Years ago as a young chap i recall reading an Elfquest comic book…and Redvine was being looked after by his lovemate Everclear (the names are approximate). The panel that caught my imagination had him lying on a cot, inside the hallowed trunk of a big tree (humans stabbed him) with a blanket, a oil lamp in an alcove, and a deer skull. That was it.
I had my own deer skull at that time (still do actually: I can look up at it right now)…and I got to thinking “Yes! Light/fire to read by, blanket for comfort, a good knife, some books, a spear/bow and a clean water source: what more do I really need?!?”
It was just a moments reverie…but I still recall the strength of that feeling. But…most people in our lucky Western World need stuff: Shoes, for one. Refrigeration is awful handy too…'my collectors plate collection!" etc. Etc. ETC.
I live in a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco. It is not small…but hardly large by American standards (no sitting down in the kitchen). I’m about to get married (yay) to a woman who (luckily for me) is from Japan: she understands life in a smaller space…her stove had one burner when we met…now we have four…so luxurious!
A good life can be had without over-preponderance of stuff.
A friend renter a carriage house over a two car garage. All the ceilings were sloped like the roof. It had a couple dormers, and only there and the center of the apartment had full headroom. It was maybe 220 sq ft. , but it had amenities like an oven and a bath tub.
Er… so it was a 6 room bathroom, basically? Any pictures of this? My hat is off to anyone who has 6 kids in 6 years. That would be brutal for about 4 solid years.
These houses are also going to be much more comfortable in an area with plenty of warm, sunny weather. I lived in a sub 30 square meter studio apartment in the Canary Islands for a while with two other people. It never seemed particularly cramped because we didn’t have much stuff and basically just slept and prepared food inside. The food was also usually simple and cold, so we didn’t need an oven or a lot of space for food preparation. Now I’m in northern Germany I’d probably feel much more cramped in the same space, even if I were alone.
I felt sorry for the lady toward the end, because she just seemed so sure that all the stuff was going to make her happy and could not let go of it. She kept trying to make everyone happy by buying them more and more things; her whole sense of self was tied up in this ridiculous excessive lifestyle.
I think the tiny house movement, yeah sure, shares some qualities with the RV crowd, but I think that it’s also tied in with a back to the land thing.
I’ve been inside a tiny house. I do not remember now why I was there, but it was a guy in Wilmington, NC. I know he was associated with the alternative/healing arts crowd and I remember that he had a pretty good chunk of land that he was building paths through. The house was nicely thought through and crafted but definitely for one person only. I felt really constrained in it; I think it’s the narrow halls and the bathroom was just tiny. But I think if the entrance way and hall were less of a bottleneck I would have liked it. I’m not sure that it was the guy’s primary residence; think it was a weekend spot.
They are on a wheels because by building it on a trailer chassis they are not technically classified as houses and so the owners can avoid building codes that were not written with tiny houses in mind. I’m not sure how much people actually move them - guess it’s like trailers that way.
Hong Kong’s housing problem, with shanty towns, 5x5x5 “cage homes” and other overcrowding is the perfect example of what @Glitch was talking about; not charming, but dystopian. It’s good to be reminded that small homes are a first-world solution to a first-world problem.
I too have a fondness for these small homes, and it’s not the outdoor space that is appealing, it’s the portability. I love the idea of living in a home that is small and efficient and more importantly could be moved across the country in a day or two. But really this isn’t coveting a particular style of home, it’s coveting the lifestyle that it implies; the flexibility to move, the idea that I could live in a remote area when I want or in a dense urban environment when I want. Freedom from a particular employment relationship, or even the burden of family obligations. That’s why container homes are so cool. And trailer homes are not; one implies a life of autonomous asceticism, the other sedentary destitution.
She keeps inviting us, and I keep meaning to take her up on it, but I haven’t been back there since my children were born. Which is to say, I haven’t been there since digital photography became a thing, so no, I didn’t take film photos of the inside of her home. Thanks for pointing out that I really should make a point of doing that when I do finally get back there. It’s so unique, and yet doesn’t feel as weird as you’d think.
The floors were tile, and there were small rugs in places. Beds were wooden-framed, but as I said, attached lengthwise to the wall instead of on legs. I can’t remember how the dining room table worked…maybe it was a pedestal type, with tile to a certain height? Huh, now I wish I could remember all the ways she accomplished this.
She still lives in the house, so it is possible to someday post photos.
As for raising all those kids, I agree that the early years would be brutal, but then they’d be over. That was her thinking: she knew she wasn’t an ooey-gooey-babies-are-wunnerful type of mother, so she wanted to get the helpless years out of the way as quickly as possible. All 6 “kids” (in their 40s & 50s) are great people doing interesting work and raising an average of 2 kids per family, so I guess she worked out the right solution for their situation.
And trust me, if I weren’t worried about invading her privacy, I could tell you even more interesting and impressive things about her. Here’s a fun little tidbit: she once pulled me out of some rapids on the Gunnison River with one hand…when she was in her mid-70s! A truly amazing woman.
These tiny houses are considerably better constructed than a single-wide. Wood & foundation > corrugated steel sheeting & semi trailer chassis.
[edit] hmm, this is one of the tiny houses on a chassis instead of a foundation. My point about better materials still stands, though. Trailers are poorly constructed boxes comprised of the cheapest possible materials (sometimes with bonus toxic off-gases) that don’t even have particularly well thought-out space utilization.
No, man, that’s brutal for 24 years. As soon as the last one hits kindergarten, the first one is just about a teenager (for sure a teenager if female).
It is a toue (shepherd’s shelter) in the Pyrénées. There are a lot of these, often close together. Some of them seem to be designed for sheep. I always figured some were for daily use and others were emergency storm shelter.
The Cabin Porn web site features a lot of architectural projects but also utilitarian buildings like fishing and surf shacks and mountaineering shelters. The last GOT episodes where the wildings attacked a village was instantly recognizable as Iceland
And it wasn’t even nice things either; it looked like their entire mansion was just getting filled with piles and piles of unwanted crap from Wal-Mart. What good is having a ten-car garage if your Bentley can’t fit in amongst the stacks of unridden Huffy bicycles?
