my tiny house. A tiny house set up like this with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, is a much more comfortable scenario. It's worked out amazingly well. I needed space. He needs his space. And we have created that. He has the front porch, which is his little area to sit at night and have his cigarettes and watch TV. And I have mine. Or we both sit here right now with football season on because we're big sports fans. And now I'd like to show you my 24-foot tiny home. And welcome to Dan's bedroom. Dan's been a roommate for about 15 years. And he is a very basic living person. So his room has been kept simplified to accommodate him. He has a basic little kitchenette. He has his own bathroom with a shower. And one of my favorite new appliances is the Incinilate Toilet, which is an electric toilet. So everything gets burned. And why I chose it over composting toilets is a lot simpler. Everything is reduced down to 100% bacterial ash full of minerals. So when the toilet tray of ash gets emptied, it goes out into the garden. The other reason I chose Incinilates is I only require power and water for my tiny homes to work. There's no septic system at all required. And on this side of Dan's bedroom, we have an IKEA wardrobe system. So this item covered all of the storage and closet needs for Dan. This is Dan's bedroom. But the way it's been designed by Seattle Tiny Homes is it is a fully contained tiny house. One other thing about Dan's bedroom is he has a door still attached so he can secure his room as a bedroom and have all the privacy he needs separate from the rest of the sunroom and tiny home. My tiny home, I have removed the door. And the actual reason I removed the door was I can sit there and watch that TV and football game and see this TV and another football game at the same time. And it opened it up. It's very spacious here. Plus it exposes how we connected the sunroom to the tiny home. There's a 15 inch gap that needed to be secured from all of the weather. So we used plexiglass that is secured to the sunroom covered with pipe foam insulation as it butts up against the tiny home. And it works. It cuts all of the weather out but has the glass feature that is throughout all of the sunroom. So you can see outside. And now welcome to my tiny house. My 32 foot tiny home is a total of 336 square feet. I never thought I could live in 336 square feet but I am and I have more room than I ever need. One of my favorite, as I have many, rooms in the house is my full kitchen. One of my minor pleasures that I have anymore is being able to cook. And everything is literally right here. I can get stuff out of the refrigerator, use the counter. My beautiful huge sink that I love to pieces and I'm one step away. I'm not wasting any energy moving all over the kitchen because everything is within arm's reach. They selected this sink that is huge and it's got this wonderful tray. Put stuff in, to cool stuff in. Put washed fruits and vegetables. My eggs when I get done washing them go in here. It makes it so easy. The other feature I like is when I originally ordered my tiny house two years ago, I ordered a dishwasher in it. And after living in my travel trailer for a month, before I moved into my tiny home, I did all my dishes by hand. So my choice was a dishwasher or more storage. Guess what I chose? I want more storage. So these cabinets down here, where all my pots and pans are, and I have put little motion censored lights in them because you know how dark it is in the back of a cupboard? And I open these and my cupboards are lighted and I've done that all the way across. Wonderful huge drawers and they slide out and the doors close by themselves. On the other side of the kitchen, I have purchased a pantry. This pantry that more than covers everything I need, including storing my dog food inside. It's awesome. Nothing has to sit out. There's plenty of room and it fits in here perfectly. Do you sit? Yeah? Me too! 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I love my beverage station because it's all consolidated right here. I have my crups, I have my grinders, I have my French press. This is hot water and this is filtered water. And no matter what I feel like while I'm sitting here enjoying my meal, it's all right here. I have added other little pieces of IKEA furniture to make things more convenient. This little table very conveniently slides over and sits right here. The mini split, which is an AC and a heating unit, is in the kitchen right above the window. And we selected that location specifically because when we opened the wall into the loft, it would create airflow so that my loft is naturally heated by the mini split down in the kitchen. And then we have the ceiling fans that keep airflow continually moving. And down the hall this direction we have my bathroom. Down this little hallway, Seattle Tiny Homes noticed it was very dark in here, so they added this wonderful bank of windows which opens up to the outdoors, so you feel like it's coming in the house. On this side I have my bathroom. Because of my MS, there are many times I need to soak and just get down in a hot tub and soak. So a full tub in a tiny house is unique, but it was part of what I needed. And Seattle Tiny Home makes sure that if you are a disabled person, they add all of the security features that a disabled person would need. And that is very important to me. My favorite feature in the bathroom is this wonderful little vanity and sink. It's copper. It's a distressed type of furniture. And it just fits in here perfect. It just matches. It has to be. And I love it. On this side, storage in a bathroom. Thanks to IKEA, I have a wonderful cabinet that allows me plenty of storage for all of your bathroom items. I am treating my MS totally natural, so a lot of vitamins and supplements are part of my daily routine. So back here, I have a little hidden cabinet that keeps all of my medications and natural supplements, all hidden away, all organized, right next to my insulate toilet, which yes, I am sitting on the toilet. So welcome to my home. I've been a caregiver for three people through their end of life. One was my best friend's mother. She lived with me for five years, had Alzheimer's and was in her 80s. And I took care of her through the end. And then my aunt. And she was actually in the other house over here in the bedroom with me. It makes you think, how do you want your end of life to be? And I don't think we spend a lot of time there. And it's one of the most beautiful things that you can share in is a person's end of life. So I wanted to think about the end of my life. Where do I want it to be? What do I want it to be like? And I want to lay and look up at the sky. I want to see outdoors when I leave. When I go wherever I'm going to go, I'm planning on going to heaven. But I want to watch it. I want to see it as long as I can. Because it's peaceful. It's relaxing. It's calming to me, being in nature. And that's where I want to spend it. Having my tiny house will allow me to stay here for a very long time. I've planned that if I am never able to get up to my loft, I have sleeping in the sitting area, which is next to my beverage station, so I can have my coffee, tea, and water. I have my kitchen three feet behind me if I had to, and a bathroom another three feet. I could live in that small 30-foot area very, very comfortably. And that was my goal, to take care of myself as long as I can. If I get to the point that I can't, not only do I have a best friend living right next door, but if I require any hospice or end-of-life care, I have the loft bedroom for somebody to be here. So I've kind of planned for some things for my end-of-life after going through the experience of taking care of people in end-of-life. And a lot of decisions are made last minute. I didn't want to do that. I moved into here in March, and so far I have been through kind of the tail end of winter, into spring, into summer, and now I'm going into fall and winter. And I'm very excited because so far it's been a magical journey. As the weather changes, the mood in the room changes, I am so happy being here. I'm happy when it's raining in here. I'm happy when it's sunny in here. It just feels good, and that's my goal, because with MS you feel crappy so much. And I want to feel good, and this brings me pleasure. Further down the hallway, I have another back door. And this little 24-foot door was a gift from Amanda at Seattle Tiny Homes. Legally, I needed to have a door on this side. Around the corner, we have a bunch of storage drawers, which again is a custom feature that Seattle Tiny Homes did for me, completing the need for storage. And right here is a full stacking washer and dryer. Then when I turn this way, I can go upstairs to my loft. The unique part that most people don't see until I point it out is my closet is hanging right above me, and I access it off the stairs. And it's perfect. I can hang my clothes. Have I mentioned that I have a favorite spot in my tiny house? I think this is number five or six. My loft bedroom is so cozy, so relaxing, so comfortable. I have a dresser here. All of this is open into cabinets, which is more than enough for all my clothing storage. I lastly would like to point out that I have a skylight right over my bed. And I think it was the second night I slept in the tiny house, and I looked up and the Big Dipper was right above me. And it was so cool because I could see it so bright at 2 o'clock in the morning. For a year before I actually ordered my tiny houses, I was online looking at shows, looking at different companies that offered this and offered that. And there are several companies in the state of Washington that do build tiny houses. I wanted to keep it as legal as possible. So everything I have built here has been to code, and if a permit was required, permits were obtained. I chose Seattle Tiny House because they say we work with custom. Todd, the owner of Seattle Tiny Homes, their builders, their cabinet makers, everybody that I met and worked with got it. They said, oh yeah. And when I walked in, I went, this is it. This is what I imagined. This is what I saw when I was trying to create my tiny house to live in for the rest of my life. And they did a fantastic job. It was a long process because of COVID. It actually took two years. But when they got backed in next to the sunroom and things got all set up, it was amazing. And they have come back multiple times to help me. I'd call and say, Todd, what do you recommend for this? Well, this is what we recommend. Adam, what do you recommend for this, that, and the other? And they would tell me. And then they'd come help me do it. So that, in my position, was an amazing customer service benefit. And I needed it. The sunroom with the back porch and the front porch is around $50,000. That's a good ballpark. And it was because I chose cedar material. I could have put pine through everything in the sunroom, and it would have been a lot less expensive. Dan's bedroom and bathroom with a little kitchen nook kind of thing is about $85,000. And mine, which is a 32-foot, was $125,000. So, overall, what are you looking at, $250,000 plus? You know, by the time, because there's other things. Like, that probably doesn't even add in the furniture, the IKEA furniture, the wardrobe, and the cabinets that you bring in for your pantry and your storage. But it was a wonderful investment in the rest of my life. And that's the way I looked at it. My husband passed away, my ex-husband. But I was still on as owner of everything that we had accumulated 28 years later. So when his brother came to settle all the estates, he said, John wanted you to have all this. And I got blessed, amazingly financially blessed. And I decided to put it to good use for the next 20, 30 years, wherever I'm allowed here. And this is what I did. This is like living in your dream. Which I've heard on some of your other interviews that people go, this is my dream. Well, this is my dream, and I can't believe it's here. Thank you for watching our video. And for stopping by Tiny House Expedition, I'm Alexis. And I'm Christian. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. And for more tiny home tours and stories, click the videos below. And join us on Instagram for bonus content. Including face-to-face conversations with us. We hope to see you there. Thanks guys. Have a good one.