His Cleverly Designed Tiny Home Gave Him Financial Freedom

Hi, my name is Don. I wanted to share with you today how I downsized from a 3,200 square foot house to a 372 square foot tiny house and the additional financial freedom brought me closer to my retirement goals. Welcome to my kitchen. It took about 18 months of research to really decide on the features I wanted built into this tiny house. Now that I've lived in here for four years, I'm pretty happy with the overall design of the kitchen. When I moved everything in from a much larger kitchen to this one, I found out that I really didn't need as much counter and cabinet space as I had used before, that everything that I needed to have fit into the space that I have now. I decided I wanted to have an L shaped Island. I don't do a lot of cooking, but when I do, it's nice to have a little bit of workspace. I wanted to have a apartment size refrigerator space. Obviously the refrigerator is a little bit smaller. I wanted a farmhouse style sink along with the farmhouse sink. I wanted a gas stove and an electric oven so that I could have the best of both worlds. There at the butcher block countertops, the open shelving so I can keep all my goodies that I need, my plates and dishes, a lot of windows on top and bottom to give a lot more light to the kitchen area. And then because of the natural wood in the pine, in the walls and ceiling and everything, I wanted a little bit of contrast. So I had all the cabinetry painted blue. One of the build features that Peter from Indigo River tiny homes builds into his tiny houses, the fact that he uses about every bit of space that he can got to pull out pantry next to the fridge here. I've got drawers and slides underneath the steps over in the living room area. I've got another smaller slide out pantry storage closet in there. And once again, more storage in the steps, he pretty much utilized every bit of space that you got overall from the, uh, all the features that I pointed out to you. I'm very, very happy with the final product of the kitchen. And I like the fact that everything is within close proximity, a real easy reach makes my tiny life living easier. Welcome to my living room area. This part of the countertop on the L shaped Island is really handy to where I can work off from both sides. It's also nice the fact that when I'm coming from being on the road, I can put in my laptop or my briefcase with her stuff on here to get everything unpacked. So right above me is my secondary loft. You could use it as a sleeping area. It'll handle a queen size mattress. No problem. Could also use it as a work area with a small couch or something like that. It's also very handy right now for me, for storage where I keep a lot of my boxes and some other winter clothes, things like that. One of my favorite features in here is this flip down desk that I've got. It's made out of Mexican Rosewood. Good friend of mine in El Paso, Jack Day sourced it for me. And I really, really enjoy it. It's a pretty unique, it's got a live edge on it and it just finishes off the living room area really nicely. Flat screen TV, 40 inch. I've also got space to put my cabinets and my fax machine and my safe. The dimensions of the couch had to be pretty specific. So it took me about two and a half months to find the right couch that would fit in this space and still be comfortable. I didn't want to go with a less expensive or so-so compromise for a couch. So this worked out really, really well. In the initial design stages, Peter and I had talked about putting a sliding glass door here and to go into the backyard. But for some reason it didn't make the final cut. We ended up going with a large bay window that I really appreciate. It lets in a lot more light. One of the reasons we went with a natural pine finish inside my tiny house was the fact that with all the additional light that already comes in because of all the windows we added to the build, I felt like a natural pine finish would be a little bit more warm feeling. And people that come into the tiny house for the first time, they can still smell the pine a little bit versus a painted one. So I didn't need the extra reflected light of a white finish. The natural finish was more appealing to me. The only thing that's come to light after I lived here for a little while is one area that is a little bit lacking is wall space for pictures. And that's just understandable because of the dimensions you're dealing with. So you have to be kind of selective with what pictures you have to put up and where you're going to put them because you could plaster them everywhere, but they're not going to be, it's not going to be very appealing aesthetically. Now that I've lived here for four years, I'm very happy with the decisions I made for the couch space, the desktop, the bay window and everything. I'm very, very happy with all the decisions. I wouldn't change it for anything. One of the other features I really enjoy about my tiny house is my Mr. Cool mini split. It both heats and cools my 372 square foot tiny house. If you have one any larger than that, you might consider looking into a secondary unit. One of the other nice features about Mr. Cool mini split is it's very DIY friendly. If you're building your own tiny house, you can install it yourself with minimal tools and minimal experience without having to go to the expense of paying an outside contractor to do so. One of the other nice features I like about Mr. Cool mini splits, you can either use a wireless remote or their phone app to where you can adjust the temperature remotely while you're out of town. It also saves me money by allowing me to adjust the temperature while I'm out on the road on a motorcycle trip. Overall, I'm very happy with the Mr. Cool mini split due to the performance, the ease of install and the money that I have saved. Mr. Cool is a long time sponsor of tiny home tours. So for more information on Mr. Cool mini splits, go to mrcool.com. Thanks Mr. Cool for sponsoring this video. What started my journey into looking into a tiny house build was 2018, 2019. I went through a divorce. Anybody that's gone through a divorce will understand the fact about the financial change in your lifestyle that that creates. I, you know, I was 64 years old at the time. You start thinking about your retirement ideas and how that changes. I had to start seriously considering what changes I needed to make in my life to be able to hit the retirement I wanted. At the time I was living in a 3,200 square foot house on five acres. And it just seemed like I was spending way too much of my time after the divorce. So just cutting grass never actually would go upstairs. So like a wasted space. One of the alternatives that I discovered in looking on YouTube is the increasing popularity in the tiny home communities. And there were some TV shows on YouTube that really started catching my eye about a minimalistic lifestyle, the tiny house lifestyle and the financial benefits of transitioning to that really became apparent. No more rent or no more house payment. Utilities are a lot less. Those things that continue to drag you down and weigh on you every single day. They're gone. When I lived in that large house, my electric bill was anywhere from four to $500 a month. Now it's $50, $60 a month. The Texas property tax bill that I had in that house was $7,500 for the year. In Texas, they consider a tiny house as an RV. So there's no property taxes whatsoever. So just those two monthly differences right there allow me to put a little bit more money back towards my retirement. I was fortunate enough by selling my house, I was able to pay for my tiny house cash. So I don't have that expense anymore. Just taking that financial burden off of me made me feel better about my financial future when I got closer to retirement. So welcome to my bathroom. I wanted a full size washer and dryer. I had done my homework. I asked a repair man, if he were to buy a washer and dryer, what brand would he recommend? And he recommended Speed Queens because they're still built in the US. I invested in a couple of those. And once again, working with Peter on the design process, we had to go from a 28 foot tiny house to a 32 foot to make it fit. The other nice feature is this shower that we put in. It's a full size shower. The doors slide open and close. They're very nice. It's a little bit of a pain to keep clean, but I like, I like it very much because the fact that it's got glass walls, it makes the bathroom feel a lot bigger in size. So another nice feature in the bathroom that we figured out, I wanted this largest size vanity I could put in here because of the space allowed, put a 32 inch vanity in here, soft clothes, drawers, glass doors underneath the sink. So another neat feature is on this backlit mirror, got a touch on and off feature. And it adds a little bit more light obviously to the bathroom. The actual ceiling itself on the bathroom is the bottom of the, what the mattress sits on above us in the bed, in the master bedroom. So the platform for the mattress is actually right here. So the final part of the bathroom is the toilet area with a little bit of storage on the shelf there and a crank out foster glass window as a little bit more light to the bathroom. Overall, using the bathroom here for the last four years, I can't say I'd want to change anything. It does everything I need it to do from the washer and dryer. Like we talked about the vanity, the glass window, the, the glass doors on the shower. I mean, I'm totally happy with it. Before we go upstairs, I'd like to point out a couple of more features that I really enjoy is that Peter built into his designs. The shoe storage under the landing. When you come in the front door, you can put up the five pairs of shoes are there. Also the, on these double doors right here, you've got the slide down Venetian blinds to give you a little more privacy in the evening. So after that, let's just go upstairs and see what we've got up there. So welcome to the bedroom. And from this angle, you can see that I've got double closet space, a full size closets with three drawers under each. And then there's also a sitting bench with storage underneath that did one of the decision we made in the design phase was adding another closet. Cause he normally comes with one because I wasn't totally sure transitioning from the large house to this one. If I would have enough closet space for all of my clothing and my jackets and everything. And it worked out to be just right. So one of the concerns in when I first moved into the tiny house was whether or not there'd be enough head space to sit up in the bed without hitting the ceiling. And because of my height, I'm five, nine, it worked out just fine. Got shelving here for additional storage on underneath also. And actually this is a queen size bed on this platform. It'll fit a King size bed. So now that I've been sleeping in the loft for the last four years, I can't say that I really want to switch anything from where it was originally designed. I think once again, the blessing of the fact that everything fell into place and the decisions we made in the very beginning worked out great. I think there's different levels of minimalism to where that's financial minimalism, tangible goods, minimalism, lifestyle, minimalism. I realized that it made me focus more on what I felt like I really needed. There's things that I thought I needed 10, 15 years ago. I don't, I don't need now. I can't see myself changing back to a house. I totally enjoy this lifestyle. I think it's nice and simple. In all honesty, I'm 100% satisfied with this blessing. Thank you for watching my video. I hope you all enjoyed it. And hopefully I answered some questions along the way and inspired you to seriously consider tiny house living.