"Way to small for your family!"
"Your toddler needs more space!"
"Not enough room to cook!"
"Not safe for storms!"
"You will have no equity!"
"It will devalue like a car!"
And it goes on and on...
What about the reasons to build and live in a Tiny Home:
Andrew Morrison on TedX
For us it's about lifestyle!
We wanted the following:
Time- time together and time for fun.
How much time out of the day do we spend cleaning our homes, taking care of the yard, updating and maintains our homes? For us and our five acres it felt like that is ALL we do.
We want time to read, write, explore and spend quality time together discussing big ideas and the ways of the world which is why we want to go "TINY". I could deep clean the whole tiny house in the time it takes me to deep clean our current kitchen.
Remodeling
Our current home of 2,189 square feet needs some upgrades. Nothing essential (those costed us 1,000's when we moved in) but things like updating the kitchen, new carpets, update bathroom, etc. remodeling your home costs a lot! Remodeling tiny house... No problem! Our current home if we want to update kitchen we are tearing down walls, running new piping so making jokes in ceiling downstairs, rerunning gas lines, etc. Tiny houses can easily be remodeled quickly and are much more cost effective.
Space Issues
Most Tiny Home enthusiasts are outdoor lovers but not all. We are choosing tiny living because we want to spend more time appreciating nature. As my amazing husband taught me, "Cold is only an issue if you are not dressed appropriately." I learned very quickly that comfort trumps fashion any day in a Minnesota winter. Also, Minnesota has tons of great indoor parks, libraries, museums, galleries etc to enjoy.
Too small for our adventurous toddler. We don't think so. He always want to be next to us anyway. It will certainly cut down on the frantic cries when I step in another room to clean or put away laundry. Our son also prefers to be outside. He cries every time we bring him inside. With less cleaning we will have time to play outside and mommy doesn't have to stay up late cleaning to keep baby happy!
Too small to cook. Well I am no chef, but design is everything! That is the wonderful thing about tiny homes is you build them to fit your needs. I only need room to cut veggies and fruits so we opted for an L shaped kitchen instead of a U shape.
We are confident our family of three plus 5 pets will fit just right in our home! It's all about planning. Personally we feel there is so much wasted space in our current home. We had daycare downstairs so we really didn't live in that space, our son sleeps with us so the second bedroom upstairs was never used, we only used one of the bathrooms and we spent all our time in the 4 seasons with the fireplace. So when it comes down to it we were heating, cooling, cleaning, maintaining 2,189 square feet of which about 500 square feet was used. Too wasteful for my taste.
Safety
Storm safety. Of course safety is a concern with any home. When we were grounds keepers for camp Kicci Yappi we lived in a double wide trailer. If it was tornado warning we would had to the closes store with a tornado safety area. Of course we asked ahead of time. We plan to do the same with our tiny home. Either a store or neighbor willing to take us in.
We are using a contractor versus building ourselves because we want to be sure plumbing, electrical, gas, etc are put in properly. If you are planning on building yourself be sure to have licensed electrician and plumber take a look. Of course you need smoke and CO2 detectors and any other safety items you would normally have.
Here's a link for more safety tips
Link about keeping tiny house from being stolen
Money
Ok the number one bonus is mortgage free. We can put more money in saving and travel! Everyone talks about assets. Well the way I see it is you buy a home and that is an asset only if it can be sold at a greater value them purchased which with interest and updates and maintenance is arguably impossible.
We are selling our home now and even though we may get some money out of the deal we put more than that amount paying interest and updates so really in my opinion a home is not really an asset.
I am joy here to start an argument about homes and value and what not. We all do what's best for our families and for us this works best!
Mobility
The mobility factor is huge for us! We want to be able to follow our dreams and not have to sell a house every time we are ready for something new. It has taken months to get the house ready, do research, find a realtor and come up with places for us and pets while we have showings. I want to be at stay at home
Mom, coach and tutor for now. Eventually I want to work at or start an environmental school. My hubby needs the freedom to search out the job of his dreams without worrying about the stress it will put on us if it isn't a good fit. We don't necessarily want to be driving it every year but nice to have it as an option.
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