Time for a BIG change! Our new "Tiny" home.

Being told what you can and cannot do on your own property can really make ones blood boil. I don't mean it can be mildly irritating, but rather full blown homicidal rage inducing! The kind of rage that leads to a bunch of irrational hate fuelled screaming matches and wild decisions....OK, maybe not everybody would react that way, but boy oh boy did I ever get upset by it. When the local municipal government came knocking, and said we had to get rid of our 4 hens that were living on our one acre lot, I was livid. After working 70 hour weeks and missing out on so many family moments....just to afford to give my family everything they need, I couldn't stomach the idea of somebody saying I had no right to keep OUR birds on the property I worked so hard to pay for.

So lets fast forward! Fast forward past the angry calls to the government office. Fast forward past the part where I looked into every legal loophole in my favour to prove the by-law representative was not legally allowed to enter that section of my property.... Fast forward past the trespassing complaint that followed with local law enforcement just to make my point! Lets fast forward all the way to the important part....the part where we decided to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

After a not so long discussion with the wife about what we wanted for our family, the plan became clear. We needed to move. Not only to get away from the area with municipal bylaws that caused us problems, but also to a place we could afford to live without the added stress of mortgage payments and big bills chaining me to a work-life balance that never seemed to work as it should.

It sounded crazy to most....and most people weren't shy about telling us that, my father included. "You can't not have a mortgage in your early 20's" they would tell us, "Life just doesn't work that way". Why not though? Why is it that we are raised up to believe that the only way to live is to work your ass off in a job you hate, to make payments on a house you can't afford to spend time in, for 30 years? It just doesn't sound appealing.

After a little digging, we came up with the solution that could work for us. Like many places in North America, small companies are popping up all over selling "Rent to own sheds" with no money down and no down payment. The sheds are built to look like little cabins, with a 3' loft space and pretty little front porches. It looked like a good idea on the surface....until we found the obvious loopholes.

-With 2x4 construction, there was no way to insulate one of these to adequately get through a harsh Canadian winter when the temperature dips to 40 degrees below freezing.

-Although the loft space helped make for a reasonable square footage, the 3' height to peak made the space almost useless for a bedroom for 2 young children

After going back and forth with the builder, we discovered the best way to get around this was a fully custom version of one of their standard buildings. Using the equity we had built in our current home, we were able to order one heck of a "Tiny" house.....1500sq feet of "tiny" to be exact.

The home is a 16' wide by 52' long "lofted barn cabin" from premiere portable buildings. We opted to have it built with 2x6 construction instead of the regular 2x4 construction. As for the loft, the highest possible height we could get away with was 6' at the peak. This was due to not being able to transport the building for delivery if we went any taller. The standard single pane windows would be no good either, so we opted for proper high efficiency windows. We also had the builder do all the basic framing for our layout, as well as build a staircase for the loft.

What about land? Well thats the best part! My mother owns an 80 acre parcel in a picturesque location....in the middle of NOWHERE! And she was kind enough to offer us a 10 acre section to establish a homestead. Things could not of been working out better! Cheers to getting off the grid, back to basics, and away from massive debts. Once our "big house" sells, we can finally have the life we've always dreamed of....free of debt and rich in the important things life has to offer.

"We were born to do more than pay bills and die" -Unkown