My Future Tiny Home

Houses run in all shapes and sizes, but most of the time, I always fantasize about a nice big house as being the dream. This morning, though, I was flipping through one of the TIME magazines Trav keeps in the bathroom, and flipping through, I stumbled on a very interesting article. It was about small houses, and believe me, when I say small, I mean tiny, tiny--many of them less than 100 sq. ft!

According to the article, Dee Williams, a woman living in Olympia Wash., lives in a tiny house no bigger than 84 sq. ft. That's smaller than my bedroom! The article in goes on to feature about six homes with designs varying from a small British-designed cube with indented dining area, to a rectangular, round-cornered German contraption featuring a rotating column of three rooms. My favorite, though, was still the tiny house Dee Williams built out of donated ceder. It cost lest than $10,000 dollars to build, and it looks something like a shrunken cabin with a small front porch. If the article's right, since it's on wheels, she doesn't even have to pay property tax on it. After all, it's smaller than many trailers.

I really got excited over this! I'm surprisingly attracted to the idea of living in a tiny, little house, cozy and simple. The space is put to good use, and well proportioned, and since they're so small, a lot more quality is packed into them than a traditional house normally would have, not to mention they're vastly less expensive than their normal-sized cousins.

The simplicity is probably what attracted me the most. I always wonder what in heaven's name I need all my unusable space for? Whenever I try to really see what I need and what just feeds my ego, I realize that, really, I, perhaps any of us, don't need all that much. Williams told TIME that her only regret was the limited space she had to host company or board visitors. Other than that, she says she loves her tiny home.

Sporadically since this morning, I've Googled around for some tiny-home sites and found some pretty interesting things. Click the name, and you'll be taken to a really neat catalog of tiny homes designed by a man named Jay Shafer. Most of them are pretty remarkable, but my favorite so far is the Epu (right).

The idea of living in a house smaller than most single car garages may seem border-line comical for a lot of people (just think about those tiny cars the clowns pop out of) but in reality, I think they are pretty interesting and in line with most of my philosophies. Just seeing how people live inside these houses helps me remember what all I actually need and don't need--what's important and just indulgent. I think these small houses pretty amazing, and don't pretend like you wouldn't come visit me if I had one. Most people, I think, would thing it's pretty awesome, too, and if nothing else, wouldn't it be an interesting conversation piece?