The Tiny Home Show in Ancaster, ON was this past weekend, and what a fabulous time it was!

One of my passions is speaking to tiny home enthusiasts about what to expect and how to make their tiny home dreams a reality.

I get it, jumping into the tiny life is a big thing! There are so many what ifs and so many questions. It can feel all consuming.

So what I did was create a step by step process that will take you from just daydreaming about your tiny home, and the lifestyle that you yearn for, to making it happen. 

Let this be day one of the journey to your tiny home, instead of leaving it for one day.

What do you need for your journey?

• Courage - Have the willingness and ability to do something that frightens you. That even if you feel a sense of overwhelm and fear, that you work to push past that and see the bright future that's waiting on the other side. 
• Resourcefulness - Have the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. Sometimes things will pop up that you don't expect and that can feel all consuming in your tiny home journey, can you set those things aside and come up with solutions that could be out of the ordinary?
• Faith/Trust/Hope - Have the confidence and trust in yourself to make this dream a reality. Believe that everything is always working out perfectly, just the way it needs to, to get you to your tiny home destination.
• Unwavering Commitment To Your Dream - Lastly, be dedicated to your dream and to yourself.

 STEP ONE: Learn

Maybe you're perusing Instagram and a reel from a tiny home builder pops up. Maybe you're at coffee with friends and someone mentions their friends friend just moved into a tiny home on a foundation and they are loving their life. This step is your introduction to the tiny home movement and the step that often creates analysis paralysis. Don't get stuck here but do consume as much content about tiny homes as you can. This is the time to follow tiny home builders on Instagram, to join tiny home community groups on Facebook, and to dive into Pinterest and dream up your tiny home aesthetic. This is also the perfect time to book a call with a builder or with a tiny home consultant. 

STEP TWO: Be Resourceful

This is an action step. This is where you start to gain incite into what a tiny home will mean for you and includes a list of things you will need to get figured out to keep moving forward. Sometimes this can feel overwhelming but you're getting things done!

Some of those things include:

- The location of your home. Are you going to go with a Tiny Home RV (THOW) or a Foundation Build Tiny Home? Do you have land it can be parked/placed on? Is a Tiny Home Village or RV Park the style of community you'd like to live in?
- How will you pay for your tiny? Do you have savings that will pay for it or is financing something that you'd like to look into?
- What type of network can you surround yourself with to answer questions that pop up but also to support you in your decision!

STEP THREE: Decision Time

At this step all of your ducks should be in a row. You should have your location (mostly) figured out depending on the type of tiny you're choosing, you have your financing figured out, and you've put a deposit down with your chosen builder - we hope it's Teacup! This entire time is filled with excitement about what's happening but can also turn to a bit of fear now that you've committed. 

STEP FOUR: Building

One of the most exciting days in your Tiny Home journey is the day that your build starts. Throughout this time, if you chose Teacup as your builder, you'll get weekly photo updates of your build and walkthroughs through the entire process. You'll also get access to the Teacup Academy where you'll find videos about the process of building, site setup and videos for caring for your home after possession. This is a great time to seek out information on learning the systems of your tiny home and preparing for possession and into the future.

This is also the time that you will want to start purging items that you won't be able to or don't want to take with you to your tiny home. This can be a task that people find overwhelming, so start small. Choose one drawer, one closet, or one room to start with. Go through quickly and remove anything you know for sure you don't want, then go over everything again with a fine tooth comb. It's also okay to rent a storage unit and keep things you aren't quite yet ready to let go of, to see if you can make space for them in your tiny as you settle.

STEP FIVE: Possession Day and Settling In

The day has finally arrived and you're home is parked. This is likely the first time you've seen your home in person so take a moment to really breathe it all in. Look through every nook and cranny of your home, open up all of the drawers, sit in the lofts, stand in your bathtub, just be in it! You're here and everything is finally, officially, yours.

This is the time to create new habits, to see what fits from your old life and what maybe doesn't anymore. This is the time where you get to figure out where everything goes, what routine you're going to have when you wake up in the morning, where the best place to put your coffee pot is and your extra set of sheets. This is the time to make your tiny truly your own.

It's also a settling in phase, you may have owned your own home before or maybe this is your first. There will be moments where you do something and you think "Oh no, I've broken it". This is the time to lean back on the network you've created and to reach out to your builder if you have questions. Teacup's Project Management app has a special warranty portal where you can message us with questions or concerns at any time and someone from our team can help you out. But, it's likely that many of the things that pop up you'll be able to figure out for yourself using the Teacup Academy, the troubleshooting manuals included with your home, and by calling the numbers for specific appliances on the Teacup Warranty Document in the portal.. just remember to breathe.

STEP SIX: Learn & Live

Finally - you'll live. You'll learn. You'll do things wrong, and a lot of things right, and a year from your possession day you'll be in a totally different place. You'll be living the life you dreamed of, your way. 

So take the next step.

Consume the content.

Book the discovery call.

Do your financing assessment.

Just keep moving forward, your dreams can and will come true!

And we'll be with you every step of the way.

-Jen