Results from our search for a quick tiny house move

We want to pass along the results from our search for a quick tiny house move.

I was all ready to post on Craigslist but with the great results we received in such a short period of time I decided not to.

Within 24 hours of announcing that we were looking for a new space to move to we had 4 offers to host us by people we know directly. This was through general word of mouth and email to specific people. Both Jeff and I also posted flyers at our desks (work and school) that were copies of the 2nd blog post we did saying what we were looking for.

Within another 2 days of the announcement we had another 2 offers that were from friends of friends. One was through Facebook and the other was through word of mouth.

We first posted about our move on our blog on the 6th and had 6 solid offers by the morning of the 9th. When we moved to Seattle we had more offers but we also had surprise media coverage by the neighbor paper where we wanted to live and had months to prepare while we were building.

You’ll see on the map that the 6 possible spots to move to vary in location from the same neighborhood that we’re in now to up to an hours' drive away from work and school.


Although we’ve enjoyed living in Ballard these past four years, it’s now changing. Huge apartment buildings with hundreds of units are being built. Older houses are being torn down and three or four units are being built in their place. Some older houses are being saved but two units are being built in their backyard. The roads to the freeway and to downtown were congested before, now they’re worse. So we’re ready for a change in atmosphere… we considered all offers seriously. All six offers had what we needed and we felt very welcome at each location.

Bainbridge Island was very tempting. To have the experience of commuting by ferry from an island! How many can say they have lived on an island?

On Capitol Hill we’d be a shorter distance from our work and school locations. Being closer to downtown is very appealing too because we enjoy going to live performances. The location would be very close to my brother and his family.  We'd see them more often which would be great.

I haven’t yet been to Index but I’ve been told that there are some very eccentric people living there. It sounds fun to be surrounded by such interesting people.

The location in Kent seems to be not quite rural, not quite suburbs and is a great location. Very nice hosts and an open vista between our house and the next one over.

All 5 of those locations had their pros and cons. Population density and congested roads. Commute time short or longer. Being closer to entertainment and family.

Then…. we went to the Snohomish location. We really enjoy spending time with the hosts. One of them said, “We have lots in common but we’re different enough that it makes it interesting.” They have 2.5 acres and it’s fairly rural. We’d be a only 3 mile drive to restaurants and the library. We’ll miss walking to the grocery store and restaurants but we’re actually interested in how rural ‘feels’. We’ve built our own house, I garden for most of our food and we have many other self-sufficiency skills. We enjoy quiet, and ‘slower’ will be good for us.

When Jeff graduates this coming June we’ll be moving again. We’ve both experienced the city and the suburbs but neither of us have experienced rural yet. Living with this couple will be a great way for us to experience it, learn from them, and know if we want rural when we’re ready to buy a place to live and settle down the next time we move. Snohomish it is. Our move date is August 31st.

Sure, our house has wheels... but how mobile are we really?

Recently we starting wondering how easy it would be to move our tiny house to live somewhere else.

What do we have to do so the move goes smoothly?

How do we find a new space to rent?

In what areas would we want to live?

Urban or rural this time?

We started thinking about this because the owner of the house where we've been renting tiny house space for almost 4 years is looking for a new job. Not all of the jobs he's applying for are local though. Some jobs are far enough that he'd sell the house we currently live next to, in fact.
We didn't expect to have to move until June 2014 when Jeff graduates and starts working. Until he's done with school, we need to stay in the Seattle area.

Getting our place ready to move should be easy compared to the many moves we did when living in larger conventional spaces simply because we own a whole lot less 'stuff'.

Because our trailer is rated to carry 7000 lbs maximum we'll have to box everything up (dishes, clothes, etc) and move our 'stuff' separately. We have trailer skirts that also cover the wheel wells that we can easily remove. We have a wooden fence that surrounds the trailer tongue where we store gardening equipment, our propane tank and bikes that also removes easily.

I rent a room in an office building for use as an art studio. I planned that workspace so that both tables and metal bookshelves are on wheels so I can configure my space depending on my project needs. Those wheels will make it easy to simply wheel everything to the elevator and out.

So far, so good, huh?
Where to move though?

When we were building our house and planning our move, I posted on our blog that we were looking for a space to rent in Seattle. I also asked two members of my family who already lived here to pass along the word and we were also lucky that a writer for our neighborhood paper wrote an article about alternative housing and linked to our blog.

We happily received 12 offers for a place to live! Rental costs ranged from free farther from Seattle to an unbelievable $800 a month (she said she wanted to pay off her student loans and didn't care that we brought our own house with us).

Six offers didn't work out because they had enough space, but we couldn't maneuver the house into the space. The two free spaces were great locations but farther than we wanted to commute. Another one was an empty lot surrounded by tall pines but no water or electric service we could figure out. The offer with the high price tag we didn't even consider. That left two offers. We could fit into either space, both are nice couples that we'd like to live near, they live in the same neighborhood... but we connected with one couple more than the other because of many common interests. Jeeps, rock climbing, yoga, organic gardening.

We feel extremely lucky that we found such great neighbors, new friends, and live in a walkable area where we can grow fresh food in the backyard. 

We met some very nice people while doing our search the last time. If we have to move soon, then I'm sure we'll meet more very nice people. Hopefully, finding a place to move the tiny house will be as easy this time as it was the first time.

If you have suggestions on how you'd approach a move like this, or have suggestions on where we should / could move, please post a comment. Lots of people are interested in living in a tiny house but how easy will it be for them to find a place to live in it?

We'll keep you posted on whether we have to move or not...

Downsizing: The saga continues...

In a previous post I suggested that each of us who wants to downsize ask ourselves, "If my place were to burn down today, could I live without this item?" I thought that if I didn't need it in daily living that it could easily be purged. I have also explained that in our choice to voluntary simplify that we don't want to feel as if we are punishing ourselves. We want some comfort, not simply the bare necessities, so downsizing turned out to be easier said than done.

Selling things was hard for me. I had my own shop tools because I really enjoy creating sculpture by welding and woodworking. These tools have been in storage for awhile because I had found shared space where someone had these tools for me to use. Now, as I sold my tools I felt as if part of my identity was being ripped away. Will I be able to find another place in Seattle where I can rent shop time like I did before the move? I hoped so and had to believe that I will. I reasoned that I will be able to buy tools again if I ever really need them.

Since Jeff was in the build space all day near the end of construction while in California, we moved all of my tools and other odds and ends from my storage unit there. He was very good at talking with people who came to look at the items after I posted them on Craigslist. It was cash only & prices were firm. I probably set the prices lower than they needed to be because we were pressured with a deadline to move to Washington very shortly. I didn't want to have to bring more things with us to sell later. I was also happy to hand over the sales task to Jeff and not to have to deal with it (the psychological discomfort) any longer.

Jeff's only big items was his mission & leather furniture. When I married him he came with a whole apartment full of well made furniture that could be handed down to another generation or two. We have lived in many apartments and houses over the years and his was the type of furniture that when people came into our space for the first time they'd say, "Wow!". It was comfortable, it was beautiful, it was sturdy. Rick was moving to Albuquirky a few weeks before our move to Seattle and he said that he wanted to buy it all. Rick got a really great deal, Jeff was pleased to see his collection stay together and that it went to a friend, and this sale saved us from writing ads, etc.

What we sold: wood/metal shop tools, apartment full of furniture.

The give away was quicker and easier than the sales were (of course). I was short on time but we lived in a large apartment complex so I took a few color pictures, made some flyers and posted them in each of the buildings lobbies early one Saturday. By 5pm all of the items had been removed from my apartment by very happy, nice people. I didn't have to post them on Craigslist or Freecycle or cart them off to Goodwill and I felt as if lightening my load had made me happier as well.

What we gave away: desk, leather computer chair, collection of masks from around the world, plants, quality queen & twin mattresses, lacquered storage chest, lamps, house wares, antique armoire, dining table, file cabinet, shelves, clothes...

Not all things went though.

What we kept: 2 folding leather chairs, 1 wooden chair, tableware and silverware for four, pans, some clothes / shoes... currently we have a large toolbox in our living room with some fabric thrown over it for use as a sofa as well as 3 other boxes of hand tools / building supplies. As construction slows these tools will go into my brother's basement. I also have 4 boxes of fabric that are currently in my mom's house and these will come to our house for storage under a real sofa once I find one that fits our odd requirements (needs to fit in the 22" wide door, needs to be shallow, but can be 7' long). What I'm thinking is 4 to 6 dining chairs attached side by side with some padding on top; a unit that will look like a Swedish settee. I do woodworking, and I can sew, so making something like this (rather than buying something from Ikea) will be easy and is much more appealing to Jeff and me.

What we bought: a really decent mattress, coir floor mats with rubber underneath them for the foyer because it's going to be wet soon and we need a place to drip while we remove our shoes when we arrive home, a small 'side table' with shoe cubbies below to sit on in the foyer while removing our shoes, 2 wire hanging baskets for fruit to free up the counter tops, screws and other stuff to finish building.

Tip: Give yourself more time to get rid of things than you think it will take. You think it will take 6 months? Give yourself a year. I feel as if I could have recovered some of the money I'd spent on the items if I'd sold them instead of given them away, or sold them at higher prices, but I simply felt rushed to sell them so they went for yard sale prices. Avoid the stress of rushing, and avoid the feeling of losing money off the good work of downsizing, by giving yourself lots of time to get comfortable with the process.

Patience / Less Stress

Many of us feel rushed to do more in a shorter amount of time. We deal with rush hour traffic or long lines at the grocery store but we feel the need to hurry to work or go pickup the kids from school. I think most of us feel rushed so that means that many of us are also impatient.

Since we've started building our cottage there have been multiple lay-offs at work, a close family member is waiting for 'The Call' that will come any day now to say that his organ transplant can take place, and we don’t yet positively have a spot to park our cottage once we get to Seattle. Employment, family health and a move; life is pretty stressful for me right now. Sure I'm doing what I can to help make our move to Seattle a smooth one, but in the other two areas, I can do absolutely nothing but wait.

It seems obvious not to even try to control things that can’t be, but it’s hard not to try sometimes because the effort makes me feel as if I’m working towards something better instead of simply waiting or giving up. It also seems obvious though, that if I think about what’s going on in a different light, that I can lead a calmer existence. I can adapt. If I can accept the fact that I have no control in some circumstances then I can drastically reduce my stress level. This requires patience.

A friend of ours and I discussed this subject by email not too long ago and his suggestions about how to be more patient have been really useful. His key points with my interpretations:

Life is not a race between Point A and Point B. Enjoy the moment. Slow down, look around and think. Stop trying to multi-task and get off of auto-pilot. Work at being more present (enjoying whatever you're working on, listening to what others are telling you instead of thinking about your to-do list, etc). Do things that are important to you, and that make you happy, every day and life will have purpose and satisfaction. Point B then won’t seem so important.

There is no 'right' answer. Don't worry about choosing the 'absolute right choice' because it really doesn't exist. Simply make a choice and feel lucky that you have that power. Some people don't get to choose... In deciding what we want the cottage to look like we sometimes go back and forth over a choice and it's been a bit confusing and frustrating for both Jeff and I. “I thought that we’d agreed on that already.” We need to finish making all building decisions quickly at this point because full-time construction begins this weekend. Nothing at this point will be so important that it could make or break the project. We feel very lucky to have been able to save the money, and to have the time, to build this cottage together. Everything else is frosting on the cake.

Acceptance. Acceptance of a situation or of ourselves. We each have many opportunities and challenges. We make choices and things progress. We can't control these things as much as we'd like to in some cases no matter how hard we try. The fact is that things will turn out how they turn out. Most of the time the results are pleasant but sometimes they won’t end up as we’d have liked them to be. All of this uncertainty makes life really quite interesting when we stop to think about it though...

Slow down, try to enjoy whatever happens as it unfolds and (even if you have no control) things will turn out fine. When you get an unexpected lemon, simply make lemonade. Be more patient and it really will lessen your stress.

The Necessary Chain of Events

It turns out that it was a ‘good thing’ that I had problems with the nail gun this past weekend. I’ll admit that I am impatient to see the cottage form. I get lost in the physical building of it and sometimes I neglect to stop and think about the necessary chain of events. When I went home Sunday night to discuss with Jeff what I’d accomplished over the weekend, I explained my disappointment that I wasn’t as far along as I thought I’d be.

He said that he was actually impressed with my progress and also reminded me we had agreed that the porch should be finished before the loft above it. I will need the loft fully supported before I sit on top of the storage loft in order to screw in the floor boards. Now why didn’t I remember that?

The answer is that I have really wanted to see the sheathing on the bare bones. I wanted to be able to say that I built most of the cottage pretty much alone up to the sheathing and I wanted it to look somewhat like a cottage. (Yes, I had help with the big stuff like flipping the floor framing over, installing the softwood floor, and wall raising but it has felt good to be able to do the other tasks by myself.) Well, the sheathing can’t get attached until the lofts have been added so I’ve been hyper-focused on the lofts.

If you ask Jeff to describe me he’d explain that I put great importance in knowing that I am self-sufficient in many ways, that I’m not usually overwhelmed by any project or dissuaded from doing anything simply because it’s challenging (he’ll give a huge laugh as he says that), that I can sometimes be stubborn, can impose very strict (and sometimes impossible) deadlines on myself and that I’m basically a tomboy though I do have a softer side (I weld but also sew).

Jeff has been really busy finishing up with school. He used to meet me for dinner weeknights at the cottage then he’d study wearing headphones while I’d built but he was getting distracted. He would study less because he wanted to help more with the cottage every other Saturday but then he’d feel really stressed because he’d fallen behind on homework. Sit and do schoolwork or play with tools? He likes to work with tools too so it was a tough choice, but it needed to be done; he began studying elsewhere and made sure to keep up with the schoolwork. He has only another couple of weeks left before he has the summer off and will begin building full-time while I continue to work on it only weeknights and weekends. I really wanted to have the big stuff done by then so that he’d be proud of the work that I’d done though. I know that we need to be ready to move into it in August so I feel a need to keep an eye on the building schedule.

Now, as I temporarily slow down to re-look at the necessary chain of events, I see that other things really need to be done before the sheathing can be attached anyway. We have the redwood siding laid out alongside the cottage. We won’t be able to work on the exterior sheathing without damaging that lumber unless it’s moved first. Of course, that means moving the stack of windows which means moving the worktable which means moving… I’m not looking forward to any of this because then I won’t be doing construction. I like to see progress but things need to get completed in a logical order.

This week so far I have flashed and screwed down the porch, installed the porch support post and finished the loft framing/floor for our storage area. I’ll finish the sleeping loft then will have more room to move some supplies around. I still hope to get the sheathing attached by the 12th though. That’s just how I am…

Slower, Less Stressful, Balanced Life

Before we even thought about building this tiny cottage we discussed what kind of life we wanted upon moving to Seattle. Right now it’s rather hectic; school, study, apply to grad schools, work, research, build, eat and sometimes get some sleep.

After we move into our cottage we want a slower, less stressful daily life. We’ve wondered that if I’m at work days and taking some night classes, and that Jeff might have day classes then teach in the evenings, will we ever see each other? We think that maybe since we’re both early risers that we can keep the downstairs floor area fairly empty so that we can wake up, do a bit of yoga together, sit and chat over breakfast, then head out for the day either to the local Y or to school/work.

Right now I take public transport to work but I’m planning on bringing my bike with us because I’d love to make it my primary mode of transportation in Seattle. They have so many bike friendly routes!

Because of living in our tiny cottage I will have more options as to what I am able to do to earn a living even though the economy stinks. The current rate in Seattle for a tiny place is around $1000 a month but the rent for a space to park our cottage will be only a couple to a few hundred dollars. If I can’t find CAD work in the engineering or architectural fields right away, we won’t have to stress over where the rent money will come from. This cottage will enable us to live off of only Jeff’s TA income if we have to. If I do find work in my field, then living on less means there's more money that could be set aside for retirement planning or vacations.

Of course, fewer living expenses also means that I’ll have the option to work part time in my current field, to change fields altogether not worrying that it pays less than what I’m accustomed to, or to do unpaid work. I read constantly and have always wondered what it might feel like for someone who either never learned how to read or who doesn’t read well. I plan on checking into what I’d need to do to become a Literacy Plus Tutor once we relocate and get settled in. I haven’t made the time for it up until now but I think I’d really enjoy doing that as well as getting back into hobbies.

We’re thinking of our cottage as a way to improve our lives as well as a way to save money in the long run simply by lowering our living costs. Although it’s uncomfortable seeing our savings lowered temporarily as we build, we are building the cottage with the knowledge that it will also be energy efficient and healthy to live in which is more than we can say for most existing housing.