What was the major reason for making your tiny adventure public? - #AskTheDreamTeam

Cover image via @nicolettenotes.

Question: What was the major reason for making your tiny adventure public?

Answers:

Ashlee | girlinatinyhouse.com

When I was inspired to go tiny, I stalked lots of other tiny house dwellers who had shared their journey for inspiration and ideas. I shared my journey to hopefully provide some inspiration and ideas to others.

Building and living in a tiny house is such an unknown to so many people which is why I think sharing the different lifestyle is important. It shows people how you could do things differently, it opens up ideas and possibilities for alternative living and an alternative lifestyle.

Sam & Tim | tiffanythetinyhome.com

I think it started out as a way to share with our friends and family. We were doing something unique and everyone in our lives wanted to keep up with our new adventure. Our house is also super cute and really well made, so I think that gained a lot of attention.

And then, we discovered that people really wanted to do what we were doing. We saw this at festivals, people would comment on our blog asking for advice, people would message us and tell us how inspired they were by our home, so we decided to share more. We've loved sharing how we live over the last two years. Lately, we took a look at the amount of social media we intact and we are trying to have a healthier balance in our lives. That being said, we will continue to post our journey and answer questions as long as they keep coming in 😀

Alexis & Christian | tinyhouseexpedition.com

After falling in love with tiny houses, I did what so many others do—journey down the tiny rabbit hole. During my giant research binge on the movement, I was amazed by moving stories of personal empowerment and the many grassroots groups using tiny structures to creatively address the needs of the community, like lack of adequate shelter and affordable housing. This triggered a life-changing light-bulb moment. The idea was born to travel North America with our tiny home to document the stories of the diverse, dynamic people and community projects of the modern tiny living movement. This was the start of Tiny House Expedition, our documentary storytelling and community education project.

We are passionate about sharing the inspiring stories and homes of those we meet, along with our personal experience, especially what we’ve learned, like how to safely tow a tiny house!

Nicolette & Michael | nicolettenotes.com

Such a good question! At first it started as me documenting our journey so that we can look back on it years from now and remember and hold onto as much of it as we can. But then I started realizing that our dream, was other people’s dreams as well. From that point on I wanted to show people that it’s possible. That if you want something bad enough and you put your all into it, you can make your dream a reality. I also try to show that being happy, doesn’t take much. We do it in less than 300 square feet and every single day feels like a fairy tale.

Jess & Todd | tinyhouseofny.com

When we first created our page it was simply as a place for friends and family to follow along as we documented the build, as well as a digital photo journal for us. However, I had used Instagram as a place for advice and research on design and so I also thought perhaps our journey could help others doing the same thing or thinking about doing the same thing with their own research. We quickly found there is a great deal of information and inspiration sharing when you make your journey public, and I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant, we also hope our story can help others looking to do something similar in their own lives, and that maybe our designs would appeal to others.

Whereas we got the wheels turning by researching the homes of tiny house trailblazers we thought maybe we could pay it forward for the next person who is looking for this kind of lifestyle change.

Now we blog on our website on the tiny house and financial independence to share our journey on alternative living, sustainable living, conscious consumerism and early retirement.

Alexis & Brian | instagram.com/living_the_tiny_dream

We originally started our tiny house page as a rather selfish endeavor. Meaning, we wanted to look back on our journey, to see our growth and how our lives changed with our home over time. We originally treated our Instagram page as a kind of time capsule.

Over the span of a few months, our Instagram following started to organically grow. After a few shares by much bigger Instagram accounts than ours, we found ourselves with thousands of followers over a relatively short period of time. Once I realized the power of our account, I wanted to draw attention to sustainability issues and what a normal day in a tiny house looks like.

Now, our page has grown to feature our lives more holistically, and we really try to show the ‘real’ side of tiny house living; good, bad, fun, and ugly. We also are very intentional about sharing environmental issues that we are passionate about. For example it’s Plastic Free July, so we have been sharing plastic free trades we use on a daily basis, as well as soliciting advice from our followers to find solutions for persistent problems. It’s been fun to evolve our page to meet our needs, and mold it to fit our passions! I can’t wait to see where we are a year from now!

Annie | pocketmanor.com

Like most people, I started documenting my process on a dedicated Instagram account just for myself, and some family and friends who were interested in my house. If anyone else happened to start following, great! But I certainly didn't expect it.

As I got farther along in my build, more and more people asking questions about my design and telling me that I was inspiring them to take on their own downsizing project! I started to test my writing skills by putting out a few blog posts, and was approached by a few people to write about my journey, and that's when I started to realize the larger benefit in sharing my progress.

Running my Instagram account and blog was forcing me out of my comfort zone when it came to expressing myself in a creative way, and that's something that has always scared me a bit! I still struggle to find a balance of working to create good, valuable content while also divorcing myself from the idea that every photo, every caption, every blog post has to be perfect. But thus far, sharing my journey publicly has enabled me to connect with amazing people from all over the world, has forced me to develop my writing skills, and to dust off my photography skills. It's a creative pursuit I've embarked on wholly for myself for the first time in my life, which is why I keep going!

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