The beginning of my tiny home adventure...

My new Tiny Home – LOVE!

What a week this has been for me!

I've been trying to sort out new living arrangements for myself for a while. I've been really lucky to have a friend rent me space for the three years since I moved home to Nova Scotia. I LOVE the neighbourhood I'm in. But I feel like I've been camping, just perched and waiting to be in my own home.

Conventional Real Estate?

So, I've gone out and looked at a few houses, all official-like with Real Estate Agents and everything. I've been pursuing thoughts of mortgages, renovations, relocations.

The trouble is, I can't really afford a house that doesn't need a lot of work. And I can't afford a house here in West Dublin at all, even if it needs a LOT of work. This seaside community is not exactly pricey (compared to Toronto, for instance) but it's expensive enough that taking on a mortgage here would be burdensome. It would be a big risk, with my unreliable freelance income and inevitable financial ups and downs.

Build my own Tiny Home?

I've thought about Tiny Houses as an option. I've thought about building one myself and done a great deal of research. There is a lot of Tiny House information on the Internet. It is a movement, after all. I'm not particularly handy, but I have lots of friends around here who are and I thought I could cobble together a house-raising event where I could pay a few friends to build me a house in a couple of weeks.

Too many choices!

But where to start? Should it be a container shipping house (like these gorgeous ones a friend sent me)? Or should it be made of wood (which is plentiful around here). Or out of cob? Or out of scavenged materials (like the amazing ones Dan Phillips designs and makes? A yurt? Should it have a foundation or be on wheels? I researched and thought about it all, but came no closer to making a decision.

Right in the midst of my deliberations, The Blockhouse School Project made and raffled a Tiny Home, but I didn't win the raffle. And then, some folks I like and respect started a local company called Full Moon Tiny Shelters. And I thought, maybe I should order one from the professionals...?

Fortunately, I was not under any time pressure. I wasn't thinking of moving until the spring of 2014. I had to burn my woodpile before I could move.

My beloved woodpile.

So I mulled over the possibilities and deliberated. And deliberated.

Lucky Strike!

And then, this past Monday, I received a message from my dear friend, Charlie (one half of the folk music duo, Pennybrook, and one-third of the central organizing committee of the Pennybrook Festival, along with me and her partner and another of my dear friends, Jude). The message included a link to a Kijiji ad for a camper that had been converted into a tiny home by one of her friends. It looked gorgeous. And it was only 10 minutes down the road.

"I'm emailing him now," I told Charlie.

"I'll come look at it with you."

Charlie, Jude and I went to see the tiny home on Monday. I fell instantly in love: black walnut frames around the windows and doors, a propane stove with an itty-bitty oven, a propane/electric fridge, a composting toilet, a wood stove, DC and AC electrical infrastructure, all of the wood satiny smooth and lovingly finished with linseed oil. It had everything I needed, all in a little more than 200 square feet.

The Big Decision to go Tiny

I asked if I could have 24 hours to think about it. It is a big decision, after all. Charlie's friend told me that he would give me first refusal until the following morning.

I went away and started getting my ducks in a row. Some members of my family (thank you!) offered to loan me the money to buy the home, so I wouldn't have to borrow it on my credit cards. Imagine, a house you could buy on your credit cards, if you had to! The last time I bought a house, I spent over 330,000 dollars; this time, it was under ten thousand.

The Challenge Ahead

Not that going tiny is going to be the easiest thing for me. I'm planning to move in the spring of 2014. Between now and then, I have to sort out where to put my tiny home and I have to get rid of a LOT of my stuff. I used to live in a 3-bedroom house and although I've been living in smaller spaces for the past 6 or 7 years, I still have a lot of stuff that I've been hanging on to against the possibility of being in a larger space again someday.

Now, it's time to let go. It's time to digitize my record collection. It's time to sell as many of my surplus CDs as I can (if you can help me with this, please visit my Bandcamp site to place an order). It's time to look at all of the things I haven't even unpacked since I moved to Nova Scotia 3 years ago and bid them a loving farewell. Time to clear out my closets and prepare a massive contribution to the West Dublin Market's spring clothing exchange.

I'm going tiny. I'm excited.