Our Story

We are a very non-traditional family. We have 10 children (5 girls and 5 boys). We have done things very differently. Years ago (almost from the beginning) both of us realized that we love unique homes. About 10 years ago we started looking at homes that were really unique. Some were made from shipping containers and some were made from caves. We instantly fell in love with those things that were different and beautiful by their own right. We also discovered the tiny house movement and loved it. However we had a big family and how on Earth could our large family which was still growing live in a tiny house. Also to live in a tiny house you have to have your own property because most places wouldn't even allow for a tiny house to be built inside city limits. What we were looking at was something unique. However we were adventurous and a little crazy and in 2013 we found 36 acres with solar power and a well. It was ready for us to buy and build our tiny house and start a homestead with our still growing family.

This blog is about our family and our adventurous spirit and how we have found a way to grow our family in our tiny house.

We started with purchasing a shed (the largest we could buy). Our goal was to make payments over the next three years or less and pay for the outside while using cash to pay for the building that went on in the inside. My husband and I worked together with our children that first summer doing as much as our finances and time would allow to get the house winter ready before the first winter hit. Shortly after Christmas my husband lost his job and would spend the next 8 months looking for a job and working at a temporary job. We could have moved for a job but we had started our homesteading adventure and we weren't quite ready to just give up. After 8 months he finally found a job. While he was looking for work we still managed to keep working on the homestead. There was always work that we could do even without money coming in. A big part of that was fencing. Our 36 acres is on open range and we needed to move fencing so that we could fence out the cattle if we ever wanted to grow a garden for our family.

After he got a job again we threw all our extra money at finishing our tiny house and paying off the original shed purchase. Our house was no longer a shed, it had become a home with places for our children to sleep, a bathroom, a small kitchen area and a small living room for our family to gather together. We continue to work on our home as money will permit but we are almost finished.

You might say that we traded our indoor space for outdoor space and a chance to create our own unique homestead.  We always have several projects that we are working on for our home, garden, and animals. When we finish one project we start another. Quite often we have several projects going at one time. The main reason we have so many projects going at once is because we often put a project on hold as we wait for more resources to finish a project. We work hard to recyle and reuse everything that we can.