Hi, I’m Abby – Founder and Designer of microMansions. My hometown is Columbus, KS and I graduated from the Interior Design and Construction program from Pittsburg State University. Post graduation, I wanted to move to a big city and work for a big architectural firm but my path ended up in a smaller city, working for a small operation, building custom cabinets and managing projects for multi-million dollar homes. I eventually got to my big company, though, and had the opportunity to work for Koch Industries for 5 years doing office space design all over the country!
My dream of microMansions started during my time with Koch. I traveled a lot and wanted to stop renting and start building equity. My home search felt difficult. Everything was too big, too expensive, or too old – needing a lot of work. So I l designed a traditional tiny home on a trailer, to park wherever life would take me. The zoning for that proved difficult. Instead of parking it in a mobile home/RV park, I wanted to be out in the country and have a sizeable yard!
The trailer designs morphed into slab homes with a little bigger footprint. The goal was to keep the home small but still be considered “site built” for mortgage options. During my time on flights for Koch travel, I’d sketch design ideas. I found myself meeting people on planes who seemed interested in the sketches I was working on. And that’s when I decided to expand the idea – to design for others as well.
The journey has been long and I’ll write a book about it someday. Today, I have seven home designs, I now have a team, and we are prototyping these homes as kits. My dreams are big and I want home buying to be simple. I want construction to feel like putting together a piece of furniture, and I want financing to be more available for non-traditional homes. I want homeowner’s to have a home they are proud of, and the focus to be on people within the home and the experiences they create inside.
Welcome home to microMansions!