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Do you watch HGTV's Design Star? I do, and after this week's episode I have become completely obsessed with the concept of the tiny house movement. Not so much the political ideology of living small (although really, I can see the intelligence behind it), but just because it seems so damn cozy. Simple. Uncluttered. Clean.
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Craig and I live in a...not tiny house. A whole slew of people once lived in it but then I kicked them all out (nicely! I said "please" and "thank you" and "I do") and now it's just Craig and Tabitha and me. We use approximately 45% of our home on a daily basis, but have to clean 100% on at least a monthly basis. Unfair!
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I've made it no secret that I cannot wait to downsize, chuck the majority of our stuff at Goodwill, and snuggle back into apartment-style living. I want to feel like I need less stuff. I want to leave TJ Maxx home goods without an unnecessary chair or table that I bought just to fill up that one empty corner that's been driving me CRAZY. I want everything in my home to mean something and be there only because I need it there. That's much easier when you start with a small template.
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I love these tiny houses. We just bought a house double the size of the old one and it feels HUGE. There are unfurnished rooms that I never go in. I suppose we did it for room to grow and to accomodate our parents visiting as they do after you provide them with a grandchild.
ReplyDeleteLuckily the cabin remains small and easy to deal with. So there is that.
I do love the idea of living there full time, getting rid of everything... Fantasies.
I was just talking to andy last night about how "big" our home felt. I know 1400 sq ft. doesnt sound huge, but we moved from a 700 sq. ft apartment and find I'm trying to figure out how to "fill" the rest of it! Fortunately we have a foreign exchange student coming to stay with us--so that will help "fill" one of the rooms we don't use! :)
ReplyDeleteOur home is 2100 square feet and we really only use a handful of the rooms. Really - who needs a formal living room when you have a family room. I now just call it the dust collecting room. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWe live in 1000 square feet and most of it is in open space on the main living floor (read: we have no storage space). Every tiny new thing that comes into our home sets up a new struggle to re-arrange and purge just to find it a home. I keep wanting to have more of a major purge, but the fact of the matter is it's a lot easier said than done. And I have NO problem with purging crap. It's just that we're pretty paired down already. So tiny works... as long as you have not-so-tiny storage. Or no hobbies, like camping.
ReplyDeleteI always feel like our home is huge. And then we put stuff in the spaces and it gives me a complex. :) There's something very intentional about life in the small houses that I'm very attracted to. I'm working on developing that in our home.
ReplyDeleteCarson's parents are big on the small house movement.
I just moved and now I use about 75% of my (bigger) house. But one of those unused rooms is a guest room and it means I can stop hosting people like a college student ("You can sleep on the couch, oh wait, let me move those books."). And you can pry my oft-used dining room from my cold dead hands. ;)
ReplyDeleteUHHH I want that hobbit house!
ReplyDeleteour place is three bedroom/1 bath at about 900 square feet. therefore, we are professional minimalists and our house always looks very clean (because there is absolutely no where to allow crap to accumulate)
holy poop, we live in a closet. i'm DYYYING for room to stretch. i'm looking forward to not having to press my belly to the wall and shuffle to the right to get out of bed in the morning.
ReplyDeleteWe have a house that is about 1700 square feet. We're bursting at the seams. I've got stuff falling out of closets and books that won't fit on shelves.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that we have down sized and down sized and down sized in the last 3 years. But there's still so. much. stuff. What's left now are the things that I really, truly love, and a lot of stuff that doesn't belong to me (just TRY to get rid of kids' stuff, I dare you. They will snatch it out of the donation pile faster than you can say, "But you don't play with it any...").
So. Tony loves the idea of these tiny houses. I would like a craft room.
Our first apartment together was 400 square feet. Our current apartment is double that and while at first it seemed huge (I mean didnt have to actually stand on the toilet to close the bathroom door,) the walls are slowly creeping in on me.
ReplyDelete....personally I can't wait for the day when my kitchen counter doesn't have to double as a desk, when my kitchen table doesn't need to be rolled out of a corner to seat more than 2 people, and for when I can't actually hear the TV when I'm laying in bed for the love of god!
You don't have to live in THE WOODS to have one of these houses! People have Tiny Houses in the city all the time. http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ though you possibly don't want a house that extremely itty-bitty. In any case, Hub and I feel the same way. We actually like the square footage of our house, but the way it is laid out is ridiculous and doesn't work for us. It's amazing how important good design is!
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