Empty Nesters Create Game Changing Tiny Home Design

We're almost empty nesters, and we've decided to go tiny as we move towards retirement. We're Norm and Stephanie. Have you seen a tiny house with an elevator bed and 92 inch projection screen? Come on in and check it out. Welcome to our tiny home. As you walk into your right, we have the elevator bed and the lower sleeping and eating area in our living room. As we move through this section, we have the kitchen. And then moving on back behind you is the bathroom. We're sitting on a 28 foot trailer and it's standard width of eight foot, six inches and 14 foot in height. So we do not have to have a special permit to move it around. Well, welcome to the dining area and living room area and sleeping area as well. We tried to maximize the vertical space as much as possible. We don't put the table up a lot. Often we eat here at this smaller desk workspace area. But when we have guests, it's very easy for us to sit for folks around here and have plenty of space to enjoy ourselves. Where I'm sitting on is storage basically under everywhere. Also, the nook for the cutout has area for the stereo that would typically be bulk storage from the outside. So it's nice. We're able to put all the equipment in there at books, at records and have a very flexible additional sleeping space, maximizing all that. One nice thing about the slide out, too, is if you want to have a little more lounging area, you can pop it out six, eight inches. So I was able to really convert really what would be, again, exterior storage into something a little more meaningful for the interior space. The positive side of the elevator bed is space. This is six foot four clear. I can set it at any height. A lot of times in movie watching, we'll put it probably about five foot off the ground and we can lounge around. You could put three or four people up at the upper bed. You could have three or four people sitting here. You can have popcorn going, people, you know, sneaking under the screen to go to the bathroom. We also will pop out to the fire pit at night, have drinks around that. There's a lot of flexibility in the space, which is great. One thing I would say that we would change is probably rethinking a little bit ingress and egress. It's not horrible. Often when we put the bed lower, we will just jump up on these and pop up in because usually when we sleep, we'll freeze it about this height. We do have a small ladder that actually will hook on this. And it's not bad getting up into it. But yeah, you know, the the rungs are a little narrowish. And, you know, it's not a big, cushy staircase. That's probably the only thing that's been hard to optimize. I know there's different types of stairs that flop out. And I've seen permanent mounted ones where there's hooks. And so we're still kicking that around a little bit. I gave Blaine, who did the design on it, three dimensional, which was really great because people will ask me, did it turn out how you thought? And I said, well, yeah, because I had a three model that he had everything. He had the projector screen down and he had the nooks. He had the table up. He had, you know, the bed pushed in and pushed out. He had the stereo in the bed. We knew we were going to have elevator pretty much from the get go. That was one of the original design components. We know we wanted the surround sound, the 7.1, the tuck in the sub. And so when they built it all, we pre-wired everything and put outlets in the appropriate spots to make it functional for, you know, the infrastructure that we had to put in and mount. I love Norman's elevator bed and living room setup and how versatile it is for him and his guests. Hi, my name is Cindy. I live in this tiny home and I'm part of the team here at Tiny Home Tours. I can only imagine how important having reliable electricity is for Norman since he needs power to get in and out of his bed. And while I don't have an elevator bed, reliable backup power is important to me and my tiny home as well. And that's why I have an essential home backup system from Jackery, who's the sponsor of this video. This is my solar generator home power 3000, which I use to keep my essentials powered up in the event of a power outage. Being in Texas, heat waves and thunderstorms can frequently cause power outages. And because my tiny home community is out in the country, sometimes it takes a while for them to get our power back on. And let me tell you, once you lose all the food in your fridge because of a power outage, you'll never want that to happen again. The HP 3000 will keep my refrigerator running for about two days in the event of a power outage. That gives me peace of mind during thunderstorms and heat waves. Of course, you can use it to power other things as well. For me, that usually includes keeping my computer, phone and Internet working. This is great because I can be sure I won't have to miss any important work calls. But more importantly, I can stay in touch with my family and FaceTime with my grandbabies. If you're in a tiny home like me, the HP 3000 should give you enough power to run your lights and fans for a few days. And because it has a 3600 watt inverter, it can run some of your appliances like your toaster and your coffee maker. Because I live in a tiny home, size was a big factor for me in choosing a home backup system. And as you can see, the HP 3000 is super compact, especially when you compare it to a traditional gas generator. I can store it really easily in our shed or in a corner in our bedroom. It also has what they call zero drain. This means I can charge it all the way up and it only discharges 5% in a year. This means it's ready to power your devices no matter when an outage hits. If you want to check out Jackery's line of essential home backup systems, go to the link below or scan the QR code. Thanks, Jackery, for sponsoring this video. Now let's get back to the tour of Norman's tiny home. So my favorite feature, hands down, is the 92 inch projection screen, a little bit of a challenge because you think about there's some math and stuff that's involved. There's how close or how far away you can be from the projector to the screen, the kind of brightness levels you're going to need in the space and then just the logistics of, you know, hey, how do I get a screen that fits the space? In this case, we actually went to an A.V. business that made, you know, lots of different higher end things, and they were able to spec out a screen that was designed for a custom space. The surround sound. So, you know, we took a fair bit of time. We worked with the same A.V. specialist. And so these are an Italian made speaker that we ended up going with Sonos, I think, Sonos Faber. I've said that I slaughtered the name, I'm sure. It was something I was willing to invest in, I guess, is the short story. And so for us, again, we we cut out a lot of things, a lot of clutter. But the things that we decided to go in, we sort of went, we went all in. You know, I had my turntable, love the records. You know, there's a lot of nostalgia for that. For me as a kid, you know, having access to that type of thing. It's very immersive. In fact, in a lot of ways, it's better than going to the theater in this space. When Steph and I are here alone, this is typically both our work area and our dining area. It's nice. We can, you know, pop here on these nice cushions. We'll both throw our laptops up. It did toss a little extra screen up here. So if you're working on your laptop, you want a spare screen, you can just pull out a USB-C cable, plug into that and utilize it. And then if we do need a larger space here, we can pull these out. We can flop these supports in and drop this whole area and then make this a large sort of open space as needed. So with the kitchen area, we really wanted as much flexibility as we could have with the built in essentials. So the built in stuff that were sort of non-negotiables for us where it was our induction stove, a two burner. And what's nice about this hood is it does actually vent outside. We wanted some flexibility with an oven, so we went with a nice little countertop convection oven. We cook the pizzas and such. It really works great. We'll keep a lot of frozen meals in here just for handiness. We don't want to do a lot of food prep. But the small area really does us, you know, suffice most of the time for our food prep. But as needed, you know, we have these much larger spaces over here and even in the sitting area. So if you want to be a little more ambitious, you can have space, set the stuff up, have people come in, grab food and stuff and move through. So really, the flexibility was a real key component for us. Honestly, right now, we're probably only 50 percent utilized in our storage space. We have a lot of stuff with really a lot of open air. And so if we want to bring more food in, if we want to put more stuff in different spots, we have a lot of options. And in fact, sometimes I even forget certain drawers are here. We were messing around today and I'm like, oh, yeah, there's another big drawer under the fridge that I totally forgot about. Food storage really for us has been we've not found any any shortage so far. We have, you know, the pullout drawers and they come out. I mean, they're they're they're deep, right? So we can get a lot of things. Additionally, with the fridge, you know, I don't remember the exact cubic feet on it, but plenty for a couple of people. We rarely have the thing even half full. Freezer works great. We keep a lot of the meals and stuff in here. We keep some wines and things just sort of stuffed up above. One of the things I like with the vertical components is we don't have a lot of cabinetry, right? But we have a lot of space to put things where it can sit and sort of stay out of the way. So with the sink, we like the farm style and we knew we wanted a big area. So it's a it's a it's a deep, you know, dual sided sink. We didn't scrimp on the fixture. So we got nicer components throughout the tiny house. We didn't go crazy, but we wanted stuff that we felt was going to last a long time. We do love our little triple osmosis water filter. So we have, you know, cleanest water you can basically get. And then, you know, really, when we started thinking through, you know, the entry and exits, you know, the barn door, we keep a little four inch space between here and the cabinetry and it tucks in very nicely. When we go to move it, we just throw a little bungee cord up here and it holds it tight and it doesn't go anywhere. You know, we don't intend to move this a lot, but we are set up to. I would say I'd say in an hour I could easily have everything sort of ready to go. And they added some really nice little components. They actually added like a leather strap. And so when you go to move, you can there's a little bolt here or screw and boom, the fridge is held in. So we really did build everything with the intent of being able to move fairly quickly, but really flexibility and light was a lot of our key focus versus having storage, storage, storage, storage. We tried to integrate the storage in as many out of sight or built into the furniture as possible. And then just from a maintenance perspective, especially as we get a little bit older, you know, we could deep clean this thing in an hour, you know, and I mean, tearing everything apart. Right. Where in a big house, it's going to take all day. We get these emotional attachments for whatever reason to, you know, acquiring and having and having fun and getting more stuff. And you end up with so many things that are really fully underutilized. So are they meaningful and do they really need a place in our time, in our finances, in our, you know, in our living space? You know, we have a really nice condition space with the mini split does a great job of keeping it super comfy all year round. You know, we're up here in a harsh winter. And so I've had a really good test trial of what it's like in really all called generally severe conditions. And it's it's super comfy and we really do enjoy that. So in 2020, I think we started researching the tiny homes and looking at potential builders. So I found the builder out of Oklahoma Cornerstone that they're a house builder that does tiny homes on the side. And we started asking them questions and they had a lot of interest. We in doing it for us. We had some high level discussions. I paid a design fee up front. And we and once we settled on that, then we went into construction budgeting. I think it took eight months at least we were in construction because they had other stuff going on and we weren't in it. We weren't in a big rush to get it done. I really enjoyed the 3D modeling that Blaine did for us because it helped give us a really good idea of what we would be getting and how to move through the space. All in with the tiny home construction, I think was around 140,000 that excluded the solar and the batteries. And I don't recall what the total cost of that is. I would guess another 10 to 15,000 invested. Stereo is probably at least that as much with the projector and all the toys. And then a lot here is really very, very reasonable. It's 675 a month. And that includes water. And then the power is separate. And that's next to nothing, especially since we have the solar. It basically offsets almost our entire electric bill. We're getting to the point in our life where we're not going to be using a lot of the space in our home. And we use every bit of space in this home. And I really was looking forward to having less stuff to take care of. I knew I could clean this whole space in 30 minutes and then go do life. And for me, that was, I think, the most appealing idea of having a tiny house is I wanted to live life. I didn't want to spend my time taking care of things. You know, I've ridden a lot of off-road motorcycling and through hiking and backpacking and stuff. There's like purist mentalities. And honestly, I just don't care. I don't I don't really. I mean, it's like you do you will do less. And everybody has different needs and everybody has different whys. Like, are you doing it because I want to make less of an impact on the planet? Am I doing it because I want more freedom? I want more financial flexibility. Right. And so I think for every each of us, that's there's a different answer. And so for us, you know, we splurged and did a lot of things and a lot of people wouldn't do. But there's also things that we didn't do that would be, you know, more more important to others. Life ebbs and flows. And I think we've had to do that a lot with the kids. I mean, everybody's situation is different. And we want to create a space that fits our lifestyle right now and enjoy it and have fun with it while it works. And if something changes, then we'll do something different. And maybe moving so much throughout our marriage has made me a little bit more flexible in different sizes of houses and different ways to live, because our situation has constantly been changing. I just think life's more enjoyable when you have a lot of flexibility. We continued the butcher block theme into the bathroom, and we really wanted to still maintain that open space feel as much as we could. We didn't want to cramp the bathroom. So we went with pretty much full size components across, you know, across the board with you have storage and behind the mirror vanity there. We have a lot of spare space still here, plenty of stuff to put under the sink. And then we have a large, a fairly large space here where we can hang up lots of things. We opted for a composting toilet. We just wanted the flexibility and the simpleness of it. So we do have a gray water tank. It's a lot like an RV from that perspective. And so we blended some of the, I guess, the better aspects of a regular home versus an RV. And but we but with everything we wanted, you know, high quality build. We wanted everything very solid. We're not using the tank right now because it's running out to a septic system. But we can see the status of our water very easily with the gauges. And we have rainwater collection. So we showed up this time. We hadn't been here in a week. And our water tanks were full because they captured all the rainwater. It was nice. After a lot of research, composting toilets seem to be one. They're they're they are very environmentally friendly. And two, they're really simple. So this one actually has if you if you're really quiet, you can hear a small fan keep suction on and there's a little vent outside the tiny house. And so when you come in here, the bathroom never stinks. In fact, I would say in a lot of ways, this bathroom is a lot easier to keep sanitary and clean than a typical bathroom. It is really nice to have the full size shower. So we wanted a space, again, where I hate to say it, but you do spend a lot of time in the bathroom. It's lounging and bathroom and eating. Right. And so we want to each of those areas to really have that comfort level of comfort. And this is a full size shower. And you can sit in here and with the instant on water heater, you can take an unlimited hot water shower and not have to worry about that running out. So that's nice. When you're taking a shower, the steam and stuff leaves pretty easily. There's a whole house fan that pulls stuff through. But just with the open space and stuff, we found that it's it doesn't feel like you're, you know, too enclosed with all the moisture and condensation buildup. The building you're in is not stick built. What it really is, and I believe the walls are, I think it's a four inch foam, and I think the floor is six inch. And so there's no thermal brakes. The house is fully insulated. There's no studs. There's no pass throughs. So the nice part is it's lighter than a stick built construction, but it's stronger and it's better insulated. We did the certification more as a best practice and as a distinct need. I know depending on where a tiny home is and I don't know all the state laws, but there's potentially, you know, like if you're going to have it on a property, let's say beside a house, there may, depending on the jurisdictions, there may be some certifications that are needed to say, hey, this is a safely built, the electrical was inspected, the water was inspected, et cetera. They went through the process. It's NOA certified. They had the inspector come in, do all the stuff as you would do in a regular home inspection. And so we have all the documentation. There's a little sticker behind the door. And plus it adds a level of quality, you know, from, you know, we trusted the builder. They have a very good reputation, but it is that third party that adds that to it. So this back space is our utility room. We did set it up with the intention of being able to go off grid. So we do have, I think, 26 kilowatt hours of batteries off here to the right side. And then you can see these large black inverters, which are eight kilowatts each. And that actually provides a lot of power. I think at 240 volts, that's like 60 amps. So we do have with the water heater, you know, that can be eight, 9000 watts. So that's, you know, you need something that could really that could really handle that. So we have prior to moving here, we've been here about a year. We had it just out in a meadow. And so in that case, we were 100 percent off grid. We were getting all of our water from the rain. So we have the gutters are custom built and they basically drain down into some pipes. They have the foam in the gutters to keep the debris out. And then it goes into a large 50 gallon storage tank here. Out of the storage tank, it goes through a dual filter, whole house filter. So you can drink the water right out of that any tap in the tiny house. And there's also external hose spigots so you can actually hook up a hose. And if you want to wash a car or fill stuff up, you can certainly access that. We have small water pumps and then our standard electrical panel and a light in here. So you can yeah, you can do all the stuff. So our Internet comes into here above my head. There's a star link and the condenser unit for the the mini split fully set up to be off grid. It is, I will say, battery systems are challenging. You need to be a tinker. This is not made equally depending on the environment. If I'm in New Mexico and I have access to water, I can I can be in this year round off grid. And no issues. If you're going to be, you know, in a heavy winter state, you either have to have external solar or additional power because basically you have about a third of the solar output in the winter versus the summer. And that's due to the shorter days and the lower sun angle. So it is possible. But if you're doing all electric heat going off like we are going off grid year round in a winter climate is a lot more difficult. As of now, we're grid connected with battery backup. So technically, if a power outage in the town happened, we've had this before. We were when we had this set up in Indiana, we had a number of times we were in a location that got a lot of power outages. And my daughter, who was living in this, never even knew. The lights in the house would go out and the tiny house was running off batteries. And she wouldn't even know the difference. That's the thing we like the best about the batteries is it doesn't disrupt your life, right? Town could be out for eight hours. You're still in here cooking, cleaning, taking a hot shower. You know, it doesn't matter, right? So our outdoor space, really pretty simple. Just got some nice Adirondack style chairs that are recycled PVC. They're sturdy. The snow can pile on them in the winter and it melts off. And it actually has worked pretty good in the winter space. We have a nice little propane with the little beads in here. And so we'll sit around. You have a spot to sit your drinks. We got a little picnic table. So plenty comfy for that evening get together. Currently, we're in tiny home Leadville, and it's mostly tiny homes, some trailers. And it's interesting, right? It's not it was a it was a temporary play. We wanted to see if we really like this community. We love it. However, we're thinking about permanently establishing a spot in Twin Lakes, you know, about 15 minutes from here. The little negatives that come with this. There's also a ton of positives. There's a big dumpster on the corner, right? It's really handy. We got all the hookups. They're all preset up. It's great. We have some friendly neighbors. We sat out here last night and had some drinks and conversation sitting around the fire. We can pop over and have a go listen to a band, you know, and it's a two minute walk. So all that those creature comforts are handy. Those will not be there. So we'll we'll gain a lot of stuff when we get out more remote. But we're going to lose some of the the social aspects that are actually sort of fun in a lot of ways. You know, when we decided to do this, we didn't know where we're going to put it. Right. Like we're like, well, we'll put it in our backyard to start. And then maybe there's something else will flush itself out. And honestly, we had no idea at the time we'd end up in Colorado. I think a lot of people think all the bad things. They think, oh, well, what if this happens and what if that happens? I think we're always like, well, what are we going to see? What are we going to find? What are we going to experience? And so using that attitude, going into things has helped us on all of our moves and moving things around, because you just have to look at life as an adventure. You don't know what's going to happen. And it could be amazing. And you would miss out on that if you didn't give it a try. I'd say we just embrace the adventure and move forward and look at all the opportunities. And yeah, and we want to participate in that. So just decided to dive in at first. If you all have any questions, we'll respond to the comments. Just ask away and we'll answer as best we can. Appreciate your time. Thanks.