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- I live in a tiny Gatehouse
in a small village in Northern Ireland.
It has a population of less than 300.
Ireland is a really beautiful romantic country.
As much as I like to make it look
like a fairy tale in my pictures,
it's very much real life.
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- [Narrator] This is Relocated where we toured
the living situations of people who choose to live
off the beaten path.
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- So this is the front door behind me.
When you first walk into the gate house,
this is the room that you enter.
It's the kitchen.
It's one of the only two rooms
that would have been original
to the house when it was first built
because the houses were built in 1842.
They didn't have running water
or electricity when they're first built.
So there's been a lot of updates since then.
All the colors that you see are like our own choices.
We wanted to decorate,
and keep with kind of the outside
and kind of Manor house inspired.
Looking back in the day,
this house would have been servant's quarters.
So they weren't really made to be very nice
or special on the inside.
So this is the living room,
which is the other only original room to the house.
This is probably where we spend most of our time.
Again has really nice high ceilings.
So we tried to take advantage of that.
We added all the shelves in here,
all the pictures all the color,
all that was us.
The windows here are original to the house,
and they would have opened inwardly,
which is why the window is so deep.
They no longer open anymore or function that way.
We converted this into a window seat
to try to maximize this space here
and actually ended up being where I do most of my work
and spend most of my day. (soft music)
As you can see, we don't have like a dining room area
or anything like that.
So this is actually a fold down table.
It's really great because it folds back up.
So it didn't take any floor space
when we're not using it as a table.
And it has a little bit of storage with it.
And then we keep the chairs for it over here,
right behind where the stairs,
most of the space in this house is kind of like upward
rather than sideways.
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Good boy, one more time.
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So when you walked downstairs,
you are now in the bedroom,
this and bathroom are the only
other two rooms in the house,
because you're kind of underground here.
This area is really dark.
There's not much natural light,
which is nice when you want to sleep into the morning,
but it does make your bedroom feel kind of like a cave.
The low ceiling doesn't help much either.
I'm not much of a minimalist when it comes to clothes.
We got these Ikea wardrobes,
which are just simple and functional.
It was a little bit hard to set them up in here because
they're so close to the ceiling.
And we actually have a little bit of additional storage
for clothes under the bed as well.
So this is the bathroom it's actually,
I think pretty good size for the size of the house.
A lot of people will really minimal when they earned any
houses with white walls and everything like that.
But we decided to have a lot of fun,
some really great salmon color in here
to kind of bring a bit more life
and personality into these rooms.
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We rent the Gatehouse and it's actually very affordable
because it is such a small space.
It doesn't cost much to heat it or electricity.
The costs associated with living here are less financial,
and more associated with like the fact
that I live really far
from my family and that's difficult.
And then also for me,
it's been very expensive,
the visa process,
which I wasn't quite aware how complicated
or ongoing it would be when I first moved here.
And then for me personally as well,
it hasn't been as easy to get jobs.
I've had a couple jobs
that were interested in hiring me to work remotely,
and then change their mind
and wanted me to work closer to them.
And that would require me relocating.
So I had to choose either keep my job
or stay in this village in the Gatehouse.
And I choose the Gatehouse.
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Through living here,
I've come to really love living in a smaller space.
And it makes me value what I have,
and be more critical about
what I bring into my house.
And it makes me not want to have as much.
I'm still never going to be a minimalist,
but I think I could also continue living in small spaces in
the future.
We're not sure how much longer we'll live in the Gatehouse.
We love it.
I think ultimately that's what we're looking for is we're
looking for a place we can own,
but we're going to have to love it as much as we love our
current house,
because it's kind of a special house.
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