What happened to the stove?

Dear Unloved Stove,

Travis and I are not sorry to inform you that you will no longer be apart of our tiny house. We did not love you from the very beginning nor did we love you at the very end. If anything we grew to hate you. There are too many reasons why you will not be missed but here's a few that we feel we need to express. 

Oh the times you made us wake up in the middle of the night, freezing because you were unable to burn for more than 3 hours; will not be missed. Or the time that you made me (Kiah) get onto the roof, all alone to fix you; will not be missed.  The time that you burnt Travis' hand while he was trying to fit wood inside you to keep us warm; will not be missed. The time that you spit ash out and almost caught my hair on fire; will not be missed. In the end it brings us much joy knowing you're gone! Farewell stove and may you never return!

Sincerely,

The-Tiny-House-Couple-who-have-found-new-babies-to-love

Click the video below to go to our Youtube Channel where we explain why we're getting rid of the stove

Thanks for watching!

The Big Reveal!

This past weekend we invited friends and family to check out the house.

Almost everybody's favorite part was our tiny stove and the pallets on the walls.

I'm happy that my family and friends came to check out the house and support us. 

I didn't think owning or even building a tiny house was going to be life changing, but it was. I've learned so much from my tiny house and it's hard for me to put into words how grateful I am for it. I'm grateful that Travis and I gave ourselves this opportunity. It kick-started us to do so much more with our lives.

Here's pictures from our house warming

If anybody has any more they'd like to share, please do with the #tinyhouse

Travis talking about the stove 

I think my little cousins had a blast walking up and down our stairs :)

Meeting my second cousin for the first time :)

This picture is priceless <3 Pure love right here

Giving hugs!

Travis giving my grandparents a tour

Travis' family and friends

Freckles! <3

What a little ham! He's up to something ;)

My dad brought a tape measure..... He wouldn't be a Rudnicki if he didn't have one on him ;)

He's smiling! This was Freckles' first time seeing the house completed! He stopped by frequently when we were working on the house. What a sweet boy!

<3

Somebody was eager to leave ;) 

Thanks to everyone who came out and brought goodies for Travis and I! We really appreciated everything and all the food that was brought!

Love you all!

We're FINISHED!

This was the first picture we took of the house. It was the day after we got it moved onto the property. Back then we called it "the trailer". We had a vision of what we wanted to do, but we couldn't quite call it a tiny house yet.

We worked so hard on the trailer. Day and night. There were quite a few 12-hour-days we pulled working on this thing.

Nothing has compared to all the hard work that we put into making this our Tiny Home. Travis and I talk all the time about how building this house was the greatest achievement of our lives so far.  More so than walking across a stage and getting handed a piece of paper; graduating high school. That does not compare, even by a little. 

We have so many memories of working on the house. I can't wait to see what the future holds for us!

I also want to thank my brother and his dad for coming up and helping us finish the house. Honestly, I'm super thankful that they made time to paint the house. If anybody out there is looking to get their house painted, let me know and I can put you in contact!

They are hard workers and very good at painting houses. I mean, they made a trailer look like a tiny home!

Now for the big reveal!

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TA DA!!!!!

We are finally done!! I want to say thank you to my man. I could explode with a bunch of lovey-dovey statements about how amazing this guy is! I'll just stick with; if it wasn't for you, my handsome, we wouldn't of been able to say "WE BUILT A TINY HOUSE!"

WE DID IT!!!

Pumpkin "Turkey" Chili with video

Oh I love Pumpkin "Turkey" Chili!

It's the perfect fall dish for this time of year and in my opinion it's super healthy!

In my Pumpkin "Turkey" Chili I used pea protein instead of turkey because I'm vegetarian. My mom and I have been making this recipe for years.  

I would like to suggest a few things before you jump into cooking the chili!

Allrecipes.com is where my mom and I found this recipe and it's my favorite site for a myriad of reasons. One of those reasons is that you can change the amount of servings and it'll show you the exact amount of each ingredient you need. This takes the guess work out for you. Since I've made this recipe so much, I just eye ball it and make a bunch!

Another reason is that a lot of the recipes have very few ingredients and I've found that those are the ones that turn out the best! Less is more not only applies to the Bounty quicker picker upper, but here too.

I also like to add or take away ingredients and try to make it my own. I have yet to try this with this recipe because I love the simplicity of it, but I would suggest adding one or all of these ingredients; corn, beans, chips, and salsa. I've recently found warm salsa and let me tell you, it's as good as cold salsa! If you live in the Denver metro area or any of the states that has Fuzzy's Taco, you must go!  All I'll say is they make the best warm salsa and veggie tacos!

Next I would suggest prepping your food. Sometimes I find cooking or baking stressful and it's because I don't prepare myself. I taught myself to cut everything up, open cans and containers before I start cooking. Reason being; when I start the actual cooking part I like to keep an eye on everything I put in and not have to focus on chopping and cooking at the same time. Prepping myself makes cooking less stressful and way more fun!

Last suggestion is to make a bunch so that you have plenty of leftovers. Trust me you'll want them! For yourself and so you can share it with your friends and family!

Video time!

I love watching cooking videos because it relaxes me, specifically ones that show the cooking process. I thought it would be a great idea for me to put a little video together and make Travis be my guinea pig. Mwuahhh (that's my evil laugh) I make it every year and I think this year was the best yet!

Thanks for stopping by and make sure to comment and let me know if you make this and if you add or take anything out.  Also if you have any fall recipes you like making, please share it here or on any of the Tiny House Couple's social media! I love seeing what other people like to cook or bake this time of year.

Bon Appetit! 

Decorating a Tiny House on a Budget: Fall Edition

Hey everyone!

Fall is upon us! It's been fall for a while now and I'm a bit late decorating but I'm super excited to show you all what I came up with.

I love decorating! Halloween and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays to decorate for.

My budget was $20 and I decided to go to the Dollar Store. I also got a couple things at Joann's which has really good discounts as well.

If you've been following us for some time, you will know that I love fairy lights! I grew up having them all over the house.

When it came to decorating, I knew I wanted to add something to my wall-lights, so I came up with taping leaves to them. I've never seen anybody do this before so I thought it was original and fun! I love how it looks like they're falling.

(The leaves cost about $6. I got some at the Dollar Store and some at Joann's)

I also bought the little pumpkin that is sitting next to the globe (in the photo above). I cut out the top and stuck a flameless candle in it. (I also did that with double sided tape. I just wanted regular tape. Silly me) The pumpkin cost about $5.

I love decorating the front door because it's the first thing people see when they enter a home. 

I thought it wasn't a good idea to put anything on the outside of the door (because of all the water that runs off the side of the trailer) I decided to do it on the inside, plus you see it more than you would on the outside. I bought this leaf and pumpkin hanging piece at Joann's for super cheap and painted it. I didn't paint the back side of it because I thought I could paint it differently next year.

BEWARE! This thing is like a glitter bomb (if you don't know what a glitter bomb is, click here) I got this at the dollar store for $1. I wanted to put something festive on the table. I also love looking at it when the sun shines through the window and hits it, so pretty!

Lastly, I taped a bunch of fake leaves all over the house. Luckily for Travis I didn't just go out and rake a bunch of leaves and throw them in a pile in the middle of the floor, which at this point I should of done.

In the end I stayed way under my budget for these fall decorations.  I love the simplicity of how it all looks and for how cheap they were I'm happy with how everything turned out. It makes our tiny house look festive and feel that more cozy! 

Hope you enjoyed and got inspired to decorate your house!

Happy Fall!

Update on the Tiny House

Hey guys!

It's been a while since we've updated you on the house. 

We've been living in it for about three months now and it's going great. There's a few things that are harder when living in a tiny house compared to a regular house, if you guys want to see a blog post on that, let me know and I'd love to do one.

Also exciting news!

We will hopefully have the outside of the house painted by the end of this week. We're shooting for the outside to be done before the end of October. 

Here's a before picture of the house and it all prepped and ready to be painted

October is already my favorite month and there's a lot of exciting plans that Travis and I are making. First is finishing the house, completely (and before winter that's our number one priority), then Halloween; lot's of adventures that I'm planning on making videos on, i.e. haunted houses, Oktoberfest, parties, etc. Lastly, Travis and I are finally planning our first big trip together. We'll let you guys know where we go :)

I'm excited for this coming month! Lot's of changes and exciting things happening! I hope you guys enjoy and continue to follow along our journey with us!

What Motivates Us: Fitness Edition

Motivation

Since starting this fitness challenge, Travis and I have talked a lot about motivation. We talked a lot about how we stayed motivated with building the house and now we constantly talk about how we stay motivated with getting in shape.

The key here is that motivation is an ongoing process in life. It's what separates us from other animals. Motivation let's us reach our goals.

There are five big ways we stay motivated;

1. Emotion. We become sad and angry with where we are physically and that pushes us to work harder to get to where we want to be.

2. Paying for a gym membership. Paying for a gym membership motivates you? What? Hear me out. 
I really dislike wasting my hard earned money. Whatever I buy, you can bet that I will get as much use out of it as I can. I look at a gym membership the same way or investing in gym attire or a gym bag, I don't want to waste my money by not putting those things to use. This can also apply to other things in life, for example; buying an organizer to help manage your time better, as long as you use it. You bought it, why not put it to use? Don't waste your money.

3. Measuring progress. Whenever I'm in a funk and I'm trying to motivate myself, I think about how far I've come physically already. I think about how I used to hate how my clothes felt and not being able to wear my favorite jeans. This helps me work harder to not feel that way again. I used to weigh 150lbs. and now I weigh 120lbs. That's progress no matter how you look at it.

4. Finding a gym routine you enjoy. This is my number one motivator! I have to enjoy at least one thing in the gym for me to actually walk through the gym doors. I enjoy changing up my routine. Lot's of people like group workouts such as; dancing, Zumba, yoga, pilates, etc. Try and find something that you enjoy and I promise it will make you excited to work out.

5. Imagine where you'll be in a year. The last thing that motivates me, not only with working out but with other aspects of my life, is to constantly think about where I'll be in a year. Last year I was just beginning to build a tiny house and now, a YEAR LATER, that tiny house is finished and I'm living in it. If I keep going and work hard to achieve my goals then I will be that much closer, if not already, achieving my goals a year from now. A year is not very long if you think about it.

Next year I'll look back and imagine how I felt in my body in this moment and I can imagine how great I'm going to feel. That motivates me to keep going and reach my goals.

These are our top motivators when it comes to working out. I'm going to be honest here, I don't always enjoy working out, but when I think about these five things before I hit the gym, it brings me right back to the fact that this is our one and only life. We have one life to make everything we dream become reality and I see working out and being healthy as a starting point. 

It's the foundation to reaching my dreams.