This story is amazing!.
Tiny homes will never go out of style as they are affordable and easy to build. This Kentucky-based family has built a small village of tiny homes for the entire family, so they can all live in the same place but still maintain their privacy.
The Brinks family is comprised of the parents, Keli and Ryan, and their two children, Brodey and Lennox, and they switched their entire lifestyle from a 2,200 square foot house to a collection of tiny homes. This way they can have a more sustainable lifestyle, saving money on utilities, and living closer to nature. Their small village hosts a larger home of 280 square feet for the parents and two smaller homes of 160 square feet, one for each child.
The two smaller houses do not have a bathroom inside, so there is another separate unit for this which also has a room so it can be used as a guesthouse too.
The village also hosts another smaller home of 180 square feet which is a pool house to be used for family get-togethers, game nights and opens up to a swimming pool. It seems like the Brinks have thought about every tiny detail, as they managed to create the perfect sustainable village for a small community.
Five years ago, the Brinks family wanted to move from their 2,200-square-foot home in Michigan and live more sustainably.
In 2015, they bought a 21-acre piece of land in London, Kentucky, for $57,000 and turned it into a private tiny-house village for the family.
“We chose London, Kentucky, because of the lack of restrictions for housing and because the land was much cheaper than in areas of Tennessee that were closer to the family but more expensive and with restrictions,” Keli said.
The parents’ house.
The first tiny house in the village is where Keli lives with Ryan.
At 280 square feet, the house is the biggest on the property. It cost $9,000.
The bathroom and guest house.
Next door is a tiny house made up of two bathrooms for each of the couple’s two children.
“It’s really not that bad,” Lennox said. “It seems much worse than it is. I just put a coat on if it’s cold or raining. I’ll just bundle up and run over there.”
Adjacent to that is the pool house, where the family comes together to connect.
The pool house is one big room that measures 180 square feet. It has several seating areas so the family can hang out and play games.
Brodey’s house.
At just 16, Brodey lives next door to the pool in his own tiny house.
This 160-square-foot house is actually a wood cabin that features a small porch out front.
“When my parents were first deciding which houses to put down, me and my brother both got to pick which model we wanted,” Lennox said. “My brother picked one with a larger porch.”
Lennox’s house.
Lennox’s tiny house is actually a barn.
The children “were able to pick their own cabin design and decorate them how they wanted,” Keli said. “We simply asked the builders to not put in the barn-type door in the front but to put in a regular entry door instead.”
On the ground floor, Lennox has a couch, a dresser, and a TV. The loft houses her full-size bed.
The office.
There’s also a small 64-square-foot house that the family uses as an office.
The 21-acre property also has a barn, a chicken coop, and a goat, which all play an important role in the family’s sustainable lifestyle.
Keli said the tiny houses conserve energy because it’s easier to heat and cool smaller spaces. Additionally, the family produces only one bag of trash per week.
“The reason we have so little trash is that we try to live by the very important rule of RRRR: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle,” Keli said. “We almost always refuse plastic bags for groceries and use cloth bags. We compost almost all our food. We give our produce leftovers to the chickens. We recycle everything that is allowed to be recycled. We rarely use our clothes dryer.”
The Brinks family around the fire pit.
On TikTok, Lennox’s videos which explain her family’s village can receive up to 14 million views and thousands of comments from curious social media users.
Lennox Brinks, 20, has over 572,000 followers on the platform who can’t get enough of her family’s unusual living situation.
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