Tiny Home With Kids: She Let Them Design Their Own Rooms
After Nicole separated from her husband, she and her two children spent some time living with other families. For a while, all three of them shared one bedroom, with her daughter on the top bunk and her son below.
Then Nicole came across a tiny home community being built in Wisconsin. It offered a lot of what she was looking for: access to nature, room to garden, a sense of community and monthly expenses that would allow her to continue homeschooling her children on the income she had.
"It just seemed like such a perfect fit. I was so grateful to find it."
When it came time to design their home, Nicole made sure her kids were part of the process. The house sits on a 32-foot trailer and stands 15 feet tall, and designing a tiny home with kids meant all three of them had a say in how it came together. Her daughter even drew a picture of the bedroom she wanted, and the builder used her drawing to create it.
At a glance
Home: built on a 32 by 8.5 foot trailer, 15 feet tall
Family: Nicole, two children and two cats
Cost: about $125,000 delivered, plus about $5,000 for skirting, hookups and decks
Site rent: $495 a month, including lawn care, garbage and recycling
Heating: gas furnace under the stairs, window air conditioner in summer
Designed by: the three of them, with the children choosing their own rooms
The Community Came First
Nicole is clear that she was not shopping for a tiny house. She was shopping for a way to live, and the house followed.
"It's more the community that drew me here."
She found the place on its website, arranged to meet Melissa and walk the site, and read through the documents about it. Then she and the children interviewed three local builders. They chose one close enough to drive to regularly so they could watch the house go up. The community was being built at the same time, so they spent months watching both, a field turning into a neighborhood while their house turned into a house.
What she wants people to take from it is less about square footage than about what she could change.
"That experience of being able to build a house that's affordable, but that you also have the option to customize to exactly what you need for your family and that's unique, then it's a good reflection of how creative human beings are."
She contrasts that with the townhouses and apartments she had been living in, where every unit is the same as every other unit.
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A Kitchen Built for Cooking and Homeschool
Cooking was one area where Nicole knew she needed enough space. She cooks most days, and her daughter enjoys baking, so having a functional kitchen was important to the family.
A wood butcher block counter gives them plenty of workspace, while the two-burner induction cooktop can be stored in a cupboard when it isn't being used. The toaster oven has its own spot that the builder cut to fit it exactly. Nicole considered having it recessed into the counter but decided she would rather keep that counter space available.
There's also a pull-out cutting board at a lower height where the kids can work alongside her. With the dining table just a step away, they have several different surfaces to use when they're cooking, baking or working on school.
Nicole chose a large single-basin sink so there would be enough room for pots and pans. The builder added open shelving, and when she realized she needed more, she added some shelves her aunt and uncle were no longer using.
"I do like having the open shelves so things are pretty easily accessible. It's maybe a little more cluttered but I feel like it keeps things more open than having shut up cupboards would be."
There isn't a separate pantry, so dry goods are stored along one side of the kitchen. Nicole also chose a full-size oven because her daughter likes to bake, and they use the oven to store baking supplies when it isn't in use. An apartment-size refrigerator has been plenty for their family of three.
One Room That Does Two Jobs
The space at one end of the house is her bedroom at night and the family living room during the day. Half walls on either side and a half door close it off, and shades pull down for privacy, then in the morning everything opens up again.
Her clothes live in boxes under the bed, which has turned into a system she likes more than she expected.
"If I get one too many pants to fit in my pants box, then I get rid of a pair of pants." Bulky seasonal coats go out to the shed in a cedar chest. The homeschool supplies tuck in behind. There is an electric heater in here that looks like a fireplace, which earns its place in a Wisconsin winter.
The only fixed thing in the room is the bed. Everything else has moved around repeatedly. She thinks built in furniture might be worth it eventually, once they have stopped changing their minds about what they need.
"Given how our needs change season to season and as the kids grow, it's been very helpful to be able to just adjust our space as things change."
The Hammock Loft
Nicole saw the idea in a video another family had posted and built it into her own house. The original purpose was to let light and air move through the upper level. It has turned into most of the things that happen up there.
The children sleep on it some nights and read on it with cushions and blankets. They invented a game that involves lying on the net while Nicole pokes at them from below with a broom handle. They also use it to spy on her.
"Our whole idea was to set up this house so it felt very playful, because we've got kids and I wanted a house that encouraged us to move differently and not just be standing and sitting all the time."
Beside the net there is a flat platform that was going to hold a keyboard and become a music corner. Then the family got two cats, so it is a litter box and a cat station instead. Her son is collecting materials to add monkey bars.
She Let the Kids Design Their Own Rooms
When the house was being designed Nicole brought both children into it. It was going to be their house as much as hers, and she wanted each of them to have a space that was theirs to decide about.
Her daughter drew a picture of what she wanted. Shelves on one side, the bed in between, more built in shelves, and a window seat. The builder worked from the drawing and replicated it.
"She just drew a picture of what she wanted the shelves to look like with the bed in between, and the builder just got to work and just replicated what she drew."
Her daughter uses one set of shelves for art supplies and the other for books. She has also put in two cat entrances alongside the human door.
Her son's room has two large windows and what Nicole calls the best view in the house. That has made him the household lookout for anyone arriving in the community. His room has also changed more than anyone's. The pull out clothes boxes that worked under Nicole's bed did not work for him, so he put up a hanging rail instead, with hooks wherever he wanted them. The builder had not had time to make the cafe doors they asked for and fitted a standard door. Later he and Nicole took it down, cut it in two, put hinges on both halves and made the cafe doors themselves. He chose the color and painted them.
The Bathroom and the Half Size Water Heater
The bath is a stock tank with custom piping run into it. When nobody is bathing, a drying rack goes over the top and the cats lie on it, and it converts back quickly.
The water heater is the interesting part. It is a tank heater at half the usual size, with two elements. A mixing system brings very hot water down to temperature with cold, so a half size tank still fills the tub halfway.
There is a combination washer dryer. Nicole knew it had mixed reviews and chose it anyway, because doing laundry at home with two children mattered more than the unit being perfect. It takes a while and it shakes.
The toilet is in its own room, which she says has been important for three people sharing a small house. Both rooms double as changing rooms. That room also holds the toiletries, the first aid supplies, a cabinet of art supplies she added after moving in, and the broom and vacuum, which she notes are often hard to place in a tiny house.
They are connected to city utilities, and the toilet is a standard flushing one because the city preferred it that way.
Heating It Through a Wisconsin Winter
Nicole looked at a mini split and decided against it, for a reason worth knowing if you are building somewhere cold. A mini split will not heat at the temperatures Wisconsin reaches. She would have needed a backup system regardless, which meant buying two systems to do one job.
Instead there is a gas furnace under the stairs, and a window air conditioner that goes into the loft window for the summer. Fans move the air in warm weather. The electric heaters in the bathroom and her room take the edge off the corners the furnace does not reach.
One consequence she did not predict is that a house without central air has no air filter, so it was getting dusty. A couple of small air purifiers fixed it, and they earn their keep again now that there are cats.
What a Tiny Home With Kids Costs to Run
The house came to about $125,000 by the time it was delivered. Setting it up on the site added around $5,000. That covered insulated skirting, utility hookups, skirting on the shed and simple decks at the front and side, most of it required by the city so the homes look permanent.
The monthly figures are the ones that made the decision possible. Site rent is $495, and that covers lawn care, garbage, recycling and the community's shared spaces. Water and sewer run about $30. Gas averages about $22. Electricity moves with the season, roughly $80 to $90 in summer and $120 to $150 in winter.
There is one condition worth being honest about, because it is the barrier. This community requires residents to arrive already owning their home. Nicole calls that the main financial hurdle, and she was able to clear it as part of her divorce. The low monthly costs come after that, not instead of it.
What those costs bought her was the thing she was actually after.
"I needed to set up a situation to keep my cost of living low enough that I could afford to homeschool my children with the amount of income that I had."
What It Took Off Her Plate
Nicole did not know how long they would be here when they arrived. Six years of options were open and she was prepared for this to be temporary.
"I could totally see myself living here for decades."
She expects the house to change as the children grow and eventually move out, and she is relaxed about that. Changing it is the one thing this house has always been good at. The dining table folds down for dance parties. The loft has been a reading nook, a bedroom, a music room that never happened and now a cat station. Almost nothing in it is fixed.
What she keeps coming back to is what the lower overheads freed up rather than what they saved.
"Living tiny has taken things off my plate that I would be spending time or energy or money on, that now I get to do other things."
Those other things are her community, volunteering, building relationships and time outside.
If you want to see another home in the same community, a retiree living there on Social Security breaks her numbers down the same way. For how her $495 compares, our lot rent guide collects what 12 real communities charge, and you can see what we have filmed in your state.
FAQ
Can you live in a tiny home with kids?
Nicole lives in one with her son and daughter, in a house built on a 32 foot trailer. Each of them has their own room, which she says was the point rather than an afterthought, and both children helped design the house before it was built. She says it was important that the home felt playful as well as practical, which is where the hammock loft came from.
Can you homeschool in a tiny home?
Nicole homeschools both of her children at the dining table, which folds down when they need the floor space. Keeping her cost of living low enough to homeschool on her income was one of the reasons she chose this house and this community in the first place. The supplies live in the room that doubles as her bedroom.
What are the monthly costs of living in a tiny home?
Nicole pays $495 a month in site rent, which covers lawn care, garbage, recycling and the community's shared spaces. On top of that, water and sewer run about $30 a month and gas averages about $22. Electricity is the variable one, around $80 to $90 in summer and $120 to $150 in winter.
How do you heat a tiny home in a cold climate?
Nicole chose a gas furnace tucked under the stairs rather than a mini split, because a mini split would not heat at the temperatures Wisconsin reaches and she would have needed a backup system anyway. A window air conditioner handles summer. Because there is no central air, there is no filter either, so she added small air purifiers to deal with the dust.
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