Disappointment & Opportunity All in a Tiny Day! or Storybook Rudolph Cottage gets Even Tinier!

What a week here at Shiny Tiny Mansion – Whew! The following events are proof that living simply does not mean that all will go smoothly in the rest of your life, but alas, the river has rapids and calm spots and we will float on!
About a month ago, I was scouted by a talent/casting producer out of LA for a new reality TV Competition Series featuring “Furniture Designers” for SPIKE TV! This was unexpected and out of the blue. I was completely unaware of the new show. They contacted me ~ how they found me, I don’t know but I imagine the interwebs. For those of you who don’t know, my business is designing and building Modern, sometimes funky custom furniture. We ship all over the US and beyond.
I was over-the-moon excited, thinking about the exposure this would give my business and Shiny Tiny. Although I am not a beauty boy, young model type, I am more comfortable on stage than in real life – most days anyway. So I did a Skype interview with the Casting Producer, and it went well. He laughed a lot and although it could have gone better, I was pretty happy overall. He said he really liked me, was going to pitch me to the show producers, and sounded excited. How cool is that?!!

Time went by  and things moved on. They sent me all the forms, and I filled them out from basic info to criminal records (I have none BTW;) Looked good and the pitch was supposed to be July 28th and then I would find out if I was chosen for the show.

Another email stated that the network was still debating, and it would be August 1st before they decided. If chosen, I had to fly out on August 9th! On August 1st I received the email with the disappointing news – “Unfortunately you were not chosen to move forward with the show (this season). I must admit the smile on their faces were almost as big as mine when I first laid eyes on your work! Please do not feel disrespected or have a negative outlook when it comes to the casting process of the show. WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE BOTH YOU AND YOUR WORK!  We are just extremely limited in our cast availability for the show and are unable to accommodate everyone that we love at this time…I would love to stay in contact with you concerning the second season of the show, if that’s ok?” ~~ Uhh, YES!!!
So this was depressing since I was ready to go to Hollywood to tape for 2 months. Because of my unfounded positive attitude about opportunities, it never occurred to me that I would not get in the cast 🙁 ~ And Sue was looking so forward to having Shiny Tiny Mansion to herself without me bulldogging around in her way 24 hours a day. {Sue interjects~that ruins that!  So much for all the relaxing, yoga, and hot tea.}
And then, I swear to whatever God you worship, that same day we received an email from FYI network to submit Shiny Tiny Mansion to Tiny House Nation to be cast on the new season! But they were only looking for Tinies under 500SF. We are 520SF, or so I thought. I set out to measure the inside again and amazingly, our living space is less than 450SF, so we are good to go! I always took the measurements from my original plans but those were exterior measurements. An 8′ x 8′ becomes 7′ x7′ with studs, with the thick wood interior walls I used. So we are going for it and will maybe have better luck, a little sooner.

This episode, the couple gave up their pet buddies!  You do NOT give up your furry buddies just to live small!

Sarah, an associate producer from Tiny House Nation had emailed a couple weeks before to let us know that they were using one of our pictures in the last episode on July 30th. I mentioned that in my last post. The crazy thing is that A&E, the parent network, has locked out the online episodes, and we don’t get FYI network on our DISH. So we can’t see and share the episode with our picture, and who knows, maybe if we are chosen to be on Tiny House Nation, we won’t be able to view it – how crazy is that?

All the crazy that comes our way just makes life exciting though – at least that’s how we try to look at it and just laugh. Laughing is so much simpler than depression 🙂 So, I’ll keep you abreast of the latest as we find out more and

To all our followers – we’ve only had the blog up and running for about 2 months now, and we want to thank each and every one of you and encourage you to comment and share so we can spread the word even faster. Let us know what questions you may have about living the small life, and we will do our best to pull from our last 28 crazy years! Are there any Tiny House Workshops you would like to see us at? We’d love to meet you all!

Cheers
Ron