Living In a Tiny Home - Part 1: Before The Move
In May of 2018, Todd and I, with 3 cats and 2 dogs moved into a tiny home on 20 acres of land which we had just purchased. Let me see if I can tell this story….
We had lived in Portland, OR for over 15 years. Around year 10, there was a yearning for nature, open skies, drier weather, and… horses. I had been looking for years to move, but since we owned a yoga studio, it didn’t make sense to move too far from the city. Well, fast forward to 2015, when I discovered the Methow Valley in eastern WA. My heart exploded and I fell hopelessly in love with this land. We had to move there! (What about the yoga studio? Another story!)
Stunning view from the AirB&B!
After a year of looking online and making plans to visit, we managed to drive to Winthrop at the end of April 2016, and what a trip it was! It was the best time to visit we discovered, all the flowers in bloom and fabulous temperatures with warm days and cool nights.
We had booked a really cute AirB&B, with the most amazing view!
The balsam root in bloom stole my heart!
I had been looking online at potential properties and we had a list in hand. It did not take long for us to find a most amazing property, which suited us perfectly. 20 acres at the end of the road, with views of all the mountains around it. It was an absolutely stunning property, and we felt sure this was the one!
Our property, looking north
The property had been on the market for a while and considering it had no trees and no building on it, it wasn’t surprising there wasn’t a rush to buy it.
We stayed a few days, got to look around and loved everything we saw. When we got back home (a 7+ hr drive), we did not put an offer right away, but decided to go back in the summer to visit again.
We had scheduled a 4th of July yoga retreat in Mazama, which was only 30 mins away from “our land”, and so at the end of the retreat, we said goodbye to our students, and drove to the land (with permissions from the then owners) planning on camping overnight.
Well, that did not go so well. We arrived on the land, after having stayed in a cool, forested, beautiful retreat center near a river for a week, we were shocked by the dryness and heat of the parched land. Gone were the flowers, gone was the green grass. In its place was heat and dust!
We were completely dejected, got cold feet, decided to ditch the camping and drove back home instead!
This was an area similar to our place in the Methow Valley, July 2016. Beautiful, but dry.
After that, we decided not to put an offer on the land, but we still wanted to move to the valley, so we got some help from our realtor to look for something more appropriate. But we didn’t like anything else.
We spent 2 years (!) looking in the valley. We drove up often, and between 2017 and 2018 I drove up by myself many times. It was too challenging to leave the yoga studio, and all our pets (2 dogs and 3 cats then) for both of us, so I left, and Todd stayed behind in Portland.
We looked everywhere, at other land properties, at homes, smaller lots, bigger lots, etc. We either did not like what we saw, or put offers but lost against cash buyers. The Methow Valley has always been a highly coveted place and it was becoming increasingly difficult to find something that we could afford and love.
The first place I fell so madly in love with, after leaving lake Como as a teenager. This was a wild place, unlike lake Como which is much more manicured and stylish, but the energy this place emanates is so captivating!
By Feb of 2018 we had adopted 3 horses. 2 were mother and son, rescued from a rescue gone bad, and Leilani who came out of a kill pen that month. They were all boarded in a great place near Portland, but it was not sustainable to keep 3 horses in a boarding facility. It was time to go!
By then I had made some friends in the valley, and a woman who later became a dear friend asked me to pet sit for her while her family was out of town. She lived close to that land…. I said yes, and soon I was on my way! I also planned to visit other properties of course. As usual, I had a long list.
This is Usha, my friend’s dog. She has since left the planet. Usha was the most gentle, kind, loving, compassionate being and I loved her so much. It was an honor and a pleasure being around her.
After I arrived and my friends left, I went through the list of homes/properties I had with me within a day or so, and nothing felt right. However, I could feel that a certain part of the valley was where I was supposed to be. In looking at the mountains, the terrain, I was sure I was so close! In fact, it was very close to my friend’s house.
As a side note, I want to say that we looked at almost every property AROUND the property we had originally wanted to purchase. There was a house next door on 43 acres, we looked at that. There was another property further south, we looked at that. And so on. It was like we kept circling it, and circling it….
While walking Usha one morning, my realtor called and asked me if I had made any progress, and I said no. She then asked me about the land, that property we had looked at 2 years prior. It had been taken off the market (and I had gone to visit it almost every time I drove up, so I had, in fact, visited it in every season), and she was just about ready to re-list it. “I’ll go take a look” I said to her. It was only 5 mins from my friend’s house, just down the road.
Looking south, down valley, from the property
It was the end of March, and the snow was melting, the grass was dead, and nothing looked alive yet, but the land looked beautiful to me, and I fell in love all over again.
What about the summer, the heat, the lack of trees? That was definitely still a reality, but I suppose the beauty of the place won over that!
I called my husband and we both agreed to put an offer on it! And that’s what happened, and things moved quickly after that. It was the end of March as I said, and we moved on June 21! Not even 3 months later.
But… what about the tiny home? Right. I’ll tell you all about it in part 2!
