Her Tiny Home May Be Small, But It’s Perfectly Designed

This feels like home. This feels comfortable to me. The colors, the aesthetic, all of it. But to me, it just kind of says, this is me. Hey guys, I'm Emerald. Welcome to my tiny home. It is a 396 square foot tiny home built by Dakota Cabins of Texas. It has a downstairs bedroom as well as a loft and an open concept bathroom. I can't wait to show you guys. When building the tiny home, I did have a lot of input. One of the big design things that I wanted was the wood that gives you that cabin feel and just kind of a big open concept where it's still tiny living, but it feels open and a good space to be in. When designing my living space area, I wanted to have enough space to walk in and feel, even though it's a tiny home, that there was still enough space. Right where I'm standing, I used to have another piece of my couch here that just took up a lot of space. So I decided to move that into the back room, giving this space extra room for when you first come in. I also incorporated, specifically when building, I needed space for this beautiful hutch that was a gift from my grandmother. I had them make some adjustments to the living space area in the kitchen so that we could fit this in here perfectly. When moving into a tiny home, there's a lot of sacrifices that you have to make. A couple years back, I was living in a space, but in a tiny home, you don't have as much space for that. So right now, take a look around your room and around your house. Look at the things that you know, okay, I could live with that or I could live without it. Those things that you can live without is definitely something that you're going to have to probably discard living in a tiny home. Storage in a tiny home is important. Here in the living room, I utilize a few different things for storage. I have this hutch here that has a lot of drawers where I can store some of my coaching clothes and school clothes. And then back here, I have my shoes storage. I also have a lot of cabinetry and just shelves to put a lot of stuff on for storage. In the future, one change that I might make in the living room is having a little fireplace here for the winters. I'm here in Texas, usually it's hot, but in the winters, it can get pretty chilly. So having a fireplace right here would be a grand wonderful idea. It took a while for this home to really start feeling like home, but once I finally decluttered and got everything organized here, it just, that sense of home, that love of a home came to be. And now I'm just loving every bit of being in this home. Welcome to my kitchen. Over here, we have my coffee bar and my refrigerator. I chose to go with a smaller refrigerator just because I don't cook as much, so I don't need as much space, which actually is what brings me over here to my stovetop. I chose just a two burner electric stovetop because I don't do that much cooking. Living in a tiny home, it's really important that you find storage where you can. A couple of things that I sacrificed personally was having an oven and a dishwasher to allow more space for some of those things that I needed to keep living in a tiny home. But you really have to think about when moving into a tiny home, how are you going to utilize that space? You might have to make some sacrifices on the utilities that you have to be able to create that space. Living in a traditional home, my kitchen was actually about three times the size of this one. I just didn't need all of those extra things. So moving into a tiny home, it made it a lot easier to downsize for myself. But think about it. If you do need space, think about how you're going to really utilize that space so that you have that extra storage for what you need in the kitchen. When we were building this kitchen, there are a few things that I really wanted. I was dying for this deep blue color just to stand out against my green couch and the different colors that I have in this living space area. I especially wanted the live edge wood. That was an upgrade that from the beginning when I saw it, I knew I wanted it and I couldn't live without it. When finding a builder, it was important to me to have some customization. And one of them was actually this area here. This is my coffee area. I got to include these beautiful live edge pieces of wood for more storage. Getting to make my own customizations was really important because I really wanted the home to feel like me. A lot of the time when you go to homes already pre-made and you don't really have a say in how it's built. So for me, getting to choose even little things like this area here, it was important because it really gave the sense of this is what I want and this is how I want it laid out and I got the opportunity to do that. This kitchen is very unique with the colors and the different types of woods that are in here, but to me it just kind of says this is me. This feels like home. This feels comfortable to me. The colors, the aesthetic, all of it. It's just so homey and I love being in this area. Before we move to the back end of the house, I just wanted to show you some of the customizations that I made and you might have to sacrifice some space. I actually had moved the stairs out to make some space in the bathroom area which actually took away a little bit from our kitchen area, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make so that I had more of an open concept bathroom. Welcome to my bathroom. One thing that I really wanted in a tiny home was a full-size bathroom. A couple of changes that I made to be able to make it full size like this was originally the door actually started right here in front of me. I had a half shower. My washer and dryer were right here as part of the shower and it was just a very very small space, but I wanted to make some changes to really open that up, make it kind of a mudroom area with storage, washer, dryer, be able to come in here and shower and just enjoy the space that I have in here. Just because you move tiny doesn't mean you have to lose a lot of storage in your bathroom area. I've actually got quite a bit of storage down here. I've also got a medicine cabinet up here. Behind you I have a whole nother storage unit that has all of my linens and just a bunch of extra space specifically for tiny home living. Things that you can't get rid of that you need, you just need an extra space for it. One thing about this bathroom that I really love, the builders actually included this piece over the toilet so that I had some extra space. One thing that they did to make it match the live edge here, they actually came in and hand carved the edge of this to give it that live edge feeling as well as over here or throughout the rest of the house. When making customizations to my bathroom area, having the open concept feel, originally when the door was right here there was a hallway and that hallway had high ceilings. So taking that away and adding the door here, it actually gave me probably about an extra 20 to 30 feet of square footage up in my loft area. What this tiny home cost is about $181,000. That is after all the customizations that I made to it. The original build without the customizations was $121,000. When I was looking to do the down payment, I had worked with the financing and the down payment was going to be $20,000. Because tiny homes are newer in Texas, they're growing a lot but they're still pretty new. Financing for a tiny home is a little bit difficult. Dakota Cabins of Texas had someone that they had suggested and I had gone through them. I want to say that there's only two or three options for financing for a tiny home here in Texas. The process overall for financing was pretty easy. The people that I worked with, they were really good about communicating. So any questions that I had, I was able to go back and forth and get any answers that I needed to any of the questions that I had. I kind of enjoyed the process. For me, it was a lot easier than the actual process of buying a traditional home. With a traditional house, you're going back and forth with financing a lot trying to figure out how that financing is going to work for your home. But for a tiny home, it was a lot more simple. The communication really was through email on just some questions that I had. But it was pretty much here's your financing, sign it, and then move on. My mortgage is $1,500 on a 10-year plan. I really lucked out with where I got to place my tiny home when I originally started looking into building a tiny home. I am on my parents' land. They have about 50 acres out here and I am on about a 10-acre lot where I'm able to connect to their water. I was able to get my septic out here, hook up to electricity. It's been a pretty easygoing process while going through the setup process of a tiny home. What drove me to tiny living was first when I owned my traditional home. It was about 1,300 square feet. It wasn't very big compared to a lot of traditional homes, but for me it was way too much space. So I decided I wanted to sell. I wanted to live a little bit closer to family and to work. And so I decided to do the apartment living for a little bit, which the rent of living in an apartment, that going toward nothing, it's just going toward payments and you're not getting anything out of it, really made me want to look into getting a home again. And that's when I started looking into tiny living. Now we are in the back room, which originally was the bedroom, but I decided to convert it kind of into my closet space, relaxation, hangout area. One of the customizations that I made, there actually was a closet here originally, but I love this wood so much. I wanted to knock that out, add some extra storage, and just have this big beautiful area, which is where I do a lot of my folding laundry and all of that. I had moved this piece of the couch from the living room back here, just because it gave this room more of a relaxation feeling. These wicker chairs were actually my great grandmothers that were passed down to my mother, who then passed them down to me. These were something I really did not want to get rid of, which is part of the reason why I decided to do my bedroom upstairs in the loft instead of in here, so that I had extra space for these chairs. One of the big reasons that I chose this space specifically for a sitting area closet instead of a bedroom was because I love close. I like have that kind of extra space, so this space gives me that. When I have friends over, and if I'm getting ready for an event, or if I'm getting ready to just go out, there's plenty of space here for us to hang out. If you're looking for a tiny home specifically, while I use this space for my closet relaxation area, the great news is you could use this space for anything. If you're younger and you don't mind going up the stairs to sleep in the loft, this space could be used as your office, as your music studio, as your art studio. There's plenty that you could do with this space to whatever fits your professional needs. Now we're here in my loft space. When you first come up and look across to the right, this is where I sleep. I got a queen-size bed, lots of space, and then it opens up to a lot of area here. My nieces and nephews love to come up here and run around and play. They're all short enough that they can run without having to duck down, and they can just play games, read books, and just relax up here. There's quite a few things that you can use a loft for. Personally, one thing that I've thought about doing is if I do ever move my bed downstairs and make that a bedroom, I would love to have a tv up here and make it kind of a theater room so that I can just sit up here with family and watch movies and hang out. I'm really happy that I ended up going with the loft. While I lost the high ceilings, having this loft space gives me a lot of extra square footage. If I need to use it for storage or just having that extra space, I just enjoy being up here and feeling at home here. Here we're on my patio. When I was in the works of building my tiny home, a patio is something that I definitely wanted. The patio originally came with the house, but mine was done a little bit differently. Originally, the doorway was here. I had the doorway switched to the side, so I had to extend the patio a little bit more to make that kind of work, but I really wanted a patio to be able to sit outside and have some cover because I love fresh air and just be able to sit out here and relax. The patio is not actually attached to the house. After they delivered the house and had everything leveled and set up, they went through and built the patio after the fact. With their normal homes, they'd already have this part of the patio on there and it'd be delivered with it, but mine was a little bit different because of the new layout. Traditionally on a tiny home, you think about the skirting that goes around the house. I didn't want a traditional skirting. I really wanted some flower beds, so I actually have flower beds that go all the way down the side, across the back, and up the other side so that I could have a lot of plants. I love plants. I wouldn't say that I have a green thumb at all, but I definitely love having somewhere to have some of my greenery. If you are dealing with the thoughts of, what are people going to think of me living in a tiny home? I mean, simply all I can say is don't. I have friends and some families that are still amazed that I'm living in a tiny home and ask, how do you do it? I just do it and it makes me happy and that's what's important. I love living in a tiny home. I love being able to build what is special to me and a lot of people don't get to say that and sometimes it's because they're afraid of people think. A lot of people really think about how they're perceived to others. I have to be the best. I have to have the best and so having the biggest house or having the biggest condo, high rise, whatever it is, that I think a lot of the time is what holds people back from really getting what they want because they want that perception of, I have it all. Living tiny, I have it all. If you have any questions that you'd like me to answer or concerns that you'd like me to answer, you can leave them down in the comments and I'll be happy to respond or if you'd like to follow me, you can follow me by using the link down in the description.