Tiny Houses are Big Draw in Orlando

Emily Lindahl and Dorian hosted a Tiny Houses open house at College Park Village RV/Tiny House Community in Orlando. Dorian lives in a custom-built single-level tiny house with an open floorplan (The Dorian, built by Maximus Extreme), while Emily lives in a tinier house, built by Elaine Walker of the Tiny House-Community,  based on the Tumbleweed Lusby plans (now the Elm 18 Equator). Built in 2009  the house has traveled nearly 7,000 miles from New Hampshire to
California to Washington DC to where it resides now in Florida. Emily met Elaine at a meetup in November and she told Elaine that she planned to sell her large house to start living small. About a month later, Elaine moved out of her tiny house to care for a family member in Florida and offered to let Emily move in. Emily accepted, but someday she hopes to save up enough to build a tiny house of her own.

When I arrived at the Tiny House Open House, Emily gave me a quick tour of her place. A huge vine has grown up the back wall of the home and is climbing onto tree limbs. Emily reached up on tip toe to show me a large gourd that will be a loofa sponge when she harvests it and dries it out. The first landscaping feature Emily added was a winding garden path. She definitely has a green thumb because the garden around her tiny house is flourishing. Her tiny house looks out across a gorgeous lake. Though she is living small, she has a million dollar view. Two hundred or so people showed up to the open house. It was a bit surreal to see a long line of giants waiting to tour the tiny house.

Emily Lindahl has been interested in tiny houses since she was in college. She first saw a Jay Shafer YouTube video on tiny houses in 2006. She grew up in a huge house but was always a bit of a minimalist. She attended a tumbleweed Tiny House building workshop in January 2013 and she and a classmate started a Tiny Houses Facebook group shortly after. The group page started with just 20 people but has grown to over 1600 members. The Tiny Houses Community is getting more organized by pooling resources and getting a website and forum. Emily is the Director of Communications for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra so she knows how to bring people together using social media. She hopes to one day see Tiny House communities throughout Florida. A tiny housed video series will be released on YouTube soon. Emily wrote the theme song for it. She uses the hashtag #emilystinyadventure online to share her experiences. You can also follow the adventure on Instagram at @emilystinyadventure plus she is sharing her tiny adventure on her blog.

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