Hey guys, in today's video, we traveled to Idaho to tour one mom's beautiful,
tiny home that she shares with her two young daughters, Katie discusses,
how downsizing has changed your family dynamic and her day-to-day life.
And her girls even give us a tour of their shared lofted bedroom,
A lot of girl power going on and not a lot of square footage. And, you know,
I love that. So let's jump right in and take a tour.
Hi, I'm Katie. My name's Rain and my name is Willow.
We're really excited to show you our tiny home.
Before I moved into this tiny house,
I was living with my children and my former spouse in
a nearly 5,000 square feet home.
But I think that the adventure of the lifestyle and the simplicity of it,
the minimalism, everything really spoke to me at that time.
Yeah, I can live on so much less and be so much more
focused on what's important in life.
And really it's not things that are important. It's,
it's those memories that you create with your family or your children or your
pets. It's those memories, you know, that you cherish.
I think tiny house lifestyle is perfect for that.
I've had a lot more quality time with my children.
I can be close to them emotionally, physically, intellectually,
and we can focus on the things that matter to us in life.
I homeschool them. So I like to be with them all day.
And I have found that when you live life in the moment
enjoying every day as if it was your last,
that time really does stretch out the children and I have been living in the
tiny house. Now this is our fourth year.
This is what I dreamed up all those years ago. And I've been living it now.
And it's it's even better than I ever would have dreamed it was.
A lot of people talk about the importance of the trailer.
And it is very important. I believe in my opinion, to get a brand new trailer,
we went with an eight by 20 trailer and for the two girls and I,
the last four years, it's worked really, really well. We've really enjoyed it.
We went with a metal roof because in snowy, Idaho,
you want to go with practicality.
The snow just slides right off when it warms up during the day and it works
great. When the snow falls down on the ground,
it creates a little bit of a insulation for the house,
which extra insulation in the wintertime is great.
So the insulation and skirting on a tiny house,
everybody's got their own ideas. I spray painted copper, some metal sheets,
and I actually had my dear friend,
Paul came up with the idea to keep the insulation on your round,
put up this metal skirting and just leave it. This house is stationary.
It's not going to go anywhere.
Something I highly recommend with tiny house living is find any way you can to
garden. If you have kids, it teaches them responsibility.
And it's fun to get a little garden going.
We've got some herbs here and it's a nice, fun way to enjoy your summer.
Here's what keeps the house going. It's our lovely, a propane tank.
The house is extremely efficient and stays plenty warm in the winter time.
And it's a propane heated.
So.
Right when the snow thaws,
we come out here as if it's our little overflow to our house, our living room,
we enjoy a fire,
enjoy sitting around with friends and family and enjoying the great outdoors in
this beautiful area. We do a lot of kayaking and fishing out here,
and it's so nice to just sit around the fire. Chit chat,
have some dinner. Having outdoor space with a tiny home is really important.
I would say to making memories and enjoying all right,
that's enough for the outside. So let's head on in,
This is our living room, dining room, eating area. Um,
we've got this table here. It actually folds up.
And this is where we do the art homeschool,
where we do our meals together as a family. And when we want to do yoga,
meditation, whatnot, and we want a little bit more room.
It just folds up nicely against the wall. So it gives us a little extra space
under here we've got the couch that doubles as my closet.
So when I put this up, I've got all my clothes kind of organized in there.
All right, let's head up to my loft.
This is my little Oasis here.
And I think each of our spaces says something about us.
I like it. Nice and simple. I've got just a nice little white comforter here.
Some plants. It's a nice place to come and rest read. Right?
That's really nice to have the dormers right here.
I chose the dormers of this tiny house layout,
which wasn't part of the house plan.
Initially had it put in so that I could have a little extra space up here,
had space and also open up the window to the beautiful forest outside in the
water.
The other side of the tiny home.
And we've got the kitchen and the bathroom back here.
But first we'll talk about this ladder bookshelf combo.
When we first built the tiny house,
we had two ladders built on either side that kind of came into the living room,
took up too much space are big and bulky. They're heavy. So we thought,
why not build a bookshelf that doubles as a ladder?
And I've loved this design of love this layout.
And of course the books are always coming in the house and rotating out. So,
I mean, it's a really good use of space.
Welcome to our room. We got a lot of bed in here.
It's really comfortable. It's kind of like a tree house up here.
She kicks me and takes my blanket.
You were sleeping.
We usually play card
games and a lot of card games.
Well at night I usually like crawl over to our
window and I usually look out at the moon.
It's kind of like a really relaxing space.
Let's head into the kitchen.
I love having a large kitchen sink. It makes everything so much easier.
It makes cleanup a lot easier
when I'm doing the dishes here.
I love having this big picture window that looks out towards the mountains.
It's very therapeutic.
It's like my own little nook where I can sit and kind of meditate and think,
listen to music and have such beautiful scenery. I love it back here.
Feels like my own little cabin, warm, cozy space. I love cooking.
I love making meals here. It's plenty of space. And you know,
I'm a detail person. I love all the little details.
The crystal knobs on the cupboards and having the little plants up here,
I would rather do the open cupboards than the closed cupboards.
Just.
Heating up at tea kettle in the winter time is enough to heat this place on the
other of the kitchen here, we've got the sliding barn door.
The story behind it was initially when the house is built with the standard
pull-out door here. And it would really close up the space in the kitchen,
coming up with this idea of having this big, full floor length mirror.
It opens up the space, it adds more light.
It adds more depth and dimension to the kitchen. And it's a really beautiful,
I love that I was able to find this on the internet, sand it down,
take off the stain that was on it and stain it with a darker stain to match the
mirror behind me.
I like the kind of craftsmanship of having the copper and the old
Barnwood. So with that, let's go into the restroom.
There are a lot of features in here that I absolutely love a lot of tiny house
people put in the separate toilet from Sweden and I highly recommend it.
It's a little pricey, but it's definitely worth it.
I had a hot water heater installed in the tiny house and it was built,
never work. Dear friend, who helped me get hot water in my house.
And it has been such a blessing, love it.
We don't have to go to the bath house or to the swimming pool to take a shower
anymore. It's a dream.
I really realized living a tiny home lifestyle,
that happiness isn't from things that we have or things that we get.
It really does come from within us, Henry David Thoreau.
He said he wished to live deliberately to front only essential
facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not when
I came to die, discover that I had not lived like this lifestyle.
It teaches you to live. It teaches you to embrace the moment,
embrace the ups and downs and, and enjoy everything.
Being in such an intimate setting with my children.
You learn that it's all about. Now. It's all about staying present.
It's all about having those memories and those experiences with,
with your children.
If there's one thing I would love for people to walk away with after
having heard my story,
I want to inspire people to get in touch with their true nature and what it
means to be human. And I think that's the beauty of this lifestyle is, you know,
you get to spend more time doing the things that make you human,
make you who you are. And that priceless absolutely priceless.
I hope you guys.
Enjoyed this week's video.
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And I will see you next week with an all new video.