Tiny Homes. Really Tiny.

I came across this movement of Tiny Homes.  Have you heard of it?  I don't know if "movement" is the right word, but it is a thing for sure.  Downsizing and simplifying, living small. People who build/buy and live in miniature homes, that can fit in a parking space.  Imagine that. 

About 320 square feet of living space, that's how tiny!  And they live in these homes, full time.

Tiny home (MoleculeTinyHomes.blogspot.com)

Cozy. Also from the above website. 

And by the way, when I googled "Tiny Homes" I also found a blog about a person who obsesses over decorating tiny rooms, like a dollhouse. She re-arranges furniture and re-designs the doll house rooms and takes pictures and blogs about it and she's quite popular.  She has lots of interested readers who want to know where she bought the furniture, or how she made that tiny throw rug. Who knew?  I love learning about quirky things like that. 

But these little houses for humans, are people's full time homes.  They are built on wheels, like a camper, to circumvent some kind of a building permit rule.  There are companies and contractors who specialize in building and designing these and their popularity is rising.  They are permanent homes usually even though they are on wheels.  They have little gardens and porches and almost always a cozy looking loft in the rafters for sleeping.

(From ecojoes.com/tiny-house-big-savings/)

I read blogs about people, and even families with kids, such as TinyHouseFamily, who decide to downsize their whole life and move into a home like this. 

It gets me thinking about my minimalist side.  I know that for me, having fewer things, and fewer things to take care of, clean, keep track of, put a way and fix, makes me feel better in general.  I feel less stressed, less anxious and burdened.   And yet I live in a largish house full of stuff, like most families do.

But on the other hand, I like to have things on hand, just in case. We are lucky enough to have a large storage area below our house (let alone we also own a self storage facility), and so I keep collections of things such as; various empty glass jars, a large amount of old towels and sheets, and about twenty different quart size containers of paint, because I'm convinced I may need those sometime.  I might needs those class jars for a kids project. like making snow globes.  And all those old sheets, I may need for Halloween costumes or a future sewing project.  And the paint.. I may find an old piece of furniture I want to fix up and paint.  I might.  

So I save all this stuff because I can and I have the room, but meanwhile it contributes to stuff and clutter in my house.   And that sort of clutters my brain.

And our clothes in our closet?  How much do we really wear?  

How much time do I spend shuffling my "things" around in my house?  I make a pile of things at the top of the stairs, to go downstairs, and pile of things at the bottom of the stairs to go up, another pile at the entrance of our storage space and a pile of things in our hallway that need to go to our garage. It's an endless cycle of organizing stuff.

I feel like a squirrel shuttling my nuts around my den, tucking things away.  Cleaning our house consists of moving things from here to there, to there and here.  

I wonder what it would be like to have to pair down your possessions to only have things you really, really want or need.  It sounds like a nightmare on one hand, (how would I decide what to get rid of?) but maybe it would free up my time for other more fun things. 

If I lived in a tiny house, then maybe instead of caring for and organizing my things so much, I would spend more time doing things I truly enjoy.  

But what do you do when you have friends and family over?  Most of these homes involve some furniture re-organization in order to reveal a tiny dining table.  The "couch" doubles as a storage container and bed.  There's just no place to hang out and sit.  I think that would be deal breaker for me. And also the fact that we have 3 kids.  There's no way living in a tiny home is possible with three kids.