Tiny House Tour: Spacious DIY Build in the Mountains

Today's episode is sponsored by doTERRA. Hi, I'm Kaylee and welcome to our 300 square foot tiny house here in the mountains. I'm going to be giving you a full tour of our tiny house today, so let's head inside. Welcome inside our tiny home. This house is about eight and a half feet wide by 28 feet long. It sits on a trailer. Those are the dimensions of the trailer. Um, obviously when you add walls, it becomes a little smaller, but we do have a bump out on that end. My husband Dalton and I have been living in our tiny home now for over six months and we love the simplicity that a tiny house offers and how everything can just kind of be molded to your needs to some degree. There's definitely limitations, but I've always dreamed of living in a tiny house. Even looking back in my 16 year old journals, there's like blueprints of tiny house layouts. So this is really a dream come true and we love our little home. Our house is currently sitting on a couple of acres that we have out here in the mountains and we love how connected we feel to nature. It's so nice having lots of windows. It's literally my dream to live in a greenhouse. So this house kind of gets close to that. We moved in here in the middle of December this past year. And since then we have continued to make this space home. There are definitely some home projects that are left unfinished. So you're going to be getting a look at the tiny house in its raw state, which is unfinished. The outside is not painted. The kitchen backsplash is not done and there is painting and projects to be finished. But I thought it would be fun to do a before so that I could come back and maybe do a little updated tour video, um, showing all the renovations and things that we have finished. So first up, let's do a little tour of the kitchen. Welcome to our kitchen. This is the heart of the home and it's a pretty good size kitchen. It's actually a bigger kitchen than our apartment that we lived in before we moved into the tiny house. So we're pretty happy with this space. It's got lots of counter space, lots of storage and all the appliances we need on this side of the kitchen. We have a little range. This is like an RV style range, but it works perfectly for us. We actually didn't have a stove or an, or we had a stove. We didn't have an oven before moving in here because we were living in an apartment that didn't have an oven. So we actually used our little toaster oven, which is like this big for a full year. So we've been really loving having this oven, even though it's not a full size, it's been plenty for us. We can bake bread and there's plenty of like surface space up here with the three burners. So that's worked really well. And then we have, of course just like storage up above here. It's mostly venting and then backpacking food up there. Um, and then spices on this side, like coffee, some supplements. And another feature in this kitchen is I really wanted to hide the refrigerator. So we have this built in style with really minimal style cabinetry. A couple of reasons for that. We ended up going with a minimalist feel in the whole home. So we have a very Scandinavian style in the kitchen with the cupboards being very sleek, the minimal finish. Um, a couple of reasons for this one, we had previously built out and converted a sprinter van and we found that having handles in there, um, or like knobs and poles, we would bump into them. And just being in a smaller space, we thought it would be more practical to eliminate that completely. So we have a smooth finish. They're all pushed to open. We did a custom cabinetry with a local cabinet maker. And so these turned out well, it fits our needs. Everything is soft clothes. Another reason for keeping it kind of a clean and neutral palette in here is besides the fact that I love white and really wanted it to feel open and spacious in here is with just kind of a blank slate. I can really do some renovations and updates. If any of you have seen some of my previous videos or my series making home, you know that I love decorating and homes and interior design. So I've always been a person who loves switching things out. And so just keeping it kind of a blank slate really made sense for me to be able to have fun in a house. So with that being said, I have a bunch of plans for this kitchen and I think it's going to look way different here, even in a couple of weeks and months. So stay tuned for those video updates. I'll be sharing those on here as well. So this is our fridge. It's a full apartment size fridge and freezer. This is actually a fridge from Ikea and then we did custom cabinetry around it. So this has worked out really well. It's plenty of space for us. We kind of max it out, but it works great. We did a little drawer for trash and then just have more storage, food storage over here and then cupboard storage for plates, bowls, cups, things like that. And then next to the stove, we just have a drawer for spices, utensils. I'm showing you guys all the things because sometimes when I watch tiny house video tours, I'm like, what all do you have in your cupboards? You're like, how is it organized? I love organizing things. So I thought I'd show you guys, even though it's nothing amazing or spectacular, but this is just practically how we've been using this space for now. This drawer just has a bunch of pantry staples, which I did not organize for this video. So this is what it's looking like. It definitely needs an organization, but it's just a bunch of dry goods. And then bottom drawer is also more dry goods, more like pasta, sauces, flour, things like that. And that's pretty much our whole pantry. And then on this side, you really are getting the full in-depth tour because I'm taking you through every cupboard. So I have cutting boards, saran wrap, things like that. I have dish detergents and our printer under here, things like soap refills, cleaning supplies. Um, and then over here, I just have like baking ware, blender, serving bowls, things like that. Our dishwasher. I love this dishwasher. It is a drawer dishwasher. This drawer is our silverware, miscellaneous things, knives, keys, Tupperware's bottom drawer, and then linens, tablecloths. And then this drawer is vitamins, essential oils, tea. These are all from doTERRA, which I love. I've been using doTERRA products literally since I was a kid, my mom would use them in our house. So I've definitely been using these for a long time, but I'm super grateful to be partnering with doTERRA for this video. Thank you for sponsoring today's video doTERRA. And I'm actually excited because I want to share with you guys one of my favorite blends that I'm doing right now. But right now my favorite blend is diffusing six drops of cedarwood, six drops of lemon oil, and then four drops of cinnamon bark. And this combo is so refreshing. I feel like it's a good one for summer or winter. It's kind of evergreen. I love doTERRA's line of essential oils because they are pure and unadulterated, meaning they are sourced from nature and not synthetically produced in a lab. They also test the essential oils for their botanical identity to confirm that it is what it actually says it is. And their essential oils are also undiluted with any fillers or additives, things like that. So I love that they're just a super pure, clean ingredients and reliable. So I definitely have a good little stock of these in the house. I'm a big fan of their products and super grateful for doTERRA for sponsoring today's home tour. So let's get into the rest of the tour. Welcome to our living room. This is the other half of the home and we have a little pullout couch here. This one I actually found on Amazon and it is the perfect size for the space. I had searched the internet for the perfect dimensions for a couch because we originally had the couch here in this little indent, but I've been kind of moving things around. So right now the couch is here and I like it because it kind of flows better. There's not too much that we can do as far as moving furniture around in a tiny house, but I do like it here because when we have guests, it's nice to be able to like sit here and then be able to talk and have them sit in chairs there. It kind of opens the space up a bit rather than just having like two chairs here facing the couch. It's a little bit more cramped. So this couch can actually be pulled out to be just like have a leg rest, um, for two people, or you can pull it all the way out and it becomes a full queen size bed, which is amazing for not only guests. We'll have guests sleep in here sometimes or whenever it's too hot up in the loft, we'll sleep down here. And I will say the mattress is very comfortable. I love it. And I'm a big fan. I do think that now that the couch is facing this direction, I might experiment with getting a bigger couch, but this has worked so well. It's a bit awkward and unfinished because like I said, I'm in the middle of prepping to do some renovations in here and have some fun projects planned. So this is all kind of still in progress, but I think you get the overall vision right now. We just have our fireplace stored behind the couch. It's a little electric fireplace with some book storage, but I'm moving things around. So I recently put in this small bookshelf on this side of the wall so that I could have a little gallery wall and just kind of move things around. So that's our living room. That is it. It's very small, but it's sweet and it's enough for us. It's a good little space and it flows into this open space. Like we have the French doors here and then we store our dining table at the end of the counter. And so we'll pull the dining table either into this open space or push it against the French doors to be able to have a little view when we're eating. We also have our wood burning fireplace, which is so itty bitty, but it's so sweet. So we love this in the winter. It cranks. It keeps us warm. Next I'll take you upstairs. We just have a little ship ladder that Dalton built while we were in the building process. So this isn't our longterm ladder, like many of the things in here, but it's just one of those things that we built when we needed something to go upstairs and this one happened to work. So we haven't upgraded yet, but I would like to get something with a bit deeper tread for going up and down the stairs. Something else that we did in here was we designed our walkway upstairs with a dropped walkway. So it's actually a bit lower on this side than the rest of the loft so that we can stand in the loft. Well, I can stand in loft. Um, but yeah, let's head upstairs. Well, welcome to the loft. This is our bedroom slash closet. We have our clothes behind us. Very simple. We just put up this shelf whenever we first moved in and then our bed is in this space. I really wanted to get in the space and live in here for awhile before I solidified what I wanted to do exactly with the closet slash bedroom. So now that we've been in here for awhile, I finally have come up with a plan. So stay tuned for that. It's going to be really colorful and fun and add some texture in here and also some storage. So stay tuned. I can't wait to see what this looks like in a couple of weeks slash months, however long it takes. Um, but right now this space totally works. Like we just have a queen size bed here and then we have the walkway here, which I can stand up in, which is so nice. My husband can't stand in here, but that's okay. I'm the one who does the laundry and is home more than he is. So it works out well for us. The only thing I will say that is kind of a downside to a tiny house, or at least this one specifically is not having a door on our bedroom because I have to use these, which are custom earplugs and I'm definitely adjusting. I have adjusted so much better to living in basically a studio space with two of us. We've always lived in like a one bedroom apartment or a home with multiple bedrooms with doors. So it's definitely a learning curve, like getting in a space that doesn't have any doors and it's just all open. And so while we love the tiny house and there's so many perks and benefits to living in this little home, I would say the one downside is definitely not having a space where you can just go to sleep and have it be quiet. And originally this was going to be in our original home plans when we were designing a tiny house, but there was a whole bunch of things happened. We didn't end up doing that because we didn't go with the 10 foot wide tiny home trailer like we originally were going to. So we're finding ways to compromise and I'd say that it's working out pretty well. So I do think it's a really good skill for me to acquire to be able to sleep in noisier spaces because then I'll just be able to sleep better. So I'm okay with it. But yeah, we've had to make some adjustments that I mask and the earplugs, we both have a set. So if you're thinking about a tiny house, this is one thing to consider. There are things that we could do to kind of minimize this, add curtains or maybe build something. Originally we were going to do shutters here and a little door. So we might add something like that in the future. So this is pretty much all upstairs. There's not really much else to show. We just have a really simple closet. And like I said, we're going to do some more things up here. So this is the current state of the bedroom, but let's go back downstairs and I will show you our bathroom, our storage area and our laundry room. One of our eyesores currently is our air conditioning unit, which we just have on our way up the stairs. And this is one of those things I would have totally done different if we were building again. We just didn't really think about it when we were building, but this like bumps out. And so when you're going up the stairs, it's kind of easy to hit it. You have to like consciously, or like now, I think it's muscle memory, but we kind of have to move around it. So I would definitely not suggest putting air conditioning right there. And we really want to look into getting a mini split in here instead because it's just not an ideal location. So that's a side note, but that is, we do have cooling and it's right there. We just have a in like a window insert little air conditioning unit. It works, but it's probably not ideal. This is the other side of the home. This is our laundry room slash entryway slash bathroom. Also my work from home set up. I have this little miniature standing desk here, which I'll work from. I need to find a better spot for this, but it works for now. This way I'm not like craning my neck while I work. Just have an entryway, have some hooks here for coats. And then it flows right into the bathroom and have our laundry room behind us. This is a washer dryer combo. So it does both, maybe not the drying so well, but it still works. So we're happy with it. And then we also have this for like drying clothes, air drying or to finish off the dry cycle. So, and then behind here is kind of our work in progress. Another spot that's a work in progress. We have all of our shoes and there's quite a bit about this side of the room that we're not in love with, but it just kind of happened the way that it did. We have our hot water heater up here and originally we were planning on putting like a closet built in here to have our skis in here, ski storage and like work clothes to hang here. But whenever we build the shed, we decided this could be just a better space to use for shoes slash dirty clothes, dirty laundry basket, things like that. So it's really become kind of a catchall and it needs some work. But right now the curtain, good old curtain is doing us well. It works for now. And I love to find like a better longterm solution, something that looks a bit nicer and put together. But honestly it's just one of those things that it works. So we haven't fixed it yet and that is our laundry room, the full tour. Um, and then up here we have storage. So we have a little storage loft up above the bathroom. So right now we just kind of have like seasonal stuff stored up there, like gift wrapping, winter coats, things like that. And then I will show you the bathroom. Welcome to our small little bathroom. So for our bathroom, we ended up going with a just traditional toilet system. So we have it plumbed into our septic system. And when we were building this, we didn't know where it was going to be parked because we didn't have land yet. But we, um, yeah, ended up just going with a septic system and it worked. We found property and thankfully got the septic system installed and hooked it all up. So we've been loving that it works out well. Um, we went with like a more European style toilet so that it would be, um, narrow in depth so that it doesn't jut out a whole lot and block more walking room with leg room because there's not a whole lot of space in here. And then we went with a shower insert, which it's okay. We were kind of torn on doing tile or shower insert because tile just looks so much better. And yeah, just a lot more pretty, but we were trying to save money and time where we could. And honestly we've done a lot of tile projects and we just kind of wanted it done. So we did a shower insert here. For storage in the bathroom, we ended up going just with a simple shoe cupboard that you would use to store shoes in. And a couple of reasons for this. First we were going to originally do a built-in here. So when we were designing the tiny house, originally we were going to do a built-in that would go over and cover the ugly wheel well corner that you see popping out in the bathroom. But I really did want to wait before we built that and live in the space to see if that's truly the direction I wanted to go in. And since living in here, I do in fact want to change it. And so I have some of those bathroom updates coming in here, but right now this has been working well. It's plenty of storage for us. Um, yeah, that's kind of it. That is our whole bathroom. Well, that brings me to the end of today's home tour. I hope you enjoyed this little peek around our 300 square foot home and stay tuned. If you want to check out any of those updates that I'll be tackling here in the next coming weeks. And I'm excited to see what it looks like in here. So thanks for watching. And I will see you guys in the next one. I have an audience behind the camera. So I'm a little nervous. Don't look at me. There is, don't look at Dalton.