What appeals to you about tiny houses?
• What’s your life situation? Is it part of the reason why you want to get a tiny house? Perhaps you’re an empty nester; perhaps you’ve gone through a divorce; perhaps you’re looking to downsize for some reason; or maybe you’re retiring.
• How will a tiny house make your life better? I know that seems like a strange question, but if a tiny house isn’t going to make your life better in some way, then why do it?
• What do you hope to achieve with a tiny house?
• What about the timing? What makes you want to do it now?
• Do you have concerns about going tiny? What are they? How will you address them? There may be a chapter in this book to help you out.
• Is it just you who wants to go tiny? Are friends and family supportive or unsupportive?
• Who else is impacted by your desire to go tiny—a significant other, children, family, friends? Are these people going to go down this path with you or alongside you, or what role will they play in the process?
• What’s holding you back? This is a huge one, because many people want to live in a tiny house, but they never take that initial first step down the path to owning one. Is it purely financial? Is it something more vague, like maybe this is not the right time, or any other excuse we so quickly come up with for ourselves?
Knowing your ideals will give you solid direction. For example, if you want this to be your morning view—if exploration and travel are the ideals you are pursuing—then you’ll want to make design decisions that allow you to get on the road quickly and easily.
Once you’ve established your motivations and goals for tiny house living, there are also practicalities to consider in relation to building a tiny house.
• Do you feel like you’re able to build it yourself, or will you be looking for someone to build it for you? In other words, are you going to outsource the process? If you are going to outsource the building and the timeline, there’s a high likelihood that this transition is going to cost you quite a bit more than it would if you were doing it yourself. You’ll find more detail about hiring a contractor on here.
• What do your finances look like? Are you selling a traditional house or something else to fund going tiny? Is it a prerequisite that you sell something before you can start? Will you be taking out a loan? There are more and more builders that offer financing for the tiny houses that they build. Perhaps you have the cash available to buy the tiny house outright, which is the best-case scenario. Regardless, you need to think about the financial implications of living tiny. You’ll find more detail about financing on here.
• Don’t forget—getting the tiny house is only half the battle, because you also have to park it somewhere. What are the local regulations for tiny houses in your area (or the area you want to move to)? It may seem like tons of people are building tiny houses and living in them, and that is definitely happening, but a lot of it is happening in a legal gray area where people are living under the radar, perhaps parked in someone’s backyard (read: legally owned property) somewhere. As tiny houses are garnering more and more interest, they’re becoming legal in more and more places—or the gray areas are disappearing. The path of least resistance is often to get legal clearance for tiny houses as Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs. This allows a tiny house to be placed on the property where another house resides, acting as an extension and expansion of living space. ADUs are legal in an ever-increasing number of places, such as Los Angeles, parts of Colorado, and New Hampshire. Look into your local laws by contacting housing and zoning commissions. You’ll find more detail about legalities in Chapter 5.
This tiny home sells for $48,000. Can you afford to buy a home like this outright, or with a loan? Or would your goals be better served by building a house yourself?
You may be utterly fascinated by the cute, modern look of tiny houses—but don’t make the mistake of assuming that means they are a good fit for you. Do you see any closets, or a washing machine or dishwasher, or a bathtub, in this stylish but tiny interior? Can you make the necessary sacrifices to live tiny?
Along with the plan for how you’re going to finance and where you’re going to put your tiny house, you’ll need to consider the material aspects of your endeavor. Tiny house living is an expression of what’s important to you, and when you only have a small space, you can’t have everything. This is a vital question: What is essential for you in a home? You will have to make tradeoffs; you will have to think very carefully about what the house has to have. If you can’t live without a dishwasher, then your tiny house should have a dishwasher; but you must realize that for every item you consider essential, there’s going to be a cost, either financially or spatially or both. There will be things that you will initially feel like you need, but think about whether they are even feasible in a tiny house. If you truly need four bedrooms or a huge walk-in closet to hold your hundreds of articles of clothing, then tiny living is probably not for you. This brings us to another vital question: Are you able to part with most of your stuff? However you’re currently living, it most likely affords you the ability to own many more possessions than you can if you live in a tiny house.
The final question to consider when deciding whether tiny is right for you brings us back full circle to the beginning. Imagine yourself in your tiny house. What do you look forward to the most about living tiny? Think about this and take a minute to jot down your answers. Is it the ability to move your house to another location if you choose to? Is it the fact that you’re going to feel more comfortable in a smaller space with fewer things and fewer burdens? Is it the financial freedom that many people enjoy in the tiny house community? Whatever the case may be, whatever your personal answer is, make sure that you have a good understanding of where you are and how you fit into the tiny house equation. “Well, I like tiny houses, and that’s why I want one,” is not a good enough answer.
I hope all the questions we’ve raised here have given you plenty of food for thought and some things to work out for yourself. Getting them straight in your head will allow you to plan for your tiny house effectively.
EXPERIENCES VERSUS STUFF: MINIMALISM
The American Dream has always emphasized going big and doing better: go to college, buy a car, get married, buy a house, have kids, retire, and so on. There are certain elements of this philosophy that we’ve all adopted; our parents likely bought into this idea as well. But in the modern day, some people are concluding that this exact vision is not necessarily what they want out of life.
Part of the American Dream in the last century has been focused on consumerism and consumption. As a result, most of us have acquired way too much stuff for our own good. We have houses that are too big and filled with too many things. We have garages that aren’t used for parking cars but for housing our overflow of stuff. And when there simply isn’t enough space in the house, well, off-site self-storage is a booming industry in the United States. There are
