Tiny House Design That Feels Huge | Downstairs Bedroom

For us, we made the decision that downstairs living for our bedroom was really going to help our lifestyle. When you live tiny, you really have a bigger life in the way of being able to do more things just because you have more financial freedom. When you look at the amount of square footage on the floor, it doesn't cost very much to have an incredible luxury like heated floors, which you would typically only see in your really, really high-end houses. If you are a person who is tired of feeling tied down by your mortgage and the money that you're throwing away if you're renting, this is a great opportunity. Hi, I'm Jeremiah. And I'm Jamie. Come take a tour of our tiny home. Welcome to the inside of our tiny home. The dimensions of this house are 11 1⁄2 feet wide by 33 feet long. So the layout of this tiny house, we've got our kitchen right when you enter the unit, and then you've got the living room where you're at right now. And then right behind the living room, we've got the bathroom. And then behind that is the bedroom. And above the bathroom and the bedroom is a loft area that we've kind of created a neat little nook area to hang out in. So our tiny home is actually placed in a tiny home-only park called Gemenskop in Fair Play, Colorado. So we're at 10,000 feet elevation-wise. So we're in a ski area. So we're about a half an hour from Breckenridge, which is super cool because we're just in a really killer area where we can get to all the fun stuff in Colorado. But it also creates a nice environment that everyone here is doing tiny living. So we're all kind of on this journey together, figuring out how to make life incredible in a tiny home park. Welcome to the kitchen. I actually really love this space. I thought this might be a little small because I love to cook, but it is everything that I need. So I'm going to show you around. So we have our full-size fridge. We live in a semi-remote area where there is a grocery store that's close by. However, it doesn't have a lot of the things that we're looking for on the day-to-day. So we stock this thing up quite a bit when we go into larger towns. This is a propane cooktop, and I really love cooking with this over electric. That's just one of my preferences. I'm just glad that we went with a full-size range and oven rather than a smaller one, which you typically see in tiny houses because I love to cook so much. And I don't feel like I'm lacking any counter space because of this full-size oven. So it works great for us. When you're picking out your tiny house and you're thinking about your appliances, they don't need to be tiny. They can still be full-size, which is awesome. You just have to have the right layout for your kitchen. So make sure to do a lot of research and pick out things that really matter to you because this is where you're going to live maybe for the rest of your life. And so have the things that you really want. Don't sacrifice those. And this is one of the things that I didn't want to sacrifice. This is one of the things I love about this kitchen is this storage rack area. So I've never had one of these before and I like to keep my spices really organized when I'm cooking so I'm not searching forever to find them. And this helps out a lot. So awesome. One of the things I also really love about this kitchen is the trash recycle cabinet area here. It was an awesome thought by the manufacturers, Tumbleweed Tiny Homes. Over here we have our pantry area. So it is an open concept, which I was not really cool about at first. But now that we're doing it, I think it's totally fine. So this kitchen has a lot of storage in it. I don't feel like I'm lacking in storage at all. We're not really even using a lot of the storage. One of the things that can get a little frustrating though is how high these ceilings are to get to the storage. So I like to use my tongs to get stuff out, which is a little funny at sometimes. Although we also have a step ladder that we can use too. But like I said, there's so much storage in here that I'm not really using it. So getting up top is not a huge deal. So when you are deciding on your kitchen layout and you're concerned about your pots and pans and where they are going to go, I would recommend thinking a little bit outside the box. They don't have to go in the kitchen. They can go in other spaces in your tiny house. And you'll actually see where we have some of ours hidden and you'll never know that they're there. On this side of the kitchen we have our three-quarter size dishwasher, which I was concerned that it wasn't going to wash well, but it actually is great. And then we have this large sink area. This is Jeremiah's favorite thing for the kitchen, which just kind of extends the countertop here. So that's kind of a nice feature. And then we have these open shelves over here, which again, I'm not really a person who loves open shelving, but I think it works great and my plant loves it here too. One of the things I don't love about this kitchen that much is countertops. So while these countertops are really gorgeous, they don't have a strong finish on them. So they absorb quite a bit. So that's one thing that we're looking to change in this unit actually is to redo these countertops. But it does match really well with the beetle kill pine walls that we have. So I understand why they decided to put these in, but it's something that we want to change about the house. One of the things that I would recommend when you're searching for your tiny home is making sure that you're looking at airflow and potentially a fan. Our tiny house comes from Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and they do a great job with ventilation and air circulation. So you'll see in a couple spaces of our house that intake is coming into the loft and air is coming in from outside to make sure there's really good circulation in our home. We have a tiny little fan in our living space and it puts out a ton of wind and I love it. So make sure that you are buying a fan with your tiny house if you are a fan person. So we live up in the mountains in Colorado, about 10,000 feet. And if you're considering living in a space that's in a cold climate, make sure that you are supplementing your mini splits if that's your main source of heat. So we have a propane heater that sits on the wall and we run this during cold winter months and it puts out exceptional heat in the small space. So just make sure that you're thinking about that if you're going to be in a colder climate. Right next to the kitchen, we have the living room where we hang out with the dogs and watch television and really do a lot of the living that we do in this house. And so I want to show you a bunch of the different features that we have here in this living room. So I used to live in a 5,500 square foot home and I realized there was so much space that was just being underutilized or completely not used at all. And so one of the things when you're deciding about your tiny house is what are the spaces that you really want to maximize? So for us, we like to have people over and we like to entertain. And so we really prioritize having a good place to cook good food and a place in the living area where we could hang out with folks. So this tiny is great for entertaining. I mean, you can easily fit, I think you can fit six people on that couch if you wanted to. And so we really focused on the areas that mattered to us. So when I was designing this home with Tumbleweed, we had a lot of flexibility in how we did things. And so one of the things that I really appreciated was the ability to put a television here because I like watching my TV. I got to watch my tiny home tours. And so what we did is this was originally a big picture window. And so we turned it into more of a transom window so that we could have a television underneath it. Great use of the space and then little details in the tiny home. So like right here, you got a little storage area next to this is actually the wheel well of the house. When we were looking to lay out the living room, one thing that was really important for us was to have a large seating space to lie down and watch some television. So we were actually able to incorporate an eight foot long couch, which I don't think I've ever had an eight foot long couch in a house before. So you can actually upgrade some of the size of things in your tiny house. And so Tumbleweed, they built in these custom drawers, which just slide out. Then you've got all this great storage space. So in this one, we've got a bunch of our kitchen supplies because we're right next to the kitchen. So it's nothing to walk over here and grab this stuff. So normally it would be awkward to have kitchen stuff in your living room, but in a tiny space, totally natural and it's fine and fully functional. And then over here, we've got nice little nook for you to sit down and have your morning tea and breakfast. And so we use this space. It's kind of multi-purpose. We use this for dining. It's also my home office. So when I sit down with my laptop, that's where I usually go so that I can have a nice surface to set papers out in my computer. One thing I'd highly recommend you consider when looking at your tiny house is vertical space. So we obviously know that tiny homes have a set amount of horizontal space, but when you increase the height of the ceilings, it really creates this spacious feel. And it doesn't even feel tiny. It just feels like a normal living room because you've got this tall cavernous area that you're living in. So I don't know about you, but I've been in a lot of bathrooms in people's homes where there is just clutter everywhere because there's a lack of storage in that bathroom. And so one of the things we paid a lot of attention to in our tiny is where are we going to put all the stuff in our bathroom? And so we've got this huge storage area here where you can put towels. And then Jamie has her shelf here and I have my shelf here. And the storage doesn't end there. We also have shelves here for towels. We've got a little medicine cabinet and then there's storage underneath the sink as well. We value this tremendously because we can actually store stuff where it belongs instead of having everything just out on the countertop. Just kind of a standard toilet. We're actually hooked up to the Town of Fairplace sewer system. So our neighborhood was lucky. We didn't have to put in a septic or anything like that. We were just able to plug right into their system. We were able to make some nice upgrades to our shower. So we did this faux concrete feel, which is really, really cool. And again, because we're saving money on square footage, we can do some of these nice upgrades. Another really nice thing that not a lot of people have in their bathrooms, but we were actually able to put in heated floors really cost-effectively. Because when you look at the amount of square footage on the floor, I mean, it's maybe 10 square feet. And so it doesn't cost very much to have an incredible luxury like heated floors, which you would typically only see in your really, really high-end houses. Well, with Tiny, you can be a really high-end house and not have to spend a fortune on it. When he decided he wanted to do a tiny home development in the mountains of Colorado, I thought he was crazy. And it might have been a little crazy. But I didn't know him well enough to actually say that, because we had only been seeing each other for like six months or something. And now it's like we're almost, end of this year will be five years later and we're doing it. So as my career, I spent it as a certified financial planner practitioner, which means I basically helped people navigate through, you know, everything from their household budget to, you know, what assets should I purchase? And we got into taxes and estate and all that stuff. But whether you're doing like a big development of 60 homes, like what I'm doing, or you're just looking for your own parcel of land to put your house on, it is absolutely essential that you look at what are all the different costs of like infrastructure. So something as simple as a septic system can cost as low as like $20,000 and as high as like $75,000, you know, depending on where you put it. Paying attention to those big ticket items that absolutely impact the economics of your living situation is so important. Talking to someone that's been down that road, I think, would be really helpful. Our tiny house, we bought from a company in Colorado Springs called Tumbleweed Tiny Homes. This house costs, just for the structure itself, about $165,000. Don't discount the shipping costs, because shipping is very expensive. And I think for Colorado Springs, I want to say we paid about $5,000 to drive 100 miles. Now, our 100 miles is not straight. Like some places, it's through canyons and up a mountain. So roughly about $170,000 to get the structure itself here. So one of the big challenges you're probably facing is if I do go tiny living, where do I put my tiny house? Like, what are my options? Unfortunately, there aren't very many jurisdictions where they're real receptive to tiny houses, because they're confusing to our government officials, right? They're like, is it a house? Is it an RV? I mean, it's on wheels. How can it be a house? And so Colorado has actually been very progressive in their laws. And so they actually, two years ago, they created this program where you can actually go through like a state-sanctioned process to put a tiny house really anywhere if you follow their rules. And I say that anywhere. Don't quote me on that. You know, there are restrictions, but a lot of flexibility on where to put things. And you also have to find, like, where are people friendly to tiny houses? So the community in Colorado Springs where we live, the county, El Paso County, actually allowed people. You had to buy a five-acre parcel of land in the county for septic reasons and stuff, but then you could legally put your tiny house on that property. And they were one of the first counties to do it. I know that there aren't a lot of counties in that place, but I know it is something a lot more people are receptive to because housing affordability, it's an issue everywhere in this country now. It used to just be in certain places, but it's nearly everywhere housing is expensive. And so there's just a desperate need for housing. And so Park County has been incredible. They're cheering on the project. They're working with us in a really wonderful way to help make this all happen. Welcome to our bedroom. First thing you might notice is that we actually have our bed sitting directly on the floor, not on a platform. This is actually not something that has to do with being in a small space. This is because we have a 15-year-old blind dog. And so that's the reason why the bed is on the ground. But one thing that's really nice is it does keep this window from being blocked, and so it allows all that light in. So it is something you could consider doing if you do have windows set up like ours where you want to be able to keep that window fully exposed and not block it. So we've got lots and lots of closet space here. Plenty of room to store all of our clothes. And then this is actually where we have our hot water heater. Really nice. We actually have a 40-gallon hot water heater, which makes it so we can take nice, long, hot showers and not have to worry about running out the hot water. As far as other things to mention about the bedroom, we also added heated floors in here. And so what we did is we just put the heat pads around where the bed was going. We figured, why heat underneath the bed and instead just heat where you walk? And so again, a nice little luxury that's affordable because there's not that much space that you're heating. And then in the ceiling here, this is actually a mini-split system. So in here, there wasn't really room on a wall to put a mini-split, you know, little thing that sends the heat and air conditioning in the room. And so we just put it in the ceiling. And so it allows us to have lots and lots of windows here, and we don't have to take up any wall space with the mini-split system. One of the things you might be trying to decide is, do I put my bedroom downstairs or do I put my bedroom up in the loft? And we actually started, we tried putting our bedroom up in the loft, and with our elderly dog, it did not work out very well. And so there are a lot of people that may not want to be walking up and downstairs, and you got to get on your hands and knees up in the loft. So for us, we made the decision that downstairs living for our bedroom was really going to help our lifestyle and be what we wanted. So next, we're going to give you a tour of our hallway, which for most houses, a tour of a hallway would be pretty uneventful. But in this tiny space, even a hallway is being utilized for storage. And so here you can see we've got, you know, some huge drawers here on the bottom for oversized sweaters and clothes and stuff. And then my personal favorite, my sock drawer, which is really nice. And then I have a collector of things. And so even in a tiny space, I found a place to store all my collectibles. So this is my fun drawer where I've got my watches and different things that I collect. Again, being really intentional about the space that you have and utilizing every square inch is really effective. One other thing, we've got a washer dryer here in our tiny. And again, instead of taking up space in a closet, it's just under the stairs, which would otherwise most likely not be used. So thanks for taking a tour of my hallway. So lofts aren't for everybody, especially ones that are this short. We first imagined this loft to be living space. Didn't really work out because it is too short. Then we turned it into storage. I hated that we were using space for just junk. So what we did recently is we reconverted this into this very feng shui space that I love now. It's kind of a hangout spot. You can read a book up here. You can get away from the dogs. They can't jump up here, which is awesome. So this is a dog-free zone. I just really love this space and how it makes me feel. And also because of the very large skylight that Jeremiah put in, I can grow a lot of plants up here. And I love plants, as you can see from our tiny house. It's kind of a green space for me too, which is awesome. So when you're considering your tiny house and whether to get a loft or not, I would recommend considering this space because you can use it in a lot of different ways. For me, I love hanging out in this space, but you can put guests up here. It can be a play area for your kids or your grandkids. It can be extra storage. There's a closet on the other end that I have extra clothes in. And so you can use a loft in a lot of different ways. And it's a great space that is very versatile. So I would recommend if you're considering a loft or not, rethink the loft idea because there's a lot of things you can do here. So before living in this tiny, I had lived in a tiny house that was less than 200 square feet off-grid with two people and three dogs. So it was a lot of bodies in a small space, but we had such great outdoor space, it really didn't matter. So when you're thinking about placing your tiny, no matter what size it is, make sure that you're considering your outdoor space because it can be used as space to enjoy the outdoors, whether it's an enclosed patio or an open deck like this. Just make sure that you're considering outdoor as well as your indoor space. This particular deck that we put in is actually not attached to our tiny. So if we wanted to move our tiny, we don't have to worry about this space going with us or we can break it down and take it with us. Consider that too when you're building out your outdoor space that you can take it with you if you want to or you can not be attached with it and move on to your next space. Living in this space wasn't really downsizing for me because I've lived in a lot of small spaces. But even in the small spaces that I've had, getting rid of that stuff, that purge, feels so good. You feel less tied down, you feel less responsibility, it's less junk to deal with. And so a lot of people who are going to be downsizing, I have a feeling you're going to experience that purge feeling that is just so rewarding to get rid of all the stuff that you realize that you don't need when you get to a smaller space. When you live tiny, you really have a bigger life in the way of being able to do more things just because you have more financial freedom. That is big for me because I want to be out and about doing things more than just sitting in my home, using my home because this is where all my money is going. If you are a person who is tired of feeling tied down by your mortgage and the money that you're throwing away if you're renting, this is a great opportunity, something to look into. And one last thing is tiny house people are pretty cool too. So if you find yourself in the community of tiny house folks, I think you're going to enjoy a lot of the people you meet. Thank you so much for watching this video. It's been really fun sharing part of our journey with you. If you guys are interested in learning more about the neighborhood that we're building, there'll be a link down below. Check us out. And even if you're just interested in learning more about tiny home living, we'd love to share the vision about what we're doing here. Let's say maybe you want to do this with some of your friends and want to build your own little development. We'd love to just share what that journey can look like and what beautiful thing you could build yourself.