I’ve been looking forward to our stop in Asheville, NC for quite some time and not for their very extensive selection of beers. Instead it seems to be a hub of sorts for people who live in tiny homes. They have informed me that they may not have a higher population of folks who have downsized their living space to the size of most Americans master bathrooms but that they may just be the most vocal in our little community.
There isn’t a specific size that makes a home a tiny one but on average they are 186 sq ft. I built a traditional tiny home on wheels a few years ago out of reclaimed materials. It was meant as an experiment but I loved the forced simplicity immediately and decided to make this my permanent living quarters. I bought a half acre in Boise and built an addition on a foundation expanding my square footage to 230 and started to blog (tinyhouseontheprairie.net) about it. It was then that I discovered a bunch of like minded tiny house bloggers and started to connect online.
When the potato was scheduled to be at the WNC Fall Festival I reached out on Facebook to see how far away everyone lived. Turns out Laura LaVoie & Matthew Belitsos of 120squarefeet.com are from the area and Ryan Mitchell of thetinylife.com happened to be visiting them! They graciously picked me up after ‘work’ each day and we ate our way around the city and got to know each other better. They all were speaking at a tiny house conference in Asheville the day I had to be on the road to Raleigh. I was bummed I would miss it and Laura mentioned that Raleigh was hosting a Tumbleweed Tiny House workshop over the weekend too.
I had that in the back of my mind to look up the workshop on my day off but when we went to check in guess who was in the banquet room?! Of all the hotels in the city the Tumbleweed workshop was in MY hotel! I was able to sit in on portions of the workshop and talk with a bunch of folks who were interested in building there own small homes. To top it all off Tyler and I were able to meet up with a guy we had met vacationing in Reston, VA earlier in the tour who built a home in Africa.
Who knew that building a super small house several years ago would connect me with so many great people…what a tiny world 🙂
-Kristie
