Tiny homes have become a very popular trend in recent years. They are popping up all over the world in places you’d never expect, and, in the process, revolutionizing micro-living. At EcoWatch, we have featured professional snowboarder Mike Basich’s off-grid mountain retreat, two college students who built a tiny house for just $489 and even a tiny cabin community, in which a group of friends built a set of homes on a 10-acre riverfront property by the Llano River in Texas.
People all over the world are opting to downsize their living quarters for a simpler, more affordable and eco-friendly lifestyle. Often times, people are craving a fresh start and a tiny home seems like the logical first step. Take these two women: Kelley Lewis and Stephanie Adams. Let’s start with Lewis. “Divorced and left on her own with three small children to care for, Kelley Lewis decided to turn her life around and literally re-build it with her bare hands,” said Laura Ling, narrator of the Seeker Network’s series Going Off Grid.
Lewis’s marriage ended just a few weeks before her third child was born, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “Change was forced upon me,” Lewis said. “When you hit a rock-bottom experience, you have a choice of staying down or building up.”
Lewis decided to buy a lot on the shore of a lake near South Vienna, Ohio and has spent the last two years building a 192-square-foot tiny home as a summer getaway for her and her kids. But it’s about so much more than that for her. It was “part therapy, part emancipation and part bonding opportunity for Lewis and her three young children,” The Columbus Dispatch said. “Doing this was a gift to myself,” said Lewis. “It was a symbol of a new beginning.”
Lewis, who has been documenting the experience on her blog Cabin Chick and on Facebook, plans to spend about $20,000 by the time the cabin is done.
Watch Lewis’s amazing story here: