A divorcée moved into a 416-square-foot tiny home with her 2 kids to teach them that 'stuff' isn't everything

• After a divorce, Megan Lockhart decided to buy a tiny home and move to the mountains.
• At 416 square feet and with three bedrooms, her home really pushes the definition of tiny.
• She and her kids love tiny living and have learned that "stuff" isn't everything.

Megan Lockhart, 35, went from married and living on 3,500 square feet in the city to a divorced single mom of two living on 416 square feet in the mountains - and she's never been happier.

"I know it sounds really cheesy, but I wanted to show the kids that you can literally do anything," she told Insider.

When Megan Lockhart got divorced, she realized she really could do whatever she wanted

Lockhart launched a marketing agency six years ago, knowing she wanted her freedom, and was able to work from home long before the pandemic made this the norm. However, she was still tied to her husband's nine to five, and city life.

When she got divorced, she realized she really could do whatever she wanted.

Lockhart decided that she wanted to live in the mountains, but said she didn't have the means to build a big house. She started thinking about tiny living because she wanted to downsize, simplify her life, and save money, but also figured that if she ever wanted to sell the 40 acres of land in Golden, British Columbia, Canada, her tiny home is on, she could just take her home with her.

Read more: 70 photos of beautiful tiny homes that will make you want to downsize

She started talking to tiny home builders in November 2019, made a deposit in January 2020, and moved in with her two kids, ages 9 and 6, in May 2020.

She lived there for three months before realizing that the pandemic created a huge appetite for remote cabins like hers, so she decided to temporarily move back to the city to rent out what she's affectionately named The Tiny Rosehip to help pay it off. She plans on moving back full-time this summer.

Lockhart's tiny home packs a huge punch

At 416 square feet, with three bedrooms, a full kitchen and bathroom, and able to sleep eight, Lockhart's tiny home is quite spacious.

Each child has a small bedroom in a lofted space. She said that one of her main goals with the move was to show them "that change isn't going to destroy them."

She also wanted them to understand that "stuff" isn't everything.

"It's so cliché and so common, but you don't need stuff, you really don't," she said. "I wanted them to learn life skills, like how to be outside, to know what that plant is, how to build a treehouse, how to just make their own playground outside. And they were doing that."

Lockhart said she paid $126,000 for her tiny home

She said she initially had "sticker shock" when she started researching tiny homes, as she had assumed they'd be cheaper.

However, once she realized how customizable these homes were, she understood what a great deal it was. "You have to look at the value, you have to look at the market, you have to look at how popular they're becoming," she said.

Read more: After a year of booming tiny-house sales, experts say the movement is at a turning point

She went with Mint Tiny House Company because she wanted a local company that had a fast turnaround and was producing a lot of tiny homes, therefore allowing her not to be too hands-on since she said she knows little about home building.

However, she ended up making a lot more decisions than she thought she would.

"Going through the decision process was difficult because you don't know what you don't know," she said. "I had to decide what kind of heating, what kind of toilet... "

She said that every decision had a kind of domino effect: wanting to fit a queen size bed in one of the kids' rooms meant not being able to fit certain things in the kitchen, for example.

"You make one small change and everything else has to be adapted to it," she said. "Every detail was really thought out."

There's an upside to designing a tiny home from scratch, however.

"You don't have a lot of room to cover, so you get to choose the things you really want," she said.

She added that COVID also made her realize how important being in a space that you enjoy is.

Read more: 10 tiny house owners reveal what it's like to isolate in a downsized space during the coronavirus pandemic

Lockhart said that every piece of furniture in her tiny home is full size, and describes the style as 'modern farmhouse'

A double door opens into a living room with a pull-out couch that has storage underneath. There's a master bedroom with two full closets, and two bedrooms in the loft area, one above the living room, and another above the bathroom. Bookshelves line the loft, providing both storage and privacy.

The kitchen has a dishwasher, a full-size fridge, a stove, and an oven, as well as a farmhouse sink and a dining table that fits six. Part of the counter can move up or down, to be used as a standing desk or extra seating.

The "huge" bathroom has a full-size sink with two storage drawers, a shower, and a small washer and dryer.

Stairs leading to the master bedroom and loft feature storage in each step: Lockhart said she doesn't know what to do with all the space - there's more storage hidden under the beds, as well as underneath the two closets in the master bedroom.

"Sometimes I think the kids and I could've gone a little bit smaller," she said of her tiny home.

Read more: 7 tiny house owners share the ingenious ways they store their belongings

Lockhart finds that tiny home misconceptions are prevalent

Lockhart said that everything in a tiny home needing to be miniature-sized and having to give up on most amenities to live in one are common misconceptions.

According to her, it's just a matter of prioritizing what you really need and use regularly, and making those items be good quality.

"You don't have to completely release everything that you love in your current life to go tiny," she said.

She added that many people also seem to believe that tiny houses are cheap and shoddy.

"It's all perspective," she said. "You can build a tiny home that's $300,000 or you can build a tiny home for 20,000, but it's up to you."

Read more: Here's how people living in a tiny home make their space seem big, according to those who designed their houses themselves

She said she loves living tiny

She gushed about "the quality of life and ease of life" of living small.

She said that the limited space forces her and her kids to spend more time together and added that she's grateful not to have to worry about a big mortgage, especially during these uncertain times.

Her main complaint? How quickly things can get messy, though there's an immediate upside: she said a deep-clean of every inch of the space can take her an hour and a half.

Downsizing was hard but worth it, Lockhart said

"When I first started to think about going tiny I felt quite stressed out," Lockhart said, adding that she had "a room for every kind of activity that you could do during the day" in her old home.

"Going from that to one space was stressful," she said, though she said she later realized it was just other people asking her how she would cope that gave her anxiety about the move. "I'm fortunate that I have the 40 acres, it never feels small."

"It was emotional," she said about downsizing. "You're making like a life change. I was getting a divorce, moving to a different city. I had a lot of emotional attachment to things that just needed to be gone," she said.

Lockhart added that tiny living forced her to reevaluate her priorities and surroundings, and really made her wonder why she had so much stuff, why she thought she needed so much stuff.

"How much money did I spend on this? I could have a ton more in savings if I didn't buy, like, six pairs of running shoes," she said.

"Everything I have is intentional now. I've learned so much about myself in the last year, it's pretty crazy. I think every woman should do it," she said of tiny home living.