Is downsizing a good idea when you're getting ready to retire?
Adele Smith thinks so because two years ago she retired from being a music
teacher in Tennessee and moved into a tiny house in rural Oregon.
The main feature of this tiny house is the deck that comes complete with a hot
tub. I have total deck envy. So without further ado, let's take a tour.
Hi, I'm Adele and welcome to my tiny house
I used to live in Tennessee and I was in a 1300 square foot townhouse and my
daughter eventually moved on and it was just me and 1300 square feet.
I had a lot of clutter, I mean lots of stuff and,
and it all gathered dust and I never touched it.
So I realized I use this bathroom occasionally use the half bath downstairs.
I sit right here in the living room.
I don't even use the other half of the living room.
I go into the kitchen for necessary things and then my bed and I'm like,
if I just took the things that I use,
I don't need anything more than a tiny house.
I figured it was also a good way to be able to move back to Oregon cause it's
really, really expensive. My sister combed a 20 acre working farm.
We got 13 horses, two pigs, maybe three or four dozen chickens.
I don't mind helping around on the farm and it's given me a place to be pretty
much rent free. I'm able to live comfortably on a,
and then when social security kicks in,
that'll help and then I get a little extra for teaching part time.
Come on in, take a look.
I am a retired music teacher, I should say.
I was retired music teacher after I was retired for one year.
I found a place to teach part time,
so I'm working with K through six at a Christian school.
This is my living room and when I designed it, I really had only me in mind.
I haven't had a a guest before, but it's a little tricky.
It's not like a lot of people's tiny houses where they say, yeah,
you can bring your three friends over. It's a little, it's a little tiny.
I didn't realize that until I had eight ladies from my book club come over and
I'm like, wow, this is tiny.
I utilize the storage space in the storage loft and then I have some instruments
and I thought, well this is space I could use.
So I just got bungees and bungee them up there.
I have a Appalachian dulcimer, a banjo that I've never really played with yet.
I have a gym bay also, but it's not in here. This ladder access is,
but you can see how often I use the ladder for that. I use it for storage
When I first moved in, I had no room for this TV.
This TV was always small and when I got in here I was like, Oh my gosh,
it's huge.
And I was in here for more than a year before I finally figured out where I
could put it and then I pull in channels in the air with a regular antenna.
When I first moved in I realized I didn't have places to put stuff.
So one of the first things I had to do was build shelves and I opted not to have
a sink in the bathroom because the bathroom's right there.
So I put a shelf up here with my toothbrush and things.
This is my stove top and I don't do a lot of cooking so it's usually covered and
I just keep my drop table up most of the time.
But I got my two stools and I can accommodate someone when the,
when the keyboard is not there.
And then when I go to play piano I just put the stool over there and use it that
way. I do, um,
quite a bit of frozen dinners and I'll buy a whole chicken or I'll grill outside
on my grill.
Microwave is is something I would use a lot when I had the place built,
I was really adamant about opposing windows so they have a breeze coming
through. So almost every window opposes another window.
I don't actually use this for any food prep and it can easily become the place
you just stick stuff, which is nice to have a place like that.
But I tend to get too cluttered when I do that.
I ordered this from Amazon and it,
it's fairly functional.
It'd be a really whole lot better if I had two sinks side by side,
which is not the case.
But I do tend to put it up like halfway and I often put things on here.
That's why I got these to specifically put things in and dry that way.
I actually uh,
join one of these weight loss things and they have all this product and it comes
in a big box and I'm like, where am I going to put it? And that's when I thought,
well, like the bungee I had over there with the instruments,
I can bungee up here and it's worked out to have extra storage because this is
just space I'm not using. It's a little tight in here.
I was excited about going to a compost toilet because where I lived,
I live by myself and I had three toilets. Every time you flush it,
you're wasting two to three gallons of water. Even if you have a efficient one,
it's a lot of waste. And that's gotta be our most precious resource.
So we just flush it down the toilet with sewage.
This way I use, um,
peat moss in the main compartment.
It just has a little flip switch and it doesn't really smell.
And um, after I go,
there's a little hook around here and you just turn it under and then the urine
separates out here.
And the beauty of that is I can go out and pour that around the bushes and
shrubs. They actually looked a lot better this season in the spring time.
And then when my, when I go to empty the compost in here,
I have a composter out there, one of those big plastic things.
And when that gets full,
I just open the bottom and start shoveling and put it around the bushes and
shrubs so they're happy campers.
I noticed that when they did the build,
this is a full size shower and they actually,
this was the one thing in the house as they were framing it,
because you can't put this in afterwards. You've got to build around it.
I knew that I didn't want a ladder. I'm retired
person, so going up a ladder,
it was not my cup of tea and the stairs that tumbleweed used originally.
They were really narrow. I'm like, I need a regular size step.
I mean a real step and I need a handrail. So what they ended up doing,
I have one, two, three drawers and I have one, two, three cubbies.
This is lost to the closet space under there. This works out really well.
I don't even feel like I'm walking upstairs. It's very simple.
I had them do dormers so I have the cross ventilation on either side and then
the skylight, I'm quite content. I mean it's just my size.
Both sticks are built flush with your door, but you can't do that.
If you're going to put an awning on,
you're not going to have a Headspace when you get out to this end.
So this became one step up and this is free standing is not attached and it has
become not just a great place to hang out and do my barbecuing,
but I have a soft tub it's a two person tub.
I really, really enjoy this. This is, this is wonderful.
So I hang out here a lot.
It doesn't matter what time of the year I'm out here a lot.
I had the same guy who built the deck,
come back and build the awning and I spent some time thinking about that.
I didn't want it to be dark because I would lose the light coming into the
house. So I ended up with this clear, which is, it's worked pretty well.
Of course you see the, the debris on it and it's a little bit hard to clean.
I tried doing that last year, so it's a little, a little bit tricky.
These two benches convert into a picnic table.
When you put them together, people say,
how do you like living in your tiny house? I'm like,
how do you like living in your house? It's, I don't think of it as being tiny.
I just don't, it feels like a little piece of heaven for me.
It's been perfect for a place to be able to come back to Oregon and retire and
live comfortably and be close to my family.
So what'd you guys think about that deck? Pretty cool, huh?
I'll see you in a couple of weeks with another tiny house or travel video.