Retired Woman & Her Beautiful Tiny House

my name is vicky williams and uh my house uh its name is lala land i chose that name during the pandemic because i that's where i felt like i was was la la land for the first two or three months of it um i've been living here this i just started a third year in march [Music] welcome to my tiny home we are in the living room i have an eight and a half foot wide house the built-in couch that wind river puts the storage underneath and it folds out into a double bed uh perfect viewing for my television this is my one of my favorite spots in the wintertime is right here pre pandemic we were outside most of the time really ever inside and when the pet with the pandemic there's not been much socialization inside going on at all so but it i could see three or four people in here and watch something most the time though we're out we're all outdoors i had this house designed specifically for storage um and so i do have a lot of storage i've got storage that goes up the stairs the underneath the stair storage this storage i did not put in an oven or um my cooktop is on the countertop because i wanted all the drawer space and all that sort of thing there's storage upstairs um more shelving so i i do have adequate storage and these two closets right here actually there's four of them um i've got lots of it this is my tiny kitchen and i cook a lot and i have not missed having a full oven i use that it's a convection oven of some sort and the induction cooktop i love it i chose the colors the style everything because i like the nordic clean look the the different colors of wood uh the the paint colors i chose that i just wanted to have that i like that scandinavian look of of things i like the farmhouse sink it's big enough that i can do anything i want to in it i i cook full meals for myself i could probably cook for three or four people in here with just what i've got and i have any problems all the i've got a lazy susan here plenty of storage for all the everything that i need um for several people actually i think a family could probably have plenty of space for this the under storage here is plenty i've got to pull out spice rack which has other things in it too has enough room for recycling bin and trash can i like this because you can see what you've got um i don't think i'd change that at all i've started a little art collection there tiny art collection it's not quite finished yet um all the gl all my glasses are handmade everything is handmade just about i think i've got one plate here that i don't really remember where it came from but everything else is made by local artisans either here in tennessee or north carolina um artwork same thing that's all that came from this an artist in florida that does these glass uh pieces and she does like whole walls and things but i just chose that one i can't remember her name she's pretty awesome all my artwork is made by either friends or family not a lot to talk about the fridge it's full of beer if i open it up you're going to see a bunch of beer when you go shop when you live up here in the middle of nowhere you shop a lot you mean you buy big quantities of stuff when you finally go out because it's you know 30 minutes down the road to go to the grocery store um so you i have plenty of space i have more than enough space for everything that jasper and i need there's no a full family and right now it's full but and i i do subscribe to a meal service i have a box of food delivered that i cook every week and sometimes it's three meals sometimes it's four for two people so i'm just getting ready to also join a csa with uh several people up here for that because we're we're not a food desert but you have to go find it i started looking into going tiny and downsizing about 10 years ago and it's been a gradual process from 1800 square feet to 650 square feet and then 450 and now this so it's been a transition over 10 years and it hasn't been as difficult for me as some people i decided to downsize and i sold my 1800 square foot house and my friend had a 650 square foot cottage that was empty and i moved into that it was similar to this with a shed roof had a loft it was great space i loved it it's my favorite lots and lots of windows and then another friend had a 450 square foot cottage on her property that she wanted somebody to live in and i was her massage therapist and so we decided we'd just barter and i moved there lived there for four or five years and then when i retired i decided to build this house and i found wind river but after a lot of research and they were in chattanooga and which was close to this and so that's why i decided just to build my own place and have a big outdoor space and i could travel and come back here and hang out close to my sister in chattanooga i have 10 big windows in here counting the door and this is a 200 square foot space and we're up here in the middle of nowhere and you would not think that that much light would come in these windows because i originally started out the first year with no window coverings and there's a lot of light that's out there and so i got these shades that you just pull like this and they block the light and they look good too i like them a lot but i put these in all over the house and i'm gonna have them in the other space too but you gotta have something on your windows and i like the uncluttered look of these shades the humidity in a tiny house i don't know other people in the in the bigger park models don't seem to have the issues that us those of us that have the little tiny houses on wheels have i had a smaller unit that was i don't know half this size this is two this is two liters i think and i had just your standard you know small i said clears out 200 square feet or more no it didn't i had condensation everywhere i had condensation under these cubbies here i had it in the bathroom i had dripping down the walls and i bought this and within two hours it was all gone every bit of it was so you got to have a good dehumidifier dehumidifier when you're in a tiny house i have clothes clothes and shoes and that's uh the only thing i'm looking forward to is having a full-size closet where my dresses do not have to be folded over but that's okay there's all that fabric where it doesn't matter and i do use this as storage there's cameras in there and all kinds of good stuff but i've got plenty of course of closet space there's more down there i'm embarrassed by the number of coats that i have and this is this is not nice looking right now but that's storage for you know all the other things dog storage a lot of storage all this too i've even got wine stuck back in there behind that toy basket back back there you can't see it but it's this a very deep step and it stays cool back there so there's even wine bottles back there washer dryer combo i like it to a degree it's not something that i would ever wish on a family uh because you really can't get things dry in it it's faster to hang them up to dry but it does it does okay the only thing i regret is not enclosing these i do wish i had because i had the option they gave me the option to enclose them and i kind of thought i'd like the look of having the baskets and the books and all that and i do but i think for just to be neater i would have i probably wouldn't close those i had my contractors i think they're going to put some kind of railings up here so i'm afraid jasper's going to fall off and kill himself and up there at the loft too so that that will be happening not a problem going up and down these though they're so wide i think this came from ikea they built this as you can see once again storage i like it so my medicine cabinet's pretty wide this is a sink that's good for to wash your hands and possibly brush your teeth that's about always good for them i've got storage shell storage up there that's nice i like it all my pictures are lopsided because of the construction but that's okay shower's 32 inches it's not big but it's big enough for me lots of lighting i do like that that's awesome um that fan doesn't do much of anything that's kind of dysfunctional it's just it's just it's there on the way up the stairs we have a shoe rack the guys we're gonna put a queen size bed up here and i said i need shoe storage because i have lots of tevas and lots of running shoes and so this is what they came up with was this and it works great i can get lots and lots of shoes in here and as we come up i've got two big windows up here and more storage family photos my clothes are in baskets right now that's probably going to change jasper's got beds up here it's kind of crowded now since he moved in dogs have lots of stuff having a loft with a bed trying to change the sheets everybody knows that's a pain but you just have to do it i would probably not have a loft again if i had to do it over but that's just my age if i was younger it wouldn't even be a big deal they built this little platform to put your mattress on um i have an avocado mattress and they recommend you do this anyway but they built this that's nice nice slider windows i love my windows up here that one cranks out that window is going they're going to seal it up and it's going to go downstairs in the addition so it will only be one window up here [Music] there is definitely a sense of freedom because you don't have all that maintenance and all that house cleaning and stuff that you have to maintain and you can only put so much stuff in that house and when you bring like when i brought jasper in i gave away a lot of stuff because i had to have room for him in his things so you can only accumulate so much stuff and you can say no to people who are always trying to give you things too believe it or not in 450 square feet you can get a lot of furniture and that was the biggest thing was getting rid of the furniture um i didn't realize how much you could actually put in a 450 square foot house uh and stuff just things that you had accumulated um so that was that was a big deal trying to farm all that stuff out and i don't really sell things i just give it away and luckily i had a friend who had her husband has an ebay business i filled her her suv four or five times and then i had other friends that were willing to take plants i miss plants that's one thing i do miss is having big plants in the house but i gave all those away i was just giving just i've just farmed stuff out but it was a it was a process a definite process i'm glad i'll have to do it again [Music] well i had this deck built as soon as i moved in it happened the day i moved in they were here here building the deck because when you live tiny you have to have a large outdoor space and i had the roof put on last year last fall last october because it gets really hot up here in the summertime and i needed some kind of respite from the the sun because i like to be outside all the time um and then the ceiling fan of course i had to have that put in the gates were put up when jasper came along six months ago the outdoor shower is the best thing that i can say about tiny living is you get to take a shower outside and have a view and it's nice it might be a little chilly sometimes i don't do it every day of course but i'll absolutely love it when i was in oregon staying in the we were probably um we'd left bend and we were down around um deschutes and headed toward the coast we stayed in this little camper thing and all these forest fires were going on it was horrible actually but she had an outdoor shower and we were both like oh my gosh in spite of the fact that we have a smoke and the moon was like this orange weird science fiction orb it was awesome standing out there taking a shower looking at the moon and so when i decided to build the house it was like i'm having an outdoor shower and so there it is i decided to add this room and a bath because i'm up here all the time now instead of out traveling and i wanted more space and i wanted the guest room for when my son visits and friends visit and so this is about this is going to almost double the size of the house it's the room this room is like 14 by 16 i think and then the bathroom is maybe six by eight it's going to have a 36 inch shower instead of a 32 full-size sink and there are three windows it'll the mini split will be over there and then there's this going to be a doorway right here where they will take out that one closet um and there's going to be the closet is going to be 6 by 16 no 6x3 um so i'll have more closet space i will be losing one and then there's going to be a sliding glass door here and the there's a roof so you have more deck space [Music] having fewer possessions is very freeing and if i ever were to move into a much larger space i still think i would have minimal stuff because i don't like taking care of all of it it's it's it's quite enjoyable when you want to do other things in your life and i think everybody should actually try it more people are trying it before i had jasper i was much more of a minimalist i am now he's got three dog beds up there so yeah i've kind of backslid on that a little bit i will probably live here until they have to carry me out i might go before i when i can still walk but i don't plan on going back into a big house or a nursing home or an assisted living or any of that stuff i'm gonna go and i can't can't go [Music] anymore [Music] you

Channel: Tiny Home Tours

Views: 200,903

Keywords: tiny house, tiny house on wheels, living big in a tiny house, tiny house movement, tiny home, small house, small spaces, small house design, alternative living, architecture, affordable home, off the grid, small space living, tiny house life, diy tiny house, diy home, tiny houses, tiny house tour, simple living, tiny house living, solo female travel, elderly tiny house, camper van, tiny home on wheels, tiny homes for sale, architecture student, tiny home living

Id: gMd2DcgC9w4

Length: 15min 53sec (953 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021