The $350 Vintage Railcar That Became a Tiny House for Two

Like many tiny home dwellers, Hannah Leigh Doss was moved to go small for financial reasons. After college graduation in 2011, she moved often and usually to places where she didn’t know anyone. That led to some experiences she would rather not repeat, and those led to her tiny story. 

The Origin: Had Enough of Roomies

High housing costs forced Doss to look for a roommate each time she found a new town in which to hang her hat. “After several awful roommates, and sharing walls in apartments with people almost just as bad, I decided I had had enough,” Doss says. “I wanted my own walls, and I wanted something that I could afford by myself. A tiny house was the answer.”

She found her new home in an unusual place: a railroad surplus auction. Doss had the winning bid, a whopping $350. Along with her parents, Doss spent three month reshaping the former railcar into a home that fit her needs and reflected her style, using secondhand, reinvented or donated parts as often as she could. “I now have a 29-foot-by-8-foot tiny house that I have lived in for five years and that cost me about $9,000,” she says. Doss figures she and her parents put in about $10,000 worth of labor on the project. 

Fighting RV Park Rules for Space to Rest

Her home, which she has appropriately named “Journey,” is made to be hauled behind a truck, but she often has trouble finding a spot to call home. “When you go to an RV park and say you have a tiny house, a lot of the employees just reply ‘We don’t take tiny houses,’” Doss says “A lot of RV Parks are also 55+ communities or your rig must be 10 years or newer. The shell of my trailer is from the ‘80s, although it has been completely refurbished, and I still get a 'No' based on its age. Basically, it’s way more complicated than it should be.”

Small Space Set Her Free

Moving from a more typical dwelling into a tiny home means making some choices about what will stay and what has to go. That process can be difficult for many, but for Doss, the other side of the purge brought new peace. “My possessions no longer own me,” she says.”Getting rid of so many things that I thought I treasured was hard in the beginning, but I really don’t miss a thing that I had to part with.” In fact, this new pared-down way of living has even made getting gifts a bit stressful for her. “I’d much rather have experiences than material items.”

Time to Move On?

Doss is pondering moving from her current California back to Tennessee, but the high cost of moving and prospect of earning some money for a new adventure have her considering selling Journey. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she is done with the tiny life. “It’ll cost me about $2,000 in gas to move Journey back. Or I could sell her at California prices and then rebuild something back home for another $12,000 or so,” she says. “Seems like a business no-brainer if I can keep my sentimental attachments out of it.”