hey there welcome to my channel where i take you on tours of tiny and unique homes and showcase
stories of people living alternatively maybe you've never truly considered living in a tiny
home but what if i told you you could cut your housing expenses by 80 if you did would that
change your mind well that's exactly what derek decided to do when he was tired of paying a huge
amount of rent to live in portland oregon he now lives in the tiny space with not one but
two roommates and they all pay a fraction of the housing costs that are typical in the area
i think something that's really cool about going tiny is that you get to live big it's
also kind of like a passageway i see like people come in come out but i'm here forever for sure
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hi i'm derek espinoza and this is my little squirrel penelope
and we live together in our cute little tiny house
before living in a tiny house i lived in a downtown apartment in portland i was paying
about 1500 rent was totally killing me like at 19 years old i should not have been doing that
once i was able to move tiny i was able to start saving money i had more free time it was really
the best decision that apartment was literally 300 square feet and this whole house is 250
and this house is mine i get to paint it however i want
i don't have to ask anyone for permission it's my house it's my space and i love it
so i actually acquired this house through my mom in a way she passed away right after
i turned 18 years old from cancer and that was a really really tough time in my life
i had acquired about 40 000 for the insurance money from that and so
i saved it didn't know what to do with it yet finally found the house in oregon city
listed on craigslist and i got it for 26 000 and honestly the best investment i've ever
made this is really a gift from her and i feel comforted like her presence is always welcome and
sometimes in the morning i'll say good morning mom and it's not just four walls to me it's not just a
tiny house this is an extension of her you know so i'm very very proud very proud of this home
i live here with four other wonderful beings we've got my cat saturn my doggy penny and
wonderful roommates izzy and robbie i always have had roommates in this space i like living
with friends i don't want to be by myself all the time i like to socialize and so if i can make my
house a comfortable space for anyone to come over then i know i get to be home and chill with people
all the time so that's pretty cool i love my roommates right now they just both moved in like
this last month and it's been working out really well when you're in such a cozy space it's just
easier to talk and like share so much i pay 655 for this spot and it's in a phenomenal location
i'm actually friends with the landlord and so that's how i was able to find the space
for 655 it includes water electricity with all three of us living here we only pay 250 each it
just allows us to just really live significantly more comfortable than a 1500 apartment tiny house
has allowed so many more people to have a space to stay obviously in like a comfortable space
where they can save and better themselves in a way so it's really helped me do that as well
the outside of my home is actually freaking huge so it is actually 22 feet long the height of
my house is 13 and a half feet tall so it fits right under all the overpasses it's eight and a
half feet wide so you can fit a queen size bed going any direction the house itself sits on a
dual axle trailer and it's probably like 15 16 000 pounds depending on how busy my life is i've moved
this house four times actually and drastically inconvenient every time this actually the second
location i've had my house in in portland i got to move here about three four months ago everyone
here is like really friendly genuinely the vibe of portland's always so comfortable and like really
relaxed to so many different identities types of people and it's just a really cool community
in portland oregon it is raining all the time it's grey consistently so having all
these windows at least allows light to come in i have 11 which is cool consider 11 and a half
i got this one at a garage sale kind of a vintage store as you can see i got some pretty cool like
mosaics up in my window so every single day when the sun comes in
it fills my house with rainbows so i get to wake up to that which is really cool
my propane tank here is responsible for our hot water and our stovetop this literally is like
20 bucks to fill takes maybe three months what i really like about my house is how colorful it is
color has a lot to do with your mood and it affects the way that
you feel about a space and so i really wanted my house to reflect happy vibes
i've been through like a whole bunch of different paint jobs i guess you could say i personally am
developing a lot i'm changing my style changes and so should my house so should my decor
this is my own little bedroom living room space
through some like trial and error of different things we've just got a mattress because i always
find that everyone sleeps down here anyway it allows me to have multiple people over at
once and so it can kind of entertain that way so this is really just the spot we all hang out at
so what's really cool about like any tiny house is everything should have at least two purposes
so not only is this my bed it also is a huge storage unit so literally right underneath my
bed i have so much stuff that i just keep daily that i just don't use throughout the year and so
each of these little tabs is an open little closet it goes literally all the way down here i also
have all these really cool shelves and things that i've just collected throughout the years
you know i'm gonna have to mention daisy dill pickles i got her when i was like six years old
and she was my dog growing up total best friend and anytime i'm on a little walk i sometimes
feel like she's with me so i love daisy dill pickles she always has to stay here in the bed
i like loki had an obsession with furbies when i was little i had like 60 at one point
so i found this cute little shopping cart on like a garage sale adventure i was getting a bike too
at the same time and so she gave it to me for free and now i just like put all of penny's little toys
in it and i think it's probably one of my favorite things in the house is my little shopping cart
up here i just have a really cool tapestry actually i got it for christmas one year
and i never really used it and so when i moved in i just kind of wanted to like
switch it up there's a lot of different woods and textures going on in this house
i kind of wanted to cover it up plus i feel like it gives a cool mystical vibe to the space
so this is my staircase i actually built it myself only for 45 dollars went to home depot got a whole
bunch of random pieces of wood put it all together when i first got this house it was actually more
like um climbing pieces so i had a block here here here and here and he had to literally
climb up a bit kind of dangerous and super inconvenient so definitely needed like a staircase
all right so this is our queen bedroom for our cute little cat saturn basically
like it's a little play pin for right now as my two roommates continue to move in
we're gonna definitely put like a bed up here tv like xbox and stuff like that so
we'll definitely make this more of a chill space obviously saturn's gonna still hang out for sure
so one of the first things i ever put up in this house was this tapestry my
mom actually gave it to me for christmas and it's so beautiful like totally represents me
really reminds me of being home in corvallis which is like a tiny little town in oregon
another thing i want to talk about up here is the fact that i actually have three lofts most tiny
houses have one maybe two but um there's a whole storage loft up here so i've kind of just had
this space for like storage throughout the years put blankets extra pillows and stuff like that
now we're gonna go to the biggest room in the house it's gonna be the closet
so this is the closet that's definitely the biggest room in the house
it allows me to just feel comfortable up here i can do art projects it's like my creative space
where i can just literally put on anything i want i've got outfits for any event i've got so many
shoes my friends and i we just trade things we're all typically the same size oh my favorite pair of
shoes are these like psychedelic boots i returned a whole bunch of stuff to buffalo exchange and i
got these for i want to say like 25 bucks so they're literally my favorite shoes they're
so cool all right let's head downstairs and i can introduce you guys to jackie
so this is jackie my best friend we met in hollywood i got her at a thrift store in like
west hollywood brought her at home immediately and i've been changing her every week ever since
we wear the same clothes so it's kind of like she's literally an extension to me really twins
so as i head down the stairs you guys are going to see that i actually have a huge pantry and
the house came with it so i'm super grateful for that just literally stock it with food all the
time and super lucky to have like all that food storage space because i know in a lot of tiny
houses that's like a problem um the kitchens tend to be really small and feel crammed but i
love my kitchen it feels really roomy i've got plenty of counter space i get to have a whole
size fridge to me it's totally worth the space especially having three people here it's plenty
to like have all of our food enough for my dog to get her wet food and stuff like that so um
very happy definitely recommend getting a larger size refrigerator especially with the freezer
another thing that i recommend having inside of your house is a water heater
so our water heater never freezes i don't have to worry about checking the propane
or if anyone's gonna take it outside it just fits conveniently back here
and also i'm super lucky it came with this like three burner stove never need to even use all of
them at once so three is perfectly fine so much counter room space i have things up here i don't
even need but as a cook it's definitely really important to have a kitchen or a space that feels
like you've got arm room so i'm really lucky about that it's not necessarily a
one buck kitchen you know me and my friends sometimes will make something together
and behind these curtains is our bathroom
welcome to the shrek caves this is the bathroom um plenty room in here it's like much bigger than
like your typical rv bathroom a little smaller than like a regular but um yeah got a nice
sized single person shower aluminum sided shower honestly it was a pretty cheap material to use i
had not had to worry about mold or like anything like that water just falls right down the side
so the toilet is gonna be a composting one and honestly i recommend doing a compost
toilet 100 because i can literally move my house anywhere all i have to do is ask for two hookups
this is where the water comes out and then this is where the water flows out it goes into like
a tank underneath everything and then yeah just like plug
into a 13 amp and that's going to make it significantly easier for you to find a spot
also we just change it literally every week it's not an issue maybe the first month you're
like this is weird and inconvenient but you just totally get used to it so totally recommended it
i think something that's really cool about going tiny is that you get to live big
ever since i've moved here i've gotten to be so much more comfortable got financial freedom i
have like a much better social life i get to be as creative as i want and i can just change the house
anytime i feel like it i always welcome anybody to like change it in whatever way they want to add
something to it leave their mark and i really like that about my house this house is kind of like
a passageway i see like people come in come out and stuff like that but i'm here forever for sure
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