The Grand Tour

I am supposed to be creating Christmas cards, but instead I found pictures online of an RV that is identical to ours and thought I would give the grand tour for anyone interested.  So if you don't get a Christmas card from us you can just read this blog post and know we love you :)

We will start with a lovely picture of the outside.  Not quite sure why RV's have to be so hideous looking, but it seems to be a requirement.  I'm guessing having all those lovely swirls of gold mean something to someone.  I would prefer a cool ocean scene myself.  Or maybe a forest so I could blend in.  Although to blend in I might need to paint it with pictures of other hideous looking RV's.  Kind of an RV inception.

Luckily, that is where the hideousness ends.  Up to a few years ago, the interiors of RV's also had to be hideous.  But thankfully someone somewhere said..."you know what, there might be people out there that would prefer their couches to be all one color, not some giant floral pattern which matches the curtains which matches the wallpaper."

So as you walk in the front door, here is the main living area.

Not too bad looking.  Quite honestly, it's the nicest furniture I have ever owned.  You can see in the top of the picture the loft where my little girl will sleep.  It's big enough for two small children.  We will make it a sweet hideaway with a comfy bed, book shelves, electronics charging station and even room for a stuffed animal or two.  

Here is a closeup of the kitchen.  Yeah, super small.  The fridge is decent.  The oven is miniscule.  We figure we have enough storage for kitchen stuff or food...not both :)  Here is where our creativity will kick in.  We are already making plans for how to continue baking our super yummy chocolate chip cookies.  

Here is another view of the long couch.  Each section is a recliner.  The holes in the floor are for tables.  We haven't decided if the tables will stay up, stay down, or where exactly we will eat, but again...this is a fun puzzle for us to figure out.  You can see the loft again.  It has a curtain that closes it all off if she would like some privacy.

This is the other side of the living area.  We plan on taking out that loveseat and putting it in my new office.  In that space we will put a desk for our computers.  The TV is 50" which makes me laugh.  Why would someone need a 50" inch TV in this small of a space?  In fact the RV comes with 3 TV's.  And we really don't watch hardly any TV.  I'm hoping I can scan all my pictures and use the TV as a huge picture frame.  And yes, that is a fireplace underneath it.  I can't wait to use it.

This is the back garage area.  Officially it's for hauling your 4 wheelers and such.  For us it's a kid's area.  As you can see there is a bed and couches which go up and down electrically.  This area will be my son's.  During the day the bed can be raised to the ceiling.  We will probably take out one or both of the couches and put in a desk.  We will carpet the whole area to make it feel like a bedroom, not like he has been relegated to the garage.  See that stuff on the back door, that folds down to be a super cool patio.  The couches can form into a bed or a table can be put in the holes in the floor to be an eating area.  And he even has his own door if he wants to sneak out at night when we are asleep.  We are going to put up a curtain and make the front few feet of the garage a play area for our youngest.  That way she has a place to play other than the loft area.  I will take pics when it is all done.  I sincerely hope it looks as awesome in person as it does in my head.

This is taken from the garage looking back inside.  You can see TV number 2, storage and the door leads to a half-bath.

A teeny tiny half bath.  It was important to us that the RV have 2 toilets.  This will work perfectly.

This is taken from the sliding glass door towards the front.  You can see the stairs up to the main bathroom and master bedroom.

This is the main bathroom.  The shower is bigger than I have right now.  There is a decent amount of storage, we will just have to plan out our shower schedule a bit more carefully than we do now.

And here is the master bedroom.  It's small, hardly bigger than the bed.  You have to sit on the bed to get to the closet and if we get a washer/dryer it will go in the vented closet.  We chose one with a small bedroom on purpose.  We figured it was more important to have a larger living area than a larger bedroom.  I do wish there were cabinets above the bed and we will have to figure out how to make small little shelves since we have no bedside tables.

This is the other side of the bedroom.  To the right of the vented closet you can see a small cabinet.  This opens and a 3rd TV slides out.  Seriously...why so many TV's?

For those of you who need a floor plan to fully visualize our home.  Because it is so complicated :)

So what do you think?   I'm in love and cannot wait to move in. 

We will be sitting still

We have noticed that people cannot wrap their head around the fact that we bought an RV and we are going to live in it full time at a local RV park.  So I have developed a handy dandy FAQ post to answer the questions we keep getting.

A conversation typically starts like this:

Us:  We bought an RV and we are going to live in it full time.

1.  How are you going to transport it?

We are getting it delivered to the RV park and we are going to live there full time.

2.  But you don't have a truck, how will you move it?

We don't plan on moving it.  We are going to live full time at an RV park.

3.  Where is it parked now, at your house?

No, it's still at the dealership.  They are going to deliver it to the RV park and we are going to live there full time.

4.  What are you going to do with your home?

We rent, our lease will be up.

5.  But then where will you live?

In the RV.....full time.

6.  Where are you planning your first trip?

We aren't planning on traveling, we are going to live in the park full time.

7.  Are you going to homeschool?

Nope, we will be continuing to have our kids go to school here, because we are going to live full time in the RV park.

8.  What if you want to move it?

We will pay someone to move it for us.  We are confident that by living in an RV park we are going to make friends with trucks that will be willing to move it for us.

9.  But if you don't have a truck how do you plan on traveling?

Not going to travel right now....remember...RV park, full time.

10.  How cool, you can just go on vacation whenever you want.

I wish, but we still have kids in school, jobs and traveling isn't our goal right now.

11.  If you aren't going to travel, why are you going to live in an RV?

Because we want to.  

12.  How will you cook?

It has a small but really nice kitchen.

13.  You are going to get tired of each other being stuck in there all the time.

We really like each other, we enjoy hanging out together, and we actually won't be in it 24/7.  We all have jobs or school to attend.

14.  Where are you going to put all your stuff?

That's the point...we plan to sell most everything.

15.  When are you going to buy a truck?

Maybe never, again no plans to travel right now.....RV park....full time.

16.  What if you change your mind. 

Then we will buy a truck.

17.  Don't you have to have a truck if you have an RV?

Not if you aren't going to travel with it.

18.  So where did you say you were going to visit first?

At this point I just smile and walk away :)

Learning About Estate Sales

Ever since I signed on the dotted line for the RV I have been on a mini roller coaster of emotions. Like the kiddie ride kind, not the Texas Giant kind.  Some days I'm so excited and I want to move in right now.  We own it, let's go live in it.  Then other days I look at something I am going to have to sell and think...what am I doing?  I love my vacuum cleaner.

Isn't she beautiful.  

We have decided to sell everything via an estate sale.  Yes, I could dedicate my life for the next month and a half to sorting, posting, craigslisting, garage selling everything myself.  But I have things to do.  Like find office space for my counseling practice, sort through things I want to keep, celebrate some major holidays...and oh yeah...work for a living.  So we decided the cost of hiring the selling of our stuff out was going to be worth it.

See...that's me and like most people, I have a lot going on.

I have learned much in the last week about Estate Sales.  Not near enough I'm sure, but I'm much more educated on the process than I was a week ago.  I've learned things like:

1.  There are many ways to take advantage of the customer in this business.  When you break it down, I'm inviting complete strangers into my home, they are going to sort all my stuff, they get to price it themselves, they will then sell it all and then they will inform me of the total and how much I get after their take.  Plenty of room for dishonesty.  And I understand that I do not have nice stuff, I will not be making a ton of money.  But this is all I have, I would like it to be taken care of in the best way possible.

2.  Even though you don't own really cool antiques, you can have an estate sale.  I expected the companies to come in and laugh at my stuff.  Nope...they tell me even half used bottles of shampoo will sell.  Who knew?

Sadly this is not my house...look at the goldmine they have sitting there...cha-ching!!

3.  Some companies are much snootier than others.  My house is messy.  (One of the main reasons I'm downsizing...keeping a big house clean is not on my priority list.)  You can walk through it without tripping in most places.  I tried to clean up the cat puke off the floor before they came...you know, the basics.  Some companies have smiled, told me to just move out and leave everything messy...they will take care of it for us.  Some have looked around and wrinkled their nose, apparently irritated that they had to step over the pots in the hallway that catch the rain because our landlord won't fix the roof.  Guess who is going to get our business.

"Dahling...your stuff is not worthy of my services."

I actually like this print...I need to research who drew it.

One of the reasons I have so much stuff is because I can always find an excuse to keep it.  "I got that cooler when I worked as a lifeguard at age 16, I've kept it this long, it would be a shame to throw it out."  "You never know when you are going to need purple fabric with orange flowers on it."  "What if someone wets the bed...then I will be glad I have 3 extra sets of sheets in every size on hand."  

It's much easier for me to part with something when I know that it's going to someone who can use it or I can sell it.  So an estate sale is the perfect solution for me.  Everything is going to have a chance to be sold.  And then a donation truck is going to stop by and pick up the leftovers.  I don't even have to throw away a perfectly good half bottle of shampoo I tried and hated.  How awesome is that!!

What I'm going to miss

I'm expecting to miss some parts of living in a house.  I wanted to post about them so I could look back in 6 months and see how accurate or off I was.

Here is what I expect I will miss in no particular order:

1.  My washer and dryer.  I have always wanted a nice set and we got them this past January when we moved into this house.  The RV has room for a washer/dryer combo until that can hold about 3 pairs of socks.  Hopefully washing clothes at the laundry mat isn't too awful.  I'm going to miss being able to "iron" Ryan's clothes in the dryer every morning.

2.  Parking my car in the garage.  Ever since the hail storm in 2011 that demolished both of our cars I have wanted to keep my car safe in the garage.  Plus it's a bonus on cold days like today.

3.  The ice and water in the fridge.  Our fridge will be much smaller.  That I can deal with, but I'm going to miss having ice and water pop out of the front of the fridge at my convenience.  

4.  The garbage disposal.  I can't remember the last time I didn't have one of these.  I wonder how many times I'm going to accidentally put something down the drain that I'm not supposed to.  

That is all I can come up with right now.  Here are some things I won't miss:

1.  My huge rent payment.

2.  Taking care of and storing stuff that I don't need or want.

3.  $300+ electric bills

4.  The impossible task of getting the entire house cleaned at one time.

5.  The feeling that every time I sit down I should be doing something to upkeep the house instead.

6.  Yard work

7.  That feeling that I should decorate my house super cute, but don't have the budget or drive to do so.

8.  The stress of how am I going to pay my bills when my client load is down this month.

9.  Having to go upstairs 6 times in the morning to be sure the kids are awake.

10.  Having to yell up to the kids when dinner is ready.  

I'm sure there are more for both lists.  But it's a good start I think.  What do you think you would miss most if you drastically downsized?

Where are we now?

So here is a quick snapshot of our thought process over the last two months.  

We really wanted that park home.  We checked out the local RV parks.  They vehemently let us know that we could not put a park home in an RV park.  Something about the size, the fact that it doesn't have RV hookups, etc.  But they own the park, they get to set the rules...even if I don't like it.

We looked at buying land to put one on.  We found that the local ordinances will not allow us to do that.  We live in suburbia...we cannot be putting such rubbish on our property :)  

(Hideous isn't it) :P

We forgot about it for a while when we got busy with life.

We thought about moving to an apartment instead.  After visiting several complexes we have learned that after renting an apartment capable of housing the 4 of us and finding me an office we will be spending the same or more money each month.  Unless we moved into the one complex that looked like drug deals were going on all over the place.  I'm not willing to go there.

We briefly considered living in a mobile home park.  When I really thought about the environment of a mobile home park versus an RV park I suddenly realized that I would enjoy the atmosphere of an RV park more.  I think we would get to meet interesting people and learn about living on the road in an RV which is our eventual goal.  

We started thinking outside the box.  How could we make an RV work?  As I started looking at floor plans I got to thinking how this could be possible.  We came up with an idea and talked to the kids about it.  They were of course a little hesitant, but did not object.  We found something that looked like it would work.  

So we went to check this particular RV out.  It didn't feel right in my gut, but we put down a deposit.  It fit all our needs, I just thought I was needing to look around more because that is how I function.  I need to feel like I have done my homework.  

A couple days later we went to check out the exact same model of RV, it was just a lot less expensive.  It was too beat up for our needs.  But....they had new models on the lot and we found the perfect one.  And this one felt much better to my gut.  A day later and we now own (or the bank owns for us) an RV.  The process was scarily easy to complete.

So now...all we have to do is decide what we are going to keep, sell all our stuff, figure out which RV park we want to live in and find an office for me.  By the beginning of January.  Not to mention keep on working and doing all the usual holiday stuff.  It's exciting, scary and overwhelming at once.

What Does Our Tiny House Look Like?

We know we want to move into something much smaller, but what does it look like?  Is it on wheels or permanent?  Do we build it ourselves or buy it finished?  There are so many options out there, I didn't even know which way I wanted to direct my energy.

So we spent a lot of time looking at different options over Labor Day weekend.  First we started out looking at RV's.  We discovered that there are a lot of cool RV's out there, some are really nice and don't cost a ton.  But do I want to live in an RV with two kids?  None of them were suited to our needs exactly.  We were drawn to the fifth wheeler toy haulers.  They all had a room at the back for "toys", but also had beds and couches that lifted up into the ceiling.  They also often had a powder room back there as well.  With some carpet and maybe paint on the walls, it would make a cute bedroom for one kid.  But not for our two.

While out looking at RV's we came across a place that was selling Park Homes.  Homes that looked more like tiny homes, but classified as RV's.  They had two on the lot, both were awesome, but had one bedroom and a loft.  Again, not enough rooms for our two kids.  But we got some information there and found out there were more homes to be toured about an hour away.

 

I think this home is super cute, I love the front porch.  And the other home had a big back porch that was screened in.  And it was affordable, just didn't have enough bedrooms.  These are Athens Park Homes.

The next day we decided to head out to look at the other homes we could walk through.  They were Leland Cabins and instead of being built on wheels and classified as RV's they were built on skids.  I don't know what they were classified as.  We toured a bunch of them and just did not like them.  But they had some super cute playhouses.  I would have loved one of these as a kid.  They had cute little dutch doors and lofts inside. I could just hug it, it is so cute!!

We left there disappointed, but I got back on the web and as I was looking around I discovered a place that had a bunch of the Athen's Park Homes on display.  And they had some with two bedrooms and a loft.  I could make that work, give my youngest the loft until my teenager leaves for college.  Then she could have bedroom and the loft could become our tv/hang out room.

We toured these homes the next day and I found my new home.  It's 399 square feet plus the loft.  I would want to make some small changes to it, but it will work.

Now all I have to do is find a place to park it.  Oh and convince a bank to give me a loan for it.  No problem right?  Anyone have any ideas?

Road Blocks

When my dream was a giant house in the shape of a J, I understood my main roadblock was money.  Now that my dream is to have a tiny house, money is a much smaller road block.  Unfortunately there are many other road blocks such as finding a legal place to put a tiny house, how to get someone to finance the house and minimum house size codes.

For us we have a few requirements:

Our house has to have three separate sleeping areas:  There are four of us going to live in this tiny house.  Two adults and two kids (plus two cats, two frogs and a fish, but the animals won't affect house size).  Our son is a teenager and our daughter is a tween so they cannot share a room.

We want to stay in our current school district:  The kids have been through many changes in their lives and the one thing our daughter has requested is to please let her stay in this school district.  I understand how important this is to her and so for the next 7 years this is a non-negotiable.

We want to live legally:  Because we have kids enrolled in school, I don't want to live hidden in the woods, I want my home to be legal.  I'm not the type of person who would be comfortable with the fact that someone might report my home and we would have to move it or worse vacate.

The first requirement is pretty easy to accommodate.  We won't go super tiny, maybe just 400 square feet or so tiny.  I'm not sure if this classifies the house as tiny or just small, either way it's what will work for us.

The second and third requirements are what is keeping us from doing this today.  Land in our school district is expensive and the minimum requirement for a home is 1800 square feet.  This is a frustrating road block because I do not know how to overcome it right now.  I don't understand the codes and I don't have connections with someone who would let me buy or rent some land from them.  And even if I could get a small piece of land, would I be living illegally due to the small house size?  

The more research I do, the more questions I have.  Should we try to build a small house on a foundation or on wheels?  The houseboats look really cool maybe we could live on a lake?  How about container houses?  Should we just use an RV for now until we can figure things out?  So many questions right now.

Where the Journey Begins

When I was a kid I often drew my dream houses on graph paper.  They were large, had many different rooms, several pools, usually a creek ran throughout the house and almost always were in the shape of a J. 

Fast forward 30 years (give or take) and I have slowly moved towards that big house.  Sadly no pools or creeks and the J shape has eluded me, but there is plenty of square footage.  The house we live in now is about 2700 square feet, a little over average for the U.S. and way under average for the school district we live in.  Even with using two rooms for my counseling office we have plenty of room to store all our stuff.  Seriously...this picture is just my crafting stuff and we have lots of other rooms full of stuff...who needs all this?

I

Several things have happened this year to change my outlook on how big my house needs to be and how much stuff I need to accumulate.  First I made a New Year's Resolution to downsize my stuff.  I was tired of cleaning it, tired of losing it, tired of it always being in my way.  Next, a friend announced that she would be selling her house and moving her family to an RV for a year or two to save money.  That got my wheels turning.  As I started looking into the possibility of moving into something smaller I discovered the Tiny House movement. 

I have a new dream house, a teeny, tiny, super cute dream house. 

You get the idea.

I invite you to follow our family as we attempt to make this dream a reality.   We know it will be a process and it may take several years, but even if I have to invent a shrinking ray gun, this will happen!