TinyFest Midwest was this past weekend in Colfax, IA and it was soooo much fun!! Even though it ended up being a hundred degrees the whole weekend, which totally sucked at an outdoor event at the end of September, it didn't take away from the fun and excitement of the event itself...
Read MoreAfter two years of living in a tiny house, we have had plenty of Tiny House Fails. Our composting toilet breaking and leaking was a big one, water freezing in our drain pipe during the winter, mold and too much condensation in the cold months, and bug problems on the farm are only the ones I've written about on this blog. The list goes on: cracking our hips on the ceiling as we try to make the bed, hitting our backs or butts on the shelf as we go up our ladder, somehow still managing to lose gloves and other important items even though we only have 160 square feet to look for something!
Read MoreIf you've visited this blog in the past few weeks, you might have noticed that I created a new page titled TIny House Tour. I finally had professional photos taken of our tiny house and posted them so you all could see the glory that is Lil Blue! Most of the photos I've taken on my phone don't do it justice. It's hard to take a good picture in such a small space without a good lens. I haven't posted many photos of our bathroom because it's the hardest area to try and photograph, but now you can all enjoy a full tour of the entire (tiny) space!
Read MoreToday is April 11 which means that it has officially been two years since we moved our tiny house onto the farm!! We made it! Two years was always our minimum goal to reach and we are so happy to celebrate this milestone today.
Read MoreI've been putting off writing this post...avoiding it really. I haven't wanted to write it and put it out there because it would make it real.
Read MoreA nasty virus has been going through my school and I've been knocked down by it for over a week. I had hoped to get out two posts this week, this one and my final "changes" post that I've been teasing you with. That one will have to wait until next week. I just haven't had the energy to write it yet. Hopefully I'm on my way to healing and getting back on my feet!
Read MoreFor the last half of 2016, Jordan and I worked on the tiny house to make adjustments and improvements to help us have a better, happier winter season. This year we enjoyed the most drawn-out, warm, beautiful fall ever. We delighted in keeping our windows open til late in the season, being outside more often longer in the year, and having Lil Blue continue to crawl with bugs....oh wait. We hated that last part. Living on a farm and in a tiny space means that we share our 160 square feet with lots and lots of bugs! Spiders, mosquitoes, flies, Lady Asian Beetles, and unidentifiable insects crawl along our ceiling (which slopes to inches above our faces at night), form webs over all of our windows and alongside our house, and form little pulsing hives to thrive during the winter in our shed.
Read MoreWe have had some amazing thunderstorms this week in Iowa. It has been beautiful! Last summer, as we were just getting settled into Lil Blue, we seemed to have much more extreme weather. We had severe thunderstorms, tornado watches and warnings, rain and high winds all the time. That, as well as high heat and humidity---and no air conditioner! It was not fun. This year, the storms seem much more mellow, which is nice because then we aren't worried about blowing away! And we still get to enjoy the beauty of them. For this week's Friday Inspiration, I just want to show you some pictures of the beauty we've seen on the farm in these storms. We even had the most remarkable double rainbow!
Read Morejust finished a project I've been wanting to do for a long time and it wasn't hard at all! Originally, we painted a chalkboard on our bathroom sliding door when we moved in to Lil Blue. I loved the idea of having a chalkboard. I wanted to write out our weekly meal plan on it, or write notes and grocery lists, or just have fun with drawings and designs. But shortly after we moved in we realized we had no other spot in the whole house to hang our mirror other than on that door....covering up the chalkboard.
Read MoreI've got some shit to talk about. Literally.
In all my research for tiny houses, it looks like the majority of dwellers use some kind of a composting toilet. Which makes sense because then you don't need to worry about plumbing, having extra water, and hooking into some kind of sewer or septic tank. If you Google "composting toilet", you will see loads of different options for composting toilets. Ones that reduce mess or possible smell by using multiple compartments or turn cranks; ones that require electricity so it can heat up waste and condense it; and varying sizes including huge (and I mean giant!) thrones. These all range in price but can be up to over a thousand dollars!
Read MoreIt's already Friday again! This has been a busy week leading up to an even busier next week! We had a bit of an emergency bathroom situation today in Lil Blue. It will create a project for us to work on this weekend--you can look for that post next week. But for today's Friday Inspiration I thought I would share both a funny thing and a beautiful thing.
Read MoreJordan and I recently went on a ten day vacation to New York City and to Washington DC. We had the best time and experienced so much! It was wonderful to have some time away together and even better, we rented a huge house with a group of my friends from college, and all had a long weekend together. It was just what we needed! It was restoring to be with people we care for so much and who know me so deeply. It was wonderful to get away, see and do and eat new things, and take a break from our everyday lives. We weren't ready to return when we did, and the day we came back, we realized we had made one very stupid mistake.
Read MoreThough winter was kind of rough for us in the tiny house, spring came early! We have enjoyed a major thaw the past month or so with warmer temperatures and happier living. We no longer are in fear of our water freezing or quite as concerned with our heat sources. We've already packed away our winter coats (though it may still be a bit premature for that) and are looking forward to a season of enjoying tiny living without constantly being in survival mode.
Read MoreWell, I wouldn't necessarily say that this winter has been a particularly hard one. We have had worse winters in the past with lower temperatures and a lot more snow. But it also definitely has not been an easy first winter in the tiny house. Every day feels like WINTER VS. TINY HOUSE and we are constantly losing the battle.
Read MoreThe biggest difficulty and the hardest transition for us living tiny has been our constant challenge of getting water. Our house is hook-up ready which means we have a spigot on the outside of the house that we can connect a hose to in order to have instantly running water. However, where we are parked, there is no water source to connect to in that way. We knew this when we decided to park here and realized that that would be a big learning curve to work through.
Read MoreI made a few different things to use for my Christmas decorations this year. The easiest and most fun was my felt tree that I hung on our curtains. I thought I took more pictures of the process than I actually did...but I will post what I did do and hopefully that will help anyone who wants to make their own.
Read MoreI wrote my Christmas Part 1 post in November and promised to have another part to show all that we did to decorate Lil Blue for the holidays. Even though Christmas and New Years have both passed, it's never too late to enjoy the season and some decorations.
Read MoreMerry Christmas everyone! My beautiful and talented friend, Mickaela, took some photos of us for our Christmas card this year. You should check out her new blog, shedabbls to see some of her work. She is crafty and starting her own photography business. Thanks Mickaela! We love our pictures. :)
Read MoreIt is mid-December and we are finally finishing up getting Lil Blue ready for winter. Granted, we have had a pretty warm start so we haven't been too motivated to get things finished. It's hard to prepare for snow when you barely need a coat.
Read MoreI’ve mentioned before that my husband and I live in a tiny house. I still need to go through the history and journey that led us to this life but I will wait until another day for that. This blog isn’t going to be only about our tiny house, though that will obviously be a lot of what I write about. It’s our life, and it’s strange and new and different and exciting for us so it’s often on my mind to share with others.
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