Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
OGDEN — Imagine living in a 160-square-foot house. If that sounds appealing, you are not alone, according to the growing industry of tiny houses.
Maximus Extreme Living Solutions owner and CEO Stew MacInnes said he has been a real estate broker in Utah since 1991. During his career, he eventually learned about tiny homes and became fascinated by the concept and construction of them.
“I kept coming home for about three months, and I’d show my wife and say, ‘Babe, check this out. Look at this, look at this,’ ” MacInnes said. “She indulged me, but after about three months she said, ‘Hey, I need you to do me a favor, Stew … I need you to either go start a company building tiny homes or shut up because you are driving me nuts.”
MacInnes decided to followed his newly found interest and started Maximus Extreme Living Solutions in Ogden in December 2011. He began with building small units as alternatives to “man camps” in mining and oil fields, but now constructs tiny customized homes. The majority of the homes he builds are around 8 feet wide, 20 feet long and 14 feet high — a total 160-square feet.
MacInnes said he has seen a huge trend in people adopting a “minimalist” lifestyle and downsizing.
“When you look at millennials, they are more minimalist,” he said. “The things that are important to them are relationships. Connectivity. Flexibility … (These tiny houses) really dovetail nicely into that whole mindset for folks. They gravitate towards this.”
Salt Lake City resident Jessica Judy Gilmore became drawn to tiny houses in 2013 after quitting her job and moving to Olympia, Washington. She lived in a tiny house for four months and said she became "converted" to the lifestyle. In 2014, when Gilmore moved back to Utah, she began building her own tiny house.
Although the homes typically only take six to 12 weeks to build, MacInnes said it is “like a big jigsaw puzzle” to fit a kitchen, living room area and bathroom into the small space. As a result, the tiny houses typically don’t have interior walls or doors — except for sometimes around the bathroom area — and the spaces all flow into each other.
Along with the minimalist lifestyle, MacInnes said people are being drawn to tiny houses as an alternative to traditional housing because they are very cost-effective — $55,000 on average. They can also be permanently fixed on trailers, making them very portable.
“I think it hearkens back to when we were kids and you play in forts and tree houses and having a cool little clubhouse or your own little space,” he said. “These tiny homes help folks take a step back in time. … There is a sense of freedom. You don’t have a huge mortgage. You have the ability, if you don’t like where you are, you move. It gives people a sense of control.”
However, Gilmore said it can be difficult to switch over to a minimalist lifestyle. She said because society often correlates material belongings with status, she sometimes feels like she has to defend and explain her lifestyle to others.
Gilmore said having a tiny house also forces you to change your routines. Her home is 125-square feet and at first, it was easy to get "cabin fever" in such a small space. As a result, she said she uses the outdoors and public areas like coffee shops as an extension of her living room.
"The experience of moving into a tiny house, it really forces you to talk to other people more because you realize you're just sitting in your house . and you want to step outside of this little box," she said. "You are kind of more faced with the reality that you are alone in your house, whereas when you are in a big house alone, you've got your screens on, you've got your distractions of whatever kind to keep you from thinking you are alone."
MacInnes said the largest demographic of buyers of tiny homes are single women over 50. However, he said he was recently contracted to build a tiny home for a family of five in Denver, evidencing a large demographic of buyers. And Gilmore said that once you live in a tiny house and adopt that lifestyle, you won't go back.
"The proof is in the pudding, I guess," she said. "When you get rid of all your stuff and you hang out with someone who has gotten rid of all their stuff, you see this peacefulness to their lifestyle you can see the difference of a minimalist lifestyle and that's what tiny houses force you to have I couldn't ever go back to living in a big house."
The growing popularity has also caused a rise of TV shows, including “Tiny House Nation,” “Tiny House Hunters” and “Tiny House Builders.” Maximus Extreme Living Solutions was featured on “Tiny House Nation” Monday evening.
