The Tiny Home Dream

Ever since I was little, I was obsessed with wooden homes; my grandmother had a vast garden and got my uncles and dad to build a cubby house for my sister and me. It was amazing. We had our own little garden to plant flowers in, a bird feeder, a wooden kitchen, a table, and curtains. We were in there all the time!

When I was in my teens, I would go on to my parents repeatedly about putting in a log cabin-style home in our garden so I could live in it and pay them rent; unfortunately, that never became a reality, but that passion for a cosy small living space has never left me. You can imagine my excitement when the Hobbit movie was made, and then George Clarks Amazing Spaces appeared on TV. My love for these small spaces as a home ideal grew and grew.

I don’t often talk about it, but I massively love this planet; from bugs to clouds, I often gaze in awe at all of the vast beauty to be seen. My biggest frustration is what humans have done to it and the length of time it has taken for us to notice what we have done. I always think it can be compared to those people that have a last-minute panic realisation that they need to go Christmas shopping as though it has suddenly sneaked up on everyone and isn’t an annual event. It is all a little too late and a little too complicated, and even with the huge amount of evidence, some people are still in denial about environmental damage!

This leads me to the point of this post…

My husband and I are looking into owning our own home. We haven’t had our own place, so are first-time buyers. The bricks and tile home, with white walls, really doesn’t appeal to us, especially after living with magnolia mold-ridden walls in military housing. We are avid viewers of ‘tiny living’ channels on YouTube and any programmes where they discuss off-grid living. If you don’t know who Marty Raney is, you are severely missing out!

We just don’t desire the traditional type of home. It isn’t what we want and doesn’t suit where or how we want to spend our lives. We both work hard, but we love to relax, so we want to do that with the sound of birds chirping, trees blowing, and streams running. We wish to sit under the stars and talk, not glued to our phones (I realise that is an odd statement from a digital operations manager). We wish to look after animals that need caring for and help the bees, butterflies and birds. Basically, we want to love the land and ecosystems around us, live with the natural world and not against it.

Another reason for looking at alternative ways of living is that neither of us are particularly material in our life outlook. We both have regular clear-outs of clothes and possession and get rid of things that don’t spark joy in us. We do hold onto a few sentimental items, but everything that doesn’t really serve us or get used on a regular basis is given a new home. So ‘tiny living’ approaches suit us, in that it is parallel to a minimal living approach and means we will be able to enjoy what we have and the time we have together.

This has all led us to more fully explore ‘tiny home’ living and off-grid living solutions open to us. Moving forward,I will be delving into sustainable living, tiny homes, and off-grid living solution and documenting my findings through Full Circle Ci, as they are already focused on sustainability, climate change, NetZero and carbon reduction approaches.

So, if you are interested in a different way of living and have taken the step to ‘tiny living’ or are a ‘tiny build’ company who would love to come on Electric Evolution and answer some questions I have, that would be fabulous.

Alternatively, if anyone in the Northumberland area knows of grade 3 agricultural land or equestrian to buy or rent, let me know, as that is our first hurdle into fulfilling this dream. The land we need appears to be expensive and very hard to come across but more to come on that at a later date.

I want to sign off by sharing a statistic with you that shocked me, a brick home can create up to 50 tonnes of CO2 during construction over a year!! Thank you to Tiny Housing Co for that piece of information.

More to come from Michele’s Tiny Journey soon.