Hi. I'm Elisa. Hi. I'm Ryk. And we live in Welches, Oregon. We've been living tiny
for just over a year. And we'd like to welcome
you to our tiny homes. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, if you haven't
noticed already, we're very unique and
independent people. And I think that's a good
way to say it, right? Yeah. We got married later in life. We both have our own tastes. And we're very
similar in some ways, but the way we express
that is very different. Yes. Ryk and I met 11 years ago
and got married back East in Virginia. We came out to this area of the
country about seven years ago. And we started thinking that
we wanted to buy a place. We wanted land. We wanted a home. But just as we arrived
out West, the house prices went absolutely
through the roof. So we started looking
at other options. And one of them was
these tiny houses. We have two houses. My house is Little Starry
Blue, and it's 26 by 8 and 1/2. And my house is Lassen Creek,
and it is a 30 by 8 and 1/2. We live here in the beautiful
Mount Hood RV Park and Resort. And we were very fortunate
to get two spaces right next to each other, so
that we could park our tinnies and have a space in between for
all kinds of fun activities. If you follow me,
over here, I'll take you to the center
area for our houses. We built a little path that
connects the houses together and so that we don't
get lost when commuting. We also have a nice
picnic table here in the center that we do a
lot of outdoor dining on. We have some really beautiful
big cedar trees here that provide lots and lots of shade. Over there on our deck
is our old dog Sookie. We bought Little
Starry Blue first and lived in it for
about four months before the second
house was completed. So why don't you come on inside
and I can show you around? Welcome to Little Starry Blue. This is my tiny house. It is 26 feet by 8 and 1/2. It has a reclaimed
ceiling on it. And it has heated floors. Now, you're in the
living room area. I love this area. And it was one of
my favorite parts of this house when I first saw
it, because it's beautiful. It's big and it's
spacious and I could fit an almost full size couch
in here, as well as a desk. And this area I love, because
it made a perfect space to land. Many tiny houses, you
don't have a place to put your coat or your
shoes when you first walk in the door. And for me, that's
super important. This leads to, I
guess I could say, this is my room of creativity. Certainly, a guest can sleep
up there if they wanted to. But I have it set
up so that I can do all of my creative
endeavors in my own space and everything is in
its own space up there. So it makes a perfect place
for me to go up to meditate, to work on creative projects,
and sometimes just to hang out as another space. I watched all those
tiny house videos of people living in, like,
20-foot houses as a couple. And they're very young
and that's great. Because when you first
start off in life, you don't have a lot of things. You don't have a lot
of material things. Well, we have. I have art. He has art. There were a lot of things that
we had to give up, obviously, to live in a tiny house. But probably the bulk of it
was much more than somebody younger. This way, it allows
us to keep what's truly important to each of
us and display that where we wanted in the house. Also, because we are a little
further along in our lives too, I think that many people who are
our age and have been married and they have maybe a typical
2,500-square foot house, well, the husband may have his man
cave or something, right? And he has. He has a whole man cave. That's his house now. And I have my place
to do my things. But my kitchen is bigger. So we still cook meals
together and we eat together. We sleep in my loft bedroom,
because he loves it. It's like a treehouse. He loves it. Yeah. But we have the big
TV in his bedroom. So if we wanna watch
a movie together, we just go over
and watch a movie. So in many ways, it's
no different than living in a regular-sized house. It's just two separate
small residences. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the
funny things is every morning I get up first. And so I stagger downstairs,
grab the coffee pot, and then walk over. And I make coffee over there. And then, I stagger
back up the steps. And then, I start waking up. And then, she
staggers downstairs. Yeah. It was in her wedding vows
that he has to make me coffee every morning. That was part of our vows. And I find that we also
stay outside more often in the tiny houses. I think a lot of people
have said that they use their outdoor space more. And because we're in
such a great environment, I have this porch here. He has his deck. So sometimes we come and say,
oh, you want a glass of wine? OK. Well, which deck are
we going to sit on? And we can choose between
different spaces to hang out. And that's a lot
of fun, I think. So come on. I'll show you the bathroom. So this is my tiny
house bathroom. I have a great shower
that I really like. It's kind of like the old
Star Trek "Beam me up, Scotty" style of shower. But it fits perfectly
in this space. I even have some
area over here where I can store all
my cleaning items, my towels, a clothes drying
rack if I need it, laundry. And then, on this
side of the sink, I have a washer-dryer combo
and shelving for all my storage of all my kind of
bathroom stuff. And then, this sink
here is a small sink, but it has really deep drawers. So you can store all your little
tiny knickknacks and things like that. And behind the door is my
essential oil collection. I am an essential
oil practitioner. And I needed some place to
store all my essential oils that would be easy to
reach and organize. So the perfect
place was right here in a very tiny space
behind this door. Hey, guys. It's Alexis with Tiny
House Expedition. And I just wanted to share a
quick message about the new 3D Tiny House Designer Program
from our friends at Tiny Easy. While you're watching this
episode about Elisa and Ryk's tiny homes, you're
probably wondering what your own tiny
house might look like and how you would customize
it to make it work for you. What's awesome about the
3D Tiny House Designer is that it's the
first online design tool that lets you design
your tiny house on wheels, without needing any technical
or design knowledge. As you all know, Christian
and I built our own tiny house many years ago. We bought plans and
then customized them. It was pretty tricky,
but it was 100% worth it to have a custom
home of our own. Man, I really wish we had the 3D
Tiny House Designer back then. Simply drag and
drop building blocks to design your tiny
house in minutes. Then, share your design with
friends and even your builder. You can try it out for free
and start mocking up your dream tiny house today. And if you dig the 3D
Tiny House Designer, the Tiny Easy Team is
offering our subscribers 75% off their first month
of the premium version. Use our code in the
link in the description to get started today. What I really enjoy
about this house is that it's an open concept. And it has a lot of space to
do whatever you need to do in. So this little area here we
designated as my workspace. We had to buy a
very specific desk. It has no legs. It bolts directly to the wall. And it's pretty narrow. It's barely wide enough
to sit and use a laptop. But it's perfect for me. That's exactly the
way I wanted it. The footprint is very small. So it fit in here almost
like it was custom built. This is our portable AC. It's a little hot today. So we have this going. But it works pretty well,
until it hits about 95 degrees. Then, it doesn't work. Walking into the kitchen
here, these stairs are open. Some people have the closed
stairs, which are very common. But I really liked
this open concept, because it makes you feel as
if you have a lot more space. And underneath became the
perfect area for the cat box. Coming into the kitchen more,
we have this counter space here is for my cat, Magic. This belongs to him and that's
his private eating space. And then, here, we have open
area for cooking or projects or whatever you need it for. I try to keep this area
as open as possible. And over on the other side is
where I have all my storage for my dishes. And then, obviously, my stove. What I asked the builder
to do, originally, when this house was
first delivered to me is that it had a
full-size range and oven. And I asked her to
take that out so that I could have an
induction cooktop as well as a very small convection
oven for heat purposes. Anything in a tiny house
that generates heat is really going to make
the house very, very warm. And so far, this
combination has worked well. Another thing I
want to show you is that the builder put the
refrigerator up on a pedestal. And I use this area to store
all of our pet food and anything related to pet. So that when it's time to feed
our dog, I just open that. Cat food is here. And then, close it
all up and it's gone. Another thing about this
kitchen that I enjoy is I asked the builder to also
put in shelves that come out, so that it's easy
access and you're not having to slide your
shoulder in all the way. I also have a Lazy
Susan in here. That is great,
because it utilizes that empty space in the corner. One of my favorite
features actually. And then, finally, the
builder had a great idea of putting in
trash and recycling in one section over here. So everything is contained. There's no trashcan
out in the open. I think the biggest
thing about tiny houses is sometimes builders forget
to put the trash someplace. And then, you have
this big trash can. Right? The rest of it is I have a
nice deep double sink, which I really enjoy. Just a lot of space to work in. I believe that this
kitchen is probably bigger than some
of the apartments that I've lived in, the
kitchens in the apartments. So we do a lot of cooking here. And my husband and I can both
get in here and cook a meal. One of the interesting
features about this house is this area here. This is actually the
bottom of the top step that leads up to the bedroom loft. But this was all very neutral
colors, so that, many times, I would walk right into it. Because I'm right at the height. So I put some of my art here,
so that it could distract me from hitting this edge. So speaking of lofts,
let me take you upstairs to the master bedroom loft. So this is our master loft. It's a queen-sized bed. What I really liked when I
first saw this loft was not only is there a landing here where
I can stand up just enough to change my clothes or
straighten up the bed, it's a lot easier than
sliding like a snake into a master loft,
but I also really liked the built-in closet
that she had here. This is great
hanging closet space. And she has additional
shelves in the back. Then, she has a
whole open area here of shelving with
pull-out baskets for all of your individual clothes,
as well as a nice area here to put whatever
you'd like to put. In my case, I have my Kokeshi
doll collection as well as some other things, my
jewelry and things like that. And then, it continues down
over to the other side, where, again, there's more shelving. One of the best features
about this master bedroom loft is that there's
under bed storage. The bed is on hydraulic. Lifts up like this. And I can store a lot
of things in here. After her dad died, we
could've stayed in the house. That they owned. It was very military based
and it was in a subdivision. And so everything was uber
manicured and everything, kind of antiseptic. Yeah. Very antiseptic. Nice, but antiseptic. And so we kind of felt
like this isn't us anymore. I've done the suburban
home life and living on the end of the cul-de-sac
and everything like that. And it's OK, but it's not
exciting anymore for one way. And so we could've stayed. And we could've done suburbia. But by then, she had gotten
me hooked into the tiny home videos. And so that became a reality. Because of the passing,
we had some extra cash that we could use to buy it. So she bought it used. It's worked out mostly
really well for us. Hers was 75. Mine, we built from scratch. Mine was 111. And with price
increases, they're now advertising that for 150. Just like house prices, we've
seen tiny home prices go up. Yes. Our site rent is $650
for each of them. And then, we pay anywhere
from $100 to $11, depending on what month it
is, for our electricity bill. Water's free. Sewer's free. Trash is free. It's all part-- And they also
provide cable here. Yeah. Basic cable here. Yeah. But we have max cable. So it's like
$100-something per person. Yeah, internet. We pay for internet, obviously. That's the biggest
expense is the internet. Yeah. But total, we're
still paying less on a monthly basis
than what we paid for a two-bedroom apartment
in Washington State. Yeah. That was like $2,100, way out
from the cities, both cities. Yeah. So we're at 13 here. So like, all in, for like
$1,400, $1,500 with the cable. So we're saving money. But we're only an
hour east of Portland. Yeah. And we have two little
towns before you get to Portland,
Sandy and Gresham, which have dining and shopping. We also have Mount
Hood right up the road. And Hood River is
where the winery is. So we are just
surrounded by nature. But we have a cosmopolitan
area, especially health care. That's very important to me,
that I'm close to health care. One of the things that
was important to us was to have outdoor living
space, because that really helps the value
of our tiny house. So I built these decks. For Elisa's deck, I had
COVID when I did it. So that was a real treat. But we made them so
they would be portable. So everything is on foundations. And then, it's on four by fours
to give it good stability. And then, it's just a
deck frame on top of that. So if we need to
move, we can just unassemble and put them in a
U-Haul and drive off with them. So I would like to invite
you into my tiny home now. I have to tell you that I
really like my tiny house. It's allowed me to do a
lot of personal expression. So we're going to land
here in the kitchen. I've got unfinished
butcher block. Don't know if I want to
stain it or put copper on it. So we're just
playing with ideas. And that's what's great
about a tiny house. My tiny house comes
with this wall board, which is really
great, because it's easy to hang pictures in it. I don't have to worry
about drywall cracking. So that's highly recommended. I'm not a backsplash
person at all. Never done it before. We were at Lowe's, big mistake. My wife was like, well, why
don't you put up backsplash? And so I watched some
videos on YouTube. It actually turned
out pretty good. I was really surprised. So if I can do
it, you can do it. I've got the black
sink, which I love. The other funny thing is
you'll probably notice rocks all over the place. I'm a rock person. That's what we do here. So this is this side. I've got a Lazy Susan
for great storage. I've got wine if I really
need to get to it quickly. Standard cabinets and
then I keep my trash here and my dirty clothes. So all of that's
in the same place. And it just fits neatly
right underneath the sink. So on this side, we
have the cooktop, induction that we have. It's electric. The other thing that I'd
never done before was the door pulls that we have. These are custom,
off Etsy, of course. We have a variety of guests. Sometimes we use this as like
a free B&B for our friends. So everybody likes coffee. A lot of our friends
are from Seattle. So that's like water to them. So we've got one Keurig. And then, we've got the pot. And behind me is my bathroom. So we will go in here. I have towel racks right
next to the shower. And one of the
considerations that was very important for
me, Elisa's hot water is on the outside. So we have to run
a heater in winter to make sure the
pipes don't freeze. It was important that
I have mine inside. Then, the other fun
thing that we have, we have more colored door
handles that match the towels. And then, this was a
fun find, also off Etsy. They take a boulder
and they cut it in half and they hollow it out. And it's a fantastic sink. I have a shower over here. It's a half. I guess you call them
half-round showers. And it's fantastic, because
I have a huge propane tank outside that allows me
to take unlimited hot water showers. That also feeds
the shower outside, so that we can have hot water
or cold water as we need. On the other side of the
house, I have our living area. These three windows are great. I can open them up or
close them as I need to and adjust the light
coming in and out. I can create a variety
of moods or feelings just with the amount of
light that I bring in. And then, if it's
a really bad day, I can just close the
blinds and I'm fine. One of the things that happens
in Oregon, where we live, is it rains a lot. So we really need to
keep jackets handy, because you never know
whether it's going to be cold rain or a drizzle. So you have to have a
variety of everything. Elisa got me these really
great Trones, from IKEA. And so I just throw
my shoes in here. And it keeps them off the floor
and I don't trip over them. So I have knickknacks all over. One of the things that was
really important for me, because I work remote,
was having my own office. So this is something that
normally they make a 26-foot. And I got a 30-foot. And what I did
with that four feet was to put a
four-foot office in. So I can sit down,
play the stereo. All I do is I just bring
one of the laptops in that I need to and then just sit here. And it's a perfect
height for me. So when we got this tiny house,
one of the things that it had was just an empty room. They didn't give us
a bed or anything, which is actually great, because
we could sit back and say, what do we need? We need more storage. We need a bed. The need for the storage
outweighed the need to have the bed at floor level. And so what I did was
I created a concept where I raised the bed
to a half wall platform. And then, I went on
Etsy and found these bookcases and had them shipped. And that became the foundation. So I put them all together
and screwed them together and then bolted of them into
the wall so they wouldn't shift. If you haven't noticed, I'm
a little of a larger guy. So I really need things to be
stable and secure, not creak and things like that. And then, underneath, I
have all this great lighting that I installed. And it's got our books
and our wine and tool kits and everything that we need. So if you'll notice, I
have chains on the wall. Don't get excited. It's not what you think. Created the stairs, but I
wanted storage under the stairs as well. And so I have a hook on
the bottom of the stairs that I created. And then, so this
whole thing lifts up. And then, we just attach this. And so we have
suitcases and pillows and also paper
stuff that we don't need to get to very often. And I think this last two years,
if it's taught us anything, is that life can
change very quickly. Yeah. And that was, I
think, another reason why we went tiny is because we
don't know what our future is, really. I mean, family members
have passed away. We've moved to a
different state. I mean, all in literally
less than two years. We would like the
ability to, if we decide to leave this area,
to take our houses with us. And you can't do that
with a stationary home. Eventually, we would like
to settle down, sure. But we might have some more
adventures coming our way where we could take
our houses with us and enjoy those new places. And one of my hobbies is
to experience new things. And so the tiny house
really just nails that. Because I can always pick up. Let's say we want
to go to Hawaii. Well, you can roll it on
the boat and take it over. We're thinking about it. Who knows? But, yeah, we'll see. Yeah. But it opens up different
possibilities, possibilities that didn't even occur
to us before are stuff that we can think about now. And maybe we won't do it. But it's the fact that, wow. Well, there could be a way
that we could figure out a way to do it. Who knows? Right? So we have options. And if things change,
well, we can always go back to living a
more traditional way. But for right now, we
said we would give it a year, in the beginning? We said, OK. And now, we're fully committed. And now, we're fully committed. A year has come and gone
and we're like, well-- Why would we do
anything different? Yeah. It's kind of the feel. Yeah. It goes to do yourself true. What works for you? And so it's a blank canvas. And you can do it any way that
you want to, within a house. And if you have to have a
mortgage on it, that's OK. It's going to be
a small mortgage. --a $400,000 house mortgage. And so for us,
it's like we would rather travel with
the money than have a big piece of
real estate that's cold and impersonal
and suburbia. And that sounds
jaded a little bit, but I've kind of crossed
over the fence and the road and said, for me, I don't
ever want to go back. 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.
