Towards the end of 2016 my husband, Brian, and I made the decision to join the tiny home movement! As much as we would like to think, this is actually not some new, innovative, hipster movement. People have been going tiny for decades and there are many reasons as to why. Making the decision to go small is a personal one and is not always feasible for families. While we have embraced this change and sincerely believe it is the perfect move for us the goal of this blog is not to convert people to living in tiny homes or campers, (like us!) but to simply help people think more creatively about their spaces. By following our blog, we hope to inspire people to find small, simple steps to living a more sustainable, healthy, and happy lifestyle.

Our journey started in September of 2016. We had moved from a 4 bedroom home in Georgia the prior year into a smaller 2 bedroom condo in South Carolina. We loved downsizing. It was such a liberating experience to shed ourselves of so much STUFF! Useless, meaningless stuff! We often thought that when we moved again we would love to downsize even more. The time came at the end of the summer last year to start thinking about moving again. We first started looking at apartments, but did not have much luck as we have a large sweet goofy dog that was well out of the weight limit of most apartment complexes. We looked at houses, but realized quickly we were not getting very much for our money. We decided it was the perfect opportunity to research tiny living options.

When you are looking for a home, regardless of whether it is a tiny one or not, you have to have reasons or a wish list of what it is you are looking for. For example, your wish list might say: must have a garage, 3 bedrooms, and preferably hardwood floors. Our wish list was a little different. We wanted to be mobile, we wanted something small, efficient, and a fixer upper all in one! We were disappointed at first when we started researching those fascinating tiny homes featured on HGTV as they were very expensive, very difficult to move frequently, and as we soon discovered, illegal in a lot of states. While these were great options for people who wanted to live smaller in a more permanent place, the tiny house option was not ideal for us. That is when we moved on to motorhomes.

The idea of hitting the open road whenever we wanted and not having to pack a thing when we moved was utterly romantic and exciting! That is until we went and looked at some motorhomes and realized all of the cons. While motorhomes are excellent for traveling and vacations, for permanent living it was not a viable option for us either. The structural space is too difficult to alter and you do not get as much bang for buck as you do with a travel trailer. You have to consider the possibilities of engine, transmission, and other mechanical trouble. Perhaps if you are a mechanic that specializes in RV repair this may not be a bad option, but for us having to take our motorhome into the shop for repairs meant that we would be homeless until it was fixed. Not to fret though, because then we saw it! The Rusty Rivet is what we lovingly referred to it as. Thirty-four feet of gorgeous aluminum. It was a 1982 Avion travel trailer and it was perfect. It was the perfect amount of space, very inexpensive, and we could easily update it with our custom ideas, plus Emma our German Shepherd-Mastiff mixed pup walked right in and took a nap on of the twin beds as if to claim her room. We purchased it and the renovations began!

Everyone’s journey to finding their dream home is different and consists of varying needs. Our dream home happened to be an old camper that we customized to fit our style and comforts. We chose this unconventional home for many reasons. It is a little more eco friendly than our previous dwellings. We use less energy, water, and changed the way we think about food, waste, and other resources. These environmental foods for thought will be featured in blog entries to come. Thinking about living more sustainably is a big deal to us as a couple as we grapple with tough topics that are facing our culture and world today such as sustainable agriculture, climate change, conservation efforts, and renewable energy to name a few. Living smaller has helped in facilitating a more responsible lifestyle for us. It  also allows us to be mobile. We love to travel and camp and have no plans of settling in one city for an extended period of time right now, so it is perfect for an on the go lifestyle like ours. It is economical for us. At most campgrounds, which is where we park our home, all of your utilities are included with your lot rent, some places charge electric separately, but on the low end we have seen rent and utility expenses down to $350 per month and on the high end $700. Even on the higher end it has cut our expenses down by nearly half. We also loved the idea of living in a home that we were able to customize to our style. Living in a camper has been an unexpectedly soulful experience. I have to admit, waking up in the morning and peering out of one of the many large windows and seeing the sunlight slowly trickle through all of the trees that surround our camper is priceless. It has forced us to seek more experiences instead of more stuff. We get to be immersed in nature every single day and even though we work normal jobs in a normal town, I cannot express enough the joy and gratefulness that I feel by starting  my day surrounded by brooks and trees and ending my day the same. Coming home after a long day at the office to such a serene and cozy home is like leaving everyday for vacation. Those are the reasons we started our tiny camper home journey. What you can expect in future posts will be an array of topics including but not necessarily limited to tips and tricks for camper living, what we used and how we did our renovations, introducing modern technology to a classic camper, small space gardening, road trips and traveling, small space organization, steps to living more sustainably, and much much more! Take this journey with us as we continue to learn and grow and check out the gallery regularly for updated pictures! Your feedback is always welcome so please shoot us an email or find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram by searching The Rusty Rivet.

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