VIDEO DESCRIPTION: Bev and Jeff Johnson spent 31 years living full-time in an RV and managing RV resorts across the country. When they retired, they chose a tiny home in a Texas community. Total cost with all appliances included: $83,000. In this tour, Bev walks through every room and explains why this was the best decision they ever made.
KITCHEN - Full-size appliances, soft-close cabinets, more counter space than their motorhome. She's cooked more in nine months than the previous 15 years. Everything within arm's reach. Cleanup takes minutes.
LIVING ROOM - Full-size couch, oversized recliner, TV. They host game nights with a folding table from the closet. Guests always say the same thing: "I didn't know there was this much space."
HOME OFFICE - Compact desk that doubles as her Mary Kay vanity. Mirror slides out from under the desk.
BATHROOM - Full-size shower, medicine cabinet, under-sink storage. Steps from the bedroom.
LAUNDRY ROOM - Full-size washer and dryer inside the home. Deep enough for comforters. No shared facilities.
BEDROOM - Downstairs, no loft, no ladder. Queen bed with built-in storage drawers, headboard storage, pull-out side compartments. Two separate closets with tall ceilings. MONTHLY COSTS - $700 lot rent (includes water/sewage), $75 electric at peak summer, zero yard work (artificial turf).
WHY IT WORKS FOR SENIORS - No stairs, no long hallways, everything within reach, low bills, community of like-minded neighbors, lock it up and travel for weeks.
Filmed by - / brian_bear_butler Edited by - / filmbro_
A retired couple shares their transition from 31 years of full-time RVing to a tiny home. They highlight the benefits of downsizing for seniors, focusing on low maintenance, financial affordability, and the convenience of a compact, well-organized living space that supports both independence and community.
When my husband and I retired after 31 years of full-time RVing,
we knew that we wanted a tiny home.
So we started our search. We knew that we
wanted a downstairs bedroom
and we love the tall ceilings
Welcome to my kitchen. Oh, we love this because
when we were in a motorhome, we only had like a smaller area.
and we love the kitchen.
But now, look at this. We have a lot of cabinet space.
I don't even use all of them because we have so much storage
and all kinds of gadgets that I had been storing, I can now use.
Because take a look up there.
I'm a gadget person.
I've got all those kitchen gadgets.
I love it.
The appliances are fabulous.
And I've done more cooking
in the last nine months than I did in 15 years.
Because I've got a nice, wide kitchen space.
And guess what?
You can stand here in the middle, do things here at the counter,
turn right around, do things here on your stove,
move right here to your cabinet.
Everything is within reach
I don't have to go walking 20 feet,
just get a can opener or something like that.
You might think, well, I'm coming from a big kitchen or a big house.
Listen, you will not miss anything.
You can have everything that you need in this area.
So if you're thinking senior living,
oh, I'm going to miss this big house.
No, you won't.
You're going to love your tiny house.
I promise you.
One small thing, it's not really small,
it's really a big thing when you think about it.
It is amazing how little bit of time it takes to clean your counter,
do your dishes, wipe your counters.
Boom, you are ready to go shopping.
You don't have to spend hours in the kitchen cleaning it.
So really overall in my kitchen that I just love
and my husband loves it too,
we have plenty of cabinet space, as you can see.
And it has the soft close on the cabinet doors,
plenty of the cabinet space down below.
They've made excellent use of all spaces.
So I'm telling you, you will have room for everything
that you need in your kitchen.
I just love it.
I can't think of anything better to tell you
other than I love my kitchen.
You know, when you come to a tiny home,
you're still going to have lots of time and space
to entertain your friends.
Because what we do in our large living room area,
We do have a folding like card table
like people have in their big homes.
So we have it right in our storage closet.
And so we put it right in the middle of the floor
and we have plenty of space for the
friends in our neighborhood here to come over and we eat,
play games, just have a great
time.
You will have a...
Fantastic time inviting your friends over to your tiny home
because when they see it, they're going to say,
oh my, I didn't know there was this much room in a tiny home.
I said, oh yes, it is.
You can cook in your beautiful kitchen
and you can entertain just like we are doing with you folks.
Welcome to our living room.
We knew that we wanted an area where we could sit down and relax.
So we have our nice big couch and I have my perfect oversized recliner.
Love it. And of
course we have the TV. So we have plenty of space for everything.
I think that people think, oh,
you've got to have a little bitty chair and you can't have this,
can't have that. No, you can have
Have what you want in your tiny home.
So coming into the tiny home from the motor home,
I feel more secure, stable, and we love our community effect.
And as a senior, for all of us seniors,
we love being around a community of those of
like kind, and we love feeling really at home
and secure in our tiny home.
So welcome to my office. This is my Mary Kay office.
I have my computer here.
And then when it's time for the makeup, guess what?
I'm from under my desk. Voila! This is my makeup mirror.
So now this is my makeup counter. Turn the light on.
Got it there. And I can start putting on my Mary Kay.
Of course, having been in an RV for 31 years,
I managed RV resorts for 25 years.
We knew that there would come a time
that we would want to stop being on the road all the time.
Jeff was having some health issues,
so it made it even more important
for us to get into a home.
The reason why we decided to get a tiny home
is the fact of the low maintenance.
As a matter of fact,
We have artificial turf,
which is a big plus for me because I don't have to worry about
doing yard work anymore, but we still can,
low-maintenance area, we can still travel
and just lock it up and leave,
and we can go on for two, three weeks or a month at a
time, so I love that part of it.
As a matter of fact it's real funny
because we were traveling down the interstate and we just
happened to both look over here and see this tiny home community
and we decided to turn around and
go take a look. We looked at several different models
and we knew for a fact that we did not
want upstairs. So in not choosing the loft we
were able to have the extra closet storage space here
here in the living room and as well as the vaulted ceilings that's
all the way through since we didn't have to have the loft.
Everything included, the appliances, everything in here,
we've spent $83,000.
It's a lot of money, but it's a considerable,
a lot less money than if we had bought a conventional house.
We're pretty pleased about that.
And the utilities are so nominal.
Oh yeah.
I mean, in the heat of Texas summer,
the most we had was a $75 electric bill.
We were ecstatic.
Whenever you purchase a tiny home,
it's not just the tiny home because you're going to need,
wherever you put it, whether you put it on private land
or you put it in a community like we have,
we pay lot rent here every month to the owner that owns the property.
Lot rent is $700 a month.
Now what that includes, we don't pay for water.
We have our extra electricity that we pay
for the Wood County Electric Co-op.
We don't pay sewage.
We don't pay sewage and you'll have to get it skirted
because that's one of the
requirements that they have here.
So there are extra expenses involved in it but once
you get that out of the way then you're done.
You don't have to worry about it anymore.
As you get older, and you don't like to use that word old,
we're not getting old, we're just becoming seasoned seniors,
that's what I call it, is that the tiny home living is...
It's just perfect because you have access
to everything inside your home in a short distance.
If you do get sick or something,
you don't have a big house to have to get lost in.
Nowadays, it's perfect.
Financially, it makes sense.
This is our bathroom.
As you can tell, you have the medicine cabinet like you would have
in a big home, but just perfect in your tiny home.
And you have plenty of cabinets underneath the sink.
And oh my word, what I really love about our bathroom,
we have a nice big full size shower. Perfect.
One thing I thought of too,
of course as we retire and become seniors, higher in years,
we do like not having to walk such a long distance from down the hall
or a long ways away
to the bathroom.
In your tiny home, everything, you're so perfectly spaced.
Where that it is all right there, convenient for you.
This is very important for seniors, I believe.
Okay, let me tell you what is really great
about our laundry room.
Of course, in the RV, we had the Splendide,
the all-in-one piece of equipment.
I love this washer and dryer
because it is so nice and big and deep.
Even wash comforters in it.
I love it.
And then, of course, here on the cabinet,
everything is so convenient.
And the main thing is you do not have to go outside
anywhere to do your laundry.
This does it all.
Also, I do remember that when my mom
was in an independent living, assisted living,
she still had to go down the hall to do her laundry.
And here in a tiny home, it's perfect.
You don't have to go anywhere.
It is right here for you.
You don't need anything else.
If you've got a tiny home, you have everything you need,
including your laundry room.
Okay, now let's talk about the bedroom.
We mentioned earlier that we wanted to make sure
we had a downstairs bedroom, and this is it.
When we were looking for a bed for the tiny home,
we went to Wayfair, and this was an excellent choice
because you have so much of the storage underneath,
and that's really important when you are in a tiny home,
to make sure you utilize all good spaces.
And you also have
Storage in the headboard up here
and of course in this one we even have extra storage here
in the side that pulls out there
so you have plenty of space for your bedroom furniture.
I let my husband do the decorating in this bedroom
so he's got pictures from brother-in-law
that painted them so this is where my
husband can sit and think about his poems
that he's going to write for his next song.
Let's talk about closet space because that's always very important,
not only to us women, but to the guys also. So we have his closet.
And we have my closet, plenty of room
and they're tall in the ceiling so that you can use stackables
for any kind of storage that you want to do.
Let me talk about this space right here for a moment.
You can actually have a TV because it's set up for a TV there,
but we chose not to at this time.
He has his more of his musical instruments up here
and in the drawers here
Lots of space and they close so easy, just like that.
So your closet spaces are great.
And if you are coming from a larger home and you wonder,
oh, am I going to have space?
Let me tell you, from a woman that used to have a ton of shoes,
you don't need all those
shoes for one thing, but you've got plenty
of room in your closet for the ones that you
do want to keep and use.
So you do have plenty of closet space.
Jeff can probably answer this as well.
You would think, oh, you're in a small space,
you're going to get on each other's nerves.
No, that doesn't happen. As a matter of fact,
I think that we have probably more patience.
Well, we're used to living in an RV together
for 30 plus years. So it's not like this is something new for us.
I think we've enjoyed our space with each other better.
Really, I think it's just,
I think it's made our marriage even stronger because we do
have more understanding and are more patient.
And when you get to the senior living age,
you don't have time for that nonsense like fussing and all that stuff.
That's not necessary.
Very.
My website, you can go to marykay.com forward slash Bev Johnson.
I'm on Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, YouTube.
Look up Jeff Johnson.
Long Way Across Texas.
Long Way Across Texas, yes.
The links will be in the description.
Thank you so much for watching,
and I hope this has helped you to really decide.
Go tiny home.
