Less is more in tiny house life
People ask Nick Barnett why he chose life in a tiny house. In the third of his occasional series on living his dream, he explains his reasons for downsizing.
To live less wastefully and more sanely was part of the inspiration for moving into a towable tiny house.
Three years ago I lived in what I now call a big house – solid but not flash, but big. I have to struggle slightly to remember its lavish dimensions.
It had two living rooms, each with a flat-screen TV. There were four bedrooms, allowing me to line the walls of one of them with books and call it a study, though there was already a study downstairs. The doors of our two ‘‘guest bedrooms’’ were opened for use only a couple of times a year, other than to air the stuffiness out of them.
Two people, two dogs, 170 square metres of house, and a mortgage. The suburban dream. But it was kind of ridiculous.
So when people ask me why I gave up that bighouse life and chose a towable 23sqm tiny house, I start by saying this: To live less wastefully and more sanely; to align the material aspect of my life – such as how many couches and books I possess – to what I really need and what is truly important to me.
I hadn’t always thought this way. I liked space. My ‘‘stuff’’ always expanded to fill that space.
But then I started thinking about tiny houses. More accurately, I fell in love with them – thanks to library books and You Tube videos
My husband Tom and I soon found ourselves swapping opinions about shower-cubicle sizes, composting, greywater, batteries – the practicalities.
We also dug into minimalism, intentional living, being off-grid and being more self-sufficient.
A point arrived when we realised that this was what we wanted. Really, really wanted, not just talk or pipedreams.
So we spent a year doing what I can summarise here in a few words: Sold our house and cleared the mortgage, downsized, rented for six months, downsized more, bought a tiny house, found a site for it, downsized even more – and moved in.
The process of buying the house, finding the site and (especially) downsizing are too involved to recount here – they’re for another day. The question I’m trying to answer here is not how, but why.
Values
We wanted our lives to reflect our values more. That is, for our lives not to be weighed down by the trivial, redundant and costly baggage that the suburban dream entailed.
Living in a tiny home would force us to offload stuff that represented the past. We’d ditch junk but hold on to what we loved. We’d shop more discriminatingly and buy less. We’d go off grid and feel more autonomous. We’d learn new skills. We’d feel liberated, lighter.
Money
Part of feeling lighter was the easing of our debt. We had enough equity in our old, too-many-rooms house to buy an almost-finished tiny house on wheels and pay our bills till we could move into it –
I’m not a very credible hippie. I’m not rejecting the modern world, or unplugging from capitalism. I’m just giving myself a bit more room to move.
and be debt-free. So there are no mortgage costs. No power bills, because we set up solar power.
Less spending on furniture or ‘‘stuff’’ of any sort, because there’s no room for it.
Cutting down on costs means we can spend on things that are important to us – such as travel and learning; experiences, not things.
Last year brought the first dividend – a trip to four countries in Europe that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.
Freedom
Easing the pressure of bills means we can get by earning less – which makes us less tied to particular jobs and the orbit of the big city.
It’s easier for me and Tom to think about earning a living in a different way – our own business, perhaps (not that it’s happened yet).
And those wheels on the bottom of our house remind us that we can move on if we need to, with much less logistical stress than if we lived in a terrestrial house.
Health
It turns out that tiny-house living can be healthier than the alternative. In my case it is. I go outdoors more often, walk more, mow more, garden more. I eat garden-fresh vegetables.
But the benefits to health are as much mental as physical. After several years of being flattened by major depression and agoraphobia, I now live a calmer, more productive, more social life.
Ditching the literal baggage of the past was part of that change.
But I also seem to have got better at accepting change and taking on new things.
By taking myself willingly into a tiny living space, I’ve learned to focus on what’s important, and expanded my comfort zone.
Let me be clear: I’m not a very credible hippie. I’m not rejecting the modern world, or unplugging from capitalism, or making a statement about consumerism. I like living in a society that has a bit of all those things.
I’m just giving myself a bit more room to move – paradoxically, by taking up less room.