Find out why this couple loves to stare at their amazing ceiling

When the pine board ceiling was done, "Dan and I spent almost an hour a day just staring up at it," says one of the owners of this cozy home.
Tiny house owners Jess and Dan embody the do-it-yourself spirit of the tiny house movement that also embraces living in style, while presenting a low environmental profile and keeping expenses within your means.
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The young couple share their enthusiasm, as many tiny house adventurers do, with an online blog that describes a recent trip to the Asheville, N.C. Tiny House Conference, where the topics for the tiny house faithful combined a sense of Lilliputian romance with Henry David Thoreaus's ideal of living with purpose.
Besides re-establishing connections with others in the tiny house movement, Jess and Dan were able to attend workshops that included, “Downsizing Your Space and Life,” “Lifestyle Design,” “Off-Grid Living” and “Composting Toilets.”
Besides publishing their own blog (modestly called "Living In A Tiny House"), the couple related their story to CustomMade, where they said their own tiny house adventure began with a design they drew up by themselves and building up their carpentry skills as they went along. This may account for the extremely comfortable, learn-as-you-go feel to their beautiful domicile. 
And just because you have the dream, the design and the discipline to construct your own tiny home, doesn't mean it's always easy. “Dan and I really leaned on one another when we were feeling especially overwhelmed,” CustomMade quoted Jess as saying.
Long story short: They came up with a gem. The finished product is snug, playful, practical and aesthetically delightful. It represents about a million small decisions that culminated in the final product, which happens to be a very tiny home with a distinctly lived-in feel to it.
The exterior looks simple enough. Plenty of windows is certainly common for tiny houses. It makes lighting simpler and gives you a great view of your host planet. 
This next shot shows the so-called great room. (A lot of tiny houses have at least one ironic name in their daily nomenclature -- like calling a loft the "master bedroom.") 
Looking the other way shows the kitchen in the distance (relatively speaking). Notice the clever, short ladder that leads to the loft.  That allows the space where the lower half of the ladder would be much more useful -- extended storage shelves and a counter, for example. 
One of the builders' proudest moments was completion of the ceiling, says Jess. In part, this is because it was the first of the major surfaces that was completed right down to the finish. Secondly, the couple used reclaimed pine boards that were "cut and planed by hand in the 1700s." Was it worth it? It sounds like it. "Once the ceiling was in place, Dan and I spent almost an hour a day just staring up at it," Jess told CustomMade.
Playful colors can help make a tiny house appear very cheerful. Notice the purple beams holding up the loft, the matching purple countertop ... 
and the loudly colorful welcome mat at the front door.
There's nothing wrong with the lived-in look. This is not just a tiny house. It is also, in effect, a living, breathing, tiny home ... 
with a cheerful kitchen ... 
a cozy bedroom ... 
and one of these.
So what's missing?
The truth is living in a tiny home is not about cramming every one of life's luxuries into a small space, like you might do in a fantasy doll's house. That's why the Tiny House Conference in North Carolina, for example, includes workshops about "Lifestyle Design" and "Downsizing Your Space and Life." Committing your lifestyle to a tiny space, many say, requires some good, old-fashioned soul searching and in Jess and Dan's case, the couple came up with the idea of building a home without any plumbing. 
Yes, that means a dry toilet and a kitchen without a sink. It also means hauling water and doing your bathing and laundry elsewhere. But, hey, for a home on wheels the concept of
elsewhere takes on a whole, new meaning, too. So life in a tiny house requires a tiny adjustment or two. That might mean doing without plumbing, but living within your means in an adventure you can call your own.
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