Location - Location - Location

There are so many things to consider when planning a tiny house. The plan for the house, the materials, furnishings and of course the trailer. We have owned 2 traditional homes one we built and one we bought. Each time the biggest consideration was the location. As we all know the three most important things in Realestate are location, location, location. The trailer is the location when you are building a tiny house on wheels. It's actually the foundation and the location, so it is the single most important component of the tiny house build.

We looked at all types of trailers.

This was originally a mobil home. Turns out it's to narrow and is not designed for wood framed walls on the outside edges. It would take a lot of work to get this ready for the build. Asking price $2500. But is was a really nice drive out to Jamul to an amazing home on the top of a hill with views deep in to Mexico and almost all of San Diego County.

There are other good options out there like traditional utility trailers and even other new trailers set up for tiny house construction. What we found was that almost all of these trailers were not designed for building a house. Some would require drop axles to compensate for having to build your subfloor on top for the deck, so would have to have extensions fabricated. After sorting though all of the factors we finally made our decision.

http://ironeagletinyhousetrailer.com/tinyhomes/

We decided to purchase the Iron Eagle PAD 24' trailer, an amazing trailer with an equally impressive price tag. Here's how we came to this decision.

1. Our Hikari Box house plans are designed around this trailer.
2. It has the most effective thermal break system of any trailer on the market.
3. It is designed for one purpose, a tiny house.
4. The design allows for a full 2x6 subfloor without sacrificing interior head room.
5. And most importantly; it's good to go day one, no modifications or fabrication needed, just park it and start building.

It is being built now and we will be taking a road trip to Northern California to pick it up in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Our Tiny House Plan

This is the Hikari Tiny Box. It is a tiny house designed by Shelterwisellc.com

We are going to build it ourselves on this trailer from Iron Eagle Trailers

This is where we are going to put it.

The next step is to tame this old Pepper Tree to create better access. The placement will be in an old horse riding ring.

Why in the world would we do this?

So what would possess a couple of midlifers with an empty nest to want to build a tiny house and try and live in it?

Well we really have no idea what it's going to be like living in such a small space - that will be part two of this story, but this is how we came up with this as a "good idea".

We moved to SD almost 18 months ago to be closer to our family and to provide some support and daily care for our aunt. We found over the past year that we spend almost all of our free time at Paula's mom and dad's house. We also quickly realized that owning a home in SD was not going to be part of our near future and rents are through the roof. We spent a lot of time thinking about what to do and how to keep the San Diego dream alive.

We talked about getting an RV and we looked at trailers and motorhomes. We visited RV parks around SD and talked to people about the RV lifestyle. We looked at studio apartments and other less expensive places to live. None of them felt right or really suited us. Then one day Paula showed me a tiny house and said, "what about this?"

The thought of creating our own space and being able to stay close by the family really resonated with us and we started to get excited about the idea. We are both creative and love to build, so this crazy idea took root and started to grow. We had a couple of hoops to jump through to get "approval" but now everyone is onboard and we are taking the plunge.

Please join us on this adventure and share your ideas with us along the way!

Oh and the nest is not exactly empty. Our lils Gidget and Bridget will be rooming with us too...