The first question most ask after learning about our Tiny House is “what is a tiny house?” Fair question, of course.  After a brief explanation, the second question most ask is “are you crazy?”  Well, given the amount of times I’ve heard this question, I thought it maybe it was something I should look into. Are we crazy? What IS crazy? Below, you’ll find the first three definitions provided by dictionary.com. Let’s see these determine if we are, in fact, crazy.

1. Mentally deranged; demented; insane.

Well, of course I don’t think we’re completely bonkers. But could I be wrong? Dan Louche from Tiny Home Builders (tinyhomebuilders.com) described a what-if scenario at a Tiny House Atlanta MeetUp last week that really hit home. Let’s say that I randomly walked up to 100 strangers on the streets of Atlanta with Amy in tow. After introducing her, I would explain that Amy has zero experience at building a traditional home. How many, of that 100, would invest their faith and hire Amy for thousands of dollars to build their future home?

My guess? None.

But that’s exactly what we did when we set off on this path. Utilizing the power of the internet (thanks to Dan Louche and the awesome Tiny House internet community!) and having the ability to keep professional builders on speed dial (Uncle Jay in St. Louis, thank you!), we’ve been successful in making it happen; Amy and I have been able to drive every nail, turn every screw, and glue every joist of the building we will one day call our home.

Honestly, my biggest challenge was in making a decision to commit to this path. Believing in Amy was never a concern of mine, as I have never met a person as disciplined and committed to learning, creating, and crafting the best home we can build. And this journey has certainly not been easy – every day brings up new problems and new obstacles to overcome, but the skills we will have when this is done will pay dividends as we move into the journey ahead.

2. Senseless; impractical; totally unsound.

Practicality and good sense is exactly what led us to this decision. A life of no debt, of building and owning the structure we call home. Forget living in 1500+ square foot “mansions.” Our definition of the American Dream is the freedom that we have each day once we live in a house that is paid off, that we own. The freedom that will come with being unbound to a location. The freedom of being able to pursue jobs that we’re passionate about, not just financially bound to. The freedom that will come with newfound knowledge and skills that we will have acquired by the end of this process and the confidence that doing it ourselves will give to us.

I don’t think that living in a tiny house is practical for everyone.  In fact, there may be a time in which it becomes impractical for us. To me, this decision embodies our understanding that more “stuff” does not make us happy. When examine the way we live, we generally use four areas of a home – living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. Those areas don’t need to be overly spacious to make us satisfied.  In fact, the more spacious those areas are the more likely we are to fill them with stuff we simply don’t need.

For us, tiny living is a good decision. A sound decision. A sensible one!

3. Informal. Intensely enthusiastic; passionately excited.

Now, here’s some crazy Amy and I can get behind! Amy started talking with me about tiny houses and simple living almost three years ago. She was the visionary who was first passionate for what this lifestyle could mean for our future. It took some convincing, but at this juncture we are truly both enthusiastic and excited about tiny living and what it will mean for us moving forward.

What’s not to be excited about? Many of our friends and family dream about building their own home. A home that is suited to their needs and desires. How many of them get to say that they were the architects of that home? Amy can. How many people have put hammer to nail and saw to 2×4 to create their own home? We both can.

It appears that we meet the definition of crazy on 2 of 3 definitions. 66% crazy? If it takes being 66% crazy and 33% practical to make the decision to create our future freedom – I think we could be quite satisfied living in our tiny home in our own little “crazy” way.

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