She Took a Tiny House Leap of Faith for Retirement & It Paid Off!

I'm from the Seattle, Washington area. I've always felt like I was a country girl stuck in the city. When I was looking for a home, I did a lot of my research through YouTube. I found the Bird's Nest and all the other communities. So I decided that I would come down here and research. And a small community is what I was looking for. I wanted to be able to grow and age in place with a group of people. I didn't want 300 homes. That wasn't my goal. I wanted to get away from that big stuff. Hi, I'm Diana. And this is my tiny home. I live at the Bird's Nest in North Texas. And I've been living in it for six months. The builder of my home is Decathlon Tiny Homes. And it's an 8 and 1 by 28. The lot rent is $450. And she's not planning on raising it anytime soon. And that includes your water, sewer, and garbage. So only thing you're responsible for is the lot rent and your electricity. On the outside of the house, I added skirting and a deck. The deck is finished, but I still need to paint the skirting. The reason I have that deck on there is it adds to my living area. And on the nice days, and even if it's a little bit rainy or a hot sunny day, as long as it's not over 90, I can spend a lot of time on my deck. Let's go take a look inside the house. Welcome to my home. My home is approximately 230 square feet. My home is warm, and it's comfortable, and the dogs love it. And that was my dog, Gracie. When I bought this home, I basically said, if I'm going to live in place, I'm not going to be able to go up and downstairs very often. And I looked ahead, and that was important. You know, when you buy something and you plan on staying here, what does it look like in 20 years from now? And right here is my kitchen. I did an upgrade to the kitchen. I added quartz countertops and the backsplash. I really didn't want to take care of butcher block. There's more to it, where the quartz countertops, you just wipe it down, and it's done. I haven't had any problems with it all, and I really love it. The microwave range, and it's also an air fryer, I upgraded it from a regular microwave so that I could do at least a little bit of baking, since there's no oven in here. I have a two burner induction stovetop. I added, just for fun, I put the hooks up here to save space in the drawers. The butcher blocks are a little bit longer, because I added extra space on the countertop. It was only supposed to come to about here, and I wanted more countertops, so they went ahead and put in another pullout drawer here. So that was extra. These drawers and stuff are very deep compared to what you would use in a modern home. This has space down here. This is just my odds and ends and bowls. So they're very deep when you look at them, and they go all the way to the back. And then on this side is my refrigerator. My ironing board is right here. There's a little spot right there where you can use. Yes, a lot of people say the doors are on the wrong side, but this particular refrigerator, I just love it. It's kind of a little old-fashioned, but the doors aren't reversible. So this is the way it has to be. There's also two more pullouts here I use for my spices, which I really like, because you can use this as a countertop if you're going into your refrigerator. And Decathlon did a really great job of putting extra storage in here. This is my dog food drawer and her clothing, and that's really deep too. So if you don't have a dog, you can put all your cookware down there. This side is a surprise. You have your coat closet, which is nice as this door will open all the way up. And this is my pantry, and I keep my vacuum in here, my brush, my garbage. I added an extra shelf down here just to put things that aren't edible down here because the brooms are up so high because I wanted a full garbage can in here. I didn't really think about it too much. If you get the home that's like four feet longer than this one, they actually have two of these, one on each side. So you have that option from Decathlon. I didn't want to go too big because I know I'd fill that one up too. But you can use the other one for your clothes too, or your coats, you know. But this, I don't know what I'd do because I don't know where I'd store all my food. And above is the loft, and right now I'm only using it for storage. And 99.9% of it is all quilting materials and rulers and those types of things to make my quilts that I plan on starting right away. So I went into Decathlon Tiny Homes and they were great. You know, I made an appointment, told them this is approximately what time I'll be there. You know, went straight from the airport there. So my legs were kind of wobbly because I've been on the plane for so long. And I checked out some of their models and they were in process of building them. So I got to see how they made the homes. And I was really impressed because it looked like a stick-built home. It's not like a camper or an RV. It's sturdy and it's not gonna go anywhere. I hadn't looked and gone into anybody else's homes, but I figured this is nice, I like it. It's within my price range because I wanted to make cash for it when I moved. I didn't want any debt when I moved, so it would make it more comfortable. And from there, I went to the Bird's Nest. I met Robin and the crew is what I call them. It was very welcoming. And that was one of the things when I talked to Robin, I need a community because the city, you don't have that. You know, you're in your house, you go to work, you come home, go to the grocery store, you come home. And here, you know, we have dinners together sometimes, we have lunch together sometimes, we plant trees together, we play cards and we play games. And it's just a lot of fun, just a lot of fun. And just a few steps further is my bathroom. In here, I decided to go with the bigger mirror so you can see down to here. So that's all I need, right? And I put the sink above, gives you more storage underneath, which was definitely a plus. They do give you choices for what type of sink you want and mirrors and your lighting. There's a medicine cabinet here, which stores, you know, enough to get you by. There's three shelves in there. This is a washer dryer combo. And I use the washing machine basically as my dirty clothes hamper. You end up doing laundry a lot more often because you don't have any place really to store your dirty clothes. So you're looking at maybe a load every other day. Some people do a load every day. My towels are here. And this bar here, it's to keep this solid and not going anywhere. This is just a bar that's a magnet. So you can use it either way, or you can put a top on there and put things on top of it if you want to. I just use it for my hangers. Under here is a 30 gallon water heater. This just unscrews in a few places so that you can get under there to do any maintenance. Over here is my shower. It reminds me more of a floor tile because how big the tiles are. I decided not to put anything on the walls quite yet to put my shampoo and that kind of things on there because I haven't decided yet and I don't want to put any screws in the wall. So I'm still working on that. This bathroom comes either with the glass enclosed, that's extra, or just a bar that goes around like this. And you can have your shower curtains. I decided on the glass doors for a particular reason. Not because it's hard to keep the glass clean or anything, but to keep my dog in when I give her a bath. That was my strategy there without having to pin her up against the wall. I put the window over here. You do have that option to put one back over here too, but I figured I would use it for the mirror. Above me is a dehumidifier. It's humming right now because it's working. There's a little blue light on there. It's nice to have it in Texas due to the fact that it does get humid here. And humidity is not a good thing for tiny homes because you have a tendency to put things up against the walls. And if humidity gets in between there and you don't let the air flow, you're gonna end up with moisture trapped and then you have a mold issue. And another thing is the washer dryer, it is vented outside. And that's one of the things you want is a vented washer dryer. Because if you don't, it vents inside the house, which is all that moisture. So I do have a regular flush toilet. They do give you an option of what type of toilet you want. It worked out more for Gracie, my dog, than for me, because that's where she can look out if I leave her in here and she's trying to figure out where I'm at. The whole house is for Gracie. Well, she's part of the family, you know? Oh, oops. Thank goodness for the O-Stand Q3 air case. 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I specifically ordered it for the size it's at, so if I do have company, I can actually move all of this into my bedroom. It's on wheels, and this comes up this direction, and this door opens underneath it to hold it up. When I picked out my tiny home, one of the big factors was, how can I make my primary hobby available to? And that's where I really searched to make sure I could get a table that would fit in here. And I just bring in a small chair on wheels to sit in front of it. With the height that's at, I do have to have a chair that does go up and down. And Gracie just sits here and chews away or falls asleep and sleeps on her couch. I actually got the couch or chair, whichever you choose to use, for Gracie. She's used to bouncing off the walls, and in 1,300 square feet, she did. She went from one end of the home to the other and back and forth, and she's used to that. So she's gonna be more confined on the bad days or the super hot days. So she needs to have more space to do her thing. So this has worked out really well. I just pop all the pillows back there, and then I have a spot where I can sit beside her. But on rare occasions, she does take up the whole chair, because like all dogs, she decides to lay this direction. So I have nowhere to sit. And this chair does have the ability to swivel. So if she decides she wants to sit up here and look out the window or watch the birds, she has that ability to do that. Behind me is my 40-inch TV. I am gonna downsize this. I have found that it is a little bit too big, but I do have it on a swivel, so it's able to move it around. But we're looking at a smaller TV. One of the other girls is going to probably buy my small TV, and she'll take this one for outside on her deck. And that's one of the things about living in a small community, is having the neighbors so close, you can talk about ideas, and they'll throw other ones out at you. Oh, you're doing that? Well, I'll take that. Or I don't have room for a big pot, so, or a lady in the community will have the big pot. So if you wanna make a big pot of spaghetti or stew or chili, that person has it. So if you need one, they'll be available. I decided to cordon off the bedroom and the rest of the house. It comes in handy because you can separate the rooms, and I like that separation. I don't have company very often because we use the community center, but this is the barn door that can close off. So if you want quiet time, and you don't want to look at the rest of the house, and you just wanna chill out, you can do that or cut off some of the light that comes from inside of the house. They did notch it at the bottom here, so that you can get it all the way across. And this is the wheel well back here behind me. Down here on the bottom, I have a plastic container that I keep my material for my current project that I'm working on in my quilting room. And behind the door is the bedroom. In my home, the wall and this platform bed actually comes with the house. It's not extra, but if you don't want them, you don't have to have them. So you don't have to have the wall there, and you don't have to have the platform bed. So if you only wanna use a twin bed or a day bed, you can put that here, or you can put it here. I decided to do the platform bed. I kinda was a wishy-washy about it, but I thought, well, if I did the platform bed, I'm still sticking stuff underneath it. Well, here, you have drawers. And they utilize every bit of this home, which I love. This is where these, I've got two of these that are very deep, so I can keep my linens in here. This one also comes out. It's the same exact size as this one. And in the back, there is an open space. This is a queen-size bed frame. And in the back, there's a portion that's probably about this wide. And it's as deep as the bed. So you can put all your winter clothes in there, or your blankets, anything that you can come up with. This is a shelving unit that I added. He does ask you if there's any shelving you wanted to add. So since I don't have a bookcase, some of my stuff is up here. Projects, sewing gadgets, raincoats, extra bags. Most of it has to do with quilting, like my whole house. One of the things I didn't show you is this. I call it my closet. And it's huge. It's amazing what you can get in a little space. My daughter's Raggedy Ann doll is under here. That's why you see the feet. But this is pretty deep, as you can see. And then I've got a big quilt on top. But this I wanted to share, because there's lots of items that you can buy that you can stack. And I can get three shirts on that and still have room at the bottom. I really like this quilt that I put up on the wall. It fits perfectly. And it's one of the things I'm very, very proud of. It's one of the first major difficult quilts that I've ever done. And I'm not into everything matching, as you can see, but I love flowers and I love light things. But this takes me into more of a depth. To me, it does. And I keep a set of clothes here, sweats and a sweatshirt. So if there is an emergency and we have to leave, there is a tornado shelter in the back corner of the property. So I can just slip something heavier on instead of running out there in my jammies and getting soaked, but not having anything to protect me. So I keep those handy. Working with Decathlon, she helped make it so that it was me. You know, what I decided to put in here and the colors, it all had to do with me loving my home. And, you know, I wouldn't do anything different than what I did. I took a tremendous leap to come down here from Washington. And it's kind of like that, you risk it all for happiness. And I am very, very happy here. When I sold my mobile home, it gave me the cash to buy my tiny home. I limited how much I wanted to spend. I didn't want to go over $100,000. I did add a few upgrades. So overall I paid was 97,000. The base price was around 79,000. Basically, I was interviewed when I came here because you want to fit in as well as I wanted to fit in. If I didn't fit in with the people that lived here, I didn't want to be here. And so you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. She talked about us being able to age in place and that every home won't have necessarily stairs to get off their deck. There's going to be a ramp at one point in time. Hopefully not soon, but aging in place is a major factor because we all want to stay in our homes as long as we can. Having a tiny home actually gives you more freedom to do that. Many homes, people are falling. With these tiny homes, you're close enough to a wall that you're not going to be tripping and falling. The exercise we get in here, we're on two and a half acres that we can walk. It's healthy physically as well as mentally because you have the interaction with other people. You're not isolated. And that's also a factor when you get older, you tend to be more isolated in a home than you are in a community. To get along with everybody, to be able to converse. If you need to go somewhere, something happens and you have a dog, you don't have to pay for a sitter. You've got somebody in the community that can watch your dog. So if you have to fly out for relatives or kids or something of that nature, you can do that. A tiny home gives you more freedom. There's less upkeep. It makes you feel like you don't want to stay indoors 100% of the time. I built a deck on, it's eight by 16, which expands the home in a sense where you can go outside and sit on the deck. But it also pushes me outside to do other things that you normally wouldn't do. I love my tiny home. It's my home and it reflects who I am. Thanks for stopping by Tiny House Expedition. I'm Alexis. And I'm Christian. And this is our DIY tiny house on our homestead in Oregon. Looking for more tiny inspiration? Watch these videos. But if you're looking for something specific, visit our channel homepage to browse tiny homes by category. And don't forget to subscribe. Hope to see you soon.