One Year in a Tiny House Part 2 – Video and Story by Miko Ruhlen. May 1, 2017.
In January 2017 the Gallion family embarked on a tiny adventure. Tina, Darren, Cole, and Quinn spent the holiday season downsizing. They moved from a 2,500 square foot house into a house that measures 182 sqare feet. I visited them just before they moved to their new spot in Underwood, Washington. Now in late March, I’ve come to see how the four fared over the three winter months.
Catching sight of the tiny green house as I drive up their long dirt driveway, I admit feeling a bit apprehensive. Winter storms in January and February brought unrelenting snow and ice. I wonder, in the harsh winter, if they were ever snow-bound or had to evacuate due to lack of heat, electricity. Or got cabin fever?
As I approach, I see Tina filling a plastic jug with water from a newly installed spigot. She is cheery and excited. She says at last she can access water near the house, rather than driving to town. They delayed installing water to the house over the winter, because of the potential of freezing pipes.
On the bright side, Tina says, this process made them aware of how much water they use, and they learned ways to conserve water. Tina is a ‘glass half-full’ type person.
She tells me they had power all winter, and their heater kept them toasty warm. However, the small electric space heater, was not without drawbacks.
“I assumed, because it was such a small space, it wouldn’t take much to heat it,” Darren emailed me. “Our previous 2,500 square foot house was well designed (passive solar) and we used wood heat. Granted we had a pretty extreme winter this year, but our electric bill in the tiny house was more than our 2,500 sq. ft. house, which was surprising to me considering we don’t have laundry facilities or hot water.”
I ask Darren, who is 6’7″, if the tiny house height creates special challenges. “With the loft in our house, it feels pretty big. The biggest challenge is working in the kitchen under the loft, so I try to leave most of that for Tina :). The other thing I run into (literally) is the shorter door frame. Overall though, the smaller space, just pushes us outside more.”
Quinn sits and read on top of Darren
“I was apprehensive trying this with a wife and two kids,” he writes. “The small space makes for a tight-knit family. I found the kids are really adaptable. In a tiny house, there’s no where to go, which, at times, can be a double-edged sword.”
The kids, Quinn (6) and Cole (8) seem to have transitioned well from having a big closet full of toys to the few that fit into a couple of drawers. Tina says they enjoy playing with the neighbor kids, climbing trees, and spending more time with she and Darren. The bone of contention seemed the lack of WiFi for streaming movies.
I ask Darren if he would recommend tiny and minimalist living. “For me this is do-able because there is an endpoint in sight: where we move into a moderate sized house with a garage. For the long term, I think a tiny house is fine for a single person, especially considering housing prices in the Gorge these days. If our kids were much older, I think this would be pretty challenging.”
Each of the Gallions seems optimistic about living the rest of this year in their tiny house while they build their new house. Darren is also optimistic about catching lots of fish, “Hardest part is probably coming up. Spring Chinook are arriving, and I don’t have place to keep gear dry or (hopefully) freezer space.”
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I just wanted to comment since Darren mentioned our Energy Bill; it was $64 a month at our “big house” because we used a wood boiler to heat and at the tiny house it was $65 a month during the coldest winter we’ve had in about 50 years :). I think he added the water bill in there by accident.
Thanks for clarifying that.