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Tiny House Part 2: The Plan

Tammy M Cardwell4 Comments

If you haven’t read last week’s post, The Dream, you may want to start there. It’ll be a quick catch up.

So we had the basic area, and in coming weeks we discussed various fine points about the floor plan as they worked on it in the evenings and on weekends. This was a pretty constant back and forth as each of us realized or thought about certain things. For instance, they decided quickly that there was no way I’d be comfortable with the small shower stall we’d been considering, so they opted for a 36″ shower instead. (Bless them!) It wasn’t a huge difference, but it did affect the floor plan.

Too, I was determined to bring my washer and dryer, no matter what it meant giving up, so we measured and measured and measured again before settling on where these two appliances could go and exactly what base cabinets we could allow for the kitchen area.

One of the first things I did was get my hands on a pad of graph paper and start playing. I drew and redrew (to scale) as we adjusted and changed our minds about the big stuff (bath, washer, dryer, kitchen area, etc.), and then I cut out little pieces of sticky notes to represent the things I had to keep and the things I wanted to keep.

After a bajillion attempts, and a lot of help from them, we finally settled on this.

On the side of this image, you see a couple of pieces labeled pink chair and bookcase. Those were the last two “want to keep” items I had to get rid of. Everything else was “have to keep.” Well, I suppose that, technically, the bookcase could have gone, but it fits where it is and when I reach the point of posting pictures you’ll see how important it is to me.

Even after we settled on this, a few changes were made. I nixed the area of the closet labeled “shelves,” for instance, when I stumbled across a plan that would work and save them some time and money. Saving them time, effort, and money was a challenge. Several times I had to convince them that I didn’t need certain things – like flooring over this stained concrete that I love, and an actual door on the bathroom. I LIKE my bathroom curtain, and it’s only me here, so…

They wanted to give me perfection but with the limited time they had for the actual construction, perfection really wasn’t an option. Honestly, as I type this, there are still things needing to be finished as he finds the time to work on them because the calendar caught up with us. They literally only paused the work long enough for me to move in and then picked it back up for a few days to get things close enough to finished that they felt I could live here comfortably.

They have been absolutely amazing, and I bless God every day for this home that I’ve been in for a little over a month. In fact, as I was talking to God just yesterday I realized that I am as happy here as I ever have been in any other home I’ve ever lived in, happier than in most.

I’m literally living the dream.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Tiny House Part 1: The Dream

Tammy M Cardwell3 Comments

I’ve been fascinated by tiny houses since I first learned about them and I’ve always felt that, if I were alone, I could live in one and enjoy it. I loved the idea of getting rid of the unnecessary and paring my life down to what really matters.

Through the years, my conviction grew, especially as life with my husband became increasingly challenging. I pretty much ended up living in our bedroom until after his passing when I was able to “move back into” the rest of the apartment. Living in the whole house was amazing at first, but eventually it began to feel like too much. I didn’t need almost 1,000 square feet and, frankly, I grew uncomfortable with that much space.

When he passed on October 1 of last year, I lost his income, so I knew immediately that when my lease was up I would have to move out of our two-bedroom, one bath apartment. The challenge was that rents in our town have increased astronomically in recent years and my options were extremely limited. I knew that, if nothing else, my kids would welcome me into their home, but no one wants to do that to their children. Well, I didn’t.

I must pause to give glory to God here. Losing my husband’s income left me literally unable to pay the full rent. He’d been sick for nearly ten years, and life with him had been expensive. Our savings was gone, and the credit cards were maxed out. And no, as I imagine is true of many narcissists, he had no life insurance. No matter how tightly I ran the budget, how much I went without, I was consistently hundreds of dollars short of having enough to last a month. The money simply wasn’t there. BUT GOD WAS.

God provided faithfully. Every. Single. Month. For months on end, people gave me money without knowing why they were giving it. It was always exactly what I needed to make up for the shortfall. I did eventually start receiving my widow’s benefits, which made things worlds easier, but that was months later. God made sure my rent was paid one way or another in the meantime.

Eventually, after months of housing research and lots of prayer, not knowing what I was going to do, a beautiful offer was made to me. I was invited over and shown a small area inside a big building. “If we built this out, could you live here?”

“YES! I definitely could!”

And so, we jumped in. They started work on putting things together at their place, and I began taking things apart at mine. Some parameters were already set. The area they’d selected had originally been intended as a sort of pool house: It had three walls in place, one window, and an area that was already partially plumbed and would become my bathroom. The footprint was 22′ by 10′. Yes, I was moving into 220 square feet. My tiny home dream was going to become a reality at the same time my financial burden would be greatly reduced. Double win! (Well, triple win, because I was going to live only yards away from my very best friend.)

Within days of the decision being made, I’d gotten my hands on a pad of graph paper, mapped out what I thought would be the final footprint of my efficiency/studio/tiny home, and started reality checking. What were the necessities? What was possible? What was doable?

It was time to start working out a plan.

And this is the first in a series that will cover my tiny home life!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C