If you’re considering making the jump to a tiny house, first take a look at all of the pros and cons to see if this style of living suits you. In this article, we’ll go over some important things to think about before making the commitment to build a tiny home.
1. Minimize
The transition from a traditional house to a tiny home can be difficult. Most people find it difficult to part with a lot of their worldly possessions, however superfluous they may be.
Tiny home living is all about minimalism, as such, you will need to part with all of the items which are not essential to your everyday life. The room you have on board your tiny home will be extremely limited and storage is a rare commodity.
Instead of trying to pack in as many of your possessions as possible, you will be required to analyze each and every item that you own in order to determine just how imperative it is to your every day survival.
Although making the shift can be a difficult journey, many people find this process empowering. Paring down your possessions and selling the excess is also a great way to help raise money for your new tiny home.
2. Design and Organization
After you have gone through and gotten rid of most of the items you own which aren’t essential to your daily life, it is time to analyze the items that you plan on keeping and incorporate them into your new tiny home.
This will involve not only designing a living space with the appropriate amount of storage space, but one that will allow for easy access to the items that you use the most.
For example, the kitchen is always a good place to start. What items do you use to cook with the most? Make sure that those items take priority when designing a well-organized living space. What do you rarely ever use?
You may want to consider getting rid of the items you use less frequently and purchase items which have multiple purposes in order to save on ever more precious space.
The addition of wall hangers to store your cooking utensils for easy access, or incorporating wall-to-wall bookshelves in your tiny home are just a few handy space-saving tips. We will cover optimizing the kitchen, as well as every other room in your tiny home, in more detail in Chapter 5.
3. Maintenance
While traditional-sized houses require frequent, dedicated maintenance, tiny homes can be maintained in just a few hours or less. This is another reason that tiny home owners prioritize organization above all else.
When everything has a proper place within your living space, daily tasks which may have taken you a long time to complete in a larger home, such as cleaning and reorganizing things, will take mere minutes out of your day.
With only one bedroom and bathroom to clean, vacuum and dust, it won’t be difficult to make your living space look immaculate in just a few hours. The maintenance, repair and improvement of tiny homes are also less fastidious.
For example, expensive and labor intensive tasks, such as reshingling your roof or painting your home, can be done in an afternoon as opposed to a long-term and costly project in a traditional sized home. We discuss making improvements to your tiny home in greater detail in this article.
4. Expenses
One of the reasons large home living can be quite costly is because of the cost required to heat the entire house in the winter months and cool it in the summer. With a little creativity, you can design a house that can essentially heat and cool itself, eliminating air conditioning costs altogether.
That is just one example of the many ways in which tiny homes can effectively reduce your overall expenses and contribute to a debt-free way of life.
5. Simple Living
One of the major benefits of living in a tiny home is the draw of living a simpler life. Organization plays a major role in this. For example, if you’ve ever ran upstairs to retrieve an item, only to walk into the room and forget what you wanted to grab in the first place, you will not have that problem in a smaller living space.
When everything is neat and organized, retrieving any item is as simple as walking a few steps to grab it from it’s designated storage area. Similarly, it can be easy to lose items when you own so much stuff, however, when you’re down to only the essentials, it is much easier to mentally as well as physically keep track of each and every item you own. Instead of working hard to buy new “stuff” to add to your home, your energy is spent on enjoying life and living with less.
6. Smaller Carbon Footprint
Self-sufficiency is another reason people make the final switch to tiny home living. That means not only growing your own food, but effectively reducing your carbon footprint and helping to improve the environment.
The average American home is 2,000 square feet, which has a major impact on the environment through carbon emissions and production of waste. Over time, this really adds up. When you reduce your living space and are more mindful of the amount of waste you produce, the impact on the environment is greatly reduced.
7. Time Outdoors
If you like spending time outdoors, tiny home living is the right choice for you. Most tiny homes have a patio, deck our outside area within their home, allowing for more time spent in nature.
The addition of outdoors furniture, such as mobile benches, tables, chairs and grills, make every day in your tiny home a picnic in the park. If your traditional home was in an area where you were unable to enjoy the outdoors because of weather conditions, in a tiny home you can always just pick up and move to another spot.
8. Mobility
Not unlike living in an RV or mobile home, with your custom built tiny home you will be able to work less and enjoy more of the world while traveling. Being able to move to a new area on a whim is one of the biggest benefits of owning a tiny home. it’s easy to hitch your tiny home to a truck and relocate to an area where you find the weather more pleasant or want to see a particular landmark. If you choose this option, research building codes carefully to ensure that you comply with applicable codes.
In the interest of being fair, there are also many drawbacks associated with living in a tiny home. If you’re uncomfortable with any of these, then you might not be ready to make the transition just yet.
- Space is extremely limited – you only own what is essential.
- You will not have an address – but you can get a P.O. box.
- A majority of your time will be spent outdoors and in nature.
- You will need to learn a variety of new skills in order to be more self-sufficient.
- Tiny home living requires a DIY approach to Home maintenance and interior design.
- You will need to be more mindful of everything that you use on a daily basis.
It’s entirely possible to apply the “less is more” attitude in a real way to your life. Living happily in a tiny house may take flexibility, creativity and ingenuity, but many people find that this new and different lifestyle is a welcome change.
Chapter 1: What Exactly is The Tiny House Movement? Chapter 3: The Building Process of Tiny House