View Full Version : A Taste of Living Small
I have always been so attracted to tiny homes. The house I live in now is a typical 70s suburban home (when we moved in in 1985, we had a lot of shag rug and metallic wallpaper to get rid of).
I'm in a situation where I am living in a small off-season 1-bedroom beach cottage for 6 weeks, and boy, I love it. Now, if I had to move here and get rid of my stuff, it would be difficult and not as easy, but I just took essentials and barely what I will need for a six-week stay, and so far, I'm liking this taste of the downsized life.
I LOVE the town this home is in--one mile square, so you can walk to everything--the beach, the post office, small restaurants (and this is a dry town, so food is cheap--no liquor licenses to support). The homes are all Victorian, preserved by National Landmark Trust.
My little home is a one story cottage with a little front porch and little white picket fence. It's maybe 250 square feet, with a little bay bump-out in front. Everything is SO SIMPLE! I am sitting at a table/desk now, but just a couple of feet behind me is a futon. There's small TV, a hand-painted old sideboard, and a little entrance table and mirror. That's about it in the living room. The kitchen is minimal, no dishwasher, everything is white, which expands the space. The bedroom is so small they had to take off the door so a queen bed would fit, so I really have kind of an expanded studio.
I can't tell you how the set-up and simplicity of this house has cleared my mind. When I go back home, I really have to think about how to duplicate this sense of "just enough"!! I would move here in a second, but DH is adamant about staying in our home (I should add that I'm staying here alone--not sure if I could live in THIS small a house with my husband, because of home office needs, and just generally the doubling up of stuff.)
This is probably a "so what" for a lot of you guys who might already be living small, but I usually only live like this when I'm in a hotel traveling on business, and maybe that's why I like business travel so much!
I know, I like to play "decorate the cottage" in my mind and it's a relaxing atmosphere to have only a handful of possesions, and all of those carefully chosen and well loved.
DH and I were staying at a housekeeping motel room while he did some work for family. It was so neat to reach over to the stove and fridge from the table. Everything in reach and compact. We have laughed different times at how easy it would be to live like that. Minimal clothes, equipment, responsibilities and each other for company. Even the TV was not a priority.
It does sound lovely. I'm like Iris and play "daydream decorating" all the time, and small or tiny always defines my design drawing-board and scape. Do enjoy Catherine! :)
This sounds a lot like my simple fantasy of living in a hotel room. In real life, 250 square feet is too small for me (by at least a factor of 3), but the general setting sounds idyllic.
4 rooms! That's all I need, 4 rooms! In fact, that is luxury, 4 rooms in 600 sq feet! I've got 3 separate tiny houses that each have 4 rooms, each with a different layout. One of the layouts is crappy and I wouldn't live in it, but the other two are very atttractive.
1 house has 3 rooms downstairs and an attic style bedroom with sloping roof upstairs.
1 house has 4 rooms all on one floor.
The one I wouldn't live in, and I've assigned that one to DH in my mind (ha ha) , has two rooms up and two rooms down and it's just too much room devoted to a staircase. That one also has--now I am not exagerating--6 exterior doors. doh. We would not use all six if we turned it into a one family home. It was built as a duplex that had 2 rooms each. It's very old.
I love the idea of an attic bedroom. In theory there would be plenty of room for a walk-in closet and other storage, and I'm crazy about sloping ceilings, which I have in my two upstairs bedrooms. Very cozy.
Miss Minimalist
3-6-11, 1:15pm
DH and I downsized from a 1000-square-foot 3BR house in the US to a 390-square-foot 1BR flat in the UK -- and surprisingly enough, have had plenty of space. Of course, moving overseas gave us the unique opportunity to start from scratch; we only acquired things on an as-needed basis. It's been very enlightening to discover what we can live without, and we love our simple lifestyle.
Lately I've been daydreaming about a tiny cottage by the sea -- yours sounds divine, catherine!
I'm a vacation house junkie :-) and spend way too much time looking at places on www.VRBO.com and www.Homeaway.com at all the tiny (and not so tiny) vacation houses. I tell everyone that it's a great way to take a vacation or even a long term place to live when travelling. I've rented alot of off season vacation rental houses long term (months) and absolutely love it as a way to travel fairly cheaply. Most of the places cost less per month to rent in the off season (think a beautiful Colorado Rockies ski resort in late spring or early fall)than either a cheap motel or even a campground. And they are MUCH less than what they cost per week (and sometimes per day) during the high season. I even considered being a homeless "wandering waif" (as my friends call me) and doing it as a way to travel with my dogs for a couple of years - 6 months in a great place somewhere in winter, and then another 6 months somewhere in summer - or maybe 4 months here and 4 months there, etc... Owning only what fits in my car (along with a few dogs :-)!) and always living in a beautiful little place that's fully furnished, includes all utilities, and has no long term commitment. I have some friends that rent a vacation house for several months a year and then invite various friends and family to come visit for a week or two. They charge them a small amount of money - much less than they would pay elsewhere - and that usually pays for their own rent. Win-win for all!
Spartana, you are SO right! Living down here is awesome--you can still enjoy the beach without the hassle of the traffic. And you're right..I'm paying less for a fully furnished "wee cottage" than I would for a very mediocre boxy apartment in my home town.
And I LOVE how walkable this town is. For the fun of it, I checked it out on www.walkscore.com and it got a score of 94/100: which categorizes it as "A Walker's Paradise." I agree. I can EASILY walk to the bank, grocery store, a couple of bakeries, diners, post office, train station, church, nice restaurants, hardware store, etc. etc. The other night my DD and I walked two blocks to Main Street where they have a sustainable restaurant, and it's BYOB because it's a dry town, so we had a fabulous dinner and then walked two blocks north across a little square to my little tiny cedar shingled, picket-fenced, wind-chiming house.
I've often thought it would be ideal to own two homes, a beach home and a mountain home. You live in each during the off-season, and rent it out during peak season. But maybe this free-wheeling style is even better. Who needs the hassle of owning two homes when you can live in them so cheaply!
I've often thought it would be ideal to own two homes, a beach home and a mountain home. You live in each during the off-season, and rent it out during peak season. But maybe this free-wheeling style is even better. Who needs the hassle of owning two homes when you can live in them so cheaply!
I agree! I had though about doing the same, but after staying in some pretty inexpensive vacation houses for several months at a time, I just decided to do that. It's much cheaper than a second home (heck, it cheaper than a first home :-)!), you can go to a new place each time, no up front expenses to purchase a place, no taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs or maintenance expenses. It's even cheaper than RV travel (and maybe full time RV living too) for the same reasons - don't haveto buy an expensive (and gas guzzling ) RV or trailer, don't have to pay for maintenence, repairs, insurance, registration, possible storage, space rent, utilities, etc.. on something that is declining in value. Don't need to have a second vehicle to tow behind the RV or a big gas guzzling vehicle to tow the trailer. In my case all I need is the compact car and someone elses house key :-)! Plus, with having a couple of dogs, I can usually get a place with a fenced in yard so that I am freer to do things off on my own all day long without worrying about the critters. And, like you, I LOVE the off season when there are no crowds, traffic or constant noise. I love to walk those empty east and west coast beaches in winter or hike in the mountains in spring or fall when no one else is around. Heaven!
Do you have any photos? I find it hard to gauge square-footage as it's not something I've ever considered or seen in sale/rental ads here.
catherine
3-11-11, 10:02am
Do you have any photos? I find it hard to gauge square-footage as it's not something I've ever considered or seen in sale/rental ads here.
Here's a couple:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/letitbpics/sets/72157626118241333/
Thanks! It's so cute! What more could anyone possibly need?
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