I’ve always had an affinity for things in miniature

| Tracy

An offbeat article crossed my path 10, maybe closer to 15, years ago with a photo to steal the heart of the soul – well, to steal my heart of my soul.  That image, I can still picture it.  A tiny little house — on wheels.  Not an RV, but a stick-frame, peaked-roof, tiny-porched miniature house.  Small and mobile, but a real house – let me in!

My life at the time of reading that first article wasn’t quite ready for it – at that time a tiny house would have been too big and unwieldy – I was happily living out of my car or tent moving around the country every few months assisting on wildlife research/management projects.  And then various other hurdles have pushed bringing my tiny house into existence to a later and later date.  But in some ways (though not many), I have patience.  I never forgot wanting, wanting, wanting a tiny little house like that to be my home.  Every place I lived in was food for thought about what would or wouldn’t work in a tiny house.  Every item I purchased or brought into my life – would it fit in a tiny house?  Would I really be that bummed if it wouldn’t?  Could I find it in miniature size?  (I’ve learned many, many things come in “travel size” – I am now the proud owner of a travel (miniature) brush, iron, lint-remover, cheese grater… okay, the cheese grater is for my work lunch bag, I do have a normal size cheese grater…  or three… cheese is it’s own food group in my world.)

I inhaled photos and stories of other people’s builds and lives in tiny houses – what did I like, what didn’t I like, what issues did they have, how could they be improved.  I’ve got thousands and thousands of photos of tiny houses and their components stored and categorized on my laptop. (Borganizer…)

While in grad school, as a vital break (alright, alright, sometimes procrastination) from my research and coursework, I taught myself to use the free 3-D modeling software, SketchUp, to build a three dimensional model of my ideal tiny house.  Oh, what a rude awakening to learn how little will actually fit in the space allowed for vehicles traveling down highways…  I had my tape measure out inventorying everything.   How wide is a tiolet?  And, how much space do you really need in front of it?  My original intention of only a 20-foot long house quickly turned into a 24-foot long house.  Particularly when I got married and was now going to have another body and space needs joining in my tiny house dream.

So now, it’s hard for me to fathom – after so many years of drifting off to sleep with thoughts of where every item I owned would “live” in my conceptualized tiny house – that I have now… PURCHASED THE TRAILER that will become the foundation of my house.  Holy hell, Batman!!

As I stare at this trailer sitting in my yard, ecstatic thoughts speed through my mind.  Is this actually real?  Is my tiny house finally, finally going to become a reality?  Am I actually doing this?  Terrified thoughts very rapidly join the party.  What have I gotten myself into??  I’m building a house?  On a trailer?!  Thank god for my construction-experienced husband and DIY parents with their house remodeling and shed building projects in my youth (wish I had paid more attention…)

Here goes…

I like my footprint on the world small and my restless soul likes to be mobile — seems like a tiny house on wheels is where it’s at.

 

6 thoughts on “I’ve always had an affinity for things in miniature”

  1. I love hearing your voice in these articles 🙂 What a cool project and actually, I find this article particularly inspiring. I have a very big, special goal that I want to accomplish in my life and by reading this, I feel that if I keep working towards it, with time I can accomplish it. Thanks for that <3

    1. Thanks, Imari! It made my day to hear my post was an inspiration to you! And, also gave me some return encouragement for those times when this all seems overwhelming and doubt creeps in. I wish you much luck and continued determination with your own life goal! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

  2. Yay! So I am curious about plumbing, electricity, heating, etc. — how will you use or power those systems when you are staying put in one place, and how is it different if you’re on the road? Maybe it’s the same as a mobile home but I’m not that familiar with those either, is it just on a generator or will you have solar?

    1. Excellent questions! You’ve obviously considered tiny houses before – usually the utility questions come later in the thought process! Okay, plumbing first: Plumbing is similar to an RV where you get intake water from a hose, and used water goes into a grey water tank (except for the tiolet of course). Eventually, we’d like to only use biodegradable soap, etc. so that the gray water can go straight out into our yard (once we have one…). We’re planning on a composting tiolet, but are considering plumbing for a regular water tiolet, too, in case of a change of plans or a future sell to another owner. In that case, we would need a black water tank, which would get emptied similar to RVs. Electricity: although our ultimate plan is to have our tiny house powered by solar panels and a small wind generator, that will have to come later, so we’ll most likely wire the house with AC power for now. That means we’ll basically plug it in (again like an RV) with an extension cord plug in from an external power source. We’d then have to get a converter as solar and wind produce DC power. For heating, the plan is to use a mini wood stove (they were historically made for sailboats – freakin’ adorable!), supplemented with an electric heater. More to come on all these things later, of course, as we hit them in the build!

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