Tiny House Living in a 3,000 sq ft Home

Thing Two has a pretty bad sore throat. This morning, I was making her some tea with honey and brought her a paper towel to put her tea bag on when she's finished with it.
"Hey! I have small dishes I bought just for that purpose! I wonder which box they are in?"

For the past two years we have been living between two states. The bulk of my time has been spent in Missouri living with my parents on their farm where we are building our barn house. Chris has been mostly living and working in California, where he stayed with his folks in their two bedroom apartment. The girls (Thing One and Thing Two) are homeschooled and have been able to split their time between the two states.

Chris and I are fascinated by the tiny house movement. The minimalist lifestyle, low cost of living, and low environmental impact are fantastic. We considered tiny house living. Then Chris, who is 6'6" and pretty much the definition of big AND tall, spent two years living in a tiny apartment. He discovered he's not a tiny guy. Plus, we have stuff. So, no tiny house for us.


We designed our house, The Big Red Barn, based on some floor plans we saw online, only bigger. If we were going to build this home, we wanted it to be comfortable for many years to come. So ceilings were raised to 10' downstairs and 9' upstairs. Doorways were all widened to 36 inches. The garage was added, along with a shop, and an above ground tornado shelter big enough to house cots and emergency supplies.

We are building debt free which means we don't have a mortgage and are paying cash as we go. In addition, we are doing as much of the work ourselves as possible. So although we have been working on the house for over a year, it's nowhere near completion. Click here to watch our house being built week by week.

In our Big Red Barn house, we have a 530' sq area over the garage that was designated for storage, with hopes of turning it into an efficiency apartment at some later date. We are tired of sharing space. We are ready to be living in our own home. And so we turned that storage space into a little apartment and worked on the upstairs bathroom enough to make it functional.



While it's not true tiny house living, it does feel like it. It's a cozy little space where our family can be together. I do admit though, sometimes the walk to the bathroom at night through the uninsulated part of the house is a bit cold.

"I wonder which box _____ is in" is a frequently heard phrase around here. It's usually followed by, "Are you sure we kept that when we moved?" We are looking forward to making a lot of progress on the house this year, and getting into the rest of our boxes. I think when we finally start unpacking for real, two things will happen. One is that it will feel like Christmas. I've got things I love that I've forgotten I even have, such as the tiny plates on which to put one's teabag. The second is that I am going to scrutinize every item coming out of a box. Do we actually love or need that item? If we've lived without it for two years is it actually necessary to keep it?

In the meantime I am content because my family is finally all together in one state.

What would your dream house look like? Are you a tiny house person or would you rather live large?