Affordable Tiny Home Tour

Nobody ever gave me the idea to live in a tiny home. It was really a series of events, like living in small spaces, making them work, and understanding that you only need a few possessions in life, that led me to buy my affordable tiny home.

Nowadays, I share how to afford a tiny home with others in the hopes that my story will inspire you.

I've been living in my affordable DIY tiny home for almost 10 years now, and it is 28 ft long by 8 ft wide. My lot at River Edge is $400 a month, and my water bill runs about $17 a month. My electricity runs about $40 a month on average.

Outdoor footprint

The beautiful space outside my home is my garden. This garden is basically 8 months old.

I have the best tree that anyone could ever want in it, which is a Bubba desert willow.

Eventually, I will be putting a brick patio near this tree because I want more shade.

Indoor footprint

Now that you've seen the outside of the house, let's go in and see my magnificent Stella.

Stella is approximately 220 square feet on the main-level of the home and 320 square feet if you count both of the lofts.

As with all things, this house is exactly what I wanted, but I was very instrumental in the design of this house. I am almost 70, and I purposefully asked for a bedroom on the ground floor.

There comes a time when old people should not be climbing ladders, and I intend to live in this house for a very long time.

Kitchen

Let's look at my kitchen. This beautiful kitchen cabinet provides extra storage.

I have an apartment-sized refrigerator, so it saves on space.

These granite countertops were near and dear to me because they come from the earth, and I wanted things in the house that reminded me of nature.

Next, I have the double sink. These are farm sink depths, so you can see that these are a lot deeper than a normal kitchen's sinks would be.

The cabinets below the sink are standard-size cabinets, as is the granite countertop.

Then, there is a propane-driven summit stove. Off of one outdoor grill-size propane tank, I can run my stove for 5 months at the price of only $21 per tank.

I am basically spending less than $100 a year to cook on the stove, and I also have a microwave.

The cabinet box below the microwave is where the cat box is. This curtain helps her not be interrupted, and I don't have to look at her cat box.

Dining room

This is my dining area. These are rescued chairs and a rescued table I use for eating and working on occasion.

My dining room is also the location for my picture wall, which reminds me of places I’ve been.

5. Bathroom

The next place we're going to is my bathroom.

The noise you hear is from the incinerating toilet. I know many people, if they're on a sewer pipe, choose to go to flush toilets.

In the desert, it's important that we conserve as much water as we can.

This guy uses absolutely no water. There is a burn chamber. Everything gets burned up in there and the by-product is fly-away ash, so you can put that in your garbage.

I used to have a cupboard here. It was very cute, but it lacked a lot of space. So I took that down, and I put these shelving units up because this has given me a lot more space than I had before.

This is a very small cabinet under the sink, and you can see that you can get storage from here to here, but your actual bowl size is standard.

This is my shower. It is a size where a large man, a large woman, or two small people could also use this shower. This was a very inexpensive three-panel shower that you put together. This works great.

6. Work station

This is my standing workstation. This was another thing that was very important for me to have in my house.

I do work at my kitchen table sometimes, but I like to alternate that with the standing workstation for comfort's sake.

7. Bedroom

Now, we're moving toward my bedroom. The bed is on the bottom floor so I don't have to climb ladders and there's no potential for me to fall far if I roll out of bed, although these two bookcases pretty much hold me in.

But here in this bookcase, this is another area of things that remind me of where I've been and who I am.

So this bedroom has a full-size bed, which is just big enough for me and, perchance, one tiny other person, which is probably my cat Juno.

Then, I have a long shelf here that has a lot more books. Books are my thing.

If you look down here at the end of my bed, this is where we have once again more storage.

Everything under this bed is also storage.

Up on the wall, the cupboard you see, this is my seasonal clothing cupboard. I take out my winter clothes and the summer clothes go underneath the bed and vice versa.

8. Lofts

I also have storage up in my lofts. This one is for an extra sleeping loft, but it's also my den and my library.

The other loft at the other end is the garage.

Affordable tiny home

Thanks to my affordable tiny home, I can live on my social security check and not have the stress of wondering if I’ll ever need to get a job again.

Eventually, I want to go back to part-time work, but for right now, I'm just living the high life and having a heck of a good time.

Share your thoughts on my affordable DIY tiny home down below.