What Are We Thinking?!?!
Many of are friends, family, and even acquaintances look at Alex and I like we are crazy when we tell them our cottage plans. Although they are always supportive, we often get the "confused eyebrow, head slightly tilted" look mixed with an excited "Oh, wow! That is cool!". Yes, we know it's crazy. We could get into a house this small and hate it. Or kill each other. BUT, if we survive, I'm thinking we will love it.
I've never wanted to live in a large house. Alex and I both wanted to live in 1200 square feet or less. We love the simplicity and coziness of small spaces. When we bought our first house (about 3300 square feet), I thought, "Hmmm... I never wanted a house this big, but this is a great house". And it was a great house. A big, giant, great house. I know 3300 square feet is average, but it is just not what I wanted (unless I could hire a maid- props to all the people who clean their own big houses!). Check out the full story here! Even though we were sure this would be the house we would stay in forever, we both still had another idea wriggling around in the back of our minds...
As an electrician and a teacher, we knew we'd never have huge salaries where we could travel or I could stay at home with kids. We were comfortable in our house and with our lives. We had enough money to pay the bills and contribute to savings every month. But could we really do that for the rest of our lives? What about when we have kids? When we have to pay for college? What if we wanted to go to London and see all the places that are mentioned in Harry Potter? That's when our little idea resurfaced. What if we cashed in on our investment and used the money to pay for a tiny cottage and pay off our student loans? The idea was revolutionary to us. We could be living with NO debt in the small, cozy house of our dreams! So we began to plan.
We spent about a year and a half looking for property in the general vicinity of our current location. We were willing to increase our 5 minute commutes to 40 minutes if we could get our hands on the perfect plot of land. The problem was, many (okay all) of the hundreds of pieces of land that we looked at had zoning ordinances, subdivision restrictions, or even deed restrictions (yes- I didn't know that was a thing either) that were set in place to prevent the building of houses under a certain square footage (usually around 1,000 sq.ft.). We were about to give up on our tiny cottage dreams when my amazing parents suggested that we build on their land. They have 10 acres up on a mountain in a neighboring town. This was it! Our chance to live small!
So... this is the blog where I will record the events of our tiny cottage process. You will see the good, the bad, and the ugly. I hope you enjoy our "Cottage Chronicles"!
* Disclaimer: Alex and I are not building a "Tiny House". All of the true Tiny House people that live on little trailers would not like us using this title to describe our small cottage- we aren't suffering enough to earn it. We also do not have a vendetta against "big house" people. :)
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