She Owns her Tiny Home AND Land - Retiring Right

Hi, my name is Diane and I'm going to give you a tour of my beautiful little tiny home. Well, welcome to the inside of my tiny home. This was built on a 10 by 28 custom-made trailer by TrailerMate. It is fantastic. The craftsmanship is just gorgeous. The guy that built it knew how to do anything, and he created this beautiful kitchen. This is the center of my home. I love I love to cook, I have a convection oven, I have a four burner cooktop with a 399 CFM vent. Originally, the idea was to put the cooktop over the oven, but I wanted more space, and maybe a space that two people could work from each side. So that was the reason, and I don't have any issue with it. My builder was so talented, he was able to make a cabinet that fit the angle, which is great. This is what I call my good morning cabinet. And when I open it, I see this little art that my granddaughter made me, which is a nice thing to see early in the morning. My builder preferred the craftsman style cabinetry where the doors are inset. It takes a lot more skill to do this and this little bead work. Around the cabinets, those are all separate pieces that are glued in there. I don't know that I'm a minimalist in a tiny home. There's only so much room and you fill whatever room that you have. And I learned that very well in the casita because there's like 85 square feet. It was a good way to save money. Because you didn't have a place to put it, so you didn't buy it. You didn't need it. There's a difference between needing something and wanting something. A big difference. I wanted a 50-50 sink. A lot of the tiny homes have the farmhouse-style sink. And I don't understand that. I have to have... a sink for my dishwasher water this is for rinse and if you're doing hand laundry you know you can go back and forth and rinse so i don't want to have to have plastic tubs to do that in the farmhouse sink i had been looking looking looking for something that went with this granite this is 2cm granite i was at Floor & Decor in Albuquerque and pretty much had exhausted everything and then way back in the corner i saw this stuff it's like Old tin ceiling with rusted and verdigris on it, and I thought it went well. My fridge, I think total it's like 11 cubic feet, which isn't huge, but for a single person, it's fine and it's full. I like to prepare my own food. I know what's in it. And usually it's better than what I have been getting out and way cheaper. This kitchen cabinet is... Amazing for a tiny house to have something this grand. It's mostly storage, although he built in the microwave in the center and bumped the center cabinet out just a hair to accommodate for it. And these are my favorite drawers, and my builder and I had a slight disagreement on these. He didn't want to use them. They're from an old Singer sewing machine that I had, and they each hold a bottle of wine. He wanted to build me the drawers, and I said, no, no, I want these. He wasn't happy, but he did it, and I love them. You need to be aware, especially if your home is built as airtight as mine, of humidity. In the summer it's really not an issue. I open up windows and I live in a dry climate, but in the winter you have to have a way of getting rid of that humidity and just one of these little off-the-shelf units isn't going to work. You need something a little bit more robust. I got a very good dehumidifier that I bring in in the winter, set it in the bathroom where a lot of the humidity is created. It's sad that there are so many laws against the size of a home and I think it's ridiculous to have these humongous Homes and several humongous homes around the world. It's just not environmentally friendly at all. I'm more than happy in this amount of space. I don't regret anything about building this home. To me, it's perfect and you can make it yours if you're building it yourself. This is my Mr. Cool DIY mini-split. Mine is the single zone, but it can be figured to be multiple zone. This Mr. Cool DIY unit is remarkable. If I turn the AC on, within 5-10 minutes, it has cooled my whole house to be very comfortable, and I just shut it off. I don't need to keep running it. It just immediately cools the space. If you decided to add on to your structure, you could add another unit to both air condition and heat your extra space. This do-it-yourself unit It is easy to install, it comes with great instructions, you really don't need any HVAC experience, you need minimal tools, and you don't have to pay a contractor megabucks to get it installed. You can do it yourself. It saves me both money on installation charges, and it is very efficient. The cost to run it is minimal. Mr. Cole's been a long time sponsor for Tiny Home Tours, so if you need more information, just go to the link in this description. Thank you Mr. Cole for sponsoring this video. This is my dining area and my workspace. I'd like to find a smaller table someday, maybe a lagoon table and get a small recliner for me because I think I'm worth it. And this looks like a giant entertainment center, which it is. And it has storage on both sides and components above, speakers above that. But this here is where I sleep most of the time in my little horizontal Murphy bed. It's nice and cozy. My builder and I thought about it and I was thinking Murphy bed and we first looked at having the vertical one, but I didn't feel there was enough space with the table and all. And so we come up with the horizontal style and it just fit. I thought I was gonna have to get a foam mattress and cut it down, but he made it work. There's a whole lot more space with this up. Where I can pull this table out and seat four people, play cards, so it's nice to get the bed out of the way. This is my bed and breakfast fireplace. It's natural gas burning. I can select the temperature. I can select the fan speed. And before too long, it's nice and cozy here in the winter, because winters here are pretty nippy, especially in the morning. And then when I'm done, just shut it off. No ashes to clean up. It's all clean. My builder thought that propane was the way to go, so we started out, we had all the orifices put in for propane and I bought two 50 gallon tanks and I filled them probably two or three times, but by about the third time I said this is nuts, this isn't going to work, I'm not getting any younger, I need to change this. There was natural gas at the street, New Mexico Gas did the the gas line to the street to the riser. They were very punctual. They did a nice job and then the plumber had an excavator come to dig the trench. I had to order sand to put under the pipe, get it all installed, change the orifices and but yeah it was it was worth the the expense. And my gas bill is, even in the winter, $17, something like that. It's never been up to even $20. My home is very well insulated, sealed, so it holds heat and cooling very easily. After I retired and I left to travel in my casita, just, you know, get out and see things that I hadn't seen before, I thought that I would be gone for a few months and then I would go back to where I retired and I would buy another smaller home and that would be it. But after I left and had time to think about it, I realized that I didn't have to go back, that I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to be in the metro mess anymore. I was traveling in southern New Mexico. I was at a forest service campground that had like maybe two camp spots. It was very small and there was a box truck there that a couple that were musicians were traveling in. And they were packing up to leave as I was coming in, but they invited me to see their rig. It was made by the same man that built my tiny home. And it was just beautiful inside. I just couldn't believe how gorgeous it was. And they gave me their contact information and they would put me in touch with them to do some work inside my casita just to make living more convenient. I ended up spending the whole summer getting my little jobs done in my casita. Then I left and got the crazy idea to build a tiny home. I called him up and just asked him, would you build me a tiny home? And he said, sure. I saw the kind of work that he did and knew that if I had him build it, it would be done right. I felt very lucky to have been introduced to Alan. He was easy to talk with, easy to work with. Just an all-around honorable person, I felt. I think trailer made for this trailer that they had built me was somewhere just under $10,000, if I remember correctly. I'm just going to throw out numbers between $150,000 and $175,000. Right after COVID, prices really skyrocketed, real estate and materials. So I was lucky to get it done before those price hikes. How I acquired this piece of land is I bought it from my builder and he gave me a decent deal. It would be worth much more now because the prices have skyrocketed. I was lucky to get it for what I got it but hopefully he was as happy as I was on the deal. I love this area no matter which direction you go it's beautiful. There's something about it that's just got under my skin and I feel like I belong here and I fairly recently have started to develop a social life where I have people to do stuff with and hang out with and that's made it a whole lot better. I told my builder that I wanted space because a lot goes on in the bathroom. You're bathing, you're doing laundry, you're washing your face. I can exercise in here. There's a lot going on in this bathroom. This is my clawfoot tub. I love it. It holds 60 gallons. I feel guilty filling it all up. But in the winter especially, it's nice to just veg out in here. It's like being at a spa. I think the reason I wanted a bathtub in this tiny house is because I had been traveling full-time in a Casita travel trailer which only has a wet bath. I just miss being able to sit in a tub and soak. I have a fairly large vanity and the reason is so I have a place to fold clothes and everything after it's folded either goes in the kitchen or I have linen storage for towels and washcloths underneath here and my medicine cabinet holds a ton of stuff and it's actually wired where I can I don't need to leave my toothbrush out on the counter which is nice. This is my washing machine. And I do have the dryer that matches it, but I've just never felt the need to hook it up. I have one of the most modern technologies for drying my clothes. It's called wind and solar, and it's right outside my door. And to me, it's kind of like therapy going out, hanging laundry in the morning. It's hearing the birds sing. I love it. So that's probably what I'll continue to do. I know it's old fashioned, but I've done it for years and it works. This is my water closet, which allows a lot of nice privacy. I have awning window to bring fresh air in. I have a 100 CFM vent fan. I have a small cabinet to put all your essentials. And one thing that I've recently added, and I really like it, is a little bidet attachment. It's great. And it didn't cost that much. It was under $30 on Amazon and easy to install. I installed it myself. but I recommend it highly. A lot of real estate to hang pictures and stuff. It's got more real estate right here in this little space than I think the rest of the tiny house put together because of the bare walls in there. To me it makes a whole lot more sense to have your closet in your bathroom. This is where you get clean and when you take off your clothes you put them in the laundry and it's all right here instead of in your bedroom which makes no sense. My builder insisted on lining this closet with cedar. You have to line it with something and lining it with cedar wasn't really that expensive and it smells nice and it's supposed to be an insect deterrent. But yeah, I'm glad I did it. I got this really nice ladder off Facebook Marketplace. It's a library ladder that rolls side to side so I can roll it out of the way of the refrigerator very easy. It's got super nice brass hardware. My builder did have to cut it down. It was a little taller, but he managed to do that. It was made in Chico, California. It's mahogany And it cost, when they made it, who knows when, $1,500 and I got it for $200. On Marketplace, I'm very happy with it. It's super nice. This is my loft bedroom. It has eight windows. This one actually opens, but it's kind of heavy so I don't open it too much, but it's great at night to view the stars. I have a window here that cranks out and they're both egress. And I have a ladder in this cubby right here on the far side and hooks on the floor That if anything ever happened, you could escape out this window. One thing I did do is I have two actual mattresses. There's not a box springs below that if I ever do have need to sleep an extra person, I can sleep two people up here. I just have to move this to the floor and slide it over and it's like a king size bed or two twin beds. I like sleeping up here you know especially in the winter you know with heat rising and being able to gaze at the stars at night is pretty cool. If I have company I'll give my company the choice do you want to sleep in the loft or do you want to sleep downstairs and I'm I'm good. I know a lot of a lot of older people who aren't as ambulatory as me. I would have issues with it, but I'm pretty strong, so it doesn't bother me. It's just a little bit more convenient downstairs, but I have no problem with sleeping up here. I had this deck built about two years after I was in the house. It's nice having a space, it's relaxing. I love to be out in nature, I love to hear the birds sing. Two weeks ago I had four big rack buck deers in my driveway and I took a picture and posted it. The bucks stop here. The nice part about owning your own piece of land is you have room to put your stuff. I have toys. I have kayaks. I have bicycles. I have tools. This is a nice secure storage. I recently painted these. It was a lot of work, but I like how they turned out. I did have to get a permit. And it costs $35 to bring these containers in. Just great to have a little extra room to put things. I needed a little garden shed, not only for a generator, but I have a lawnmower. and yard tools. I truly like a piece of land big enough to have the elbow room. I was raised in a rural area where we you know planted our own vegetables and I like to dig in the dirt and I have lots of room to have gardens, have privacy, have space to put my toys. It's mine, I don't have to pay storage. I got asked, what's it like living in a tiny house, you know, how do you feel about that and you know, I think it's great. There's nothing that feels better than not having to depend on someone else for what you have. Nobody can take that from you. It's yours. Fancy cars and, you know, the latest this, the latest that has never been attractive to me. You know, I want to be comfortable. I want to be happy where I'm at. I just wouldn't want to go back to that 2,000-square-foot home, you know, at this point in my life. I don't need it. I don't want it. I like, you know, being more rural. Just happiness. My happy place. Thank you for joining me on the tour of my beautiful tiny home. And I hope you have a great day.