THE ARCHIVE
WHY WE CHOSE A TINY HOUSE + BEFORE PHOTOS
Whew, we have finally finished moving into our tiny house. This past weekend our Ubox arrived and we now have the remainder of our belongings, which was really exciting, but I also got a little overwhelmed. Stuff is just overwhelming to me, I'm just not a fan of stuff. So today, you get a peek inside the madness of our tiny house full of boxes, ha!
The first day our things arrived stuff was everywhere and I was sure we had too much and that we were going to be living among boxes for the next year... that was the dramatic side of my brain talking... because it's now Thursday and things are much better and it's turns out we didn't have too much stuff. It probably helped that we had 4+ boxes full of stuff to donate in the end.
Have you guys been wondering why we chose a tiny house?
I think I touched on it a bit when I shared my
but I thought I would give ya'll the run down.
TIMING
: One of the greatest factors in choosing our tiny house was timing
.
We only had two weeks to find something and even though I contacted tons of places there were only four places we looked at. Out of the four places we looked at our tiny house was the best of the four.
LOCATION
: Tyler and I just spent the last three years living in the "city" or in "town" and we had had our fill. We wanted something that was away from the hustle and bustle of the city, with lots of trees and lots of quiet. We also wanted to find something close to Tyler's work. For our first year here I didn't really want Tyler to have to commute to work and I wanted to be close until we really learned the area.
PRICE
: Tyler and I have a good amount of student loans and we're not talking about the average amount of student loans, we're talking about mortgage size student loans. Our goal is to live small so we can take care of our student loans and our tiny house fit the bill.
APPEAL
: Overall our tiny house has lots of appeal. It's been recently renovated, so it's nice and new inside. It also has lots of storage, something too look for in a tiny house. It has lovely wood floors and the bathroom is super nice. Our tiny house also has a nice front yard and side yard with a brick patio and fire pit. All good things, if you ask me. And all things we weren't able to have living in the city.
Living in a tiny house and choosing to live small is an adventure. One we are excited to experience. Our tiny house isn't our forever home, but it's something we can experience now before we have kids. We knew that living small would really teach us something and we would come out on the other side with a great experience. xoxo. Samantha
TINY HOUSE INSPIRATION
Hey guys, I wanted to drop in a tell you a little bit more about our new place and share what's been inspiring me lately. First, I should tell that our new home is a tiny house! It's 325sq ft, can you believe it?! When we started looking for places we weren't actually looking for a tiny house. However we knew which areas we wanted to live in and we knew we wanted to be close to Tyler's work. I did lots of hunting for the perfect place and our tiny house was the winner. You could technically call our house a studio cottage or a tiny house. I'm pretty excited about calling it a tiny house, especially with the current tiny house movement.
We have really loved the idea of a tiny house, especially since we gave away all of our furniture when we left Burbank. With something so small we have less space to fill, hurray! Plus, having less space means we have less stuff! One of the biggest draws of our tiny house was location. It's only a few miles from Tyler's work and it's in a heavily wooded neighborhood. I get to see trees out of each of our windows. It's also in a really small town, we're talking a population of around 7,000. I've been hoping for my own little Stars Hollow (shout out to all the Gilmore Girls fans!) and I think I may have found it. We're hoping to do a video tour sometime too, so you'll be able to see how cute it is.
Before our most recent Ikea trip I spent lots of time looking for our favorite pieces online. Tyler and I have been chatting about clean, simple design with lots of pops of color. Last weekend we picked out a color palette, hurray! Picking color is always the hardest. We want the large pieces of furniture we choose to be neutral in color; white or grey. And then we want to have splashes of color with accessories.
This past weekend we picked out our favorite couch in grey. We had a larger one in mind, but this loveseat is the perfect size for our small space. We're also planning some special projects that we'll be building that have a few Ikea pieces mixed it. I can't wait to share those once there finished. I also found some amazing pillows on Society6 that I'll be ordering. I can't wait to start filling our home with our favorite pieces and I can't wait to share it with you! xo. Samantha
WE'RE HALF WAY THERE
We did it! After two weeks of couch surfing we have finally moved into our new space and it feels so good to be some place permanently, whew. Couch surfing for two weeks was rough. Even though our space is in chaos, it's nice to know that we're not going anywhere else.
This weekend kicked off our move and we started the off morning by taking what little belongings we had to our place. It was a quick trip as we only had one car load, ha! After we had our things moved in we headed to Ikea, grabbing a burger on the way. Tyler and I had been looking at things online that we might like so we were a little prepared when we arrived. We spent the next several hours shopping and trying to find our favorite pieces. This moving experience has been one of my favorites. I have loved being able to pick new items for our home with Tyler. This is the first time we have decorated together from the ground up.
Even though we're in our new home we're not quite done with the moving process. We still have to travel back to Missouri and get our things out of storage. It's been a long moving process and we will still be in transition for a few more weeks. I'm hoping things will start taking shape within this next month. We're doing our best to continue to stay flexible and keep taking it a day at a time. Either way, we're having lots of fun and it's been one grand adventure! xo. Samantha
CLASSY SPRING DRINKS ON THE CHEAP
I'm an avid water drinker. It's not to often that I crave anything else. But I've been super curious about these Starbucks Vias. I saw these strawberry lemonade ones at the grocery store and thought they would be perfect for Spring. The individual via packets require 16 ounces of water and I knew that would be a perfect drink for two.
A grabbed two mason jars, emptied the via equally into both jars, filled each jar with water and then added a few lemons. I loved how easy these drinks were to make and they were actually surprisingly more delicious then I thought. They are the perfect combination of strawberry and lemon and they aren't too sweet.
My favorite thing about these vias is how perfectly they accommodate two drinks. It was so easy to mix together these vias and store them in the fridge for a picnic or a day at the pool. What is your favorite spring drink? xo. Samantha