Quick Recap of My Tiny House Journey

This journey has been a long and winding road. It all started when I was 26 years old, when I was living in a large apartment in Los Angeles with a job I hated and a pathetic savings account. I knew something had to change…

Photo : 2014. My first trip with my Tiny Home / California

• 2013-2014 : I helped build my Tiny Home with a lot of help from friends, family, and my (then) boyfriend.
• 2014-2015 : I traveled the USA and Canada with my Tiny House in tow, visiting 30 states and 5 provinces, and clocking over 25,000 miles. I started documenting Tiny Houses on YouTube, which eventually became an unexpected career.

Photo: 2015. Stopped to smell the flowers while traveling with the Tiny House.

• 2016: 30 years young and fresh off of a break-up, I parked my Tiny House in a Tiny House village in Oregon. I lived alone with my dog. Over the next year I paid off all my debts. My YouTube channel began to grow and become profitable. I was finally able to save some money for the first time in my life, thanks to my low housing expenses. Oh, and I met someone special – Nabil! He becomes pretty important, but at the time he lived 4 hours away in Seattle…

Photo: 2017. I was living solo in my Tiny Home in Oregon

Sometimes the two things you love, don’t exactly mix.

In 2017, Nabil and I had been dating a little more than a year, and it was definitely time to move in together. I was thrilled, but also a little apprehensive about this big life change. I finally found someone that I loved, and loved me back in a way that was so perfect, but a small part of me was scared to leave my Tiny House. At this point, I had been living in that space for over 3 years. I was 31 years old, and starting to become comfortable with having my own space. Maybe too comfortable. Without friends or family living nearby, the Tiny House had become (in many ways) my entire identity. It was my shelter, my job, and my security blanket. I was thankful for it beyond words, but I needed to make space for more in my life.

Photo: 2018. Nabil & I traveling through Morocco (I’m on my tip-toes).

You might ask: why not have Nabil move in with you? First of all, Nabil is a giant. He’s 6’6″, towering 14 inches over my head! There are taller people living in Tiny Homes, but MY Tiny House was NOT built for someone of his stature. You have to specifically build and design a Tiny House, Skoolie, or Van for extra tall people. Nabil constantly hits his head on doorways, low hanging lights, and he can’t sit up in the loft. He’s a trooper, but let’s be honest, he wouldn’t be comfortable living in my house full time. Secondly, Nabil owns a business in Seattle, Washington, which is notoriously not a Tiny House friendly city (at least it wasn’t in 2017). Asking him to move away from his hometown, his job, and his family, to live in a house where he doesn’t fit would be VERY selfish.