Dee Williams has spent the last decade sleeping under the stars. When she built her new house 10 years ago, she included a skylight. She thought it would make the whole place seem bigger. That's because her house is 84-square-feet.

Dee Williams inside her 84-square-foot home in Portland.

(Betty Udesen)

It's hard not to be inspired by Williams. She decided to build the micro home after a trip to Guatemala, and a medical diagnosis, forced her to take a look at what she really wanted in life. She decided to let go of space, of fear and more.

"You can work around living in a tiny house; you get tinier plates," she jokes. "But struggling with how to lean into my friends and dying, that was really hard and liberating at the same time."

Inside her tiny home she has a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a living space. Her home sits on a trailer in her friend's backyard and she shares garden space with two households, which she says has taught her "a tremendous amount about living in community."

The tiny house in the snow.

(Dee Williams)

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Living in tiny quarters has also brought her closer to nature.

"I've been really surprised — shocked, actually — by how much nature has played into my life," she said during a 2012 TEDx talk in Portland. "I didn't realize there are 9,000 different ways it rains in the Pacific Northwest."

Williams is now a co-founder of Portland Alternative Dwellings (PAD), a company which helps other people downsize.

She also wrote about her experiences in a new memoir called, "The Big Tiny." She says writing the book was "scary," but she wanted to pass on her message about noticing “every single moment, because that’s the way you’re gonna really feel most in touch with the life you’ve created." You can find more about Dee and the book on the PAD website.

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