He downsized into a Tiny House & has more free time than ever before!

[Music] good morning my name is Don SS and this is my tiny house also known as Chewy's house I'm currently parked at northmill RV Park in Louisville [Music] Texas I've been living in my tiny house for a little bit over two years the Builder of my tiny house is uh Peter and Christina hugler of indigo River tiny homes in Garland uh the dimensions of the tiny are 32 ft long 10t wide and 13 and 1/2t Tall through the process of finding the right Builder deciding what I wanted being able to fund it properly selling my house and then finding this location God was involved in everything that I did there were so many things that fell into place I mean it's it's been a blessing every step of the way and I have the best neighbor in the world they take they watch over my place when I travel they take care of my property they're great neighbors we're going to take a tour of my tiny house and one of the first things you'll see is my BMW Adventure motorcycle that I recently got and been spending a lot of time riding on lately I only bought this about 3 months ago so I do have a a trip plan this Thanksgiving down to Big Ben Park so one of the things you're first going to see when we uh come onto the lot is that we got some really nice green grass here that I'm very proud of and my neighbor Bob helps me take care of but I've got the nice greenest lawn on the property I've always liked the fact that green grass just adds a little bit of the color palette for where you live so I really enjoy having a nice Green Lawn one of the other things you'll notice that I've added is I got a nice custombuilt 14x 12 shed that I keep my motorcycle my two mountain bikes stored in so another feature of the tiny house that I really enjoy is the fact that got some nice custombuilt steps that my neighbor Bob was very kind enough to build for me himself so that's pretty much it for the outside of chewy house how about we go inside then uh take a look at all the features in [Music] here so once again welcome to Chewy's house a homesteader Deluxe built by Peter hugler in Indigo River tiny homes it's 372 Square ft once again it's 32 ft long 10t wide and 13 and 1/2t Tall some of the unique features that I enjoy about the house is it's got a lot of light it's got a lot of Windows a lot of big bay windows in the living room area when Windows above the sink so here in the living room area one of the things I really enjoyed about it is this fold up table that I use for my desk I got this from a friend of mine in El Paso it does a lot of custom wood workor this is called the Mexican Rose Woods it's got a Live Edge to it so it's just kind of a unique feature we were able to add to the tiny obviously room for the TV Set uh this is the back stairs up the storage Loft we have plenty of storage one of the things I like about Peter and his builds is the fact that he just utilizes about every space you can think of for storage the hidden storage and the step compartments slide out drawers here in the step and even a slide out Pantry type door drawer there for stuff and then of course one nice closet right here that I use to store my cleaning supplies vacuum and everything in and you'll also be able to see the bay windows to where it got plenty of light in the uh tiny house I enjoy it the Mason jar wall sconces were a nice little touch one of the things that took a little bit of time to engineer into the house was the living room space to fit a couch in it that I wanted size-wise so Peter gave me the exact dimensions of what would fit in here took me about 2 months to find the right couch this one's nice because it's got dual electric recliners I wanted to make sure that the that wasn't an area that I had to compromise on that I got a nice good quality couch with good enough size you could actually fit four people on this couch if you wanted to so that's one of the nice features I really enjoy on a regular basis here right above me is the second Loft which I consider a storage Loft I just keep my over some boxes and some supplies and stuff like that so let's go up and take a look at that real quick so this storage space is large enough to put a queen-size mattress in so one day if necessary I could use it for a guest bedroom but for right now it's just my store space for some uh some boxes and and some other supplies right now okay so going into the kitchen area first thing we notice right here is this L-shaped butcher block counter once again Peter does such a good job with storage that if you look on the we painted all the cabinets an offsetting color of blue that would semi- matches the outside of the tiny house there's an under counter um microwave you look at the uh I wanted to make sure that I had a decent size stove so it's a for burer propane stove and as Peter likes to say you can actually cook a whole turkey in the oven all the drawers are are soft cloes I really like that feature that's a nice quality piece that he puts in so right here we got a 24-in farmhouse sink I really enjoy the look of those I've seen them in numerous houses and I wanted to have one for me open up shelving for the all my dishes and cere supplies some family pictures another feature full-size fridge it's got the uh refrigerator on top two freezer compartments underneath I didn't want to compromise on that that was one of the areas like on the washers and dryer that I didn't want to compromise I still once just one person but I I'm not real big on shopping so I just wanted to try to limit how many times I had to go to the grocery store this is also pulled out for the trash can and one of the other really unique features I like from way Peter utilizes space is a slide out Pantry like this I really really enjoy that because I can put a lot of stuff in there and once again more cabinets up above the side they're all soft closed I really appreciate that more storage cabinets here underneath the stairs it's got all my appliances some medical supplies so Peter does a really good job of engineering space into his [Music] builds one of the things that helped me transition into a tiny house is I'm usually on the road in a hotel 100 110 days a year so I'm living in a hotel room that's small anyway so you kind of get used to those confined spaces even though coming from a very large house and on 5 Acres it took me two stages of downsizing getting rid of crap that you've been collecting for 40 years other than a couple of adjustments to the lifestyle it really wasn't as severe as I thought it would be the last couple of years I was living in the big house was I didn't even go upstairs cuz my bedroom was downstairs didn't have any kids there anymore with her recent divorce so it's just like me in this big house and just it didn't make sense you know and that that kind of spurred me on to investigating the tiny home situation when I finally decided to get out of living the large house lifestyle a couple things happened that made me seriously consider that I went through a divorce the Texas property tax situation I just felt like it was a waste of money you know as you get older in life you tend to think more about your retirement the down sizing part was very very interesting because I lived in that house for about 25 years so you really don't know how much crap you accumulate till you have to move it the first step was deciding which I wanted to keep and that would fit and then getting rid of everything else so selling things like Furniture tables the big bulky items and then giving a lot of stuff away I'm very active in my church so I gave some stuff to people in the church and and then moving what's left over into a 10x30 storage room so then when my tiny was done I went to another stage of taking what was in that 10x30 storage room and making it fit in here that was another Purge of un I so I I actually looked at things two times is like do I really need this and and actually it's kind of funny I still find things here that I don't need anymore that I haven't touched in a year that I do get rid of it's actually a very free feeling that you get from getting rid of certain [Music] things so in here is the bathroom and it's really got some unique features to it was working on the final configuration of the of my tiny I originally wanted a 28t tiny length tiny house but when I told Peter that I wanted to have a full-size washer and dryer in it he said we can only do that with a 32t so that's how we ended up with 32t because I wasn't real fond of having a combination washer and dryer or a stackable so this is a nice thing that I really enjoy just the fact that it's one of the things that I wanted to have my tiny this uh 34in vanity fit perfectly in this space uh Peter allowed me to choose it and bring it to him it's one of the things I like dealing with him because uh he allowed me to bring certain things into the build I really like this mirror cuz it's a touchcreen lights up like that it's a nice feature in here the shower is something that's really eye-catching because the doors this was a little bit of a problem in the uh final build because it was on back order for about 3 months and got lost in transit two different times so it caused a lot of uh it was one of the main delays of getting it built but I really enjoyed it cuz it's a full-size shower for me I'm not exactly a small guy so I really enjoy it you got to clean it you know the glass even though I wipe it down after every shower better once every 3 or 4 months I got to scrub it down really good it's nice because of being able to have the walls the moveable walls like this that you could actually have a little bit deeper footprint on the floor pan and still have it function in the size of the the uh bathroom and this is the only part of the tining that's painted is the inside of the bathroom for reflecting the light everything else is a natural Pine so that's enough for the bathroom the next stop on this tour is going up to the bedroom which is very unique because of what Peter builds and I really enjoy it because like I said I can stand up here I'm 5'10 I can stand up here without worrying about head space so this will actually fit a king-sized bed I only have a queen-sized mattress here right now but I can almost all the way to the end of it slope of the angle of the roof I have to stop here but it allows me to stand up get in and out of bed which to me was a big thing I didn't want they have to climb a ladder to get in here and didn't want to crawl around so I like this model of tiny that uh Peter builds also gives you space for uh fullsize closets too you know I've read in the very beginning I read about people complaining about how hard it was to make their beds and maybe because of the feature of this because you know this is the ceiling of the bathroom underneath here I just make M just spin the bed around on the platform I don't have to crawl into it or nothing I mean just spin the mattress around it's another thing I had so many clothes I collected over the years even stuff I wasn't using I just got rid of and got rid of and got rid I'm still getting rid of stuff that I don't [Music] use I tend to overanalyze things so I really did my homework on it took me about a year and a half of searching and deciding and like one of the first things I realized when I was when I was doing some shopping was there's actually a little bit of a misnomer when it comes to tiny houses because there are tiny houses that are Park models and then there are tiny houses that are actually what I consider a tiny house on a trailer frame double triple axles the park models I didn't like too much cuz that's to me that's too much of a mobile home that's been downsized a little bit and then of course the quality of the uh materials that they use for the build and everything and then I started searching for a builder I looked all over the US and uh obviously looked at people's websites and reviews and some of their videos and I finally decided to pick Indigo River tiny homes in Garland uh which is an hour away Peter hugler and his wife Christina were very receptive and open to my ideas and he was very respectful of what I thought I needed or what I wanted and he would tend to tell me okay this will work good for this this is not a good idea and here's why and he explained it to me that way and that made sense so obviously you want to use his expertise as a builder and give that some weight when you're in your decision process when I I initially contracted with Peter to build the house I got very That's Another Blessing that I got because it was just in the beginning of the covid price increases for building materials wood steel trailers cabinets fridges everything like that but it had not really gotten out of control yet so this unit I probably all in uh about $120,000 now I did provide some of the appliances the washer and dryer stuff like that so that's not into the price but I've talked to Peter a few times about it to replace it it's probably around $200,000 nowadays and it's sad to a certain extent because I know people that in the very beginning started the tiny house lifestyle that's not why they why they did it because the cost is were half of that and I understand it the good thing is is it allows people like Peter and his company to build a nice quality [Music] piece there are still the people I see on bulletin boards and are still attached to the fact that they want a tiny house for $30,000 and anytime somebody prices something like this when they're trying to sell it on the used Market over they're always complaining that's too much well I get that but I don't think people that are on the outside looking in that don't have never owned a tiny house they don't see what goes into building one of these things nowadays they get compared to mobile home prices and that that doesn't translate it's not Apples to Apples and probably the other one thing you really really need to do your homework on and research is where you going to park it any large city it's going to be very tough to find a place in the city to park your tiny house because uh cities aren't real receptive to it I like the fact that I'm not financially tied down by where I was before I worried too much about having to service the debt I had on the house the property taxes the utilities and everything that came along with it when I moved here two years ago the combination of no property taxes low property rent and the free time that I enjoy from it in the spring and summer I would spend 3 to 5 hours a day on the weekends Mowing and wheed eating and watering now that's all free time I get it's easy for me to keep everything clean you know one of the nice positive things about living in a tiny house it takes me 10 minutes to clean my tiny house between vacuuming and mopping floors or wiping things down it and I like the fact I don't want this to sound wrong but I like the fact that since I'm single if I leave something in one spot it's there when I come back next week and this stage in my life right now it's okay I I can't see myself wanting to be single you know the rest of my life but you know it's going to take right person that would understand this situation to where they could also live in the tiny house at the same time too so that's that kind of like weeds out typically finding somebody else that you want to you know have a relationship with so it's uh it's very unique in that fact I do like it it's been a great transition because like I said it really freed up a lot of things that were tying me down [Music] thank you for watching our video and for stopping by tiny house Expedition I'm Alexis and I'm Christian don't forget to like comment and subscribe and for more tiny home tours and stories click the videos below and join us on Instagram for bonus content including face to-face conversations with us we hope to see you there all right thanks guys have a good one

Channel: Tiny House Expedition

Views: 167,248

Keywords: tiny house, tiny home, tiny house tour, 10 ft wide tiny house, tiny house design, indigo river tiny homes, 35 sqm tiny house, tiny house walkthrough, downsizing, tiny house living, simple living, living big in a tiny house, tiny house giant journey, exploring alternatives, tiny house expedition, tiny home tours, tiny house on wheels tour, tiny house nation, tiny house with standing loft, tiny house stand up bedroom, 370 sqft tiny house, solo man tiny home, 32 ft tiny house

Id: IQfK1n6B6jA

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024