Product Review!!! Space saving options for Tiny Housers

Discovery Trekking Towels

Photo curtesy of http://ift.tt/2uaQtsT

Photo curtesy of http://ift.tt/2uaQtsT

Here is a product review for my fellow Tiny Housers!

How have I not heard of these till now! People are always asking about the best space saving solutions for living Tiny. Having less stuff is the best way but there are things you need and use daily. A towel would be one of them. While Christopher and myself were living tiny, we had the very large bulky towels that everyone uses in a home and there’s nothing wrong with that. I recently had the opportunity to use the sleek, fast drying, very portable and compact towel that Discovery Trekking has to offer! I’m absolutely amazed on how fast this towel dries, the fact that it takes up nearly no room for storage and is the perfect tiny house solution to bulky towels that take all day to dry. I recently traveled with my new Discovery Trekking Towel and it was the travel solution I have been looking! Takes up no space, and I love having a towel handy, especially with a baby around.

I never kept more than two towels on hand, simply because I never had the room to store them in my bathroom. By replacing my one bulky towel, I can make room my other important items!!!! Now it won’t be awkward when we have friends and family visit, when I can only offer the use of my personal towel. I would highly recommend this style of towel to any tiny house dweller! The simple fact that the towel is completely dry in less than 20 minutes, just hanging up on a hook is amazing! I’m sure if I was to bring it outside in the sun it would take only moments for it to become completely dry.

I have our regular towels displayed with the Discovery Trekking Towel to give you an idea on how sleek this towel actually is. It’s the size of a regular towel and folds to the size of a cell phone, it’s pretty amazing!

The towels also come in a variety of different colors and textures to choose from. I went with the Charcoal color for ours, I’m a darker color lover, and it looks great with the contrast of our white bathroom.

If you are interested in checking out this great towel, I would highly recommend you head over to their website for more info. Discovery Trekking Towels

 

This is by far the best Tiny House Towel I have used so far!

 

Malissa Tack

The Tiny Tack House (http://ift.tt/2tVzrUI)

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In Other News… We’re Expecting!!!!

Spring is here to the Pacific Northwest!

Spring is here to the Pacific Northwest!

Have you heard the news!!!!! Christopher and myself are expecting a new tiny this September!!! 

We had always planned on having children, but never really decided when it was going to happen, until last year when we really talked about it. We discussed the idea of timing, but it just never seemed like the right time, until now. We both wanted to do a big travel trip before, and with our recent Peru trip last fall, we could cross that one off our list. We are feeling much more settled in our currently living situation, with being on our own land and not running the risk of getting kicked off the land (which in our old location was just a matter of time). We are surrounded by fellow tiny house lovers and are able to talk about our experience and help others start their own. We are so excited for the coming arrival of this little one. I’m currently just over half way there, and my little ninja is practicing his or her moves on my organs daily. It’s been a very easy pregnancy for me, with no morning sickness or real food aversions at all. The only thing I can really say has been a challenge would be the tiredness that I felt in the first trimester. Who knew it was possible to fall asleep while doing the dishes… really… how is that even possible? haha  My biggest craving has been Apples!!! Fruit really, but apples mostly! I think I might have at least 5-6 servings of fruit a day! Which my midwife loves to hear… there could be far worse cravings to have. Everything has been going amazingly great, and little one is doing just fine. I can usually get the best movements out of little one, shortly after eating a nice big hardy salad… kids loves salads! For more to the minute updates, I seem to post to my Instagram account more frequently (malissa_tack).

The newest tiny to the Tack Family, due September 2016

The newest tiny to the Tack Family, due September 2016

Grow baby! Grow!

Grow baby! Grow!

 

We currently aren’t living in our tiny, but that will change at some point. We still have dreams of getting a nice chuck of land and building our own small house on it, while still having our tiny for when friends or family come for a visit. Might even make a great space for when the little one becomes a teen that want’s his or her own space, haha. For now though, this is going to have to due. We are in the big house with our fellow tiny house lover and housemate, Sean Burke from http://unboxedhouse.com .  Be sure to checkout his story and house design, for he’s building a not so standard tiny house.

     

 

 

 

There has been many changes to the property since we moved here last fall. One of the biggest changes has been the slow transformation of our garden space. When we first moved here, we realized that there was an apple and pear tree already growing, and felt like we could add some more. We picked up four additional fruit trees ( Dwarf Apple, Plum, Persimmon, and one called a Fruit Salad Tree, which is a variety of goodies) Now we play the waiting game while they build strong roots and produce amazing goodies in the years to come. We had to rip out an old hot tub to get the new trees in their place. Boy oh boy were we happy to see that thing go! It still worked, but needed some work… and a lot of future maintenance that we were not excited for. I figured there were better things to put in its place…. I’ll take more fruit trees over an old hot tub any day! Plus, the money we made from selling the hot tub we used to make our fruit tree purchases. 

We have also been busy building some fairly large garden beds for our veggie garden. Picked up some Douglas Fir 4×4 to create some pretty beefy beds… ones that should last for years and years to come. Also did a fire treatment on them to help seal the wood and make it last even longer. Adds a nice look and blends in with our tiny, and soon Sean’s tiny, for he plans on using the same burning technic on his tiny’s siding. If you are interested in finding out more about this look, do a simple search for Shou Sugi Ban.

A few of the new Fruit Trees. 

A few of the new Fruit Trees. 

The Apple Tree that was already here. 

The Apple Tree that was already here. 

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Wanted to share this…

Hey everyone! It’s been a little while since we’ve posted :o We are hoping to get back into posting a bit more frequently with updates on our living situation & our property :)

In the meantime, we wanted to take a quick moment to share an indiegogo campaign being put on by a cool couple in Portland.

http://ift.tt/1RGG5Uw

http://ift.tt/1odRtJE

Cooper - Ceramics Artist

Amy & Cooper

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We moved!!!!!

That’s right, The Tiny Tack House has finally stretched her wheel wells, and moved for the first time since her completion in 2011. I’m not going to tell you that I was strong that day, that I didn’t have a nervous bone in my body…. no no no… I was a wreak! I’ve done things in my life that warrant being nervous, and this blew them all out of the water. I know I may look happy in the photo, and I was, don’t get me wrong, I was! But that might also have to do with the fact that we had just arrived at our new location, and we were just sitting in the turn lane, waiting to pull in. So we had already made it, and in one piece!

I want to take a moment and share with you the things that I had to do to get ready for this crazy ride. First thing I should note…. we bought a house…. yes… a house. That house has a small piece of property, enough space to place a few tiny houses in the backyard…. this is why we bought a house. Christopher and myself were in the process of looking for property, earlier this year, when we soon realized that we didn’t have $100,000 to put down on property, and then spend the thousands it would take to get electrical, plumbing and water to said land. Our friend Bryan mentioned just getting property with a house already on it, that way we would at least have all our systems in place, and it’s easier to finance then come up with over $100,000 in cash. And that’s exactly what we decided to to! Over the summer, I had been keeping an eye on some properties that I liked, but it seemed by the next day… all the properties I liked, were gone! Overnight the market jumped and everything that was being listed was off the market in days. We knew we were going to have to act fast, but we were still trying to figure out what we really wanted to do. Did we want to buy a house with a mortgage? After all, the whole point of the tiny house was to avoid a mortgage all together. Were we sure we didn’t just want to buy a small piece of land, but wait years to be able to afford it? The location that the tiny house was built on, was supposed to be just that…where we built it. We had no idea that we would be there for 4 years, nor did our landlord. There was a lot of stress that had been building and we knew we overstayed our welcome. That’s what drove us to look for other options, and this fall, we bought a house, then we went to Peru for two weeks…. haha. Then we came home and moved the house that same week. The last 2 months have been the craziest of my life… so many ups and down, does and don’ts, that it’s getting hard to see straight. 

So, at this point, we have our tiny house still out on the other property, and had just returned from Peru (I’ll be posting on that trip as well). We only had one week to get the house ready to move, and I get that it sounds like a lot of time, but you have to remember, we have treated our tiny house like a home, not a movable rv. We have things that if we hooked up and went down the road, so would everything inside the house, except all over the floor along with broken glass and much more. We had to prep our house for moving day, which included securing our fridge, removing all the books from the bookcase, plants and other trinkets road in the car, we put the ladder in the bathroom (that way we knew for sure it wasn’t going to break free and crash to the floor), removed all the lamps, took the glass out of the outside light…along with the bulb itself and everything off the small kitchen storage shelf, because that’s a lot of mason jars that I would not want to clean up after a ride down the road. The biggest thing we had to do, was disconnect the solar for the tiny house, and this had to be done at night. If we were to disconnect during daylight hours, there’s a really big chance that we could have electrocuted ourselves. Even if we pull the plug out of the wall, and the cord isn’t hooked up to anything, the panels themselves are still generating electricity if it’s daylight. So we had to do that at night, which ended up being at about 10pm in the rain….not a lot of fun. But we did it, and everything is fine, we are still alive! This was done the day before we had to move the house. Moving day we showed up about an hour before the move itself, and that was to drop her back on her wheels. We propped her up on her wheels about 3 years ago, so we were curious to see how the tires would react to the rocks again. Some speaking and crackling sounds, but nothing too scary. The house definitely settled over the last 4+ years, but made it past this stage as well. Only thing left to do… move the tiny house. Which for some, like Jenna and Guillaume… is a piece of cake, since they have been traveling the last year with their house. So setup and teardown is like changing a pair of socks… no problem.(checkout their awesome youtube channel to follow their adventures!)

Our friend Brock, from Bob’s Corn showed up with his truck to help us move the tiny house. The truck looks bigger than our tiny house, haha. I couldn’t have asked a better person to do the job! Brock is a wonderful friend and an awesome tiny house mover. He also helped our friend Candice move her tiny house, a few years ago.

About to pull out and start our short journey. But first, we stopped out front of the neighbor's house for a little send off. :)

About to pull out and start our short journey. But first, we stopped out front of the neighbor’s house for a little send off. :)

We only moved about 12 miles away, so it wasn’t a long first journey. Made it easy on me and the house! I think Christopher was doing much better than me, and Brock was excited to be towing, The Tiny Tack House on her first outing. I rode in the truck, with Brock, as Christopher followed in the car. At one point, Brock looks at me and asks, “want to see how fast she’ll go?” My instant response, without a single hesitation was… “NO!” I knew he was kidding, but I was not, haha. We took the back roads, so not to deal with the crazy Seattle traffic. Made for a relaxing ride… as relaxing as it could have been. I may have ducked down to view the top of my house, in the review mirror, every time we went under a tree. Once we made it through okay, I would yell, “Cleared it!” in total excitement. We actually built our house about half a foot shorter than it needed to be, just so we knew there would be no problems moving it down the road. Made for some nice peace of mind, to see her clear all the trees. Although, once we got the house to it’s new location, Christopher informed us that, at one point along the way, there was a curve in the road and the power line was dropped over the curve and was hanging only about 10 or 12 feet off the ground. He said he had no idea how we missed hitting it. He had a moment of complete panic in the car, as he followed us. Brock was keeping me distracted in the truck, so I wouldn’t focus on the house so much… apparently it worked, because I didn’t see the cables at all.

We made it safe and sound! Brock even parked her right where we wanted her. Thank you again, Brock! You are awesome, amazing, wonderful and a great friend! Thank You!!!

Brock and Christopher getting The Tiny Tack House into position.

Brock and Christopher getting The Tiny Tack House into position.

One of the biggest reasons for moving, and finding a place for ourselves…. wasn’t to find a place for ourselves, it was in the hopes of building community! We bought a house (the common house) that has some space in the back… where people can “store” their trailers that have a really pretty load on them. :) Our friend Sean B. is renting a “room” from us and storing his container house here very soon. We do have a spare room in the large house, and you can find that for nightly rentals on airbnb (The Common House)  . Also, for limited time (YTBD) We are opening up our tiny house to the public as well. You can now book a stay in our tiny house! It’s going to be difficult for us, since it’s been our home for the last four years, but we want others to get a feel for tiny. So, we are opening our doors up, along with many others, and for a short time, we are listing our home for nightly rentals. You can find the listing on airbnb (The Tiny Tack House). There are also other tiny houses available in the great Seattle area, so don’t just try one, try a few and see what you would do, what you wouldn’t do, what you like or don’t like. Be sure to check out your local areas, because chances are there’s a tiny house nearby…. try it out!

Our longterm goal is to find land, build a small 3-400 sqft house as our main house, use our tiny house as a backup rental or family and friends’ guest stay, and have enough land to invite other tiny house owners to stay there! 

We are moving in the right direction and excepting Tiny as an options for living full-time. With the increased growth rate in most cities, it makes sense to add ADU, backyard cottages and eco homes to help control the expanse of urban areas into rural zones. Since people are waiting to have children later on in life, and the average family size decreasing, it makes sense to bring in more density to places that have the room to spare. Caravan “Tiny House Hotel” (http://ift.tt/1hOFNmq) is a great example of how many households you can put in a small sized area and make it work. They placed 6 tiny houses, so far, within a very small footprint, without causing harm to the environment or creating a huge draw on resources because tiny house are so eco friendly and sustainable. If there has been one thing that I have gotten out of this experience, it would be my appreciation for all that we have. To be more conscious of the decisions we make and how much excess we consume. It has opened our eyes to community and communication with one another. A little bit goes a long way! We are trying to build community and live a little smarter. 

Our ultimate goal is to inspire others to try out tiny and to one day create our own tiny house community and inspire others to do the same. A place where fellow like minded individuals can hangout and change the world. We hope to be able to create a small community of people within city limits and show how efficient this kind of living can be. Look for future updates and be sure to check out Jenna and Guillaume’s YouTube channel on the Portland Tiny House Community. (https://youtu.be/X5Blm3-PqkE)  We are all about creating community and opening up the lines of communication within the community to develop a better way of living. 

Thanks for stopping by, and maybe I’ll see you around!

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The Collaborative Tiny House Project

I don’t want to go too much into this project, since they know more about about it than I would, so I thought I would share this one with my fellow tiny house community and hope that we can come together and help each other out! Let’s make community of connections and resources available for everyone to achieve a happier and healthier life. Check it out!


For more information, check out The Collaborative Tiny House Project. Also check out their KickStarter for further support.

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Blog Blog Blog…

Mowich Lake, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA Hiked to Spray Falls on July 8th 2015. The view was great, the water was cold but great, the flies where everywhere, haha. All in all, a great day!

Mowich Lake, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA

Hiked to Spray Falls on July 8th 2015. The view was great, the water was cold but great, the flies where everywhere, haha. All in all, a great day!

Sometimes keeping up with writing blogs, composing emails, answering press requests and doing interviews, you stop and think… when did it all get so complicated?

 

We live in a tiny house. We live in a tiny house. We live in a tiny house. After awhile it becomes a script that is recited over and over and over again, and anyone that currently lives in a tiny house can relate to this feeling.  You never think that when you build your tiny house, your life will become nothing but your house. What everyone wants to know is, how the tiny house is doing? When we focus more on the house than what’s inside the house, it starts to loose its meaning. It’s not about building the best tiny house and being better than everyone else’s tiny house or breaking down someone for their personal decisions and what goes into their tiny house. Frankly, I would be just as happy in a tent as I am in my house… because it’s what I bring to the space that makes it home. I’m not my tiny house! We are real people, experiencing life in our own way. We are not our tiny house. We aren’t doing anything crazy (though many would like to believe we are) other than living our lives in our own way.  When we first set out on this journey, it was just that, our journey. Over the years, and maybe it’s because we aren’t building any more, the journey has shifted its focus to the structure and not so much the story behind the structure. I’ve seen people get personally offended when someone, they’ve seen on TV sell their tiny house, soon after it was built. Do you also get offended when your neighbor decides to sell their car? We take it as a personal attack on ourselves, or what we stand for, even though all it comes down to is choices. We get asked a lot on why we decided to go tiny… honestly, just that…. we decided to go tiny. I’m not going to sugarcoat the topic, we made a personal decision just like everyone does, whether it’s choosing which flavor of coffee you are going to enjoy that morning, or the pair of shoes that would look best with your current outfit. We all make choices, so let’s stop beating up each other over things we all do. I get it, Tiny might not be your thing and that’s perfectly acceptable, so move your judgments aside and let those that choose to go tiny, enjoy it.

 

Life got a bit more complicated (in a different way) once we built our tiny house. It also might have to do with when we built our house. We don’t have as much living experience as say, Dee Williams or Jay Shafer, but have lived in a tiny house for almost four years and get asked a lot of questions because of it. I love answering questions, but it does become overwhelming when you see your inbox explode overnight… every night. And because of this, I’ll soon be creating a better FAQ page to help with the overflow of emails that Christopher and myself get. We are happy to help out and make your journey a positive one!

 

Some of the reasons I haven’t been blogging as much lately… well… life! I work as a Freelance 3D Artist, which keeps me busy about 10-14 hours a day, I garden a little (getting into it… still learning), go hiking with my husband on our days off, travel and in general have a good time! Christopher also has a full-time job that keeps him busy, and we are in the process of planning our future! Some of our goals include…. (this is going to freakout the haters out there) buying a house….. (ohhhhh no I didn’t). Not so much for us, as for our friends, and our house would camp out in our backyard. It would be the same situation with what we have going on right now, the only difference is, we would own the house and land. :) I know… shocking to some, right!!!! haha. But it’s cool, one could even say, we have a plan of a tack! ;) Funny last name usage (insert laughter here)! For future updates, be sure to check back… might be a couple days… or months… who knows, haha. 

 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” – Confucius

This is SethCat, and he starts to melt a little when it in the 90's for over 2 weeks. He will still go and find a sunny spot on the floor to take his catnap... crazy kitty!

This is SethCat, and he starts to melt a little when it in the 90’s for over 2 weeks. He will still go and find a sunny spot on the floor to take his catnap… crazy kitty!

I sprained my ankle pretty good, a couple months ago. Kids, don't run around a mole infested yard, while chasing a blind dog, wearing untied hiking boots with no socks on... why didn't my mother warn me about this before. It's doing much better, and luckily no breaks!

I sprained my ankle pretty good, a couple months ago. Kids, don’t run around a mole infested yard, while chasing a blind dog, wearing untied hiking boots with no socks on… why didn’t my mother warn me about this before. It’s doing much better, and luckily no breaks!

My girlfriend, Kat's Tiny House! She recently got delivery of her tiny house, through Shelterwise located in Portland, OR. I know you might want to see more, but she currently doesn't have a website to showcase her house and her story, but you can find more photos on my Instagram page.

My girlfriend, Kat’s Tiny House! She recently got delivery of her tiny house, through Shelterwise located in Portland, OR. I know you might want to see more, but she currently doesn’t have a website to showcase her house and her story, but you can find more photos on my Instagram page.

I will never get over how cozy my loft is! Even if it's 90 degrees up there... I will still take a nap! I'v considered painting my walls white at one point, but I'm happy with they way they are right now. The warm glow just punches the cozy up another level!

I will never get over how cozy my loft is! Even if it’s 90 degrees up there… I will still take a nap! I’v considered painting my walls white at one point, but I’m happy with they way they are right now. The warm glow just punches the cozy up another level!

Christopher and I just celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary, earlier this month, alongside our 10 wonderful years together! He picked up these flowers and surprised me with them, not on our wedding anniversary, but on the anniversary of when we first met! He's a keeper!

Christopher and I just celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary, earlier this month, alongside our 10 wonderful years together! He picked up these flowers and surprised me with them, not on our wedding anniversary, but on the anniversary of when we first met! He’s a keeper!

And to follow that sweet moment with this charming photo, is my privilege and honor to do so. It's important to not take yourself too seriously... or you might miss moments like this one, at one of my old college roommate's wedding. Amy and Rae did a fantastic job posing for our group mug shot, after we raided a local crazy hats and masks store and were caught wedding crashing and stealing people's smiles. :) Congratulations Sheena and Doug!!!! 

And to follow that sweet moment with this charming photo, is my privilege and honor to do so. It’s important to not take yourself too seriously… or you might miss moments like this one, at one of my old college roommate’s wedding. Amy and Rae did a fantastic job posing for our group mug shot, after we raided a local crazy hats and masks store and were caught wedding crashing and stealing people’s smiles. :) Congratulations Sheena and Doug!!!! 

My neighbors got two goats...... Isn't he cute! They named them Apollo and Helo.

My neighbors got two goats…… Isn’t he cute! They named them Apollo and Helo.

We recently went on a hike this last week and checked out Spray Falls, located in Mt. Rainier's National Park. If you look close enough, you will see two people walking up to the falls, in the background... just to give you an idea of how tall the falls are, which is 354 feet! So beautiful! My husband, that is... the falls are a close second ;)

We recently went on a hike this last week and checked out Spray Falls, located in Mt. Rainier’s National Park. If you look close enough, you will see two people walking up to the falls, in the background… just to give you an idea of how tall the falls are, which is 354 feet! So beautiful! My husband, that is… the falls are a close second ;)

Mt. Rainier! Life sure is beautiful!!!!

Mt. Rainier! Life sure is beautiful!!!!

Last but not least... come September, this will be my mountain view!!!! Machu Picchu in Peru. This will be my first overnight trek in the jungle, and I'm sooo excited! Not to mention, my first trip out of the states... I don't include Canada, because I grew up in the U.P. of Michigan, which is basically Canada, haha. Two whole weeks in Peru... this is going to be an adventure! Alright, I think I have given you enough to digest for now. Till next time!

Last but not least… come September, this will be my mountain view!!!! Machu Picchu in Peru. This will be my first overnight trek in the jungle, and I’m sooo excited! Not to mention, my first trip out of the states… I don’t include Canada, because I grew up in the U.P. of Michigan, which is basically Canada, haha. Two whole weeks in Peru… this is going to be an adventure!

Alright, I think I have given you enough to digest for now. Till next time!

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