She's Aging in Place in 1-level Tiny Cottage! In a Tiny Home Village

Hi, I'm Lisa. This is my tiny house and we're in Cocoa, Florida. It's pretty windy here and my hair is blowing all over the place. Please forgive me. I've been living here almost a year. My house was built by Cornerstone, which is a company that's located quite close to here. It is 14 feet wide by about 30 feet long. I have a foundation house, so it's not going anywhere. They're hurricane rated, so it's not going to blow away either if we have a storm. I'm here at East Wind because this is the community that we knew about that had tiny houses and my lot cost about $72,000. I absolutely love my neighbors. I walk my dog frequently and that's how I've met a lot of them. One of the things I wanted was a very Florida color. That's why I chose light blue and another thing I was really excited about was having a corrugated tin roof. I don't know why, but it's something that I was really, really pleased about. I do have a small porch. Eventually, I would like to be able to expand it. That's it for the outside. Let's go ahead and go inside. Hi, welcome to my tiny home. It's 502 square feet. The reason I chose this tiny home is that it's one level, so there are no stairs involved. I plan on aging out here. It's so exciting because everything in here is brand new and modern. I'm used to living in buildings that are over 100 years old and it all creaks and it's quirky. This house has everything that's brand new. This is my second bedroom and I mostly use this room for storage. So, I have things in clear bins. I know everything that's in each bin. I have a fairly large closet in here where I currently have my winter clothes. We actually do have a little bit of winter here in Coco. I really, really wanted a second bedroom for storage. I know that sounds kind of silly, but I kept saying, where am I going to put my Christmas tree? There are things like that that you need a place for and I didn't want to have it in my main space for living. I have enough room that we could put an air mattress in it if somebody wants to come visit. I can sleep in here and they can have the bedroom. Next to my second bedroom is my bathroom and this is the largest bathroom I have ever had. And that's funny to say in a tiny home, but I have a full walk-in shower and I have a bench in there to sit on if necessary. I have lots and lots of counter space and key to living in tiny houses is storage. This room has lots and lots of storage and one of the things that I am excited about, which probably a lot of other people knew about, was these soft closed drawers. So you just push them and they slowly go in. The cabinets are the same way. The doors are all soft closed. I have not purchased a mirror yet, but I'll get around to that. After graduating high school, I worked for the power company, did a man's job at that time working on a current transformer installing crew, and then went to school at the University of Florida. I ended up moving to Atlanta, Georgia where I worked for an advertising agency. I was called an art buyer and I started getting interested in going to law school. Reply came from Massachusetts, New England, law, Boston, and I was accepted. So that was a very, very exciting time in my life and within the next six months, I was moved into a studio apartment in downtown Boston. As it turns out, I think law school was the happiest time of my life. I absolutely loved it. There was something about it that just really, really excited me. I ended up staying in Massachusetts for the next 35 years. The whole idea of me moving down here is my mom really wanted our family to be together. We have a very small family. She wanted her children to be together and also that we can look out for one another. When I first saw the house, I just thought to myself, boy, this is really small. And I was scared, I have to say. I kind of dragged my feet about physically moving in and I sort of got a butt kicking from my brother to get in your house. So with the help of family, we unpacked everything, got it organized, and once I moved in, it was a totally different story. I am so happy that I have this amount of space and I am so happy not to have all that junk. Stepping out of the bathroom is my living room and I mean living room. This is where I spend my time. I did bring a regular size sofa. It makes a great dividing line between the front door and the entrance into the room. This is the only furniture I actually brought with me from Massachusetts. I call this the throne because that ottoman which belongs to the sofa is used by the dog to sit on during the day and she loves to be up there looking out the window and barking at whoever she needs to. I don't know about you, but if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm a zombie the next day. That's why I'm so happy to have found Dream. It really works and simply put, it's a dream to use. It fits perfectly into my bedtime routine and makes my insides feel cozy. Introducing Dream by Beam. It's a revolutionary approach to sleep in the form of a guilt-free indulgent hot chocolate with natural sleep supportive ingredients. No sugar added. It helps you get to sleep, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling refreshed without grogginess. And that's been my experience. Plus, I just love having a tasty treat before bed. With better sleep, your whole world is better from starting the day in a better mood to boosted energy and much more. Better sleep means a better you. Shop early access to Beam's Cybercell when you click the link below or scan the QR code on the screen. Use code TINYHOUSE for up to 50% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer and consider a subscription for monthly savings. I have a small recliner and this is my office. I do all of my work out of here as well. This is a special sculpture I have that was done for me by my painting teacher. I started at eight years old and she and I were very, very close and she was a fairly well-known artist down in Palm Beach and those areas. That was a special gift from her that I'm really proud of. Keep the dog food in a trash can but it's a nice looking trash can and I have room for artwork. I can change things as I would like to and the daylight, the sunlight, that's so terrific to have. You can't be in a bad mood when the sun is shining into your house and in fact my doctor said my vitamin D levels were excellent. So there you have it. Right here is my kitchen and this is actually the biggest kitchen I've ever had. It has a tremendous amount of counter space as you can see. I have a regular size stove. I have a double sink. One of them has a garbage disposal which is terrific and again you can see tons and tons of storage space both in the cabinets as well as the cabinets below. I have again soft closed drawers and soft closed cabinet doors. I'll show you the thing that I like the best about my kitchen and this was a gift from my best friend Danielle in Massachusetts. It's called the Ninja Foodie. I do not use my oven or my stove. I do all of my cooking inside this. As you can see it flips down and it air fries, air roasts, air broils, bakes, dehydrates, has a warmer and it toasts. So it does literally everything. I have not used my oven since I got this Ninja Foodie. It's a terrific thing and when you're done with it you simply flip it back up which is a great thing for a tiny house. I reopen my counter space and then one of my favorite things is to look out my window and when I'm using my kitchen I can see my oak trees and they're just full of serenity and they're so beautiful. Oh I absolutely don't care about having a dishwasher. I had one in the place I lived before and never used it. I'm a single person. How many dishes can I generate? And I tend to use the same dishes every day so they get washed. And now I'll show you our last space and this is my bedroom. When we were doing the design with cornerstone this house actually came with these windows toward the front. We moved the windows to the back. Again I have the view of my beautiful trees and it also gives you a lot more privacy. Another thing we did was put a barn door in this room because of the television. You don't want a swinging door coming out of the bedroom. One thing I did was I searched long and hard and found a bed that is storage completely all the way around on three sides. So I have my linen closet is in there, my belts, my socks, things like that. It's terrific to have this much storage space. And then this is my dresser and it was something I actually purchased in law school and dragged through downtown Boston on a little dolly to get to my apartment. So this guy's been with me a long long time and served me well. And then in here I have a large closet that starts here and goes to the end of the wall. So it has lots and lots of space in it and certainly holds all of my clothing. The only thing that I would change for me is these shelves are up really high and even when I stand on a one foot stool I have to really reach up to put anything on those shelves. So that's not convenient for me. And this is one of my prized possessions over here, my washer and dryer. My mom bought that for me special as a gift and it's actually nice to look at. So they were not able to put these bifold doors over it, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with looking at it. And it's so nice to be able to go from closet, dirty laundry basket to washer and dryer, you know, two steps. And these actually, this photography is mine. And one of the things I did is I'm able to change the photos out if I get tired of looking at the pictures, which I did not too long ago. And this one other piece of artwork has been a favorite for a long, long time. It's one of the only pieces I took with me and it was done by a friend when I worked in the advertising agency in Atlanta. So it's been around for a long time. I did also downsize from a queen bed to a full-size bed. Queen size bed adds six inches. I always say that real estate is very expensive in my house. So anytime you can cut down even by a few inches, it really is helpful. I was living in a space that was probably about three times the size of my tiny home. And I had a lot of time. I had about six months of knowing that my house was being built and when I was actually going to transition to moving here. So I don't know, probably a lot of people are like me, you drag stuff around with you over the years, you know, and I had all this baggage. I had my college art portfolio with me. I had time to say goodbye to it. I was able to emotionally let go of a lot of the things that I used to carry with me. I sat there thinking, when was the last time you looked at your art portfolio? Well, it was the last time I moved. So obviously, I didn't need to have it with me every day. I basically got rid of probably 85% of what I owned. As far as my belongings, I gave everything away. I left most of the artwork on the walls. I gave some of my antique furniture, family pieces to a cousin, but anything anybody wanted was theirs. And it was exciting, really, to let go of all this stuff that I had before and just pick out what was really important to me. My house is actually something that my mother did for me. It makes me want to cry, but it's something she did for me. And I believe the cost was around $250,000 said and done. And once I got here, I was just amazed at how friendly everybody is. And I have a dog, so I'm out three times a day walking around, and people many times are outside on their porches. And there's a lot of people here with dogs, you meet the other dog walkers, you start talking to each other. The folks here are so friendly, and just so nice. I've never lived in a place where I basically like everybody. One of my neighbors down the street was sick and had been in the hospital. Well, the women around in this area got together, went over to see her, made sure there were things to take care of her. And that's what happens here is people rally around. And you don't see that in a lot of places. I love living here. That's really what I would like to add in the end. What a beautiful, perfect, God given choice this was for me. And in my life, I have found that the things that are right, fall together perfectly and seamlessly. And that's exactly what happened. 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. 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