This young couple moved from Massachusetts to Maine to fulfill their tiny home dreams

In The Know by Yahoo
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Carly and Chris's small house sits at 280 square feet

Video Transcript

[TOGETHER]

- Welcome to our tiny home.

- Hi. My name is Carly.

- My name is Chris.

- And we are in Maine. So before we were living in a tiny home, we were renting a 1,200-square foot house in Massachusetts. And then when rent started climbing up and up, we were seeking an alternative and more financially sustainable lifestyle.

- We've been living in the tiny home now for about a year and have been loving every second of it.

- It is a custom built tiny home, built by Tiny Homes of Maine. 280 square feet total.

- And some of the outside features we havem we have our nice little patio over here with lawn chairs, an umbrella, and then a small vegetable garden. And our water tank, which holds all the water that we get for inside of the home, and that comes from a natural spring about 10 minutes away.

I'm an environmental health and safety specialist. I've always had that environmental aspect. So where I work definitely played a role into how I'm living now.

- I'm a musician. I stream on Twitch as Carly_sings. And then I also post on Instagram Tiny Home and music content-- Carly_singsandthings. Let's take a look inside our home.

So when you first walk into our home, this is our living area. We have a really nice couch with a detachable ottoman and our flat screen TV on the wall.

We really love the big windows-- lets in a lot of natural light. And something we love about the home is all the wood that is used.

- All the pine and cedar, you can smell it right when you walk in.

- So this is our awesome tiny home kitchen area. We have these beautiful butcher block countertops, a super nice sink. We don't have a dishwasher, so we just hand-wash all of our dishes. Our home is all electric.

So we have a two-burner electric stove. We have air fryer microwave convection oven combo unit. We have our fridge. And we really, really utilize every single space we have for storage.

So we have this space under here that we use for a table. And we can sit and enjoy a meal indoors there.

- In order to maximize our storage and space in the tiny home, we had these custom built storage stairs. And we fit things in here like all of our hanging clothes, a little laundry bin at the bottom, and then we also have a drawer for Bella down here that has all of her toys and treats.

- As you come down here, we have our tiny home bathroom. So this is our bathroom. On my left here we have our shower. This is our Sunmark composting toilet-- odorless and waterless. And because of that, we save a lot of water by using, it and it's super environmentally friendly.

- This is our custom built office area. It's really nice matching countertop like the rest of the home here-- have our double monitor computer setup that Carly will use for streaming on Twitch. I also use it for work.

Favorite part about this is the sliding pocket door. When Carly is playing her music, it acts as a good sound barrier. If I'm anywhere else in the house or I'm trying to catch a nap up in the loft, it's really great for having a little bit of privacy. And Carly can say, see you later, Chris.

- Let's go up to the loft. So this is our bedroom. And what we love about it is there's actually a skylight that opens up so we can look at the stars. We have two windows over here, which Bella loves looking out.

This is actually her favorite spot in the home. It's a Super cozy space. We also have some clothing storage up here. So we have a nice cutout here that adds a lot of style into the home and makes it feel super open. But we also have our AC heat unit, which is really important for winters here in Maine.

- Living in a tiny home has definitely created a space where we communicate a lot better. We've been together for seven years, but living in a space like this, you learn so many things about each other. This type of lifestyle allows you to realize what is important to you. So in the future, you'll appreciate things more.

- We wanted to fight back against that idea that you need all these material things to be happy when, really, we just want experiences to be happy.

[TOGETHER]

- Thanks for checking out our tiny home.