Living In a Tiny Home - Part 2: Moving
When I came back home to Portland after my visit to the Methow Valley and our decision to move, things happened fast. Our offer with the contingency to sell our place in Portland was accepted, and we proceeded to put our charming, 1924 bungalow on the market, knowing that it would sell fairly quickly.
I took tons of photos in the 15 years we lived there, and this was early on, in the fall. We eventually gave the wisteria which was eating the house to our neighbors, because it had never bloomed in that spot, and it bloomed spectacularly in their very sunny west facing backyard, against the fence.
I had never felt this home was mine. Funny enough, when we were about to repaint the exterior years prior, a friend and neighbor asked me what color I’d like to paint it, and the first words out of my mouth were “If it were my house…” and then we laughed, because, hello, by then we had lived in it for years! but that was the feeling I had. Even after living in it for so long. I loved living in it, but it just never felt.. “permanent” (not that anything really is). However, when things happen and you know you’re going, all of a sudden you realize how dear a place is :)
These photos were taken over the years. The house had a great feel, and in the beginning we ran a small yoga studio out of the separate entrance area (the old garage). The side garden was just a gravel plot where previously they parked their cars! We immediately took one look at this good sized, south facing area, and decided to make it our vegetable garden, as well as add a huge rock with water flowing thru it, and flowers… We added tall raised beds, and it became this incredible spectacle of flowers and veggies which stunned even us.
We had this huge rock moved in place before we added the raised beds. Todd is a master water feature designer, and he created such an amazing spot which was loved for years by animals and people alike.
Our yoga students loved to walk thru it to get to the yoga room. It was an oasis of beauty for us, the neighbors who walked by, and our students as they meandered to class.
So much goodness! I learned to appreciate this place so much as I was about to leave. It often happens like that, doesn’t it?
As a side note, when we bought the place in 2005, we managed to “rescue” several smaller plants, bushes and herbs from the place next door. It had been a home of a woman who had owned a quadruple lot for over 30 years, full of trees, gardens and gigantic old rose bushes….but she had just sold to a developer who was going to tear down the garden and build 3 more homes on the lot. Of course the story was devastating and the neighbors incensed because all the adjacent neighbors had agreed to each buy the lot next to their respective property, which perhaps was too overwhelming for her to subdivide, so she chose to sell the easy way.
Before they started, with permission from the developer, we dug out tons of plants, small bushes and even some mint which later managed to take over my garden.
Moving is never a fun time, as most of us know. Especially after living in a place for 15-16 years, it has so much of our energy, so many memories, that detaching from that is very hard. And it was.
We proceeded to sell and give away a lot of our stuff, but we still ended with way more than we could fit in the tiny home.
The tiny home idea had been on my mind for years. I was obsessed with tiny homes. I was following channels on YouTube, and social media and trying to convince my easy going husband that he would love that! Did I say he is easy going? Yep.
We found the tiny home on Craigslist (for the record, it was 24 ft long, 8 ft wide and 13 ft high, standard height for travel). It belonged to someone who had it made to order a couple of years prior, and they lived in it for a short time. The tiny home was immaculate, brand new it appeared, and the crazy part is that I had saved photos of that SAME TINY HOME a couple of years prior when I was looking for one. It was from a builder in Oregon, not far from where we lived, and he had posted photos of it on his site. Well, I saved them and then 2 years later, we ended up buying that very same tiny home. How’s that for crazy!?
To clarify, the interior photos above are the ones I downloaded off the builder’s site prior to our purchase. Our tiny home was always so messy that I never took a lot of photos inside once we moved in! The exterior photos above are of the tiny as it had just arrived!
How do you sell your property, find a tiny home, pack things up, have the tiny home delivered, drive hundreds of miles with pets, all at the same time? I have no idea! But we managed. We put our home on the market at the end of April I believe, and we had something like 30 showings in a few days! My realtor was very experienced, and asked for all offers to be in on a certain date. Well, we only got 2 offers (which surprised me, but then the house did not have a garage and was not exactly suitable for a family with kids due to the configuration of the rooms), both above asking price. One was $10,000 above asking price, the other was $40,000 above asking price!!! Can you believe it? And when I did not reply immediately with a yes, she offered $10,000 more the next day! Wow!
Of course we said yes, and even though we had to eventually forfeit the last $10,000 towards a new roof, we were still extremely happy with the deal. The house had literally doubled in price in 15 years.
The U-haul! Jammed with stuff. We had a friend drive up with Todd and his car a few days prior to our actual move.
Our empty rooms, the last goodbye. It was so bittersweet (yes, we left the couch, per our agreement with new owner. After all, we could not fit it in the tiny home).
The U-Haul, Todd and our friend Marie (driving Todd’s car) left a week prior to our move and drove to the Methow Valley to drop all our belongings into a friend’s barn and then drove back. A few days later, we managed to pack up the rest of the stuff into a trailer that my car would tow, and we had our 2 dogs in one car, our 3 cats in three separate carriers in the other car, and we were ready to go!!
Can I tell you that it was one of the hardest things we had ever done? I didn't feel emotional really (I think I was mostly overwhelmed), but it felt like I was ripping out deep roots from the earth. It was SO hard. My car didn't even start when we were about to leave (hours late!). We had left the car doors open too long while packing everything in it and the battery had drained. We had cats and dogs in both cars, it was 90º and I totally panicked. Finally we figured out the issue, got the car started and we managed to drive off!!
But what about the tiny home? I think we have to go to part 3!
