In fifth grade, Mckean Matson recalls, she and a friend wanted to build a fort in the backyard of her parents’ house in College Station, Texas. They pushed together her swing set and slide, but then her dad walked over to them and said, “Why don’t we actually build a fort?” Little did she know that the 350-square-foot result would later become her home for five years, delaying her journey into the housing market.
After living in a dorm during her freshman year of college, Matson’s parents gave her two options: She could either rent a place of her own or live in the “tiny house” in their backyard rent-free for as long as she needed. “This was kind of like, you can be on your own, but when you’re ready, you can move,” Matson told Fortune. Looking back now, she says, “I would not have changed it for the world.”
