Official Floor Plan for the Mattern Tiny House

I am writing this post from the comfort of our temporary home – a circa 1950 Cape Cod style bungalow we currently share with 4 other adults and 6 dogs. As you can imagine, peaceful time to write doesn’t come often. Not that I am writing in peace and quiet right now. There is a loud banging, some clatter, and shots being fired (or was that the nail gun?). The otherwise obnoxious sounds of construction are currently music to my ears. Troy is building our tiny little home! YEAH!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about what we would & would not include in our tiny house. Reading through your texts & Facebook messages after that was kind of  fun  interesting… but more on that later. Thanks for everyone who replied to that post, in one form or another – and YES, I may have lost my mind.

                As a follow up, here is a look at the official floor plan for our tiny house. Thoughts? Comment below with questions & feedback. I'd love to hear what you think!

What Am I Scared Of? Consider This A Lesson Learned.

We wandered around the empty rooms. Once cluttered and full, they sit hollow in front of us, smelling of paint and drywall and blankness. Places where our furniture once stood, now only recognizable by small dents in strands of carpet. Tiny finger prints on windows, shabby robes hung over bathroom hooks, muddy paw prints caked thick on smooth new concrete… These things do not live here anymore.

And neither do we.

Fresh paint, empty drywall. A clean page for this new family, an erased page of our own. This is so very weird to me.

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This afternoon, we officially signed the papers that closed one very big chapter of our lives. We sold our "big house" today.

So many emotions are flying around right now, the most prevalent of those being relief. I feel free. I feel lighter. I feel cleansed. If today was a text, my emojis would be airplanes, fireworks, sunshine and maybe a money bag. There is joy here, do not get me wrong.

But as with anything coming to an end, there is also nostalgia, some sadness, anxiety - maybe a little fear, if I'm being honest. This feels very…big. The quiet voices of fear are creeping in, suddenly not so quiet, as we sign these very official documents.

What if we are making a mistake?

What if we regret this?

But this is irrational thinking. We have chosen to live a life without regrets. Daily, we make it a point to look forward. Troy likes to ask me, when I get nervous or discouraged,

“What is the worst that can happen?”

That brings me back to reality. What is the worst that can happen? We miss the house – we can build it again. We miss having space – we can have it again. We miss the town – we can go there again. We are afraid of change – our lives will change again, and again, and again. We make mistakes daily, and eventually learn lessons. Lessons that change our habits, and eventually morph into convictions. We continue to grow. So this fear crawling over me is irrational. The more I type this, the more I can feel the truth of it sink in to my bones.

Fear of change is human nature, an instinct rooted in self-preservation. But there should be no fear here, to cloud the triumph that exists in following your heart. There should be no anxiety to sour the realization of a new freedom. There should only be humility, recognition, gratitude and hope. When we do set our eyes on the future, we will do so with confidence, faith and this newly learned lesson: Don’t think too hard about it. About your life, your plans, this time, or these roadblocks. Life can change in an instant. When it does, be confident in the beauty of today and the promise of a future…wherever it may take you.

How Tiny is Too Tiny? What Made The Cut in Our Tiny House

When Troy and I first discussed tiny house living, I was quite apprehensive. We bounced around between ideas, considering a freestanding tiny house, tiny house on wheels, an RV or 5^th Wheel, a middle earth hobbit hole (just kidding, but boy would T be happy). My main concern was for our everyday creature comforts. How is a tiny house going to affect the way we live? Is it going to feel like a home? I had absolutely no interest in signing up for a living situation that would drastically change our current lifestyle. I was wrong to think this way, because our lifestyle desperately needed changing. But, more on that later.

When we landed on the idea of a tiny house, we knew we would be building it ourselves. This gives us flexibility with time, plans, and budget. We can build this tiny house exactly how we want it! Which is ….how? Neither of us knew, we still don’t I suppose. We have never lived tiny. Nevertheless, we came up with a list of must haves for our tiny house, and a list of things we could do without if needed.

Here is our pre-construction list of tiny house must-haves, which helped us develop our 480 square foot tiny house plan.

1.       No lofted master bedroom. Lofted bedrooms are probably the most common feature among tiny houses, but we opted against it. Almost every tiny house we have seen utilizes loft space for the main bedroom. But, I get claustrophobic and Troy is pretty tall. Climbing in and out each morning and night just wasn’t appealing. How one would make the bed in a room you can’t stand up in is still a mystery to me (I struggle with fitted sheets as it is.) All signs pointed to lofts becoming a disruption of our daily life, not worth the discomfort. Instead, we chose to raise our bedroom on a platform approximately 18 inches from the floor. We will have decent storage space underneath the platform, and Troy will be able to move about without hunching over.

2.       Full size refrigerator. We do a lot of cooking with fresh ingredients, and I didn’t see how I could manage a trip to the grocery store 2-3 times a week. A dorm-size fridge just doesn’t work for a family of three. Troy and P alone take down at least 2 gallons of milk a week! Full size, all the way.

3.       Indoor plumbing. This one may seem like a no brainer to most of our friends and family. It is 2015, sweet baby cakes - indoor plumbing is a given. But in the tiny house community, it actually isn’t. Many supporters of the tiny house movement focus largely on sustainability, low impact building and their ability to go off the grid. Compost toilets and black water tanks are common. I, however, am not there yet. I want a hot shower and a toilet that flushes. Period.

4.       A place for P, behind a door. I haven’t been able to find a lot of blogs about tiny house families with young children. Maybe because there aren’t any. Maybe that means we are crazy. Either way, it is very important that P has a door to shut, and her own private space. Finding privacy in 480 square feet is going to be difficult. We wanted our floor plan to be as open as possible, but being able to shut her door during naps & at bedtime is WAY more important. Don’t wake that sleeping baby. Also, safety. You know your drunk college roommate, who would come home in the middle of the night, rummaging through the fridge and stumbling around in the dark? That would be my toddler if we gave up the door.

5.       Closet space. Reading tiny house blogs and watching the video tours, it became very clear that closet space is not a priority among tiny house builders. Many tiny-housers end up finding alternative storage for their additional clothing/shoes. This seems like such a hassle to me. It is hard enough to get ready in the morning with all of us rushing around, and a toddler who never seems to own matching shoes. I don’t want to go through 3 or 4 different areas of my house to piece together an ensemble. One place, all of the clothes.

6.       A TV. One you can see from the main room and the bedroom. We are actually installing 2 TVs. Yes, 2 TVs in 480 square feet seems a little overkill. But, we like our TV time. We like our football, DVR, movies, work out videos, music channels, Full House reruns - we like it all. Troy and I both enjoy background noise while we cook, clean, and go about the house. Plus, movies in bed? How could we give that up? Feel free to question our priorities in the comments below….

These “must-haves” are outside of our general requirements for safety, efficiency, durability, etc. In order to make all of that happen, we made a list of things we were willing to compromise on, or remove altogether. Such as…

1.       The stove/range. A standard full size range is almost 3 feet wide. (¼ of the width of our house!) For the sake of cabinet space, we took a different approach. We will be purchasing a 2 burner cooktop. It will likely be electric and portable, so we can stow it away and utilize the additional counter space when needed. In place of a traditional oven, we will use a 10 in 1 style cooker with multiple functions. Items with multiple functions and dual purposes are basically a tiny-housers dream. These things are like crock-pot*frying pan*bread maker*veggie steamer*oven*roaster ninja hybrids.  This is going to be a big change for us, as a family that does a lot of cooking. Stay tuned.

2.       The dishwasher. So….we won’t have one. Whew, glad I got that off my chest. A lot of people will really judge you for that! I am going to scrape, scrub and disinfect our dishes by hand from now on. When we analyzed how much time we currently spend soaking, scrubbing, washing and scraping dishes, only to load them in the dishwasher for a quick disinfecting steam, we realized we wouldn’t spend much more time going this route. Plus: cabinet space. No dishwasher, more cabinet space. Storage space is king.

3.       A bath tub. This is something we went back and forth on. Both Troy and I agree that we could live without a bath tub, but the shower in our current home is one thing that will be hard to say goodbye to. Right up there with TV watching, we love to shower. We like to shower solo, as a family, with the dogs, with our clothes on if P ate ravioli for lunch and we are covered in sauce. We can all pile in our current shower like it’s a drive through carwash. We would like to pull off a smaller version of a walk-in shower in the tiny house. Don’t laugh at us, we aren’t just wishful thinkers. Maybe I’ll wash the dishes in there, too.

4.       A kitchen table. Maybe we are classless Neanderthals, but we rarely eat at our kitchen table. Like, maybe 5 times a year. When we bought ‘The Big House’ we talked about all of the fabulous dinner parties we would host for our friends, but our parties were rarely sit down dinner parties and we don’t see our friends as often as we would like. No kitchen table, no problem. I’ll have a makeup table instead.

5.       Traditional finishes. This was an easy one to ditch. Building the tiny house is going to be anything but traditional. If we are going to build something small, it shouldn’t be too hard to make it awesome. We plan on using reclaimed or non-traditional materials to come up with unique & interesting space that we love being in.

I get messages from so many of my friends on social media with questions about what the tiny house will and will not have. Hopefully this gives you guys a better idea of what we are trying to accomplish! What would be on your “Can’t Live Without” list? Leave me a comment below!!

All Packed Up: One Step Closer to Tiny House Living

It’s just after midnight, and once again sleep is nothing more than a faraway idea.

It could be the Red Bull this afternoon, keeping me awake…it could be binge watching episodes of Stalker before bed. Or, I could be desperately in need of some time to write…and post the things I have been writing.

Either way, I am grateful to Troy for leaving out a few of my herbal tea K-Cups when he packed up the rest of the pantry. Anticipating my insomnia? He says I Love You that way, when he thinks of me.

 

It’s not just our pantry contents. Most of our belongings are in boxes at the moment. What hasn’t been given away, donated to thrift stores, purged, recycled, or burned (Yes, burned. That was a fun night) is safely packed away in liquor store boxes marked storage or tiny house. We have a small selection of items going with us to the main house, where we will live while the tiny house is under construction. These things consist mainly of clothing (all of Troy’s wardrobe and about 1/3 of mine & P’s) office supplies, food, and toiletries. Everything else will sit patiently in newspaper and bubble wrap until our tiny house is move in ready. This adventure is becoming real.

It is interesting to me, to see the heap of stuff we moved in here with and the fraction of it that we are leaving with. It is interesting to me, to think of the year we spent buying furniture, décor, clothing and other junk just to fill this space…and now we spend our hours trying to empty it. I don’t know if I really believed in the power of consumerism until I witnessed this transformation. I don’t know if I really believed Troy, when he told me I was a hoarder.

In just ten days we will wave goodbye to our big house, our first house, this great house. And while I am saddened over some of the things we will leave here, I am altogether filled with relief to be going. There is nothing that exists inside this structure that we cannot have, do, or feel anywhere else. In ten days we will close the door, and hand over the keys – no longer ours. We will cut ties with yet another anchor that has held us down this year, and we will be so very free.

I couldn’t be any more excited.

The Little Things You Haven't Heard About, They Mattered

While it is already close to 7 am here, both my babes are fast in the thick of medicine-induced influenza snoring, asleep in their beds. I am left here. Awakened by the infinite power of the mommy clock, telling me someone needs Cheerios or juice, dogs need to be let out, the Keurig needs water, I left wet clothes in the wash overnight, I forgot to send that email/memo/check/text, we are out of diapers, I haven’t washed my hair…which means I know I am forgetting a meeting I have today…

Just, awake.

I spent 30 minutes indulging in the hot bath that left me pruned and sweaty and overall not “relaxed”, and another 30 or so minutes catching up on a few favorite blogs, and another seemingly infinite amount of time reading through BuzzFeed lists about being a child of the 90’s, the struggles of being an introvert, what it is like to love someone with ADD (to forward to Troy), 25 signs you are doing it wrong, 30 signs you are doing it right...

Why am I not writing?

I am dying to write. I toss and turn in bed, disappointed that I haven’t found time to write. Here is your time, Mattern. Stop sweating it away in your garden tub.

After all, I haven’t published anything on my blog since August. AUGUST! After all of the courage it took me to start the damn thing (See BuzzFeed’s list on the Struggle of Being an Introvert and combine that with something about ADD...) 4 months of this year went by with nary a whisper or blip from good ‘ole me.

Shame.

I have written here and there. I have dictated little notes and ideas and paragraphs from the car, in line at the bank, when Paisley is fast asleep and unable to shout, “Nooo talking momma, MORE SONGS PWEASE!!!” from her little pink car seat. But I haven’t had anything “good enough” to post.

This morning, in the early hours of quiet that I never seem to see in my house, I decided to say, “Fuck That.”

Not loudly, because I am not crazy and WOULD NEVER interrupt the silence (or semi-silence… there is a quite a bit of snoring) with a triumphant curse word. But, Fuck that.

I created this blog to document our transformation as a family, as we moved from our nearly 3,000 square foot home into a Tiny House or RV. As we journey out of the little bit of debt we have accumulated. As we come to know a happiness that exists in experiences and love, instead of material things. As we think about and come to know Christ and Love in a way that changes and moves us. As we get rid of old ideas, and emerge new.

It has taken us 3 1/2  months to sell our home. It has been a time of packing, purging, bachelorette parties and maid-of-honor duties, birthday parties, weddings, travel, obligations, business, physical therapy, ice cream therapy, growing new friendships and saying goodbye to the old..

These 4 months were definitely something worth writing about. They were poignant and mattered, perhaps much more than other time periods in my life. And I am sorry I didn’t document them.

So, here’s to catching up. To quiet mornings. To having the courage to realize: the little things mattered.

Did We Really Think We Had It All Figured Out?

                The funniest things are striking me, as we pack away our belongings in preparation for the Big Adventure. We haven’t used all of our trash bags, for example. We have lived in this house for a little over 7 months. This is the first home we purchased. We built it, saved for it, waited on it, prayed for it.

                We moved in like we were hunkering down for the world war; stashing 20 lb. bags of rice in the pantry, and economy size bottles of dish soap in the garage. We stored outgrown infant car seats for a ‘someday’ baby number two and carefully organized fragile Christmas ornaments on shelves Troy built by hand, as if we would be here forever.

                Of course, we both acknowledged we would not be in this home *forever*. We were looking at staying less than ten years, if everything went according to our brilliant and all-knowing plan. Five to ten years… yes, that seems reasonable.

                Even knowing the limits of our planning, and having lived through God’s ability to alter our “plans” at barely a moment’s notice (Hello, Paisley!), we still had faith enough in our own understanding (Mistake! Mistake! Mistake!) to buy the big box of trash bags. The 185 count box of tall drawstring kitchen trash bags that we purchased from Sam’s Club upon moving in to our very first big kid home, to be exact. After all, we have a mortgage. We are responsible. We are two conservative (money-wise, clearly not with the environment) financially savvy home-owning adults! We even put back the bulk bag of gummy bears that were already in the cart to offset the upfront cost (you know, since the bags are a necessity). So very grown up of us.

                I’m not sure why I am so bothered by these damn trash bags. We still have plenty of them. They seem to be the only thing taking up space in our increasingly empty kitchen. We are using them for everything, from hauling off clothes for donation, to cleaning out closets and boxes. As each one comes tearing off the roll, it’s like watching a tally of the time that I was so confident we would spend here. One bag, empty crushed solo cups from a late summer BBQ. Another bag, raked fall leaves & grass weeds. Another bag, wrapping paper from Paisley’s 2^nd birthday this September.

A metaphor.

Our time, our careers, our plans – changed and redirected in a way that we were not anticipating. Mocking our confidence, our sureness. I didn’t buy those trash bags to move out with. I bought them because, for one minute, we were arrogant enough to think that we had it all figured out.

Are We Grown-Ups? Or, Are We Just The Lucky Ones?

“I don’t remember, were we wild and young? All that’s faded into memory. I feel like somebody I don’t know. Are we really who we used to be? Am I really who I was?” Ryan Adams

People think we are crazy…

And maybe we are. Troy and I recently celebrated 3 years of marriage. We are both just 22 years old. We have a 2 year old daughter, a mortgage (for now) and big kid jobs.

Are we grown-ups?

We do not contribute to a 401K or IRA. We do not take our multi-vitamins. We have to ask Google about everything from tax filing concerns to suspicious spider bites. We (for the most part) monitor our credit scores…which are neither fantastic, nor atrocious. We do not own our own lawnmower. We are obsessed with our Shark vacuum. We spend too much money on satellite TV and complain about the cost of our car insurance. We tend to just “chance it”. We have both days where we think we know what we are doing, and days where we pretend the real world does not exist. We plan for big events, budget for vacations, and anticipate significant milestones. We forget our plans, and (most of the time) our budgets. We wear nice watches and tote dollar store umbrellas. We handle *relatively* important business dealings, and do not own briefcases. We know better. We almost never remember to send thank you notes. We do preventative maintenance on our home. We consume both overpriced K-Cups, and ramen noodles. On occasion, we have overdrawn our bank accounts, and accidentally missed the water bill. We have learned lessons, forgotten lessons, and ignored lessons. We have heeded the advice of others, even when we fail to admit it.

Are we grown-ups?

Troy and I often discuss the current state of our lives, in a sort of bemused and satisfied way. When Troy is caught giving his coveted last bite of pizza to Pais, or playing princesses with her while watching a World Cup match. We stop. We laugh. How did we get here? 3 years ago, even 4 or 5, we wouldn’t have guessed this would be what our life looks like today. These are the times I wonder if I have let a part of myself go in all of this. Have I kissed good-bye my youth, trading a priceless freedom for this confining adulthood? So many of you think there is something I should be mourning. Is it something I am missing?

I don’t remember, were we wild and young? I think so. At some point.

Am I really who I used to be? Maybe. Probably.

But, I’m not who you used to be. Whoever you are now, whoever you were. We haven't followed your path.

At 22, I don't think we have sold our free spirits for a depressing albatross of responsibility. I don’t think the chapter of our youth has closed on us. Not even with our child, our mortgage, our stress. Our lives are constantly evolving, we are changing, and we are growing. Sometimes, we are growing up. Are we spontaneous beer bong chugging turn-down-for-what wild these days? No. But then again, we never were.

We are still free. We are still figuring it out. If all you need is love, then we are just the lucky ones.