Have you ever been browsing on tinyhouselistings.com and thought, "I want that one!" about a reasonably priced house halfway across the country from you? Or is it just me? Because that's how we ended up with our tiny house. Though building was an option, time constraints pushed us to look for a readymade tiny house. We found this one, and it was in our yard a week later. The woman who built our house originally made it for herself, but then decided that it was too small for her. When I critique our house, I don't mean to discredit the builder at all. She isn't a professional builder, and we knew that. We aren't professionals either, and I am sure our house would have its quirks if we homemade it. Also, she is from San Diego, and the house was designed for mild weather, not Chicago's -20 degree winters. She worked at a construction site and used 95% salvaged materials, which really helped to keep the cost down, too. Anyways, these are some issues we have run into.
2. The couch wasn't very comfortable and the storage wS difficult to get into. We redid the couch cushion by adding a memory foam topper and recovering it. We removed the pillows on the back and replaced them with longer, thicker cushions that don't fall all over the place. Finally, we cut out the front and added easily accessible storage bins. |
We've also dealt with our door, which was actually an interior door used as an exterior door. This would have been fine in California, but didn't fare so well in Illinois. Our shower is broken, and we haven't gotten it fixed in the year we've lived here. The plumbing is intact, but the actual shower has a leak. We would have to replace the whole thing. For now, we take bucket baths which gets the job done and saves so much water anyways. We also had leaking in our plumbing. We found out that on demand hot water heaters are prone to leaks, so we had to remove the drywall under the sink and tighten everything up. Finally, we did some personal remodeling to make room for Abel. Even with the difficulties we've had repairing things, I love our little house. I feel like we've gotten a chance to make it our own, even if we did buy it prebuilt.