Oh, I was wrong. It’s the quaintest trailer home ever.
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My family lives in a 456 square foot “shabin” (shed/cabin) on 5 acres just outside of Austin. It was the largest space we could afford after the 2011 wildfires consumed our rental cabin (250 sq feet). We purchased a pre-fab 12x38 shed with a metal roof, 4 windows and a door. Cash price on the cabin was $8k, but we’re on payments to $11k. Buildout using everything we could from the Habitat re-hab store in ATX was less than $2k with another $3k at the big box store including wood for a 300 square foot deck (which makes a world of difference.) We’re super happy, but we know when the kids grow out of their toddler stage, it’s going to be tight during winter weather. So in the next two years, we’ll be all paid off and could go up to 600 or maybe a mansion sized 800 square feet! I’m convinced you could put a deck on a dumpster and live in it. As long as there is room for a rocking chair and a friend, you’re golden!
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Well, quite. I spent a few very happy years in a converted Bedford Viceroy bus, which was considerably more well-appointed than some of the houses and flats I’ve lived in since…
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Because it’s more appealing? At least to her.
Personally, I couldn’t stand a trailer, and we don’t even have trailer parks over here, just genuine campers.
I can see myself using a trailer for an expedition or perhaps a vacation? But as something to live in it’s about as appealing as having the loo in the living room.
Collective nouns for the motherfucking win.
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As a condo owner in Vancouver, I am envious of her spacious kitchen.
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Plenty of non-DRM books even on Amazon and even more non-DRM books from other venues. Many of them even offer mobi-files, so you don’t even need to convert them yourself.
However, e-books are indeed not things, so I’d count a Kindle with a 1,000 books still as one thing.
OK, it’s cute and all but… does it have a flush toilet?
We were fantasizing with friends about living in geodesic domes or other tiny-cheap housing, but a couple days of backpacking will remind you of the real advantage of modern housing: indoor plumbing.
A couple of nights of having to put your coat on just to go pee or having to pump-filter the water for your morning coffee or tea will quickly remind you of that forgotten advantage of that suburban house.
Making a tiny shelter, even well designed, is easy. Getting power for your electronics or cooking is easy. Connecting it to the potable water and sewage network is more complicated.
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Knock it off - you’re mellowing my harsh!
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By that token, my pokey 500 square foot flat ought to take less than an hour to clean, but I believe that there’s a logarithmic scale involved here somewhere.
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There’s also the scale of what different people consider “clean” to mean.
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I really don’t know why these things keep getting attention. Yep, It’s small. So is every boat/RV that people live on/in. People have been doing that in fairly large numbers for decades, not a ton of media attention there (unless the navy has to come rescue you).
Let’s just, not go there…
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There’s a huge and interesting discussion thread about this house on Houzz:
“Why is the person who wrote a book about doing something and also leads workshops on the subject getting more media attention than people who didn’t write or teach anything?”
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Because of the ingrained unfairness of society, duh.
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If she designed it to be cleaned in 1 minute using a garden hose, then it would be the ultimate bachelor pad.
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Man, it takes me less than half an hour a week to clean my 3500 sq ft house. But perhaps she and I have very different definitions of “clean”.
I’ve known a couple of people who’ve done it, and if you do as much work yourself as possible, you’ll usually come out ahead (at least in the cases I know personally).
Another person who has a good blog in a similar vein of conversation about living less about acquiring and more about family and community is Mr. Money Mustache. Although I think that he can be a bit on his high horse about how they live, his articles make me think:
As in all things I read about doing with less things, there is always an oblivious tradeoff on time that is never really examined. Yes, I could save more money by couponing but it takes time. I could save money by fixing my own car but it takes my time. You start adding up all your saving and doing it all yourself eats a lot of time. But if you enjoy fixing cars and clipping coupons, then this could be your bag.
