A friend of mine and I just built a tiny house for him and his wife. They both make great money, and were renting, and realized the next step was to buy a home... but they just didn't want to. They wanted to travel more, simplify, and move out of the big city.

So, inspired by my efforts to build my own tiny house a few years ago, they decided to build their own.

And, four weeks later, they live in it, on a piece of property that is rural and has great views of Mount Rainier, and they take the commuter train into the city for work.

They are pretty blissed out about the whole thing.

And the best part for them, hands down?

Getting rid of their stuff.

They had to literally touch every single thing they own and decide whether or not to keep it.

And ya know what? None of that shit in the 4-bedroom house with a garage was worth keeping. The few mementos they built into the house - a piece of stained glass here, etc - and the rest of the stuff they gave away to friends, had a garage sale, and donated to Goodwill.

Now, when they come to visit and Susanne needs a lap blanket, we hand her the one we got from her. So she smiles, tells us a memory of the blanket, and gets warm underneath it. But she no longer needs it in her house. She can "visit it" when she comes to our house!

It's pretty cool, man.

They are the SIXTH couple I know who have built their own tiny house and live happily in it. (One of the key tricks is to make sure you have a fantastic deck.)