A local celebrity in the tiny home craze will be on display for everyone to see Sunday, June 24 when Realtor Tia Johnson of The Group opens the doors of 3202 Pinewood Avenue for an open house.
The 656-square foot domicile was featured in the premiere episode of “Tiny Home Mansions,” a one-hour reality series that premiered on cable channel FYI in June 2017.
The episode follows the team at Wind River Tiny Homes in Chattanooga as it helps a young couple build and move into their first “tiny mansion.”
The Pinewood Avenue residence is also one of the top-pinned tiny homes on Pinterest.
The house is slated to be the on the market by June 22, with Johnson, the listing agent, hoping to draw a big crowd to the showing on Sunday.
“It’s my birthday, so I’ll have cake on hand,” the 25-year-old agent says.
The open house will also take place close to Johnson’s one-year anniversary as a Realtor. But even though she’s still new to real estate, she’s learned enough about the tiny home phenomenon to suggest how a more than 600-foot square house on a permanent foundation qualifies as one. (Tiny homes rarely exceed 500 square feet.)
“According to my research and a lot of hours spent watching HGTV, tiny homes are not just about fitting everything into a small space but about optimized storage, as well,” Johnson says.
She points to the pantry, located under a set of stairs, as an example.
Three small triangular doors open to the food storage area. The stairs above them lead to the “master suite,” where a small bed and a full bath have somehow been fit into a room with a low ceiling and the square footage of a large closet in a regular house.
On the other side of the wall along which the head of the bed has been placed, a paddleboard hovers on a pulley system over a kitchen, living room, second full bath and tiny office.
Next to the bar that separates the kitchen from the living is a door that leads to a car port.
Customized touches abound, such as the bike bears imbedded in the concrete counter tops in the kitchen.
“The couple that lives here likes to travel and do things outdoors,” Johnson says. “The house reflects that.”
Listing at $150,000, this tiny house hardly comes at a tiny price. The average cost of a tiny home falls between $30,000 and $40,000, and rarely exceeds $180,000, according to Reader’s Digest, placing 3202 Pinewood Avenue near the higher end of the spectrum.
But energy efficient upgrades such as solar panels, foam insulation and mini-split air conditioning came with a cost, as did the square footage.
However, the house offers cheap living, Johnson says. “The electric bill runs between $20 to $60 a month, depending on how cold it is.”
Built in 2015 by Wind River Tiny Homes (which no longer builds homes on permanent foundations), 3202 Pinewood Avenue offers a blend of urban and contemporary architecture as well as a blend of indoor and outdoor living.
A roll-up glass “garage” door leads from the living room to the fenced-in backyard, where five tree stumps circle a fire pit. The entire backyard is ringed by a string of small lights.
This is just one of the many touches Johnson says make 3202 Pinewood Avenue feel like a tiny home, not a tiny house. “I can see myself living here,” she adds. “They put a lot of thought into the details. It feels like home.”
Tiny home hunters and curiosity seekers will be able to decide for themselves how homey 3202 Pinewood Avenue feels when they take the grand tour Sunday. The home will be open to visitors from 2-4 p.m.
Information: 423 779-4477