What would you do if you could retire tomorrow? Would you sell your house?
Would you take a big trip?
Would you do all the things you've always wanted to do?
Today I'm going to introduce you to a woman who recently retired early and
decided to travel around the United States in her dream tiny home.
Hi, I'm Shannon and this is my tiny house.
Probably about three years ago, I started watching the tiny house shows,
fell in love with the concept. I love to travel. I've always loved to travel.
So the idea of having the mobility was really appealing to me.
I retired last year from Pasadena PD. Prior to that I worked LAPD,
so 22 years of law enforcement and it was a great job. I loved it.
But towards the end of my career, it got a little difficult,
a lot of cumulative traumas over the years,
and I ended up taking a medical pension,
which was a blessing in disguise because I was, I was probably ready to be done.
I had decided that, well, I don't have a job now I'm retired,
but I still have my pension. So I have income,
I guess I can do my tiny house adventure.
So I wanted something that reflected my kind of beachy vibe and I wanted
something that had like the white walls and the blue hues. And when I saw this,
it was everything that I was looking for in my price range.
I am the proud owner of a 24 foot Kootenay from tru form tiny.
I picked it up three days ago in Eugene, Oregon.
Basically over here is the great room. My living room.
I had the couch shipped up there, which is why I'm already furnished.
The couch that folds down into a futon kind of love seat where a couple of my
friends stayed last night. So it sleeps too. It's very comfortable.
It's got some dimmers, some led light dimmers that,
that run off the battery power of mine is solar equipped.
So I can be off grid for a couple of days, um,
as long as my batteries charged up. So at my home, my base camp for right now,
I still have a regular home.
I have a map of the world that I have pushpins pins on everywhere that I've
been, but obviously I can't take my tiny across the ocean quite so easily.
So I got the map of the US and I don't have my pins with me,
so nothing's in there.
But I will be pushed painting everywhere that I'm traveling because I've planned
to travel in it for about two years.
That's pretty much like the big artwork in my tiny houses, is this big map.
And then a couple of other pieces that were gifts from girlfriends.
So as we move into the kitchen, one of the cool features is the leaf drops down.
If you want to have a little more space and you're just kinda chilling in here
with your friends,
you can put the barstools over here against the window and just kind of opens
the space up a bit. Down here is my electrical panel,
so if I need to change any fuses or anything like that, if anything pops off,
it's just like a regular, um, circuit breaker. If I, if I blow a fuse, you know,
you can see what's easily on or off.
And then they also put in a big kind of hard to see hidden drawer. But um,
obviously storage space is important in a tiny house. It's very deep.
So I don't know what I could use it for.
I might use it for blankets or sheets or something that I can like reach in and
you know, just pull something out. But huge drawer
Moving into my kitchen. The farmhouse sink was super important for me.
Butcher block countertops, tons of drawer space under the sink.
I've got my Instapot trash cans and cleaning supplies. Uh,
I was kind of worried. I called,
made sure that they had a place to put my Instapot cause I'm big on cooking.
I've transported it so far. I don't know how many, 300 miles.
Never had any issues with any of the drawers popping out yet.
Obviously as they get more wear and tear, they might loosen up a bit,
but I'll just put child locks on them. It's fine.
It was important that I have the mobility.
It was important that I have a big kitchen because I love to cook for people.
So I went with the, basically the full size oven for a tiny house sight unseen,
which was a little scary, but it's got two racks.
I'll be able to take one rack out and easily do like a big roasting pan in it
for like Thanksgiving or you know, whatever. It's got four burners,
it's a propane oven.
We do have to keep it strapped in when I'm moving because a,
I didn't strap it once, and it came out about, I dunno, three inches.
And then I smashed my thumb trying to move it back in, which was no fun.
So I knew what I wanted to pay and I knew what I absolutely needed and I
couldn't do myself. Um, I didn't want to do the electrical myself.
I didn't want to deal with solar myself. I paid for those packages.
And then this whole backsplash, I'm going to tile myself on this side
we have my closet, plenty of storage here for hanging clothes.
I don't even know how I'm gonna organize it yet,
but I got way more space than what I figured. This is usually out.
This is my mini bar, but I hid it
anyways. The refrigerator, again, it's a three way fridge,
so when I'm parked and hooked up as I am right now, it runs off of electric.
They can also run off of solar and off of propane,
so when I'm tooled down the highway,
if I want to keep all my avocados and coconut milk cold,
I just switch on the propane and we're good to go excites freezer.
Now let's move into the bathroom. It's so cute. Let me put the seat down.
I love bubble bath, so I went with a full size tub.
I'm going to do the tile in here.
with my brother who does tile and it's going to be a really pretty Seaglass
subway tile. I don't like the little small vessel sinks.
I found this on Amazon prime.
It's some Egyptian copper patina sink.
I'm big into like ocean colors and I liked the green vibe on it.
Under here we've got bills.
we've got bills that I brought from home to pay, which as you can see,
I'm just hiding them. We don't want to look at the bills. Okay.
This is not important. So when my bills aren't in there,
I have another storage space. I'll probably stack up towels here.
This is my water tank. It's a 26 gallons, I believe.
Water pump over here and then over here is my on demand water heater,
which works great.
The only drawback is it takes about 20 minutes for the bath to fill up.
It's just runs slow. But I did get a hot bath last night, so that was great.
I have my guests that people can write in if you come and use my tiny bathroom.
I went with just a ladder because I didn't want to incur the extra cost for the
staircase.
Eventually I will build my own staircase and incorporate more storage into that.
But for now I actually really kinda like the ladder.
I was surprised that I like it as much as I do.
I think it gives it more of an open feeling, which I like.
So this is my bedroom loft. It's very high up.
Like I can sit on my bed and okay so it's not that high but it's great.
The view like from up here is so awesome.
I wake up in the morning and I look down, I'm like ah,
I love my life and I love my tiny house.
I've got two friends staying with me. They're adult size people.
All their stuff that's up there. Their bedroll, their camping gear.
It's a very deep loft and my plan is to put a twin size mattress,
air mattress or roll-up mattress up there in one corner for my niece when she
comes to travel with me over the summer. And then because I travel,
I plan on traveling with my two cats.
That's where their litter box is going to go. But there's a window up there,
crank open windows. I figure if I put the litter box up there, it's perfect.
It won't smell on the rest of the house.
I am probably gonna make them some type of like cat run with like burlap and I'm
going to make something for them cause I'm a weird cat parent.
It was important that I had enough room to travel with friends or invite friends
to come out with me because while I do like being alone with my cats, I love it.
I do like to socialize with my friends too.
So you know I have my friends come for a few days when I'm in a great place and
then they can leave and then it's just me and the cats again on the road.
So the dropdown deck was important because I like to hang out outside.
I told them, you know,
I'm going to need something that I'm able to pull down and put up when I'm
traveling by myself. So I use an aluminum frame so it's, I don't know,
maybe like 60 pounds if you lift it up it has to have these little cutouts
because the,
the doorstopper and the door handle when you fold it up so that it's flush with
the house.
Obviously being a police officer. I have a lot of driving experience.
I've driven jail vans and other large vehicles, but nothing like this.
I was really nervous.
I went with a 2002 Chevy Silverado 3500, second time I fuel up this car.
I think that the Supreme gasoline, the most expensive gasoline is diesel, right?
I drive a Honda accord hybrid, so I'm used to putting on unleaded and I'm like, Oh,
one, two, three. This must be the diesel.
Yup. Not a good sign.
It's going to be a very bad 24 hours.
Perhaps a bad life. I feel sick.
Full tank of gas in it. Yeah,
The 700 bucks to get the tank flushed and I will never make that mistake again.
Happened one time. One time only.
You know what's funny is right now there's like smoke coming from behind
My truck is blowing up, it's on fire.
A lot of people ask me, why did you get a tiny house? Why not just an RV?
If you want to travel, why don't you get a sprinter van?
Why don't you get a teardrop camper? Why don't you,
everybody's got a million ideas of what you should do. Well,
you can edit that out. I have a vision. My friends have seen the pictures.
They're like, Oh my gosh, it's, it's so you. I'm like, it is.
It's absolutely perfect. Hope you guys enjoyed this week's video.
Make sure to subscribe and I'll see you soon.
With more tiny house and travel videos.