ST. LOUIS _ Samantha Roberts knows exactly how crazy her plan sounds, so hold your comments.
Telling people that she voluntarily wants to live in a 336-square-foot house with her spouse, kindergartner, 7-year-old, teenager, a Shih Tzu mixed breed, and another aging dog that is blind and diabetic elicits the same gut response from nearly everyone.
"I'm tired of people telling me I'm crazy. We've thought about this more than any of them. Trust me, I know it's not going to be all unicorns and rainbows," said Roberts, who currently lives in a custom-built 2,300-square-foot home outside St. Louis. They put the four-bedroom house on the market last month for $225,000.
If all goes well, as soon as it's sold, construction will begin on their 28-foot-long tiny home with two loft bedrooms and a modest ground floor master bedroom that will cost about $50,000.
Instead of eight rooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, they'll live together in a space smaller than her current kitchen.
The biggest reason for the major shift is economics. They'll be able to pay for their tiny home outright and live mortgage-free.
"We can afford the house where we live, but we can't afford to take our kids on trips," she said. The family of five hasn't gone on vacation in seven years.
The only people who aren't skeptical of her plan are the homebuilders, a company run by a couple who aren't just selling homes but presenting a philosophical challenge.
What's really important? Creature comforts at the expense of your free time, your financial security and your familial bonds?
Mark Mitchell and his wife, Emily, were living in a 2,000-square-foot home when he became obsessed with tiny homes. It took three long years to sell the house once they put it on the market.
He was a building project manager at the time working on large-scale projects that were very lucrative. It was a "good job," Emily said, but Mark says it just wasn't satisfying.
When he proposed the idea of quitting his job to start a company making tiny houses, Emily wasn't sold. She works as a real estate appraiser for St. Louis County and said she had no idea what the market for tiny homes would be. The trend hasn't really hit Missouri, she said.
Mark kept his day job as he designed his first prototype, an 288-square-foot home on wheels. He built it with the same materials that traditional homebuilders use, including double-pane windows. He employed many of the same downsized design elements and incorporated full-size items, such as sinks, when he could.
This couldn't be a dollhouse, he said.
The stairs to the loft had to be navigable by an adult, and so did the bathroom. He worked on unexpected storage options and included a ceiling fan.
The first house sold to a guy moving to Kansas City, and it sold before the open house. He saw the photos online and told the Mitchells that he had to have it.
