Think Big, Live Tiny - Part 8

Within a few days, I have several renditions sketched up, but I still have no idea if they will be feasible. I confide to my friend Nancy that I’m floundering and losing sleep over this design process. I don’t want to make a huge mistake on something so important.

“Well, let’s go down to the tennis courts at the park and draw this out in chalk at full scale. Then we can walk around in it and see if it works. I did this when we built our house,” she says with an impish grin.

“Can we do that? We won’t get in trouble?” I am enthralled with the idea, but a little nervous. I love to break conventions, but not the law.

“No, it’ll be fine, hardly anyone ever uses those courts anyway, they’re old,” she insists, waving her hand dismissively.

“Ok, let’s do it.” The tiniest hint of doing something we probably shouldn’t, sparks excitement.

She’s right. This is a fabulous idea. We take a tape measure and in yellow chalk rough out my new house. We make a few minor adjustments, like I need to be able to fit in front of the stove to cook on it and we make sure that the refrigerator and oven doors will open. The queen-sized bed is a little problematic, after scratching our heads for a while, we decide to see if Johanna, the builder, has any ideas.

Being the creative solution Queen, Johanna quickly comes up with a brilliant alternative that she calls a ‘bump out’. Like a pop-out in a travel trailer, where half the bed lays outside of the floor plan. It turns out I didn’t need to be an architect to create a rough design of my new home after all. What fun it is, being a part of it from the inception.

I will however discover later, that replacing my stove, or even just cleaning behind it, requires a Rubik’s cube maneuver. The refrigerator and the stove have to be moved completely out of the house to perform either of these.

I had made the decision from the start that I wanted my house to be completely off the grid, meaning not hooked up in any way to traditional utilities. This has been a long-held dream of mine, even before I discovered Tiny Homes. So, I will have rain catchment for water, propane for my hot water heater and stove, and solar electricity for everything else. For two years I will even struggle stoically to not have internet. But I eventually lose that idealistic battle with myself. In the end, reality rules. Besides, I can use the excuse that I’m running a business, often outside of business hours. Nobody but me could care less about this minor breach of living-off-the-grid protocol.

I do sometimes ponder where my; I can do it all myself attitude came from. It doesn’t take much digging to know that it originated with my mother, and her constant re-enforcement of that belief.

My mother loved to cook, so naturally I gravitated towards the kitchen where singing and good vibes lived. She would put on music and hum and sing along as she worked. She wanted to teach me, and I wanted to help. But I could never quite seem to get it right. Most projects ended with some variation of: “No, don’t do it like that, here, move over, just let me do it. It’s easier for me to do it myself!” With enough repetition, that belief transferred from her psyche to mine and became part of my operating system.

I have been bringing people and circumstances into my life to prove that this is true ever since. And somehow this belief that I have to do everything myself, has gotten tangled up in my vision of Freedom. What more perfect way to prove this convoluted rationale to myself than living off the grid on my own?

I see the flawed logic here… My, how we become attached to, and make friends with, our beliefs. While my determination to do everything on my own can be a galvanizing force, even a super power, it’s also exhausting. I suspect it’s more likely that a major life lesson for me is to learn how to surrender and allow others to help when appropriate. Learning to live off the grid is about to give me many opportunities to embrace this.

Bed ‘bump-out’ seen from the outside.

Bed ‘bump-out’ seen from the inside.

Slightly cramped ‘cooking corner’ - cleaning behind the stove is a major operation.

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Think Big, Live Tiny - Part 9

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Think Big, Live Tiny - Part 7