our slightly hectic journey…
You may have read our article Tiny Life, Big Community in Issue 24 of Tiny House Magazine or you may have read our story on our personal blog. Both talk about how we started our married life together by attempting to build a tiny house. As we said even then, our plans have changed so many different times. In fact, let’s recap:
We got married in April 2013 and started building the tiny house in June 2013. When winter hit that year the house was still not complete so we bounced around living with different friends until we decided to move to Westcliffe, Colo. almost four hours southwest from our home in Golden.
We lived there for six months, brought our tiny house down and parked it on some friend’s land to be finished at a later time. We moved back up to the Denver area for better jobs, thinking that we would work in the city for three to five years. When that didn’t work out as we planned, we decided to move, yet again, back to Westcliffe, as better jobs had opened up as well as an opportunity to purchase a house and land exactly where we wanted. After many delays, we finally closed on that house after three months.
We’ve moved 15 times (that I can remember) in the 2 1/2 years we’ve been married. FIFTEEN!There are a lot of morals to that story, but the one I keep coming back to is: be flexible and remember what you really desire out of life. For us, these words tend to sum up what we’re after: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands.”
In other words, live simply.
Even though the past few years haven’t exactly looked or felt “simple”, this desire was what was constantly pushing us to make the decisions that we did, even when it didn’t look like it.
The place we’ve finally settled has a fairly large farmhouse on it leaving folks to wonder: “what happened to the tiny house?”
It is currently still on our neighbor’s land, waiting to be moved onto ours. We were initially told that the trailer was a better grade of metal than it actually is (thank you Craigslist) and we have been told by several knowledgeable folks that it needs to be put on a permanent foundation before we finish it or as soon as possible.
As of right now the plan is to move it onto our land and take it off the wheels and set it in its final resting place. There, we will either rent it out (nightly on Airbnb) or have it as a guest cabin for friends who come visit.
Our plans have changed so many times over the past two years but we’re hoping that this one really sticks. In fact, to signify this commitment, we have expanded our family by about 45. We are currently raising and caring for 30+ chickens, a couple of kittens, and three goats, in addition to ten ducks headed to our little farm over the next month.
Welcome to our new adventure! We’re diving straight into this homesteading life! Feel free to follow us on Restoring Simple or if you’re on Instagram, @hannahcorson. We also love meeting new friends, so if you’re ever in the Westcliffe area, please reach out to us. We’d love to have you over for tea.
Written By Hannah Corson and first published in Tiny House Magazine Issue 32
