She Had 4,000 Sq Ft. Now She Has 400 and Spends $140/Mo.

I didn't know I could do this on my own. When I first got divorced, I thought everything was . I would be living in this crappy little apartment and then I realized, stop being afraid. Stop thinking you can't do it. Stop thinking that you need someone else to fall back on because you don't. You really don't. Be afraid, but do it. No, I did this. I created this. I created this whole property. And it makes me proud. I haven't regretted, you know, little things you regret, but not really. Overall, I've grown. Overall, even my kids are very proud of me. That makes a difference. 10 years ago, I was living in a home that was 10 times bigger than this, and this is 10 times better. My tiny home has a downstairs bedroom, a 10-foot porch looking over the lake, and a space upstairs for my guests. Hi, I'm Karen. Come take a tour of my tiny home. Yeah, about three years ago, I knew what I had in mind and I wanted to find a piece of property on the lake. Lucky enough, I found this beautiful community, got this empty property, and then I start working on my tiny home idea. Actually, I spent a year looking at tiny homes. I knew I wanted a living room first so I could have this view. I wanted double doors and I put that extra window up there again for the view. When I was looking to decorate this house, I knew the pieces that I wanted, you know, family heirlooms or whatever, and I knew I wanted the pictures I wanted. So then I had to go out and find furniture to fit. It wasn't as hard as I thought. Actually, I knew the measurements. So I actually went to a very nice store and found this little two-seater. It fits perfect. I wanted a fireplace. The TV, I managed to buy the right size to fit. Well, I placed the windows so it would fit. And that's it, a little tiny chair and I'm good to go and I've got friends and family that can sit and enjoy. When I first saw my first tiny home in person, actually there was three of them there and I just I fell in love with them. I didn't think I'd be able to downsize that much but it wasn't a problem. I love the openness, I love the space, I love the actually the containment of it. I think I like mostly where I knew that I would just bring what I needed, get rid of the rest and enjoy life. Coming from a 4,000 square foot house, four bedrooms, four baths, you know, I spent most of my time cleaning, decorating, repairing, comparing it to this. This is easy living. This is just something that once you get through your whole life, it's just lay back and take it easy and a lot less cost. One of the other things about a tiny home is I have a full size kitchen with a galley right here, and it takes me two steps to get there. When I was looking at floor plans for my tiny home I knew I wanted the kitchen in the middle. I wanted the loft a little bit back so I could have open space and a higher ceiling and that feeling of openness. And one of the other things I wanted was a big sink so I could use all my big pots and pans and I opted for no dishwasher so I could have a pull out garbage. And right across from the sink, I have what I would call, it looks like a hutch. I actually had one, but this gave me more space and more counter space in the floor plan that I was looking at. So I opted to keep it this way. These are very deep cabinets. I keep all my big pots and bowls and actually my crock pot is in here. Then up here is my spices and my cups for my coffee. And I still have a lot of counter space. And as we go further into my kitchen, I do have a full-blown five-burner stovetop with a convection microwave. I opted for that instead of an oven so I could have more space for my pots and pans. And one of the things I might change would be a two-burner stovetop. I've never used more than two burners, you know, living by myself, so that would have been plenty. And I want to have company over and over, it's time to meal prep. I have a top that I can put on here, literally, so it creates more counter space if I need it. Most of the time I don't, but it comes in handy. And I have a full-size refrigerator which is plenty of space for me. Actually that's a counter depth which I thought would be better so it wouldn't stick out so much and I still have plenty of room. The kitchen that I had in my 4,000 square foot house of course had a double oven. I had an eight burner gas stove and I had a massive refrigerator with another refrigerator in the little pantry next door. So this is just much more economical and much more useful. When I was 20 years old, I moved out from my family and my sisters and moved into a small mobile home, 10 by 40, which is basically 400 square feet. Lived there about three years, got married. Of course, we moved into a huge 4,000 square foot house, raised kids, got divorced, and I've come full circle. Here I am back to a tiny home, 400 square feet, loving life again. When I bought this home was, of course, three years ago. I had it set up and delivered for $99,000, $99,500. The base price was in the 70s, though I added a lot of upgrades. You know, the porch was an upgrade, the loft was a little upgrade, things like that. But then I got lucky enough to put it on this piece of land. Now you got to realize being on the water is a lot more expensive. That's not typical. So overall, for $100,000, I ended up with my home. How I found this tiny home and this company was I took probably a year. I googled different companies that built tiny homes. I wanted it within a certain say an hour two hour radius of this area. So then I went to a couple different manufacturers actually and sat and talked with them. I went up to a big there's a dealer east of Dallas that probably have five different companies there. Looked at those fell in love with the platinum and then I honestly Looked into Platinum and that's where I met Kelly and her husband and they critique, they custom, and that was the key with me. And I did talk to some other owners, previous owners, and they were happy with the company. So I looked into that too and the price was right, yeah. Comparing other prices, if you look at the cost of, well when I had a 4,000 square foot house, utilities were probably $500, $600 a month. Ooh, property taxes are $7,000 or $8,000 a year compared to I live now. I don't think I've had a bill over $140, and that includes heat, electric, and water. And my property taxes are $1,200 because an RV. This is classified as an RV, so they cannot charge you property taxes. That's a big difference too, no matter where you live. That is not included in your property tax cost. The only thing I do pay property tax on is land, which is $1,200 a year. The insurance cost, if you again compare that, I think I pay $800 a year for insurance, and that's based on about $150,000 value. To be able actually to have a comfortable life I do have social security of course that I can live off of but I have my investments. I've made some good choices on some of the rental investments that I've made and that has helped make me live comfortably. I think one thing I would say is don't think you have to continue to live in a single family home and provide room for when your kids come home and visit and everything. Let them have the homes. Let them, you know, help you a little bit. And you live the way you want to live, comfortably and affordably. And I don't think I'm giving up anything for the way I live. Welcome to my bathroom, centrally located. Plenty of counter space. I've got a vanity here that I can open and got more things in. I don't even use half the cabinets that I have here and I have a full flushable toilet and a full size shower. And I made sure I had a what I would call a full size window so I'd have some natural light and I can close it when I need privacy but like now I can I can leave it open and get the natural sunlight. It makes it feel more open. Actually, in the tiny home, I did not think I figured a bathroom would be like walking around like this. It's not. It's not at all. And it has a sliding door here for privacy, which I usually keep closed. So it works. Works like a charm. And this is my laundry area, washer and dryer. The only thing I probably would want is if they bumped this wall out a little more and put some bi-fold doors so you didn't have to see it all the time. But you get used to it. It doesn't bother me. And it's not that loud either. It's actually very quiet. And I love the convenience of a washer and dryer. There are some tiny homes Many homes that don't have them, but yes, that was one of my definitely requirements. And this is my bedroom. One of the things I wanted to make sure I didn't have the, you can get a double loft. I got a single loft. A double loft would have brought my ceilings low and I didn't want that feeling when I'm sleeping at night. So I just opted for the single loft. I added that window and that bigger window. And honestly, this was a first for, I wanted a window that you could see all the way from one end to the other and it makes the home feel bigger. That is also an escape window. All I have to do is kick it out if I need to. Get out for any kind of emergency. This is a full size bed, which is plenty for me. You can put a queen in here. It will hold it, but I like the smaller one. Again, my big 4,000 square foot house had a full blown oak bedroom set with two dressers, a king size bed, headboard, footboard. Don't need it. And when I was growing up, I have five sisters, so we lived in a double wide. So we had three bedrooms, one bathroom, but three bedrooms, and I always had to share. And sometimes we'd switch partners, if you would say, but now it's so nice to have my own bedroom and my own bed. One of the other things I liked was I have two closets. I have my summer clothes here, my winter clothes in here, and my heavy boots. One of these drawers are huge. They're deep, they're heavy, and I put all my heavy sweaters, things like that, winter clothes, and that's where I keep them because they're, they are, they're huge. Overall I have plenty of space and actually it keeps my clothes It's the clothes that I need and that I use and honestly if I go out and buy something I make myself come home and get rid of something and donate it. It's one for one. One of the other reasons I went with platinum is because you could tweak the floor plans a little bit. We had an extra door here that I didn't think I needed and the washer and dryer was over here originally so I moved the washer and dryer over here. Got rid of that door and I wanted enough room for my grandmother's antique dresser which is one thing I really wanted to keep so then we made enough space for that and you could also put a desk and a chair in there if you didn't have a dresser which so you got a lot of space here to use. This is my loft and honestly this is one of my favorite spots too. I've got my television, king-size bed, actually big king-size bed. I chose to have a loft. I have family and friends that come and visit and they love it because it's cozy. I'll come up here sometimes in the dead of winter by myself and sleep and even though you have 400 square feet you feel like you have more. Some of them actually they'll have a solid wall here. I wanted the open feeling especially because I have a view of the lake and you can lay You can lay here and see the lake. The steps are a little tight, a little smaller, but I went and put a drawer, if you notice, in each step. So I have little tiny things that I put in there and I store. If I did do another tiny home, which I probably will someday, change, live somewhere else, I would definitely still do a loft. You can use it for storage if you don't have family and friends to come and visit, but it serves a lot of purpose. And I like the single loft again, so I still have the open space feeling in the kitchen and in the bedroom So this is my 10-foot porch. They do come in 8 and 12, I think it is, but the 10 fit perfect on my property. I wanted, again, to be able to open the doors, have the living space right onto the porch, and have a beautiful view of the lake. I will sit out here sometimes in the morning with my coffee and when my friends come over, this is where they want to be, on the deck and on this porch. One of the other things that I wanted was a feeling of being able to sit outside with all my friends and family and I get to call this my second living room. And I designed it so part of it is covered in Texas sun. It can be nasty so I left some of it open so I can, you know, get a feel of both. That actually little storage room did not come like that. I had my contractor build it and he matched the house so it looks like it came with it. So it gave me that extra storage room. When I created this property, I had to get it all approved by the city. I had to get it resurveyed and anything that I built on it, they had to okay the building, the structure, the materials that I was using. It had to be on a concrete slab, so there is a concrete slab under here. When I put the stone wall in, the wall had to be a certain height due to any kind of type of flood danger with the lake, which has never happened, but it could. So yeah, I had to get everything approved. That was my first step. Overall, I'm more than happy with the way that it looks, the way it ended up. Honestly, the compliments I get, like people from even the fishing boats, they're like, I love your property. We just heard that today. The feeling that I wanted to create, I got it. Looking back at my life over 50 years, pretty much, I've lived in different areas, different states, in the mountains, on the lake, married, divorced. You know, raise my kids, and I've come back to realize that I don't need that much to be happy. I just need to be comfortable. Thank you. I just want to have enough that I can enjoy my life, still have enough left over to enjoy with my kids, go on vacation with them. I've been lucky. I've been very blessed. And I've come back to 400 square feet, and I couldn't be happier. I have two or three friends that say, I want to live the way you're living as soon as I can get there. I would say, then do it. I'd say, if you want to live this simply, don't be afraid of it. I think I was afraid of it at first. I didn't think I could. Create a property. I didn't think I could go out and buy something on my own. I didn't think I could do it affordably, but I did. And if I can do it, I think anybody can do it. But looking back my whole life or what I've come from, from being 20 and living in that first little mobile home, I would be very impressed with myself. I would. I would say, wow, look at what I've accomplished. Baby steps. It takes baby steps, but don't be afraid to take those baby steps. That's all. Get over that fear and be comfortable in life. Yeah. Live the way you want to live. Well, I'm so glad you stopped by to see my tiny home. I'd be glad to answer any questions you want to leave questions in the comments. And if there's anything I can help you with, whether it's where to go and how to get to where I am, just let me know. And thank you again.