Tiny House, Big Fix Read online

  “Maybe I’ll put my tiny house the same place you’ll put yours?” I glanced sideways at Alice.

  “You want to park your tiny house on my property?” Alice asked.

  I nodded. “Not only that, I’d like to build your tiny house there too. But maybe we can put yours on a permanent foundation.”

  Alice’s face lit up. “You’d do that? You’d help me build my own tiny house?”

  “Liam and I would trade our skills and labor for a place to park our tiny homes rent free. For a given period of time,” I added. “We can work out details and write up a contract. My dad always said contracts keep friends friendly.”

  “But can we get the approval to do that?” Liam asked. “Tiny houses don’t exactly fit building and zoning codes.”

  “Yes, but Alice’s place is outside the city limits, which may make things easier. And we’ll apply for temporary permits before we begin building. After that we’ll hammer out details with the district. I’m hoping we can get permission to park there legally and permanently.”

  “You think that’s likely?”

  “We’ll see. But this is one thing I can do for you in exchange for helping me build. From working for my dad, I’ve got a pretty good idea how to work with local officials to get a job done. I’ll make sure they aren’t going to chase us off the property. Alice, what do you think?”

  “Sounds good. I’m in.” She lifted her chin at Bruce, who glared at us with his hands on his hips. “But for now, I think we better get back to work.”

  I picked up my nailer and bent over the wall we were working on. When I saw Bruce turn away, I quietly asked Liam, “So how about I come over to your place Sunday? You and I should have that dinner before we start building, don’t you think? I don’t want to wait until next spring for our first date.”

  Liam laughed. “You’re on. But maybe leave the kids and Alice at home this time? Let’s make it dinner for just the two of us.”

  I grinned. “It’s a date.”

  TWELVE

  THAT FIRST DATE with Liam wasn’t our last. Liam moved his little house to Alice’s property. There we spent most evenings working together on my tiny house. When we were alone, we often shared a late supper, lit by candlelight.

  But then, we weren’t often alone. Alice and the kids usually worked on the tiny house right along with us. The girls and I were also now living with Alice, of course. And Liam, Alice and I worked together for Bruce during the day.

  So we all spent a little too much time together as we built my house. So much so that Alice and I started to squabble like sisters. But that was okay. She had become family. My daughters even started calling her auntie.

  I can’t say staying at Alice’s place for those four months was easy. But after living in the travel trailer for a month, her apartment seemed big. And I was surprised at how quickly my view of things had shifted. Before my divorce, I’d thought I needed a big house and a whole lot of things to be happy. Now I was just happy to have a roof over my head.

  Getting rid of my stuff was also freeing. When we’d moved into the travel trailer, we had put some furniture in a small storage unit. But the girls and I had gotten rid of most of our extra clothing and other unused things.

  As we moved a second time into Alice’s apartment, we got rid of even more stuff. I felt like I was finally letting go of my old life, the one I’d once shared with my ex-husband, Kevin. Of course, dating Liam also helped me forget the life I’d left behind.

  In the process of downsizing, I realized how few objects I actually needed. At Alice’s place, the girls and I kept only our laptops and one bag of personal items each. Everything was tucked away in the one closet when not in use.

  Before, when we had the house, the girls’ bedrooms had been a mess. Toy, books and clothes were all over the floor. The bedroom we shared now was uncluttered. I found this change quite restful. I wasn’t fighting with my daughters all the time—not about cleaning up, at least.

  And sharing a room with the girls was surprisingly pleasant. Instead of spending evenings alone in separate rooms as we had at our rented house, we snuggled up together on the bed. There we surfed the Web or watched movies together for a change.

  I started to feel connected to my girls again, particularly Zoe. It was strange to think that just sharing a smaller space had brought us closer. I never would have believed that before we lost our rental. I’d assumed that living in close quarters would just lead to arguments. But we had fewer arguments now. Liam had been right when he said living small changes things.

  By the time our tiny house was finished, even Zoe was used to living in a small space. In fact, at four hundred square feet, the tiny house seemed big in comparison to the bedroom we’d been sharing. And we didn’t have much to move. Our things all fit easily into the back of my truck.

  Liam and Alice helped us carry our few things into our tiny house as our cat explored our new home. Once we were done putting things away, we cracked open beers to celebrate. The girls had root beer, of course.

  I raised my beer to Liam, Alice and my daughters. “Here’s to us!” I said. Then I raised my glass to the house. “We made this!” We all clinked our bottles together. “Thanks, Alice, Liam. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Hell, I’m just glad to be rid of you,” said Alice. She grinned as she took a sip, so I knew she was joking. But I also knew she was relieved to have her small apartment to herself.

  “What do you think, Zoe?” I asked. “Will you invite friends over now?”

  “Are you kidding?” Zoe said. “My friends are dying to see this place. I’ve told them all about it. They’re, like, so jealous.”

  I took in a deep, satisfied breath and looked around at the house we had created together. Since the three of us would live in this tiny house, I had decided to make it bigger than Liam’s. Our little house had two lofts, one on each end of the building, for the girls. I’d put my bedroom on the ground floor, and we had built Maggie’s loft over it.

  The bathroom was at the other end of the house, and Zoe’s loft was above it. We installed a full bath and shower, so the bathroom was nearly the size of the one in Alice’s apartment. Given how much time the girls and I spent in the bathroom, we figured we’d give it more space. But I was also tired of banging on the bathroom door for Zoe to come out. I put a mirror and power in both girls’ lofts. Zoe could do her hair and makeup up there.

  I also made sure both girls had some privacy. Each loft had a short wall, so I couldn’t see up into their rooms from below. All our bedrooms had a small closet and shelves for our clothes.

  The center of the house was one large space with high ceilings. I put in big windows on either side of the door. And we painted the walls white to keep that light, airy feeling. The main living area didn’t feel small at all.

  The kitchen ran along the wall opposite the door in the main room. There was lots of cupboard space above the sink and stove. We bought a small fridge to fit underneath the kitchen counter.

  We decided we didn’t need a couch, as we no longer had a TV. There really wasn’t room for one, in any case. When we wanted to watch a show together on our laptops, we’d just cuddle up on my bed or in one of the girls’ lofts.

  What we really needed was a good-sized table to work and eat on. That’s where we would hang out together. So Liam and I built a table to fit the main living space beside the small kitchen. For seating, we built cubes that could be shoved together to form benches. Each cube also opened for storage.

  The stairs leading to each girl’s loft had shelves on the sides. But we had let go of so much stuff that we found we didn’t need all the storage we’d built into the house.

  I took another deep breath and nodded, pleased with our work. I was proud of what we’d accomplished here.

  “Look!” Maggie cried. “Mr. Snuggles has found his tree house already!” Our cat had jumped up the stairs to Maggie’s loft, then hopped into a box Maggie had built just for him. At Mag
gie’s request, I had installed the box high on the wall. Mr. Snuggles peered out of the box at us from his perch near the ceiling. Maggie climbed the stairs after the cat. “I built that for you, Mr. Snuggles,” she said. “I built it all by myself.”

  Getting the kids to help was the best part of building the tiny house—Liam had been right about that too. Even Zoe had gotten into the project. She had come up with the idea to use a sliver of space between two cupboards for a pull-out spice rack. With my instruction, she had put it together herself.

  “Building this tiny house was fun,” said Maggie from her loft. “Can we make another one?”

  “We’re building Alice’s tiny house next,” I said. “How about we start next weekend?”

  “I’ll be so thrilled to get out of that apartment and into my own home,” Alice said. “Especially if it’s anything like this one. Wow.”

  “I’m with Maggie,” said Liam. “Building a tiny house is fun, way more fun than building a regular house. There are more challenges. I like coming up with cool ways to make use of space.”

  “Do you like it enough to make a business out of it?” I asked Liam.

  “What do you mean?”

  I turned to Alice. “We build your house next. But let’s make it a real showcase home, to show customers what we can do. Then we start building them for others.”

  “You’re talking about starting a construction company,” Alice said, “to build tiny homes.”

  “Yes. We would start small.” I grinned. “No pun intended. And build the business over time. Down the road, I’d like to buy some land and offer clients a place to park their homes.”

  Alice held her chin as she thought about the idea. “So like a trailer park, but for tiny houses.”

  “Exactly. A micro village. It would take some time to go through the process of getting approval, of course. We’d want to get the community onside.”

  “It’s going to take a lot of work, getting a construction business going,” said Liam.

  “Of course it will. But my own dad built his from the ground up. I know we can too. Look what we’ve done already.”

  “That has always been a dream of mine,” said Liam. “To own a construction business so I don’t have to work for someone else.”

  “Yes! And keeping the business small means we can work at a sane pace. Living tiny, we can afford to work less. I want to be around for my kids a whole lot more.”

  “And I could build too,” said Maggie.

  “Yes, you could!” I said.

  “I wouldn’t mind helping out,” Zoe said. She shrugged. “If you paid me.”

  I turned to her, surprised and delighted. I had started working for my dad when I was her age. “I’d love that,” I said.

  Alice rubbed her hands together. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Liam lifted his beer. “Here’s to making our dreams a reality.”

  I clicked my beer with his. “I’ll drink to that,” I said.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The idea for this short novel began when my daughter Hadarah brought home her school’s tiny-house project. Her task was to come up with a tiny-house floor plan and design her own tiny home. We watched TV shows on tiny houses, and I became intrigued by the idea of letting go of the stuff that clutters our lives, living simply and within a cozy space.

  Tiny houses really are tiny, between sixty and four hundred square feet. And they are often built on trailers, so they can be moved from place to place. It’s like camping with a travel trailer, only better. You get to live in a home that feels like a real house.

  Tiny homes are also a great way to go green. Building and living in them uses fewer resources. Many tiny homes are heated and powered by solar panels. And, of course, they cost less to build and live in. Many tiny-house owners say they pay no mortgage and are no longer in debt. At a time when people struggle to pay for or even find a home, the tiny house seems like a solution to the housing crisis.

  As I wrote this book, I looked into the housing crisis within my own province. What I found was troubling. Families are living at campsites because they can’t find affordable places to rent. And these are families in which both adults are holding down decent jobs. It’s a situation that’s mirrored in other parts of the country.

  Of course, homelessness is an ongoing tragedy. People are living on the streets without shelter, very often through cold winters. Others end up couch surfing. And the people who find themselves in this situation are often the most vulnerable members of our community: mothers with children, the mentally ill and the elderly.

  Is the tiny-house movement a solution to homelessness and the housing crisis? Perhaps. Communities are beginning to consider that possibility. Check out the Dignity Village project in Portland, Oregon. Similar tiny-house villages have popped up in other west-coast cities.

  Tiny-house ownership is not without problems though. Municipalities often don’t allow tiny houses, as they don’t fit current building and zoning regulations. Many people build tiny homes but can’t find a place to park them.

  Yet cities are beginning to rethink bylaws to accommodate tiny homes. “Micro villages” are starting to pop up, often outside city limits. Bluegrass Meadows Micro Village outside Terrace, British Columbia, is an example.

  Will I ever live in a tiny home? I’m married to a carpenter, who has the skills to build one. And we’ve talked about it. The reality is that we already live in a small home and are happy with it. Still, I find the idea of living in a tiny house appealing—a cozy home off the grid that we could move from place to place. Leaving less of an environmental footprint. And no mortgage to worry about! Living with less, so we could work less. Now that’s a life!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m grateful to my lovely daughter Hadarah for introducing me to the tiny-house movement and inspiring me to dig deeper into the subject. As always, I’d like to thank my editor, Ruth Linka, and Orca Book Publishers for their commitment to literacy through the Rapid Reads program. I’m proud to be a Rapid Reads author.

  If you’re interested in learning more about building or buying a tiny house, I found the following resources and stories useful as I wrote this short novel.

  Tiny Home Alliance Canada has an excellent website that includes a section called “Process Tips” for building your own tiny home. The Tiny House Festival site has a page called “Tiny House Bylaws in Canada” that outlines common issues and offers a list of communities that welcome tiny houses.

  I was delighted to see that a great many women are building their own tiny homes. Google the topic and you’ll see what I mean. Kayla Feenstra of Abbotsford, British Columbia, is one example. She built her tiny house for just $15,000. Like other women, she went on to start her own tiny-house construction business. Hers is called Tiny Homes Canada. You’ll find a “Tiny House 101” primer on the Tiny Homes Canada site.

  By the age of eighteen, GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ knew she wanted to write about women in rural settings. Today Gail is a bestselling author. A Recipe for Bees and The Cure for Death by Lightning were finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She also teaches other authors how to write fiction. Gail divides her time between the Shuswap region of British Columbia and Manitoulin Island in Ontario. For more information, visit gailanderson-dargatz.ca.

  One

  I brushed flour off my apron as I stepped away from the kitchen area and up to the bakery counter to serve Murray. He was a widower a few years older than me, in his early forties. He still dressed like a construction worker even though he owned his own antique business now. He sold old dishes, toys and art online, through his website. “You know what I’m here for,” he said, grinning.

  I did. Murray turned up at the end of my morning shift almost every day. He always ordered the same thing. I handed him a cup of coffee and two oatmeal “doilies.” I called these cookies doilies because as they baked, the dough spread out into crisp circles. They looked like the lace doilies people put under vases to protect their f
urniture.

  “Thanks, Cookie,” Murray said as he took the plate. He was the one who gave me the nickname Cookie. Now every regular at the bakery called me that. My real name is Eva.

  “You ever going to give me the recipe so I can make these cookies at home?” he asked me.

  I shook my head as I smiled shyly at him. We didn’t use packaged mixes at this bakery. We baked everything from scratch. I made these cookies from my own recipe.

  “Probably better if you don’t tell me,” he said. “I want a reason to keep coming in here.” Murray held my gaze just a little too long, as if he liked me. But I wasn’t sure. More to the point, I found it hard to believe he could be interested in me. He was such a handsome and accomplished man, with a business of his own.

  And me? I just worked here, at this bakery. My hair was tucked in a hairnet because I’d been baking that morning. My apron was covered in flour and butter stains. I never wore makeup to work because it got so hot around the big commercial ovens. I always worked up a sweat. If I did wear mascara, it smudged. What could Murray possibly see in me?

  Diana elbowed me as Murray went to his usual table by the window. “Like he needs another reason to come in here,” she said. “He’s got you.”

  She grinned at me, but I tried to ignore her. I wiped the counter to hide my embarrassment.

  Diana was the owner of the bakery. She was in her sixties now and had owned the bakery-café in this strip mall for more than twenty-five years. The café looked a little dated too. The place could have used some fresh paint and new tables. But the big windows filled the space with light, and the room always smelled of sweet baked goods. The bakery-café was a favorite hangout, the only place to meet for coffee in this rural area just outside of town.