Small Living Journal

We all face many common obstacles while making the transition to a simpler lifestyle. In this issue of Small Living Journal we share some of our experiences and how we’ve worked through them. Some of us have also included what we expect to encounter along the way and how we plan to move through those future obstacles.  We hope you find it useful to hear our stories and look forward to your comments and questions.

Photo credit Wikimedia Commons

Read Issue 11- Obstacles and Solutions

I’m sitting at my desk with a sprawl of paper threatening to eat my organic, goat cheese pizza.  I just crunched numbers over my late night feast.  I can do it.  My bank statement is sitting on top of my Tumbleweed plans.  Across the table, my research list scribbles every trip to the hardware store and every name of my construction recruits.  I know what I need to build my tiny house.  I know what it’ll cost.  With my new bank statement, I know I have the money.  Here’s the tripper; I also have the land.

What’s the Problem?

It’s this last point that’s caused the late night pizza binge.  My free home site lies in the corner of my parent’s yard.  My tiny home will sit on a permanent foundation and forever keep me living with Mom and Dad, while I chase the ghosts of my childhood.

Even though my relationship with my family doesn’t require a tunicate, there’s something deep seated in me that calls for autonomy and needs physical separation from my family.  I’ve grown up in a country that expects independence, and lays out this freedom along a linear flow of events:  Education, career, house, spouse, kids, retirement.  Although a degree of variation is acceptable, cross too far off the path and you become a social eyebrow raiser.  “Live in Mom’s backyard,” lies in the realm of eyebrow raising.

Questioning Freedom

I know I can easily point to the downfalls of this freedom lineup.  It’s impossible to ignore the high cost of education, the sick-laden workaholic and the mortgage meltdown.  These are the questions I ask as I chase simplicity: Is this freedom?  What happened to my independence in this pile of bills?

Balancing “We” and “I”

For me to accept land from my family, and dig my foundation in their space, I feel like I’m crossing a boarder that values, “we,” over, “I.”  It would be a sharing of resources, with an acceptance of work and care in return.  No, my parents would not breath their expectations through my windows.  But I would need to be around to care for their animals when they go out of town, tend to the garden, and resolve myself to share my comings are goings.  Then there’s the larger question of care as they grow old.  It would only make sense to become their caretaker when it’s time.  I would be their closest neighbor.

Working this family dynamic is a process for every person.  But it becomes more alive and tangible when you live in close quarters and rely on their grace to build your tiny dream.

Asking the Question

Without question, planting my tiny home next to my parents would afford financial freedom.  Sharing resources would lessen our impact on the environment as a family.  So the question remains.  Can I hack it?  Can I leave the social norm.  Sure, I see tiny homes on the path to culture coolness.  Living in Mom’s backyard isn’t quite there.  When I except that cool is not my destiny, can I hold on for the lifetime ride of these new family ties?

Figuring Thing Out.  Slowly

This is why, fellow tiny house-ers, I resorted to my organic pizza binge.  From here, I’ll continue to mill over my questions.  I’ll practice clear speaking and deep listening with my family.  I’ll give myself the room to make a decision, knowing there is not only one way to live freely and walk lightly on this earth.  Of course, I’ll leave the oven on, pizza ready.

Author Bio

Amber is a writer and outdoor educator.  She lives small in Los Angeles with her mutt, Kona.

Designing small spaces for multiple people is a design challenge I’ve not focused on in great detail on Tiny House Design. It has however been the focus of my own future home plans and the core requirement of a design concept I hope to turn into a book called The Tiny Simple House.

In this article I’ll describe some ways of thinking about people living in small spaces that should help you more effectively approach the design of an existing or new small space.

Getting Everyone On The Same Page

Many of the smallest houses you see are built for one person and after a careful inspection it’s pretty easy to imagine how one person could live in less than 100 square feet. But as you can imagine choosing to live more simply and owning fewer possessions is required for this kind of extreme downsizing.

The first challenge of creating a tiny living space for multiple people is to get buy-in from everyone on choosing to live a frugal lifestyle. Compared to overcoming the actual design challenges this initial human challenge is by far the most difficult.

I suspect it’s our consumer culture that has conditioned us to think of a certain set of things as normal so unlearning what we’ve learned is the hardest part. For example, choosing to eliminate most of our possessions and keeping only the things we use regularly is a very hard step for most people to take. Even for those of us who have made the commitment find it difficult to make the time to finally get rid of all the extra stuff. Getting an entire family to rally around this and choose to downsize and simplify is rare.

My best suggestion in this area is to remember that all people change slowly and that the ultimate goal for downsizing usually includes creating more time to spend with your family and friends. Be patient and move forward and don’t leave anyone behind.

Take A User-Centered Design Approach

When you begin noodling over making a small space more efficient for multiple people it’s fairly common to assume one of the following two ideas:

• If one person can live in 100 square feet then four people can live in 400 square feet.
• Four people can live in less than 400 square feet because some efficiencies are found like shared bathrooms and kitchens.

I’m going to suggest coming at this design challenge from a different direction. You see you can’t simply make assumptions like these because different people have different needs and use their homes in different ways. For example a couple with jobs outside the home will have different needs than a couple that lives and works at home. Assuming that the same amount of space will serve these different needs equally would be a mistake.

Instead focus on the specific needs of the individual people today and projected into the future. Then while determining the spaces needed to meet these requirements and keep in mind that the real goal is to end up with a space that meets everyone’s needs while not overtaxing any one person. In other words strike a balance between too much and too little space so that the home truly provides value instead of costing too much time, money or energy.

Here are a few things that people often do together. These activities can often be served by shared spaces:

• Gathering
• Cooking
• Eating
• Entertaining

Here are a few things that people sometimes do as a group, but usually require private or dedicated space.

• Sleeping
• Bathing
• Study Time
• Work Time
• Private Time

Considering the needs of the occupants first will always give you a firm foundation to build solutions. Most of us like to think about the solutions first because it’s more fun but doing so will often distract us from the real end goal. When you start with actual user needs you end up building only the things the users need.

You might even want to use the Pareto principal, also known as the 80-20 rule, to help guide your decisions. This simple rule says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. So instead of building 100% of a house to fulfill 100% of the functionality, build 20% of the house and get 80% of the functionality. This is a pretty smart approach because we usually only use a small portion of a large home’s functionality but it will always costs at least 100% or our time, money, and energy. So some functions might need to be left out of the design because their value doesn’t offset their cost.

Tips for Small Space Design

Once you have your priorities and people in mind applying some of these common small space design techniques will help you achieve more from less.

1. Think like a boat builder not a home builder

When we think of our living spaces in the context of a traditional home it’s easy to jump to common solutions like 10′ by 12′ bedrooms with walk-in closets. Instead think like a boat builder who must pack a lot of function into every tiny space.

2. Design bathrooms for multi-person use by dividing functional areas

Instead of designing bathrooms to contain everything consider breaking it into functional areas like a separate sink area, sink & toilet, and shower/tub. These individual spaces may take up a little more space than a single bathroom but they allow more people to use the individual spaces simultaneously.

3. Create built-in multi-functional furniture

Keep spaces open and clear by using built-in furniture and storage. This is an especially useful technique for bedrooms, hallways, and kitchens. Some common solutions are beds that can be hidden away, desks and tables that fold-out, cabinets that conceal possessions, and even cabinets that pivot and divide spaces. You could carry this to an extreme too by creating a single open space and then dividing it with floor to ceiling built-in cabinets.

4. Use your vertical space

Every cubic inch of a home must be heated and cooled so why not use it all when it makes sense. Beds with lofts above them can make fun rooms for kids and floor to ceiling built-in cabinets can provide enormous functionality.

5. Reduce transition spaces like hallways

This seems obvious and isn’t really easy to do. The best place to start is to build off a single open area and have rooms open directly to the larger space. You can also get more use out of hallways by lining walls with functional built-ins, concealed appliances, bathroom sinks, and so on.

6. Open up spaces and use subtle transitions

Subtle transitions help define the division between spaces but is more about fooling the eye than aesthetics. Spaces can be made to look longer, wider, and taller by creating visual progressions through any space. But when you close those spaces forming separate rooms you loose the optical illusion so its best to keep spaces open. Also use continuous flooring treatments.

7. Use high ceilings and draw the eye up.

It’s amazing what an extra foot of ceiling height can do to make a space feel larger. If you’re stuck with the ceiling height you have try raising your window coverings up to the ceiling and avoid cutting your walls visually in half with things like wainscoting. You might even try painting your walls one color 3/4 of the way up and then painting the top 1/4 and the ceiling a brighter color. Also be sure to point light fixtures up.

8. Use light solid colors and let the sun shine in

Light always makes small spaces feel bigger. Lighter colored your walls mean you’ll need fewer windows and artificial lighting. Busy patterns will make a space appear cluttered.

9. Include outdoor space in your design

The exterior of a home is often forgotten while you’re focused on making the inside feel bigger. The final product will be much more successful if you consider all your spaces inside and out. Think of the space outside as another room and open the house up to them visually. You’ll be able to achieve the same effects as you can with visual progressions inside the house.

10. Use simple window treatments

Your exterior windows and doors can help you make your space feel bigger. Avoid heavy, thick, and dark window coverings.

11. Reduce clutter, collections, and possessions

This is actually the first step that all of us can do right now to make out homes feel more spacious. I left it for last so that it would be left in your mind most vividly. Eliminating clutter and organizing what we already have will make any space feel bigger and help the occupants feel better.

For more articles on tiny spaces for families see these articles:

• Tiny Paris Apartment for 4 + Dog
• Is Living in Small Spaces Cruel To Children?
• Tiny House with Moving Walls – part 1, part2, part3, part4

I invite you to follow me on Twitter, and visit my design blog, Tiny House Design.

This issue of Small Living Journal focuses on our dreams, goals and plans for the future. As you read you’ll notice that each of us has a different approach. The diverse nature of our backgrounds must explain our different paths; but the one common thread is that living simply is helping us realize our dreams.

We also have a guest author, Betsy McCullen, who has shared with us the lessons she’s learned and a simple strategy she is using to accomplish her goals.

My current home isn’t tiny, but it is the primary catalyst for my desire to downsize and simplify my life. It’s an 1,800 square foot Streng Brothers home built in the early 1970′s. We bought it because it was so different than the ubiquitous ranch style homes that surround it for miles and miles. It’s the largest home I’ve lived in since leaving my parents home as a kid and is the first home I’ve lived in that has had a lawn. It was also our first real home purchase, but it also came filled with lessons. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• Energy Efficient: A house must be energy efficient, passive solar, and require little additional energy to be comfortable. Older homes in hot climates cost more to own because their air conditioners run all the time when it’s hot. When you buy an older home you are buying a big utility bill or an enormous upgrade cost.
• Temperate Location: Choose to live in a moderate climate. The additional cost of these high demand locations could easily pay you back in money and time spent outside. Avoid locations that require homes with air conditioners unless you build appropriately for the region, like adobe homes in the southwest.
• Garden: This house has some very nice bonsai Japanese Pine trees. Unfortunately to keep them looking nice, which I’m not very good at, requires regular pruning. If you choose to plant a garden or trees consider planting things that require less time and produce something you can use or eat.
• Elbow Room: Many suburban lots are small. Privacy is limited and if your neighbor decides to light up a cigarette in their backyard prepare to close your doors and windows. More space is also nice for more garden and places for kids to play. The downside is additional upfront cost and maintenance.
• Roof: This house has a flat roof and water tends to find it’s way inside. Leaks are inevitable with flat roofs. The smart choice it to avoid a roof that is prone to leak like complex designs or roofs with many openings like skylights.
• Less is Less: Every square foot you add to a house requires heating, cooling, organizing, and cleaning. This includes the space you don’t use. When you choose to have more you are also choosing to spend more of your time and money taking care of more.
• Real Value: The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that the true value of a home should be measured by the happiness and security it brings instead of its size and cost.  At the moment this house feels a bit like a debtor’s prison and we hope and pray regularly that the market will correct itself and free us. In the future we will avoid this trap buying more value for less money and doing everything possible to avoid a mortgage. Instead of asking ourselves how much we can afford, we’ll ask the question, how much can we get for the least amount of money.

Ironically I knew many of these lessons before buying this house but never really understood how much the size, design, location, and construction of a home really impacted the quality of life until I’d lived it.  I guess sometimes we have to make mistakes ourselves and live the consequences to truly understand what the lesson has to teach.

I also try not to regret any past choices. Every choice we make, good and bad, has led us to where we are today. In fact I suspect that it’s our bad choices that make us wiser and better able to make better choices in the future. I also have to admit that if we had not bought this home and moved to Sacramento when we did we may have never been able to adopt our daughter Katie. That chain of events lead us to where we are today and I wouldn’t change any of it for any amount of money. That simple truth, and her presence in our lives, makes any cost seem microscopic.

My hope for the near future is that before Katie starts kindergarten we’ll be un-stuck from our current situation. I’m very hopeful that we’ll be able to weather this current economic storm and come out the other end smarter and positioned to built a simple place in a semi-rural area closer to the California coast.

But I’m also prepared to stick it out here if the housing market doesn’t play out in our favor. If this should happen I’ll feel more comfortable about putting more money and time into this house to make it more efficient and cost less to maintain. But for now I’m downsizing everything else that adds to my load like expenses, possessions, and obligations.

I suspect there are millions of people just like me who were temporarily taken in by a successful career and boom times and then suddenly woken up by the simple truth that a lifestyle built on the bubble is extremely fragile and completely unsustainable.  My hope in sharing this with you is that maybe a few people will be able to avoid learning these lessons that hard way, or if you’re in my boat too, know that you’re not alone and there can be a light at the end of the tunnel if you choose to turn it on. You might also now have a better idea about why I’m building a tiny free house.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter, and visit my blogs, Tiny House Design and Tiny Free House, the tiny house I’m building.