hi there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny and unique homes and
showcase stories of people living alternatively in today's video we're traveling back to a Coney
bell tiny house Village to meet Cindy and take a tour of her gorgeous Park Model tiny Helm which
she purchased on a budget this spacious tiny home is all Cindy needs for a permanent home
and she's also figured out a way to have it pay for itself through a clever business strategy if
you like videos like this one make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification Bell
so that you know every single time we publish a new tour and if you'd like to see a detailed
tour of the tiny house village where Cindy is parked make sure you check out our Link in the
description but right now let's jump right in and take a tiny tour with Cindy [Music]
oh
hi I'm Cindy bolero and welcome to the sunflower tiny house [Music]
I unexpectedly lost my job and I moved in with a friend I learned that I could really
live very small I needed to start trying to find my own place I thought you know I'm gonna
check out these tiny homes when I came here to Coney Bell I just knew like this was the
place that I wanted to be at and I really had always said to myself I wanted a house in the
mountains and then you know here it was is going to happen I came across this place in
Yadkinville North Carolina there was actually an RV dealership but they had some tiny homes
on them walked into a model like this and I said oh that's the one I was able to pick my
countertops the flooring the wall coloring so I actually feel like I had a lot of choices
my budget really was to stay within forty thousand dollars and this one came out right around 45 I
had a few upgrades [Music] when I moved here I knew that I was going to be traveling that's
just sort of my lifestyle I knew that I wanted to be able to rent my place out on Airbnb to help
recoup the costs I have my house open at least two or three weekends a month for rentals I've
had wonderful comments from people who stayed here it's really of course helped with the expenses I
mean I've covered my expenses almost every month and I just love coming home really like the first
thing I do is like open up the book to see you know what people have written so it just it
warms my heart that people really felt that warm cozy feeling here that just means so much to me
the cost to stay here at Oconee Bell really ranges my lot rent is 550 a month and that
includes water hookups to the sewage and then also yard maintenance you know when
I was wanting to move to a tiny house Village I really wanted that sense of community and I
had an idea that the people that would live in a tiny house would have a like-mindedness about
taking care of our planet and I found that to be really true my sunflower tiny house is considered
a park model and it is 11 feet by 38 feet 396 square feet now one thing I really loved and I
wanted this was a lot of windows so I have 18 Windows also love how on the little top
Windows those little baby shutters I just think they're so cute when I was having my deck built
I really wanted a larger outside space as well to enjoy and I also wanted it to be maintenance
free so I picked the Trek decking because it's maintenance free and I've really enjoyed that
this is my seasonal Garden I love changing this out every season to have some new flowers in it
this past year there were just a plethora of day lilies and irises here and it was really
beautiful [Music] so at it's hard to have skirting on our tiny houses which we really you really want
anyway because it really helps with insulation so this is a really thick wearable ply board that I
had put around here it was also important to have a couple little doors so we need to get under
there and also some ventilation I believe that the skirting was about a thousand dollars with
materials and labor definitely worth it yes I have never had any water freezing or any problems like
that so I hate with gas and I have that for the heating of the house and also the Stove and Range
so I have a big tank and they come out here and fill it up when necessary and I love it [Music]
so I love sitting out here having coffee in the mornings it's a great place to just look
around my lovely neighborhood that I have and during covid when we're on lockdown
I invited people over for teeny tiny dinner parties and we sat outside it
was perfect and we could still socialize with each other and enjoy being together
so I have vinyl siding on my tiny house and it has held up so great I think in the three years I've
power washed it twice and it was so easy just came super clean and I've really loved that I
specifically wanted a sliding door because I just wanted the door on the side that seemed
more efficient use of the door space and so come on inside and I'll show you what it looks like
this is my tiny house that I have lived in now for three years and I just absolutely love it
something that's a little bit different about this style or tiny house is that it's called
a park model which means that it's wider than the towables towables are eight feet and mine
is almost 11 and believe me that extra three feet makes a lot of difference one of the other things
I love about my tiny house are all the windows which makes it feel really roomy and I'm here
in this perfect location in Mills River in the mountains and I get to look out on Forge
Mountain every day which I absolutely love the couch which a lot of the furniture came
with the house which was great is a sofa bed I love hosting people here this is you know our
little Gathering Place have plenty of seating for let's see one two three four at least five people
so a very good friend of mine Marianne is a beautiful photographer and so since this is called
the sunflower house she took these beautiful sunflower pictures and put them on canvas for me
and so they're just really special for me to have here in the house I chose the name the sunflower
house because the outside is yellow and it just seemed to fit really well I have always loved
sunflowers I think they really represent hope and optimism and joy and I try to live that way in
my life and so that's why I picked the sunflower house [Music] one thing that was important to me
to have was some furniture that I had in previous homes and so this was actually my grandmother's
table and lamp and you know in a tiny house you have to be very selective about what furniture
you bring in and what size it is but this just fit perfectly and I'm really happy to have Mimi's
Spirit here with me so my house is heated with a central heating system but the air conditioning is
right here tucked back here because it's winter time right now in the months when it's hot I bring
it out and it vents out through this window and then I also have another air conditioning unit in
the bedroom so that everything can be very nice and cool okay let's head to the kitchen [Music]
is that I have full size appliances and I have a gas range which is pretty cool and a full-size
refrigerator I do not have a dishwasher I am the dishwasher so that was an option that I decided
just you know not to have a dishwasher so one of the features that I really love is my large sink
and I had a choice of like if I wanted it you know two smaller ones but the I like the larger
size when people come here to stay as an Airbnb you really have everything that you need so like
in this cabinet there's plenty of plates and cups and glasses I found these not too long ago and I
just had to have them sunflower plates of course I have plenty of counter space that was another
thing that was really important to me I was able to pick the countertops and the backsplash and
then also the color that I wanted for the cabinets there was a really a lot of things that I got to
choose on my own which was great thank you so I really love my colorful pieces up here and I
have these beautiful pieces and I thought you know I'm gonna hang on to these I'm not sure if I have
a place for them here but I just could not let them go so I was so happy when I realized that I
could put them above my counter and I just think they add a lot of like Color Splash to the place
I just want to point out all my magnets on my refrigerator so I love to travel and so one of
the things that I do is collect a magnet wherever I go and I also ask my Airbnb guests if they would
like to add to my collection and so some of these have been added by my guests which is really fun
to come home and see where they've been when I first moved in I did not have a washer and
dryer this was a storage closet fortunately here at Oconee Bell we have a clubhouse that has a
washer and dryer in it so I would just go over once a week and do my laundry and then a dear
friend of mine Lynn Baker who is no longer with us passed along her stackable washer and dryer to me
to get this in here was quite fun we had to take off the refrigerator doors the
cabinet doors all kinds of doors to get it in but my friend Kevin miraculously got it
in here and I love having it here now just so I can do laundry whenever I like [Music]
so here is the dining room area slash office so when I was looking for a tiny home I knew that I
also needed to have a space to work because I'm self-employed and I work at home so this works
out perfectly because I have this table that came with the house and with these four chairs
and I can then also make it my desk so this is my office in a bag my rolling office and I can just
take this wherever I need to and then it has my computer and all of my files and everything that
I need in it and I set up here at my dining room table and voila it's an office I'm ready to work
so since this is my home and I Airbnb it a lot of people are always saying
to me aren't you afraid that like people are gonna mess with your personal stuff and so I
came up with one little solution for that and that is that I have these little cards around
different places like this one that says thank you for respecting my personal items which just
tells people you know I'd prefer if you not use these items and then I have other signs that say
for guests so I just have those signs here and there that let people know that they can
use these items and I've never had a problem with it okay we're gonna head to the bathroom [Music]
welcome to the bathroom you don't say that very often to people so I love my bathroom I wanted
really some counter space in the bathroom that was really important to me when I was looking at tiny
houses and a lot of them just have a very small like pedestal sink but this one has a cabinet and
I liked that and lots of drawers and even a great medicine cabinet and again in here I have tried to
think of things that guests might forget and so I have a side that says for guests and then I have
a side that's also for me so that's available to guests a super cool feature about this tiny house
is that I have a shower with a tub so that's really roomy to get in there and take a shower
and then over here is the cabinet with all of the towels and again I've got special towels for the
guests and it kind of notes what those are and then these ones up here I just use for myself
this is a regular Plum toilet I did look into compost toilets for a little bit
but then I decided to just go with the regular thing besides here at a Connie
Bell they have a sewage system that we're able to hook up to very easily [Music]
so this is a queen size bed which is really the perfect size I think one great thing is
under this bed is storage it hinges up and so I have this entire space of storage then I have
two little miniature closets but one on each side and this whole unit also was like this from the
Builder I think this Builder did a great job of really capturing every little bit of space that
you're going to need so this is one of the closets I have a matching one on the other side and again
perfect size for everything that I need for many many years I worked in the Performing Arts I was
did marketing for Performing Arts organizations in Charlotte and in Greenville South Carolina and
so I got to see some amazing performers and two of those were Aretha Franklin and Coco Taylor and
so I was able to ask if they would sign a picture for me and they did and so I have it framed and
when I wake up every morning I get to see their lovely faces that say go take on the world today
when I started talking about tiny homes to some of my friends and family they were very skeptical I
just want to say that I think this is probably one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life
and now they've all come around and said hmm well I think you were right don't let people discourage
you about tiny house living go with your gut I just really knew this was something I wanted and
if you have that passion about it just keep going for it thanks for watching this week's video I
hope you guys enjoyed it please make sure to like share and subscribe and make sure that you check
out our detailed tour of a Coney bell tiny house Village via the link in the description foreign