A MUM who needed somewhere to stay with her son has revealed how she turned a tiny shed into a home.
Hilary Allison, 37, was left struggling to afford rent after a divorce, so decided to live in a shed instead.
Hilary Allison couldn’t afford rent after her divorce[/caption]
Her family helped he rout and bought her a tiny shed to live in[/caption]
Now, Allison spends just £150 a month on bills[/caption]
Her aunt and uncle offered to buy her a shed to renovate into a 12-by-30-foot house, which she put on her grandmother’s land in Southern Oklahoma.
That means, Alllison didn’t have to worry about paying rent monthly while she got herself financially sorted after the divorce.
Now Allison pays less than £150 a month on electric, water, and sewage, and in their tiny home, every inch serves a purpose.
The front area multitasks as a dining room, homeschooling station, office, and workout zone, while the middle section features a kitchenette opposite a small bathroom.
In the back, a shared living space is split down the middle – her bed on one side, her son’s bunkbed on the other.
Allison, a virtual assistant and content creator, said: “I had no idea the amount of mental clarity that becoming more minimal would be.”
When Allison split from her husband in 2022 she had to move out of their home in Norman, Oklahoma, because she couldn’t afford the mortgage after her divorce and turned to her family for help.
They lent her the money to buy a £6,000 shed from a local shed company in October 2023.
The family then spent £10,000 and six months transforming the shed – tackling nearly every aspect of the build themselves – insulating, texturing and painting walls, laying flooring, and even digging water lines with shovels.
Plumbing and electrical work were handled by Allison’s uncle and his father – connecting the house to city water and sewer on her grandmother’s lot.
The home is a single-storey space, with a shared open bedroom divided into two sleeping areas at the back, a kitchenette and bathroom in the middle, and a multipurpose zone at the front.
Allison and her son, who had been temporarily living with relatives, moved into the tiny home in April 2024.
But before she did, she spent two years decluttering hundreds of items which were filling three storage units.
She finalised the divorce this year and began documenting their journey on TikTok – using the revenue from the videos on TikTok to repay her aunt and uncle.
Allison’s series, Tiny House Payoff Journey, earns her £375-£450 a month.
“I’m up at five o’clock every morning and I don’t stop moving until I melt into bed at 10 or 11 o’clock at night,” she said.
Despite the limited space, she says sharing it with her son hasn’t been a challenge.
“We both like alone time and our own space but we’ve had no issues with the space being a problem,” she said.
“If we feel stir crazy, we head to Starbucks or McDonald’s and do school there for a little while.”
For someone with ADHD, the compact space helped her stay focused. The lifestyle also taught her valuable lessons about materialism.
“The biggest reward is that I grew up in families that were very poor, and something that happens when you’re in a very poor family is that you tend to hang on to stuff because you’re terrified to get rid of it,” she said.
“Living tiny forces you to confront that.”
While Allison loves her tiny home, she was candid about it being a chapter rather than a permanent solution.
“Yes, I love my tiny house. Yes, I love living minimally, but no, I won’t be here forever,” she said.
“It’s not a forever thing. But so far, it’s a beautiful chapter of my life, and I am just being content in the moment and not trying to look ahead too much.”