>> BRIGITTE: What I love about living in a tiny house is first of all, to be in a space
which I created.
Nobody told me it should be this way or this way.
It's all me.
My personality.
And I have to say, I don't have to clean a lot.
That's a beauty, too, yeah!
It's not time consuming.
It just feels right.
I needed a place to stay because I separated from my husband
and then I came to my friend's house whom I had asked, can I stay here,
and she was i n the kitchen, I was in the living room, and there was a book about tiny houses.
I opened it up, looked at it, and right away: "that's what I want."
And it was written you can do it yourself.
Yeah, I can do it.
I will do it!
And there was no doubt in that regard.
I don't know where I took this kind of confidence.
I have no idea.
And yeah, so that was it that I thought ok I need a place and I want to build it myself,
and I want to learn.
It was a challenge.
At that time I was going to be 62 and I saw this as an opportunity
to do something which is totally different and that's where it started, in reality.
At that time, for one year, I did lots of research, listened to lots of people who had
building experience
but I knew I had to adjust it to my needs and that's what I did.
After one year, I started to build it.
There was a person who said: "Oh, I heard you like to build a tiny house.
I have a trailer.
I don't need it anymore, you can have it."
So I bought this rusty trailer and then I found somebody said to me: "Oh, Brigitte I
heard you like to build a tiny house.
What about, do you need somebody?
I have somebody who is looking for work."
And I said yeah, sure.
Let's meet.
And we met, and the only thing, I said you know what, I'd like you to be very precise,
and I'd like you to teach me how to do it.
It doesn't have to go fast but I want to learn.
And that's what he did.
And so I worked with him for almost 1 year and you can see the result.
So the trailer is 8 foot wide x 18 foot long.
I built it so that I can take it on the road anytime without any special permission.
I wanted to have one side closed in with wall so that I can put certain things onto it,
and put most windows on that side where the door is.
So when I sit, I have the view outside.
And I am very lucky that I have a really nice view onto my garden, onto the mountains, so
I am really happy about that.
It is almost living room and what we call kitchen is almost one thing.
And then I have the loft which is 8'x8'.
This sitting area which I can use to sleep, I can push this into the corner and here,
so that some day if I am not able to climb up anymore, I could sleep here.
Or I had visitors who slept here already.
The cost of the tiny house, I wrote everything down and I would say with everything, without
my labour but with the labour of my helper,
was around $30,000 CAD at that time.
So six years ago.
When I read now that you can buy a tiny house for $75,000-$80,000, I was lucky.
And I could only do it with the help of friends and family.
So that is something where we help each other and I believe that's a way of beauty, too.
Everybody when they come can...now my son-in-law can see: "oh look, the window, I put
them in, yeah" and the kids, too, they see it.
When some people say, was it hard?
The hardest part was to make decisions.
What should I use?
How should I use it?
Why this, why not this?
And every builder has a different opinion.
And so at the end, I had to make the decision and to overcome my fear to make a wrong decision.
[Music Playing]
I have been here for 5 years now.
I pay to be here on this property and it includes
electricity and internet, and I pay $300 for it.
And that is something which is really helpful because I knew that
when I would get a pension that my pension would be a minimum pension and the rent here,
I mean, I believe now almost everywhere,
is very high, and if I would rent a normal place, more than 2/3 of my income would be
for rent and the rest maybe for utilities
maybe then for food and nothing else.
And in this case, it gives me the opportunity to save some money and do something with the
money which I still feel I would like to do.
So my power, I get it through an extension cord, I have 15 amps.
That means I have to be very conscious.
I have a heater over there, it is an oil radiant heater, and here in this area we have maybe
two weeks of where we get -10 to -15 degrees Celsius.
That's no problem, I still have 19 to 20 degrees Celsius inside here.
My water, I take a pail and get the water from the main house.
In the winter I can go into the basement and get the water over there.
I carry it.
And a friend of mine gave me a used RV water tank.
And I fill that up by hand.
And then I have an electric water pump and a space water heater, electric, and can wash
my dishes,
I can open up the tap.
It looks like running water.
And I decided not to have a shower here inside because of condensation.
That is something.
They are all outside walls and ok, in the summer you can have a shower and the door
can be open.
All the water can evaporate.
But in the winter, it stays in.
So I decided I don't want to deal with that so I have a shower outside from May on.
In the wintertime, I never wash myself and shower.
No!
In the wintertime I go to my daughter's place who is living here [in town].
If she wouldn't live here, then I could go to the swimming pool.
They offer showers for $2.
That's not a problem.
And not to have running water, the good thing is I don't have to deal with a freezing water line.
The toilet, I have a pail here inside where I can go do my little business during the night.
I don't have to go out.
Otherwise, I have a compost toilet outside.
For me it isn't a big problem to go outside.
And if I get older and feel it is a big problem, I am able to install a compost toilet inside.
But right now, I say, no, let's get out into the fresh air.
In winter, very often I have to shovel first the snow, and that's good, too.
Gives me some exercise.
[Music Playing]
To go into town I have an electric bike and if I feel lazy or not well, then I can take
the bus.
There is a bus, too.
And groceries, it's not a problem at all.
I can have it on my bike and then as I said, my daughter is living here and my son-in-law.
They have a car.
So they will help out anyway.
And that's where I wash my clothes, too.
So I bought the washing machine and said ok, you have it in your place but I can use it.
And that's something in general which I like.
To share.
We don't need everything by ourselves.
I feel this should be a normal way.
How we can live together and learn to share.
It's not only good for the environment, it's good for our pocket money, too.
So that's my approach to life in general.
You know, sometimes people say, "Oh, I admire you because you live so simple."
And I have to say, I have the advantage of growing up in a different way.
So for me, I am not afraid that I can't handle things.
So the way how I grew up was with 4 brothers, my mom, we had one living room, one kitchen,
two bedrooms.
An outdoor toilet, no running water, we had to go to the middle of the village to pump
the water, carry it, and even wash all our clothes by hand.
And we had no shower, so we had a bowl and a washing cloth, and there we washed our body.
And that was normal at that time.
And I never felt dirty.
And that's why I don't feel dirty if I don't have a shower every day.
So that's not a problem to me.
And to carry the water in is not a problem either.
My daughter is already a different generation, and she says: "Mom!
Why don't you bring in running water?
This is crazy!"
And they I say: "But I don't want to deal with all the other stuff."
"But you can do this and this."
I don't want to.
What I feel is if you get exposed to different ways of living, then you don't have to feel
afraid for the future if things change.
So if things change, if we don't have enough water and you learned how to save water, that
helps you to deal with it.
In the summer I do lots of gardening.
I grow all of my vegetables.
More than enough.
And I share it with other people.
I feel that's good, too.
I preserve my food, make jam, make kale chips, and then in the wintertime, I do some knitting,
I volunteer, I am a member of the book club,
and I decided to learn to play the piano.
Then I meet friends once a week for a cup of coffee.
Yeah, I never feel bored.
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