Tiny Home : Off the Grid Living
Written By : Eric Boomer
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Van life was getting tight with the two of us in my old dodge caravan. Fitted out with a plywood bed in the back tall enough to shove bins of gear and skis under the bed. The kayaks lived on the roof, while the wet and really stinky gear was stored in a roof box.
I had just turned 30, and Sarah not far behind, we started to think maybe it would be nice to have a place to call home. However we didn’t have property, or even a vague idea of where we wanted to live. Plus we were always on the road, working freelance, on multi month expeditions, and living part time in northern Canada, where Sarah is from.
So we researched and wrote down the options that we could afford:
A. A bigger van
B. A school bus
C. A tiny home
We settled on option c. a tiny home, and purchased a 20-foot trailer. After posting a photo of our trailer online, our friend commented “are you building a tiny home, I’d love to come help”. A week later our friend Rob Sickler showed up (luckily for us he is a builder) and for the next four months Rob, Sarah and I (with the help of many other awesome friends), designed and built our little home.
It’s been four years now that Sarah and I have been living in our tiny home, and we still love it. Parked in southeast Idaho we have a view of the Grand Teton. Our home is off grid. Our two solar panels give us most of the power we need, we have a compost toilet, and a small propane fireplace provides plenty of heat in the wintertime.
I’ll be honest; there are downsides to living tiny. The main inconvenience of course is space, especially for all our outdoor equipment (we just got a shed to solve that problem). There is also no privacy, I can be pooping and still participate in Sarah’s phone calls. But who wants to be inside all day anyway?
It’s the perfect little functional home that has everything we need, a base to come back to after traveling, or being outside kite skiing all day. And even though our kitchen is tiny, we still cook up delicious foods; bread, curries, home made pasta, pizzas, etc.
Plus, did I mention we make the best espresso ever! We hand ground our beans every morning, and have a manual coffee machine that creates a tasty shot of espresso.
https://flairespresso.com @flairespresso
