She Left California To Live In A Texas Tiny House Village – Fulfilling Her Childhood Dream
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She traded a California zip code for 272 square feet — and never looked back.
Tyshae grew up dreaming about tiny living long before the movement had a name that showed up on HGTV. Tiny Home Tours caught up with her after she packed up her life in California and relocated to a dedicated tiny house community in Lake Dallas, Texas, where she now owns her home outright and runs her business out of it.
- Tyshae settled at Lake Dallas Tiny Home Village, an urban tiny home community founded by Terry Lantrip and built specifically for tiny houses on wheels.
- Her custom build measures 32 feet long, 8.5 feet wide, and 13.5 feet high — about 272 square feet of ground-floor space plus a loft.
- The home cost roughly $85,000, and Tyshae financed and paid it off herself, meaning she carries no mortgage and pays no rent.
From California to a Zoned Tiny House Lot
Tyshae’s move wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment escape from California’s cost of living — it was the execution of a plan she’d carried since childhood. Lake Dallas Tiny Home Village gave her something most tiny house owners struggle to find: a legally zoned lot built for a house on wheels, inside a community designed around that exact lifestyle rather than tolerating it. Terry Lantrip’s development solves the problem that sinks a lot of tiny house dreams — where to actually park one long-term without fighting a city code office.
272 Square Feet, Fully Paid Off
The numbers behind Tyshae’s build tell the real story. At 32 feet long and 8.5 feet wide, her home sits right at the edge of what’s towable on a standard trailer, with 13.5 feet of height giving her enough room for a usable loft above the main floor. The build ran about $85,000 — and instead of carrying that as debt indefinitely, Tyshae financed it and paid it off, which is the detail that separates her situation from the typical renter or mortgage-holder.
No mortgage, no rent, no landlord — just a paid-off 272 square feet she designed herself.
That financial freedom is the whole point of the tiny house calculation for people like Tyshae. Builds at this scale run a fraction of what a comparable stick-built home costs, and paying it off in full turns a monthly housing payment into a closed chapter. Anyone weighing the numbers on their own dream tiny build is looking at the same trade-off — smaller footprint, faster path to owning it free and clear.
Working From Home, Literally
Tyshae doesn’t just sleep in the space — she runs her home-based business out of it full time. Her interior layout carves out dedicated zones for an efficient kitchen, a cozy living area, bathroom facilities, and storage built around remote work, so the house functions as an office as much as a residence. That kind of zoning discipline is what separates a livable tiny home from a glorified camper, and it’s a design challenge that comes up in nearly every serious alternative housing build once square footage gets this tight.
A Community Built Around Wheels
What makes Lake Dallas Tiny Home Village different from a lot of tiny house pushes is that it’s a purpose-built village, not a single lot or a legal workaround. Terry Lantrip designed the development for tiny houses on wheels specifically, which means residents like Tyshae get a supportive neighborhood of people who chose the same lifestyle, plus the legal footing to keep the house parked long-term without zoning headaches.
Tyshae’s version of the dream is now fully built, fully paid for, and fully hers — 272 square feet in Lake Dallas with her business running out of the same walls she owns outright.
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