source- Tiny: A Story About Living Small
Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses,
Do you actually love living in a fancy tiny house*?
You look so freakin’ happy in that Dwell Magazine article or Buzzfeed post, but c’mon, you can’t tell me that you don’t lie awake at night, your face four inches from the ceiling because the only place your bed fits is above the kitchen sink which also acts as your shower, and think, I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Look, I’m not criticizing you. I commend you for making this giant leap. Since we humans seem comfortable with pillaging Mother Earth of all her resources, I believe more people should think like you. But 250 square feet? What the hell happens when your tiny house partner farts Mexican food farts, huh? Where do you escape to? Nowhere. You have nowhere to run. All you can do is walk three feet to the other end of the house and pray.
Or maybe you can run out into the tiny forest surrounding your tiny house.
I f’ing love the idea of downsizing and living a “simple life,” but seriously, where do you put your shit? You still have some clothing and shoes and towels and all that jazz, right? Or do you just wear overalls now? Overalls and Birkenstocks and one towel that you share with your entire family. Where do you wash that towel, hmm? Do you have a tiny river that runs behind your tiny house? I bet you do. I bet your whole Goddamn property is whimsical.
And I know your house isn’t that clean all of the time. In your pictures, it looks like you only own a tiny sofa, several throw blankets & pillow, one cooking pan, one antique book and one framed photo of you laughing in front of your tiny house.
Hey. Do you have privacy in your tiny house?
God damn, I have so many questions.
What if you’re having a shitty day and you just want to be alone? You can’t be alone, right? Because your partner or children are sitting two to ten feet away from you at all times. Don’t you feel like a rat trapped in a cage? Don’t you ever want to turn toward your lover or spawn and shout, “Get out! Get out of my tiny house!”
What about sexy time, huh? There is no f’ing way your kids aren’t hearing that shit. If you’re boinking four feet from your offspring, they might grow up to hate tiny things and end up building a McMansion with ten empty bedrooms just to spite you. Each bedroom will represent their years of loss innocence.
And your poor teenage children. What happens if they need sexy time? They go through puberty. They need the sex.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SEXY TIME?!?
Some of you tiny house dwellers don’t even have beds! WHERE IS THE BED?!
Even that dog is like, “Where the fuck is the bed, guys?”
What about guests? Where do you put your guests? Can friends and family even visit you? Do you have friends and family? ANSWER ME, DAMMIT! Are people now afraid of you?
“Honey, want to go visit Petal & Ralph out in their 250-square-foot house this weekend?”
“Are you shitting me? That place smells like a hot box of Mexican food farts.”
Guys, you know when the zombie apocalypse comes you’re going to be the first to go, right? Four zombies could pick up and shake your tiny house like a Smart Car. Your bodies will be flinging out the windows like hornets shaken from a nest. You’re only going to have that one cooking pan and farts to save yourself.
Be honest: You just want to live out your life like a Wes Anderson character, don’t you? You want to be some eccentric full of whimsy who doesn’t need modern tools or resources to live a fulfilling life. Well, good for you and your small abode. I hope you’re happy and that all my questions and concerns are just the ramblings of a jealous woman who wants a tiny house of her own.
All the best,
Lauren
*This post is half in jest. I actually do commend people who can live this life, but I am curious if it’s all peaches and cream like the swanky design magazines suggest. I do believe that overpopulation of the Earth is a problem, so downsizing seems like a great option. I also think these tiny houses are a great dwelling alternative for homeless individuals.
399 Comments
This is great, I wonder the same things. Love my 650 sq ft apt but no desire to go smaller . An acquaintance is bldg a tiny house this summer, can’t wait to see how it works for her.
I grew up in a 950-square-foot house with three people, and I’ve mostly lived in smaller my entire life. I like small too, but I don’t think I could do below 500.
Why “Mexican food farts?”
why not?
Have you ever smelled Mexican food farts? I dare say not much else compares (and that’s not a good thing…)
Beer & Egg farts are worse…
Because Mexican food.
ok then
I love it.
Suspecting that you’d live this, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLrx_QSd44E
The point they talk about cramming their whole Family into the campers every night, Mum & Dad having sex & the One Rule (‘wash your asshole’) will have all of you in stitches.
Spread Love,
Gypsy
“2-flats are where it’s at!” That’s my personal slogan. I own a 2-flat…live upstairs (so I don’t hear the other tenant)…collect rent for the downstairs unit. Not a huge place – Kitchen, Bathroom, Living Room/Dining Room and 2 bedrooms – but plenty for 2 adults and maybe 1-2 small kiddos. Basement allows for plenty of storage and shared laundry facility and 2 families only take up the footprint of a typical single-family home. Increase the 2-flats and reduce the footprint plus allow for a new home-owner to increase their income with rent 🙂
Lauren,
You’re an idiot. You can’t sit there mocking, berating and belittling people who choose a lifestyle that you aren’t capable of and then put a little disclaimer at the end that you’re just…sort of….kidding. You are just a typical half brained, liberal consumer who has no idea what being self sufficient and living a simple life is all about…so you mock it from the privacy of your own little debt prison. Most people who choose the tiny house lifestyle are conservative or libertarian minded individuals who pay cash up front, have no debt and have a real connection to nature and the world around them. They value privacy, self reliance and liberty. They dont need space for their “stuff” because the accumulation of stuff is not what is important in life. And they don’t want to be bothered, nor do they care to explain their life choices and decisions to the likes of a self-centered snob like you.
I’m curious? How large is your house?
P.S. I don’t have any debt and I don’t use credit cards.
JURISTIC PERSON, where do you get your stats? The majority of people I know that are building and living in tiny homes are liberal/green party types. I know of NO conservatives that are willing to give up their big homes, big trucks and consumer lifestyle to do what it takes to live in a tiny home.
I love watching those tiny house shows, and thanking all the gods/goddesses that I’m not also sleeping in a packing crate, and pooping in a sandbox – I mean composting toilet. I’m so impressed with their brilliant use of space, storage solutions, and efficient resource conservation, though! You go, tiny house people! Preferably downwind.
I love the idea, and I am a iddle class white guy, retired with a couple hundred k in the bank. My House is only 16x 40 but was 16 x 20 for years and i love it. Its not on wheels but is on a little lake in Alaska very far from any liberal pukes.
The title of “conservative” isn’t a political standpoint… think outside your cube. Conservative means to hold traditional viewpoints and are cautious of big change. So then what is your “traditional” ?…. Liberal means open to new behavior and ideas… even if those ideas are stupid. The freedom to make a poor choice of direction, and then to take that step back and rethink that choice. The mass majority of people don’t do anything extra-ordinary for their future in the traditional sense.. so while the “Liberal Arts” is forced down your throat to make it seem like we need some complicated politically correct society; the conservative “traditional” viewed people, and libertarians (advocates of free will) are making their choice not to be a part of the fame chasing and money grubbing lifestyles.. I live in a small home, and it’s all that’s needed to survive and thrive.. the houses we go into debt for, trap us into yet another cube. So de-program yourself to be acceptant of other peoples choices, and then you will be establishing “libertarian” ideology..
To the generations long past, this future of materialism and consumerism would be such as if hell spilled over into life. Living close quarters and sustainable was, in part, why the Great Depression of the 30’s didn’t kill everyone and their mothers in the America’s. 90% of the population were self sustained with farms and small living arrangements… now we stand on the brink of economic collapse similar to the 20’s, and less than 5% of you are self reliant and sustainable. Good luck when Costco and Wal-Mart and Wal-Greens have no goods for sale. People won’t have time to regret not living sustainably, because chaos will have settled on the continent.
I am conservative and we, my husband and I, live in a 280 sq. foot home. Grew up in a two bedroom house with 12 siblings and 2 parents. You learn what is necessary to have and what is luxury. We have a bedroom, bathroom, combination kitchen/living room.
I’m a conservative and we live in an 800 sq ft house. Downsized from 1800 because all the wasted space seemed silly to pay for. We also have a motorcycle and tiny car (no big SUVs) and live very modestly by choice. We’re saving for the future when our children get older. Not all conservatives are the same. Some of us are just nice quiet people that love our little country homes.
I’m curious. Where do you get your statistical information about tiny house dwellers? Also: didn’t your mother teach you that it isn’t polite to call people names?
Tiny car? One of those clown cars like from the circus? I once saw like 27 clowns crawl out of one!
Do you have any room for clowns?
This is hilarious satire. Have you ever read “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town” wherein beloved Canadian author Stephen Leacock tears the fake residents of Mariposa new ones over and over again? The thing is, he was from a small town. He loved these fools, dammit! For he was a fool himself, hailing from the smallest town of Orillia, Ontario. Lauren is following a long line of satirists and I think she did a great job:)
I don’t think that this is at all satirical, hip, cool, or very interesting. The topic of how one lives comfortably in a tiny house can be rich and interesting. It is also ripe for satire if perhaps a grown-up satirist like Ian Frazier were to write about it. This just hipster drivel by yet another self-congratulating millennial. Somebody please take her magic tablet away from her. And before any of you whine, “Can you do better?”, the answer is, “Yes, easily”, but I need to be paid.
Don’t know where you get your stats on tiny house dwellers Juristic, you forgot a sense of humour is integral when yu live mall. We’re a family of 5 (2 left the nest already) pinko socialists in a 512sq ft home and I thought this was HILARIOUS – Especially when I read this while nursing a goosebump on my head because I’d spent 45 minutes lying in the attic over our kitchen with a beam 4 inches from my nose trying to convince myself it could be a bedroom for our teen (my kids have bedstees with curtains in the bumped out attic- our bed folds out in the living space below). And we really do have the tiny forest – backs onto big forest, tiny river- feeds into big river, and tiny lake (okay we do refer to it as a pond) just outside our door. We’ve had a few major WHAT HAVE WE DONE????? moments. My partner claims his farts don’t stink, but you missed the biggest problem n a very small house with a lot of people isn’t the people – its the kitty litter box.
LOL. Didn’t even think of the litter box.Yeah, I’d say that could be a “lingering problem”, hahaha
GOOD GIRL! Fist bump. The Juristic Person is very angry and I don’t think it has much to do with your hilarious blog entry about tiny houses.
I lived in 250 sqft for two years with my husband and two boys while I recovered from cancer treatment. God that was easy in every way, from cleaning, to keeping a good eye on the kids, to just feeling connected and unbound to anything accept what we felt like doing. Financially we saved 40k and looking at another 20k when we sell the place. We’ve recently moved closer to my son’s school now that Ive fully recovered. We now live in 840 sqft and I wouldnt want a foot larger. Sexy time? Anyone with kids knows that when those kids are asleep, they’re asleep – and again anyone with kids knows even in a mansion you’re still not going to have crazy uninhibited hang from the rafters sex when you’re under the same roof with those little turkeys. That’s what weekends at Grandma’s house are for no matter what size house you live in. We love our cottage lifestyle and I think anyone can do it if you can handle not having 10,000 pairs of shoes or giving up rooms you never use. We’ve done 4500 sqft down to 250ft and going smaller was the best thing we ever did.
ok, sure.
Geez, some people take themselves way too ok seriously! This article was hilarious! I love these tiny house things, but a little humor in life, right? laughter is really really good for the entire eco-system, much more earth friendly than any self righteous ball-buster could ever be!
The guy with jurastic and his name needs to get a freaking grip I’m a tiny house dweller and I laugh so damn hard at Lauren’s writing that I tinkled in my pants no lie I just had to get up and change my undies it is freakin hysterical and I don’t know when I have left this damn hard I sure do appreciate laughter in my old age my husband is 57 I’m 56 I’m a retired litigation paralegal and I work from home making beautiful jewelry with Swarovski Elements with my lovely Miss Bridget my purebred Scottish Terrier at my side we watch Little House on the freaking Prairie and other shows all day long while my husband works we don’t live out in the middle of the Woods we live less than 5 minutes away from Applebee’s Target Arby’s Wawa and every other major Store and restaurant we live in a small town north of Orlando on a piece of acreage that one man owns we’re back away from the traffic and nobody can even see us back here we often shower out in the sun since living in Florida provides that experience nearly every day of the year we spend less than $400 a month to stay here and why we are saving up for our to a solar cubes the landlord provides Water and Electric he has a big protective dog we have owls in the trees and we love where we’re at hell I’d love to have Lauren as my neighbor I think she’s hysterical and some of you guys just need to smile a little bit more!
You have some data to back up these statements, right?
Anne said it right… this is SATIRE. Go see the Book of Mormon… the writers both admire and lambast Mormonism. I am sorry for anyone who can’t appreciate a good laugh.
No, no. You’re the idiot. There’s a saying that goes like this, “Only stupid people don’t get sarcasm”. To assume the author has debt and no connection to nature and the world around them (as you put it) and to assume the majority of people living in little houses are conservative or libertarian minded individuals is complete hogwash. Boo to you. Take your narrow mind and read elsewhere. The rest of us will sit back and enjoy the humor in her writing.
…….. Good lord. This is the most melodramatic, unprovoked reaction I’ve ever seen on the internet.
ON THE INTERNET.
Been on the internet long?
How about two tiny houses – one for the action, and one for the other-season stuff & single escape?
Most rv’s have way too much space for traveling, while choking occupants like one of those old movies where the walls are squeezing shut, and get parked in storage places much of the year.
950 sq ft, btw is the size of a spacious 32×33 three-bdr house, with at least one bdr sequestered from the rest, and a pantry/entry room in addition to kitch, dining area, and good size living shelter. FAR too big for one or two.
But don’t listen to me, I still prefer sleeping outside from feet to miles from my mobile suitcase.
Since houses on wheels are too attractive to North America’s favorite symbiotes, thieves (speed freaks) and police, they are more hassle than asset.
Had 5 guys sardine-style in my campervan in a stormy pinch far from the housey crowd, and I hear that evidence of tent poles and firepits are 3 million years old – Homo habilis or erectus figured out everything short of mailing address. Grounded politicians won’t let you vote against them from your yurt.
I really want to live in your part of the internet, no sarcasm at all. Mine seems to have… Much stronger reactions in it. I’d like a tiny dinner home in you corner of the internet. (Also well phrased)
…….. Good lord. This is the most melodramatic, unprovoked reaction I’ve ever seen on the internet.
ON THE INTERNET.
Here’s the thing about people who live minimalist lifestyles and praise themselves for being able to not accumulate “stuff”. In their attempt to live a life without, you’ve become just as bad as the hoarders that do… because you’ve made your life about the stuff. Stop bandwagoning about the merits of living with or without things and just live. Don’t flame a comedy post because it doesn’t fall in line with your views. 🙂
The ocean called, it wants its salt back.
Lol!
Ass-u-me much, Juristic Person???? Sheesh! You know nothing – NOTHING – about Hipstercrite’s personal life. As she’s mentioned, she’s debt free and doesn’t use credit cards. How about you? And why haven’t you answered the questions posed? HOW LARGE IS YOUR HOUSE? I do notice that Hisptercrite didn’t assume anything about you, like stating you live in a large ranch-style home and are paying off that few hundred thousand dollars in home loan… Well? HOW ABOUT ANSWERING HER QUESTIONS???? HMM??????
Ugh – juristic person – you’re clearly not getting sexy time – and it is true that only smart people get & appreciate sarcasm.
Lauren, you are hilarious. I am sure we would be great friends…I, too, have ALL of these god damn questions every time I see these adorable tiny homes. I want one so badly, but I have too many god damn shoes and purses and a settee and a 4′ deep sofa that goes perfectly with my Netflix subscription that I can’t imagine living without. Mexican food farts, where is the god damn bed, sexy time, zombies, OMG I can’t stop laughing…
p.s. Juristic person – shitting in a hole in the ground in the woods doesn’t make you closer to nature…in fact, I can look at the trees on my apple tv screen saver and feel like I’ve gone on a hike just the same.
This is not sarcasm.
Saying “I love Mondays” when I work at a soul sucking corporation is sarcasm. Calling my neighbor’s abusive alcoholic “a real winner” is sarcasm. Ridiculing another’s lifestyle in this manner may be satire, but it isn’t automatically sarcasm.
Hey Juristic,
I’m a Libertarian and I would never want one of these houses. Everything you said was just so….stupid.
Don’t feed the trolls, people.
Juristic Person,
How many boxes of “Ancient Grains” cereal are in your tiny tiny cabinet right now?
Just Curious,
Staceyleigh
Dear Juristic person,
I happen to be in-between being very liberal on some issues, and very conservative on others. I have a decent size debt roll, and plan to live off the grid entirely for electricity once I’m not renting.
I have the seeds for my garden planned, and I’ve grown things most of my life. My connection with nature can be summed up as “I’m Wiccan” – that’s pretty much most of what we do – commune with nature (and meditate). I could never, and would never want to live in a place smaller than my living room. In fact, about 2k sq feet sounds just about right. I need plenty of space for the pets we rescue – mostly lizards, and the pets we plan to have that may not be rescues (I love tarantulas & plan to have several), in addition to the ones with fur (cats, bunny, rats – yes, we kept a small stray rat that showed up on our doorstep – I couldn’t make that up if I tried, since I don’t really care for rats lol).
So there you have it – I’m pretty much the opposite of your stereotype, and boy oh boy – the name-calling? Get over yourself already. She CAN sit there and mock their lifestyle… if you ever smelled Mexican food farts, you’d wonder how they survive through it too… giving up Mexican food would suck… as would living in one of those. Each to their own though – that’s why houses come in so many shapes/sizes. There is no “one size fits all”, no matter how determined you are to shove people into stereotypes.
I live in a tiny house and most conservatives would say I’m as liberal as one can get. I’m actually a moderate, but far be it from me to insert reality.
I also think you’re a bit of a humourless douche, but to each their own.
As for someone who doesn’t want to be bothered or care to explain your life choices you certainly are doing a lot of both.
Wow…somebody took the article a little personally, I’d say. “Tiny homes” are dumb because it’s a movement about branding. People ALL OVER, by choice or circumstance, live in smaller residences. ‘Tiny home’ living is stupid because it ignores practicalities. The alternative to hyper-consumption is NOT reasonably living in 120sf plus 50sf person. It shouldn’t be a moralistic issue…like vegainsm.
you are the sort incapable of laughter and justifies their own smelly Mexican food farts that I would rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick, then share a tiny house with you.
never!
NOT EVEN IF THERES A FIRE!!!!!
Juristic Person…Get a sense of humor! She is not mocking it, but wondering about about how it is living in such a small space. But personally…if I had to live a in a space that small with my husband without getting out of the SAME room (I’m sure you could go outdoors, but hate the heat and bugs. Not a nature person) one of us would kill the other and it it would be constant bickering! It seems a nice life if you are the type of person who could do it.
Stop feeding the troll! He just said that crap to stir up more crap & y’all fell for it.
Conservatives dont buy crappy little houses like this because they are smart enough to know that a REAL home GOES UP in value where as these little POS are worthless a few years later. Also Conservatives have jobs where these people usually do not and live off the government. If they were smart they would just go buy a damn camper twice the size and half the price…fools…or should I say suckers.
I know a few of these people around my area, and they are most definitely not conservative. I’m not sure where you made that connection but so be it. I believe it takes more of a liberal (check the definition of that word) way of thinking to be able to survive this life still. I personally have chosen a nomadic life style most recently, because I reject the notion that after graduation that being a woman I must get married have a couple of babies, and find a job that won’t interfere with home life. This is what the “new conservatives” say I must do as a woman. So sorry you can’t tell me that they are the ones living a non-conventional life style. You may want to look up the definition and the value of your parties before you go slinging slander at people and throughout the word Libreal as if it’s a bad thing.
Where are all your tools for maintaining your “house” Spare tire? fire extingushers? First aid kit? Spare food if there is a natural disaster? Realible water source? What happens when one family member gets sick and it spreads threw the “house” I’m assuming your a non vaxer,vaccinator, vaccer what ever you call someone interested in getting TB or Small Pox?
Juristic Person, I fixed your sentence for you;
“Most people who choose the tiny house lifestyle are conservative or libertarian minded individuals…or Smurfs…”
Uh…whatever, dick! People who shove children into a 200 sq ft house are child abusers. It’s gross…
You’re very obviously the idiot here. Ever heard of satire? Your comment was hilarious to read.
I love living in my 190 square foot tiny house.. I am not a hipster. I legit poop in a bucket and it ain’t a dirty shack at all. Farting? Fart out the window.
Love the satire, hate the cursing.
AGREED.
Ditto
I like the idea of tiny living, and I’ve been a guest in a tiny house. It was fun! I live tiny-ily myself, no not tiny, but small (575 squares). My only contribution to this would be — USE THE STRUCTURES WE CURRENTLY HAVE. Let’s respect land for once and ADAPT for use. No new sewer line and electricity hookups. Let’s use what we got.
Just my two centers.
i live in a hole in a wall apartment, which might as well be considered such. it would be too much for you. you would lose your shit at the cockroaches breeding in the walls. they come from my neighbor who hoards god knows what and 3 dogs and place the size of mine
you’re a fucking racist by the way you whorebag.:)
haha just kidding. I KID.
its great you write so passionately.
where do you get your inspiration? 🙂
i hope i could help <3
oh man. i’ve done the cockroach-infested, tiny-ass apartment a few times.
hell, i had a place in downtown LA that had rats and i got flea bites from the fleas on the rats (no joke).
inspiration is such a weird thing. sometimes it doesn’t show its face for months, maybe even years, and sometimes it just pops up while you’re sitting on the can or taking a shower. that little f’er.
Dear Lauren,
My friend just sent me your post so I just read it even though it’s a bit old. My husband and 16 month son live in a tiny log cabin. (Almost 300 sf plus sleeping loft)
To answer some of your questions: our bed is in a loft, there’s a shed dormer above the bed for head room. My son has a tiny room that holds a crib and small dresser, with a door to answer your sexy time question. I have a full set of cooking implements, the crock pot and blender live in the cupboard, not on the counter though. Farts are terrible but we open a window and the air clears quickly because the rooms are so small. The closet is difficult because I have to stack most of the clothes suitcase style and its hard to keep clean. I have to plan my outfits the night before. We have one or two guests at a time and they sleep on the couch or outside in a tent when it’s warm. We do our laundry at the laundromat. With a baby this is most annoying, but we deal. We do have a creek but not a river, and there is a tiny forest around our house.
If you have more questions or want to see photos feel free to email me.
What is the land situation? Where is your T.H. (not the address, but the general location, access to services, etc.?
you’ve obviously never lived in NYC. completely normal.
This is the funniest thing I have ever read. I am an anti tiny houser or shall I say I am anti government human settlement agenda. However I watch the stupid HGTV show over and over and think about the bunch of bullshit they are selling people trying to convince them that life will be perfect in the house where your table is your bed. OMG think of the crumbs in the bed it’s too much for me to fathom. I do wonder where their clothes and shoes are stored or does everyone have a 5 in one outfit in black. Yes we are an over indulged society and I have roughed it, a 3 week state wide power outage after a hurricane in the heat of the summer with two little boys. I know what roughing it is like and dear lord if we were in cramped quarters who knows if we would have survived. Although we did stick close together but could certainly escape if anyone farted. I appreciate conservation and could care less if someone chooses to live in a closet I just cant stand the media lies and brainwashing tactics and how gullible society is.,Thanks for the best laugh in a very long time you rock.
Ha, ha, agree, this is freaking great. They’re all moochers, but not every show highlights the “mooch” factor. Awesome!
PS: Poor dog! Does he just STAND all day?
F-ing hilarious!
<3
I totally think all of these same things. I would never in a million years live in a tiny house with kids. Maybe if I was single and child free, but I think kids and adults need separate spaces and room to breathe and not smell each other’s farts.
Yes! Every family member should have their own tiny house!
We figured it out that we need 100 sq ft per person plus a bed – the kids share the attic loft 16×16 -low steeply pitched ceiling – 3 kids 15, 10 and 7 in built in beds with denim curtains. We only have a futon in the livingroom below, Then a 9×16 kitchen and a 7 x 16 bathroom/laundryroom. Someone did actually suggest to me that we should get rid of the beds – apparently we are not hardcore minmalist enough.
Awesome idea !! (every family member having their own tiny house !)
Great article ~ I laughed much.
Thanks 🙂
When I see a bed so close to the ceiling I always wonder about the sex life of these people. They change positions sometimes? How many injuries they get from bumping body parts on things?
And it creeps me out how they can put the bathroom so close to the kitchen… Think about farts when you’re trying to cook. ewww
I LOVE tiny houses, I live in a small place myself but I’m single… You have to draw the line somewhere! lol
Hahaha. Tiny houses are mood killers.
Nah, I’m in a remodeled 435sqft construction trailer, more of a tiny home than a microhome. And I promise, sexytime works JUST fine.
Conversely I have 8ft ceilings and a queen sized bed. 😉
The focus on bodily emissions is hard to read, guys. Let’s graduate to the 9th grade.
hahahah. i love you.
<3
Thanks for the giggle! As someone who lives in a tiny RV home, I too look at the magazine articles and think WTF?!?! There aren’t enough places to ever put the utensils and food and beyond-10-outfits that every normal human owns.
The only saving grace is that when someone is coming for a visit/ peek, I can throw everything extra in the bathroom… because NO ONE wants to see the bathroom once you talk about humanure 😉
Humanure! I love it!
I’ve lived in an eight bedroom home, I’ve lived in a 350 sq fit trailer… I’ve lived in a tent for a couple month too…. I remember sitting in the two story 3 bdrm house I was renting once, realizing I was paying all this money to sit on my couch or at my desk, walk into the kitchen for nourishment, walk up the stairs for sleep and shower etc…. I kept thinking what a waste of money & space, no one used most of what was being paid for…. so I moved into something smaller, spent less on utilities etc…. and while it isn’t a tiny home right now, I can honestly say that I liked that little 350 sq ft space I had that time… all except the fact that I got no real exercise there and no space to do much of it… exercise aside, these tiny homes make sense to me and the money these folks may have left over allows them to afford a healthier lifestyle as well!
Very cool, Christina. Thank you for sharing.
Let me answer this in honesty….it can truly suck. My husband and I live in a 12’x24′ on 6 acres. No children, but 8 indoor/outdoor cats and 1 mutt. Some days I just go outside and scream. And don’t get me started on ‘stuff’ and hoe impossibly easy it is to clutter up the tiny home.
Hey, Angela. Thanks for sharing. I know- stuff is tough. It doesn’t feel like there is enough space for stuff.
This is an extrodinarily egocentric article. Millions, if not billions of people in this world don’t have the luxury of having 4500 sq foot air conditioned houses. The whole point of tiny houses it to get away from that. Until you understand that, you cannot understand living tiny.
Hi, Steven-Charles! Did you happen to read the footnote?
LIGHTEN UP STEVEN! lauren is obviously making fun of elitist hipster types that choose to build these things and celebrate them as being cool. no one is making fun of indian families 8 strong that live in a bedroom shack. mummy
this article is the funniest thing i’ve read in a year. or two. thanks.
Ah, the righteous indignation of the smug and condescending. Thanks for educating us on the obvious. I suspect you were among the first to own a hybrid car a decade ago and now you’re living tiny – enjoying the smell of your own farts. The rest of us may live large and wasteful, but our sense of humor is still intact. The article is a humorous rant and stated as such. If you cannot see that, perhaps you need to open your tiny windows and let the fart juice clear. It may be detrimentally affecting your brain function in the way carbon monoxide would…
1st of all, this is hilarious! These are certainly the universal questions people have about tiny living & probably the very reasons why some will never go for it. I cannot imagine tiny living with children; that is a remarkable feat! Think “Alaskan Bush People!”
2nd point, my husband & I being in our late 50’s are looking forward to building a tiny/small house to retire in. Our very 1st apartment, a charming refurbished basement of a lovely home, was a mere 200 sq ft & we were quite comfortable. We continued living there even after the birth of our 1st child until she was about 17 months. Realizing 200 sq ft was actually feasible space in which to be comfortable, we are considering building anywhere from 200 – 300 sq ft. with a ground floor bedroom for ourselves and loft(s) for grandkids & other visitors. The loo will be off of our bedroom, not the kitchen!
Very cool, Aisling!
1st of all, this is hilarious! These are certainly the universal questions people have about tiny living & probably the very reasons why some will never go for it. I cannot imagine tiny living with children; that is a remarkable feat! Think “Alaskan Bush People!”
2nd point, my husband & I being in our late 50’s are looking forward to building a tiny/small house to retire in. Our very 1st apartment, a charming refurbished basement of a lovely home, was a mere 200 sq ft & we were quite comfortable. We continued living there even after the birth of our 1st child until she was about 17 months. Realizing 200 sq ft was actually feasible space in which to be comfortable, we are considering building anywhere from 200 – 300 sq ft. with a ground floor bedroom for ourselves and loft(s) for grandkids & other visitors. The loo will be off of our bedroom, not the kitchen!
I’m pretty sure your planning intensity would have to be considered artistic obsessive compulsive.
I love it. But one thing that bothers me about my tiny house friends is this . They go to all the trouble to make everything so small and minimal. In some cases forgoing clothes . However they insist on keeping a ton of books , what’s the deal …. every hear of ebooks??? You know you can read/ listen to them on your iPad
You can’t have a tiny house without a butt-load of books! It wouldn’t look as cool otherwise! 😉
I have a personal library that has followed me through two decades. I can’t even explain the compulsion. For the first time in my life, it’s now all under one roof in our (now we are told) huge 910 sq ft home. Just having them around me makes me happy. I have even lived out of a suitcase while they sat in a comfy storage locker. We still buy books regularly as we are in the process of chucking out so much of our other crap. But they are my books! My BOOOOOOOOOOKS!!!
Most tiny houses are designed to fit the owner down to the last inch! It just so happens that the people who post a lot of photos really like books. A lot have no books at all. Some have projectors for movies, others have big kitchens, others have an extra bedroom. It’s really about what the individual /family actually needs.
That was hipsterical!
Thanks for the laugh
😀
Married and childfree, living in a 500 sq ft house and…
While it’s not “tiny” and will never be on the cover of a magazine, I can honestly say that it’s great not having a massive space to clean up. We have a large yard where the majority of actual living occurs though. The closest thing we have to a dining table is outside, there’s an outdoor couch and a covered patio. Inside is only used for bad weather, sleeping, and things that involve electronics.
Thanks for sharing, Joules!
this sounds about right 🙂
Your questions are my questions.
Well.. though I’ve never known anyone who actually lived in one of these things, a friend of mine lived in a tent while his parents were building their (much larger than 300sqft) house. His sister lived in another tent. The parents were in a very slightly converted area of a barn/shed type building. They seem to have turned out alright.
While I certainly can’t understand why anyone who wants to have more children would have their existing children sleeping inside one of these houses every day, it seems like there are lots of good alternatives. Heck, they don’t even have to be adventuring outdoors every day of the year.. one day in four is probably enough, right?
1) This is probably my favorite thing you’ve ever written; and 2) I HATE that you had to put that disclaimer at the bottom. But I also know that people on the internet are assholes and many of them have no senses of humor.
HGTV now has a show about people looking for super small houses. The first and only episode I watched featured a guy asking “Is there any more storage?” I facepalmed and changed the channel.
That’s weird because I think I have a great sense of humor & I didn’t find this funny at all. So thanks for assuming, reader above, that I’m an asshole. You’re awesome. The disclaimer actually makes it worse! ‘Oh haha you silly people thinking living in such tiny houses is cool….not! But hey, homeless people should be overjoyed if we gave them these houses we find ridiculous!’ M’kay.
The snark is aimed at the wrong people. It should be at the designers & advertisers that try & sell a lifestyle in one of these homes as zen bliss when practical issues, (like storage), make the opposite true. So instead of “dear person who made this choice, how do you…” it should have been, “dear person who designed this, WTF were you thinking?”
Thanks for your feedback!
Oh lord. Didn’t I tell you to get off the computer? Is your Humor 101 homework done yet?
It sounds like you want to hear if these people are actually happier. Are you happier on vacation or at work? Do you rent a place the size of your house on vacation? If you rent something smaller — a condo, a cabin, a hotel room, a campsite, an RV, then you’ve just proven to yourself that not having to take care of so much stuff can increase your happiness.
Sure, there are lots of other things helping you be happy on vacation, but if you were able to have more of those other things — time with your kids, time to read, time to walk in beautiful places, time to get as much sleep as you need every night, truly dark nights, playing every day — and if the cost for that was living in a smaller place — you too might decide it’s worth it.
What bugs me about these design magazines is they ignore the very real fact that these are RVs. The people who live full time in cities in RVs live in trailer parks and we ignore them. We ignore that they have interesting, creative, connected lives. It’s the hermits and law-breakers we publish house-tours for.
And in the interviews for these people there’s this thing which always gets mentioned — the cost of having a standard American home and how much life it demands to meet in. But then pretty pictures anesthetize us to what that statement means: Real estate prices are inflated past their historical ratio to wages and the race to maximize property values have squeezed high density residences such as rooming houses and dorms out of our neighborhoods.
“Do you rent a place the size of your house on vacation? If you rent something smaller — a condo, a cabin, a hotel room, a campsite, an RV, then you’ve just proven to yourself that not having to take care of so much stuff can increase your happiness. ”
Not even close to sensical. I rent a hotel and am fine with it because I am not spending time in the hotel when I am on vacation. I am not LIVING there, I am vacationing there. It is a place to sleep and bathe and little to nothing else.
My home by contrast is where I cook, rehearse music and dance, sew and craft, care for my pets, and entertain family and friends. I store my bike here, my camping equipment here, my plates, utensils and cookwear live here. I store food in a fridge, I have a television and stereo I enjoy watching and listening to. I keep all my clothes and shoes, for work and play, here (not just a bikini and some sandals for the beach). I also work from home, so my computer and printer, scanner, my office supplies, my stapler.
These are not things I need on vacation, so I don’t need a house to do these things in or store these items in. And I am happy on vacation because I don’t have to work every day, I don’t have to bathe my dogs, or do the dishes or mop the floor. A vacation is NOT LIFE. It is a way to VACATE YOUR LIFE for a time, avoid the responsibilities of an adult and just do fun things.
So no, it makes no sense when you claim that the size of the space or number of things you own have anything to do with why you are happy on vacation.
“A vacation is NOT LIFE. It is a way to VACATE YOUR LIFE for a time, avoid the responsibilities of an adult and just do fun things.”
Speak for yourself. You don’t die when you go one vacation. What the heck?
The land value is the main cost driver of a home, not the size. We looked at a bunch of different sized homes when we were house hunting and the smaller ones weren’t that much cheaper.
Now the utilities bills ARE dependent on the size of the home but the total spent on utilities is only a tiny fraction of the mortgage (mostly driven by land values)
Laughing along with you. If we decided to do this I’m sure my family would have a get together to discuss how far we have gone off the deep end. “They don’t want us to come visit and comment on their ‘no poo’ washing their clothes with vinegar and baking soda barely eating animal products selves.”
Or they will try to come visit anyways and complain that we don’t have cable.
Love this.
I’ve been dying to go tiny, but I honestly haven’t a clue where I’ll put all my clothes–which is why I’ve begun selling them 🙂 I’m a single twenty-something, so I’m not too much worried about Mexican fart smells coming from anyone other than my beagle. In college, I lived alone in a studio apartment that was under 250 sq feet–plenty of room for one! I would willingly do it again in a heartbeat. Yeah its a “lifestyle,” but how much space does one person REALLY need, you know? Americans have become so accustomed to spacious living, but when you actually live tiny, you realize how unnecessary it all was. With an interior design background, I’m pretty resourceful when it comes to creative storage solutions and have found it’s surprising how much stuff you can fit into a small space. You still have to cut it down to needs vs wants…to a degree! Simple, tiny living definitely breaks the norm, and taking that first step is probably the hardest part, but I promise (& this is coming from a shopaholic) that it’s totally do-able!
Seanne – I HEAR YOU! I actually have found room for A LOT of my clothes (an embarrassing amount, really). Just plan on a larger closet that has bars in the front, shelves in the back and shoes on the bottom… you’d be surprised what you can fit 🙂
Do you feed your beagle a lot of Mexican food? Tehehe.
A) I love your writing. It’s hilarious. B) THANK YOU. I am tired of pretending to be excited that someone has fit their whole life into a chicken coop/shed situation and feeling guilty because I need to be able to sleep in a different room than the one in which I make spaghetti bolognese.
Great satire Hipstercrite,
I encourage the cultural shift in necessity, but think society would be best served by offering them to the homeless folks mentioned in your footnote. The disparity between those who choose to live with less and the rest, is akin to the person who sleeps outside and called homeless, and the person who owns a home and does the same, yet is named an outdoorsman.
You call yourself a writer? Think you need a bar of soap taken to your mouth!
Just because this lifestyle isn’t for you doesn’t mean you have to trash it for those who love it.
Deborah,
Yes, I do. Sometimes writers swear and sometimes they use humor.
Wow, Debbie Downer. Take it easy, there!
In which way was she trashing those who love this life style? My interpretation of her point was how ridiculously idealistic many articles make tiny houses seem. Not once did she try to make any tiny-house-dweller feel like less of a person (unlike you’ve just done to her). She was well spoken, eloquent and downright funny. As a grown up who understands that much of the internet contains a naughty word or two, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why in the world would you think that there is only one opinion allowed on “this lifestyle”? Just because this article isn’t for you doesn’t mean you have to trash it for those who love it (like me).
I want to build a tiny house. But with 6 kids it would’t be very practical. But once they move out, I will build one just to make sure they can never return to the best (unless they have no choice). I also plan to help all of my kids build their own tiny houses each so that as they transition into adulthood where they are going to college and starting out on their own, they won’t have to worry about utilities and rent. They can put that money back and save up for their futures.
Freaking hilarious! I’m a huge advocate and fan for tiny houses and tiny living, and this story was just posted by a friend. I read it a few minutes ago and can’t stop laughing!
Tiny living is not for everyone. What I save in living expenses, I spend on actually living. Friends stay in a hotel where they belong. Outside, parks, libraries, cafes is how you get away from people. The place can air out in 2 seconds by opening the door. You don’t keep extra stuff so there is no clutter. Not for one single second do I regret my tiny space. I eat better, I see live shows, and I go places more because I can afford it and because home is just your safe nest, not where you interact w life. I have lived tiny for nearly 10 years… And my life has never been better!
So basically, you are an extrovert. Not all of us want to devote our non-work down time to going everywhere because that is just exhausting.
Funny, I always think tiny houses are for introverts… I am living in a small flat in the middle of the woods with my partner. When I want to be alone, I go to the woods. I am a massive introvert, which is why I love living in nature, I always feel you can’t get secluded enough indoors… And cafés and libraries are the places where other people are easiest to interact with for an introvert (at least me). Unfortunately, my place is too big for me to tell guests they need to stay in a hotel but I’d love to downsize so I will only meet people outside in the future.
Hilarious – and smart questions. Living tiny is NOT all romantic; in fact, very VERY little of it is anything near that term. I’ve written a couple blog entries that deal with (and link to) some of these questions. Here: https://aatinyhouse.wordpress.com/2014/07/29/knocking-on-noggins/
and here: https://aatinyhouse.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/economyieseconomease/
You are hereby granted a free one week stay in a tiny house to see what you think about tiny house living up close and personal. All you have to do is travel to Durango, CO. Let me know if you are interested.
Hey, Greg!
I’m emailing you!
Two words. serial. killer. Just sayin’.
ha ha! But I want to go too…
I love looking at tiny homes on the web. They are beautiful and creative. Much more so than a travel trailer. I also think that downsizing is a movement whose time has come. However beyond that the whole idea kinda bothers the crap out of me. Most videos(not all) feature tiny homes that cost $20,000 or more to build. They are usually parked on a paved lot (but never in a trailer park because their owners are clearly too good for that). Or they are parked in a relative’s or friend’s yard. Like a moocher. I even saw a video where they spent $25,000 to build a TH to live in while they built a home on their property. I recently bought a used 5th wheel trailer for $800. The trend just seems wasteful to me and a little arrogant to me. Like people are too proud to say they live in a trailer so they’ll spend thousands more to live in what is essentially a trailer.
From my end: we built a tiny home for the same reason most folks who can make that choice do. We wanted specific custom things. Trailers are mass produced and low quality for living. There are serious health issues. Being able to build your own home is a huge privilege. Not everyone can afford that luxury.
Totally agree with the custom aspect. A new 26 ft commercial travel trailer runs 24K +. Why not spend that on your own design.
As for parking in a trailer/r.v. park..the bloody park rent is outrageously high and all u get is water and electricity. And neighbors on both sides 15 ft away…uck
That was freakin’ HILARIOUS! And your post was shared on Facebook by a friend of mine who lives in a 120 sq foot house!
Trust me, there are many tiny housers who are also laughing their asses off. And of course you’ll also find some who will be offended (maybe they ran out of storage space and had to throw out their humour?).
I will be building my own tiny home some day and have attended a couple of workshops in the States (I’m Canadian, eh). And just FYI, the kind of sex positions you enjoy actually IS one of the considerations when determining the height of your loft (thank you Jay Shafer for mentioning it during the Four Lights workshop). 🙂
Thank you, Judy!
That is hilarious about the workshop. Love it!
How big will your home be? As you can tell, I actually think tiny homes are kind of cool, so I’m so curious about everyone’s responses!
Loved the article! You bring up some really good points. I pimped out a garage once and it was a wonderful 220 sq. ft. of experimentation. I’ve always been pretty much of a minimalist but that space showed me what I need to live comfortably – even luxuriously – and what I can’t live without. Tiny house enthusiasts like everyone else are coming from a lot of different perspectives – so consensus around the idea is pretty impossible. But what I found out for myself is that I could live in 300-400 sq. ft. easily and that my bathroom is more important to me than a kitchen 😀 In my opinion the Japanese do small best and they’ve had a lot of time to figure out what works aesthetically, sustainably, and for the art of living well – so they are one of my standard makers.
Glad to hear from a garage p i m p e r.
Back when my kids were 4 & 11 I turned my two car garage, 400 square feet, into a living space for the three of us for 4 years.
The boys had their own room, I had a pull out sleeper sofa in the living room, we had a bathroom a small kitchen and a very small office area. Worked great for us. Whether it is a trailer a house or anything else the most important factor is the layout.
My main house was 900 square feet, 3 bedroom, 1 bath, kitchen, utility room, 5 closets living room, that I rented out.
To answer this question for people who just don’t get it. Right now I live in a tiny apartment but I miss my camper-van.
“seriously, where do you put your shit?”
Long term storage e.g. winter during the summer goes into storage & vice versa. Less is more living. You are not a slave to stuff.
Or do you just wear overalls now? Overalls and Birkenstocks and one towel that you share with your entire family. Where do you wash that towel, hmm?
I’m not a hippy far from it. I’m a bit Goth, a lot pirate and a little Mad Max ish. Towel – 2 & I wash them at a laundry mat where do you wash yours if you don’t have a washer & dryer?
“I bet you do. I bet your whole Goddamn property is whimsical.” Wow – jaded much? As I said I’m not a slave to stuff. I have what I need and some I want. Stuff I don’t needed on a regular basis is in storage. As for cleaning, yes you do have to be very clean & very organized.
“Do you have privacy in your tiny house?” Yes
“What if you’re having a shitty day and you just want to be alone?” I can stand in a crowd & be alone, I can park a camper van or tiny house in the middle of no wheres and be alone. Couples do not need to spend every second together. They can open the door and talk a walk. Go to the gym, take a hike (literally), go to a friend’s ect…. what do you do when you want to be alone?
Sexy time – Earth has provided all kinds of sexy places.
Friends: Only the ones worth having
Guests: Road Trip! Picnics… I didn’t get a camper-van to house other people.
“You just want to live out your life like a Wes Anderson character” No, a pirate!
“you want to be some eccentric full of whimsy who doesn’t need modern tools or resources to live a fulfilling life. ” I have a laptop, a cell phone, social media channels, and even an electric toothbrush.
Sounds like Sierra Night Tide lives on a boat like me! 42 feet long and 14 feet wide. I have 2 “bedrooms” WITH doors and queen size beds that are private, 2 bathrooms, 2 air conditioners, tons of storage space because the space I have is used effectively. I have a generator, a wind generator, solar – pretty much off the grid. I have an active social life. If I don’t like the neighbors, I pull up the anchor and move. If I want a change of scenery, I move. Because it’s a sailboat I don’t use much fuel and I can use my money for scuba diving and adventuring in places most people have never even heard of and will never get to visit. I did not choose this life to be eccentric, I choose it to live a life of adventure. I have been called a captain, a mermaid and a pirate. My “yard” is not full of whimsy… it’s full of dolphin, flying fish, whales and stingrays jumping into the sky and playing beside the boat. Everywhere I go there are good people, willing hands to help if I need it, new cultures and places to be explored. I don’t have a lot of stuff because I don’t need it. I work on my own engines, climb 60 feet into the air to change the light bulb in the mast, I have a complete kitchen and a barbeque grill outside. I don’t wear overalls…. I wear sandals and bikinis.
Yes, it is a LOT of work and, no, it is NOT a permanent vacation. I actually take vacations to get off the boat just like I did when I owned a 3000 sq foot home with 5 bedrooms.
I have the vocabulary of a well educated sailor and I learn something new every day, sometimes lots of new things. I have tons of books, most on a reader or one of my 3 computers.
I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me. I enjoy every day, the sunrises, the sunsets, stars like you have never seen in your life living on land or in a city. My 2 daughters are coming to visit, if anyone farts we will just open a window. If someone needs alone time they can go out on the deck where there are comfortable chairs or go into the “bedroom” and close the door. I have complete sets of dishes and pots and pans because I am living, not camping. I have multiple towels and a few blankets (not much use for blankets in paradise except for picnics on the beach) Yes, my house IS that clean all the time because there is no space for the clutter that fills most peoples lives and it can become a flying projectile in rough seas. In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, *I* will be the one that survives unless they somehow learn to swim and avoid the sharks. I have a microwave, a latte machine, coffee maker, water maker, mixer, blender, all the ‘stuff’ to make life comfortable. It takes a little organization, some creativity and confidence to be able to live this life.
I think I have addressed your questions. I, too, offer you a week living in my “tiny house”. I think you will find all the creature comforts you are accustomed to having as well as the chance to see outside your little box. People say to “think outside the box”…. I don’t have a box.
I found your post amusing if a little narrow minded. Please come visit, it might open your eyes.
BTW there is plenty of room to “get my sexy on”… 😉
cyndy, i would love to email you and hear about this, my husband and i have discussed the option of a houseboat, and he is happy with that option, although I get motion sickness. can you email me so i can talk to you about the practical stuff? [email protected]
Cyndy you (and your life) sound amazing. If you ever see this reply and are open to questions from someone considering a lifestyle change I would love to chat.
Barb
[email protected]
This was amazing. I love you! Yep. I always thought, I could go smaller, but 350 with my daughter and dog and especially no south facing windows and a tiny fridge with no freezer for ice cream made me want to go bigger. We now live in 680 and with 8 foot ceilings, south facing windows and is perfect! I just loved your writing!
April,
Thank you so much!
My mom and I lived in a house a little over 900 square feet and it was a perfect size! I definitely think small living is good, but anything under 300 is tough!!!
Tiny living isn’t for everyone. What tiny living is – is fucking AWESOME. I live in a conversion van/tiny house with my partner and our small dog. Where do we keep our stuff? Some of it’s in a closet at my mom’s house. The rest we gave away or sold to make the switch. When we get new stuff it’s because something old wore out. We think about our space, we don’t go shopping to feel better or to spend extraneous money on stuff. What do we do? We cuddle. We eat out at fancy restaurants. We hike. We visit friends. I go to the library. I pay NOTHING to live in my home besides electricity. We have surround sound, a projector, and an air conditioner. We buy our water from a local natural spring. Ever had your mother in law comes and stay too long ‘for the weekend’? Yeah, we’re not into that. When something comes up two states away that we need to be there for, we go. We both work full time and love coming home to what is essentially a giant grown-up tree fort of fucking radness. I agree the magazines don’t do tiny living justice, but you never see any home in a magazine looking like someone actually lives in them. Oh, and we have sex wherever we want. 😡
For several years, I desperately wanted to live in a tiny house – partly because of the potential cost savings, and partly because of the environmental aspect of it, and partly because it was different from what everyone else was doing. So, I gradually started downsizing in hopes of one-day realizing this goal. But – aside from the legal issues of where to park the thing – deep down I had this nagging feeling that it wasn’t REALLY what I wanted. I eventually realized that – because of the lack of space for tools or junk to tinker with (among other things) – I personally would likely spend more money living in a tiny house instead of less.
I have since retired the dream of living in a tiny house, but I still like the concept and still think that a sub 1000 square foot house would probably be just fine for me – so long as I have a basement or a garage to call my own.
It is my assumption that every hipster who has this lifestyle is in their 20s, or is younger than 40 and has no children. If this is what they want, that’s fine. Let them do it. Don’t criticize them, as it’s pointless. A 20-something is still full of purpose and idealistic. They only way that hipsters will learn if it is a good or bad decision to do this is to try it. As someone older, married, with kids, owned a home, had a 9-5 job, etc, it can sometimes be difficult to keep quiet when we see someone younger about to make a mistake. I’ve learned, however, that it is much more gratifying to sit back and watch when hipsters crash and burn than to argue with them. For example, I love it when I see that “I’ve made a horrible mistake” face on a college student who chose a scooter as their only mode of transportation. Then, I remember something stupid I did at that age and move on.
As a 61 year old who has been living in tiny homes (and I mean tiny) for many years, thank you for showing your crankiness in an old velvet glove about the ‘youngsters’. I’m thinking your ‘I’ve made a horrible mistake’ might not be so outer directed, but if living within the ‘normal’ parameters of your chosen society has made you a happy man, good for you! As for the rest of us, many of whom are really happy in a different paradigm than your own? Viva la difference! We’re doin’ ok, Pa.
I’m 46, my partner is 58 and we have 5 kids rangng from 24 down to 7 and we live in a small home – 512 sq ft not tiny My kids would laugh their asses off if anyone made the assumption we were hipsters because we live small.
I’m forty-something with 2 preteens living in an offgrid 400 ft2 cabin in the middle of the woods, a place which also happens to be in a subdivision. I also am a business consultant, with my office in my home, my car, or my client’s site. I love living small, and while a house with two kids definitely gets cluttered, it’s also easy to clean up. People who visit (and there are many, and we don’t send them to a hotel) think it must be cool to live offgrid and terrible to live small– yet I find it a pain in the posterior to live offgrid and absolutely wonderful to live small. Yes, sometimes in winter I want to throw the kids out the door– and I do; it’s good for them to play outside. When the kids leave home I can easily see myself moving to a smaller space within walking distance of town– or for that matter living in a smaller space in the middle of a major city, like I did when I was 20. For anyone who wants to spend their life living instead of cleaning and working to pay utility bills and the mortgage, I highly recommend thinking small!
I love this article. on main land Europe we tend to live in small houses/apartments but primarily cos we have limited space. I have to say the one thing that drives me mad that I hadn’t consciously realised before is where to put hang towels. the plus is I really think before buying anything – utensils, clothes, shoes, a new photo frame, as we simply don’t have the space.
I personally would go mad in such a tiny place, and I live in a pretty small place.
I enjoyed the article for the tongue in cheek piece that it is. I grew up poor living in mobile homes. It was a roof and warmth. We did our best to keep it neat and our yard nice. Still, we were stigmatized as trash. It’s funny that mobile home dwellers are “trash” according to society and the media, but “Tiny home” denizens are “hip” environmentally concious” or my favorite “thrifty” 🙂
Lauren, this article is hilarious and like all things truly funny, it’s filled with tiny truths. I am in no way opposed to downsizing, but when I see just how “down” people have “sized”, I think every single thing you’ve hit on. It’s one thing if you’re a single person or a close couple, but even still 250 sq/ft is maniacal. I think it’s great if you’ve got a nice piece of land and you want to ‘keep it country’ by leaving the smallest possible footprint, but if it’s in a seasonal region… What happens when it snows, or it’s sub-zero? Welcome to Claustrophobiaville! Population: I hate you, go away! Those people are either very poor planners, or tiny house masochists. Add a dog, and a couple kids…ugh. As for the person’s comment suggesting you’re an egocentric, entitled, whatever… Do you think those people living in close quarters in impoverished countries or regions of your own country are doing so by choice? Are you suggesting we should all live in tiny houses as some sort of penance? You dolt. Those people would totally up-size if they could. That being said, if I were in a position to own a beautiful bit of land in a temperate climate (which I’m not), I would totally go small (between 500 sq/ft and 950 sq/ft, depending) and as green as possible. A 250 sq/ft house on a flatbed though? While I love watching the shows for the nautical and RV inspired “innovations”, the practical reality is not for me.
This was GREAT!!! When I went to Italy, I had to take a shower in this THING that was maybe 2 feet sq….I got so claustrophobic in it that I opened the tiny door, put a towel on the floor and washed my body parts while half in and half out of the shower. I could only live in one of those if all the walls and the roof opened up…at the same time…and then, only for maybe a week. I mean, are you pooping next to your company on the couch or what?
Hi, first article of yours I’ve found, I just want to point out that for most of human history people raised ten kids in homes about the size you are talking about. I can’t speak for modern tiny dwellers, but in the middle ages (I am a medievalist) poor people (which was most people), would have sex mid-day behind the house while the kids or friends or whatever was on the way back to the fields. In some cultures the idea of sex being a private event would be mind boggling to them, who has time and a place to keep their sex lives secret and private.
In response to those who ask about privacy, in most historical civilizations there was no concept of privacy. Everyone shared the same sleeping spaces (even among the wealthy and powerful), and they were rarely sex segregated (no enough room). The idea was that everyone is part of a community, not an individual, the idea of the individual as we think of it is very new.
Lauren,
Such negativity and poor little small-minded thinking! Too bad. It’s not for you! However LOTS of people love it and think the lifestyle suits them and have decided it is the best use of shelter resources for a given situation. If you cut out $2k a month in house expenses, might you find something far more interesting and fun to spend the $24,000 on each year? Not everyone stays INSIDE all the time — some people find glorious joy in using an outdoor kitchen, gardening, and using an outdoor shower all summer. They use potting sheds and other accessory spaces, enjoy shade, natural breezes, and clear air. They have learned (from the Japanese) the joy of folding clothing tightly and storing it in a way that allows visibility of every item at a glance.
And they may winter in the Florida Keys. Obviously this thinking is a unattainable mental stretch for you.
To tiny house lovers you seem mean-spirited, full of yourself, and cruel in you comments.
Thanks for the comment, Diane.
Hopefully you understood that this was a humor post. I think some people read into this a little too much!
🙂
“Obviously this thinking is a [sic] unattainable mental stretch for you.” Yes, kind of gratuitous insult hurled in Lauren’s direction certainly makes *me* want to join the ranks of TH enthusiasts, lol! Fortunately, however, I realize from other posts here (and simple logic) that not every fan of the TH movement is a humorless, elitist snob. Thank God for small favors….
I love this. I fucking love this.
Also, I live is a tiny house that I built. 100 glorious square feet.
It is incredible. Everything I own fits. My camera gear. My books. My painting supplies. My sewing machine. My full size bed. My shoe collection. My toothbrush. You get the picture.
I would never share my 100 square feet with ANYONE. No spouse. No spawn. No pets. No one who will let out their hotbox of Mexican farts.
Also, my loft has plenty of space for sexy time. Even if the partner doesn’t get to stay over.
xoxo
A hilarious comment within a hilarious post. But really you should get a cat.. they don’t need much room, and they’re warm and cute.. meow.
As someone with imminent plans to build a tiny home, I have to say your questions are totally valid, and hilarious! I’m almost hesitant to tell you that the tiny home (and surrounding oasis of veggies and gardens) is just a stepping stone to another dwelling scenario, namely homesteading with like minded collaborators. That’s right, 21st century, agrarian paradise. An eco village, if you will. Blurred golden fountain grass in summertime, axes to chop wood, flannel and baskets to harvest summer blueberries, plenty of room for the little ones to play, a system of ponds and food forests. By saving money on rent and building to own, my tiny dwelling (on wheels) is an immediate home on a piece of property that has no previous building (and thusly less expensive), and split between several people, furthermore affordable for acreage. I then plan to build a modern, earthen, off grid, full sized home, and the tiny home becomes a guest house. Looks like that autodidactic post-grad study on horticulture, sustainable living and appropriate technology paid off.
Lordy, lordy! I thought this was hilarious and I had this big awesome reply planned but after reading the comments my energy is zapped for it… there are a lot of rude comments on both sides of the fence for this ‘debate’… So, I’ll just say, as the owner and occupant (WITH a family) of one of those tiny houses in the fancy magazines you have an open invite if you’re ever in Idaho ;-). (it’s not for everyone – obviously – but it’s a great option if it IS for you… and your questions are normal and the same as the questions I had (: )
my answers 🙂 http://minimotives.com/2015/07/14/dear-hipstercrite/
I am right with you. I look at those pictures and envy the simplicity and grace. Then I laugh and come back to the real world…
I notice a terrific irony in some of the comments here. More than one commentor has extolled the virtues of their own small living situation, it stated that it is only possible because they take advantage of outside storage for all the crap that won’t fit into their tiny home. One commentor simply said storage, another specified that they keep things at a parents home. So basically, they are not really living in 250 ft.² or whatever. They are only sleeping and cooking their pancakes in that space. They don’t bother to count the square footage of the space they need but shuffle off site.
I have a hayshed in which to store hay, a woodshed in which to store firewood, a toolshed in which to store the woodchipper, chainsaw, etc., and a deck on which the kids throw all their muddy sports equipment. If I lived in 4000 ft2 instead of 400 ft2, I’d still be storing these things outside the house. I don’t see that mentioning alternative storage spaces in the context of tiny living in any way negates the reality (pro or con) of tiny house living.
Perfectly done. Kudos. It’s what everyone wants to say to these people, but won’t.
i (kinda sorta) do the tiny house thing. This was hilarious and right on the money. 🙂
If you go into the tiny house thing thinking that you’re going to live like a magical fairytale hobbit life…HA. No. Pinterest worthy it is not.
Thanks for the laugh.
Petal…
When things get tight and claustrophobic, we just go to our tiny dance club that the tiny house pulls. We dance it out! Every tiny house needs a TINYCLUB! Click the website I have linked to see the fb page we have setup to show off tinyclub. http://tinyurl.com/tinyclub/
I just giggle that hipster snobs probably look down elitist noses at those whole live in trailer parks… yet, to my eyes, the tiny house is just a static mobile home.
I’ve been promoting (and living in) tiny homes for many, many years. This piece had me laughing until tears were streaming down my tiny face. Brilliant! p.s. I don’t have a human partner but I can tell you, the cat has felt all of those intimate annoyed moments many times – uh, except the sexy time -. I’m very happy she doesn’t speak a language known to anyone but me.
Just saw this. While arch, acid and testy, your article is not all wrong. My wife and I downsized a few years back, we have 800 square feet in the house and a shed. Neither of us are clothes-horse types, but our closets are so small that one is only outerwear, the other regular clothing and twice a year we do the Addams Family: “uncle knickknacks summer wardrobe….uncle knickknacks winter wardrobe….” with tote boxes that we store in the attic of the shed during the off seasons. Not having a lot of room helps keep down the number of visitors, which living where we do, helps. I have been a fan of the concept of downsizing houses for a very long time and it hurts my soul to see some of the oversized houses today – I know it’s capitalism, but really, what sort of lifestyle do you lead that requires you to have a 20,000 SF vacation home? Or even 10,000? We have embraced the idea that larger is better and it is reflected in everything – homes, cars, private jets, us (seen how BIG the average American is today?). There is something to be said for smaller a smaller, more modest lifestyle.
LoL, my takeaway from the comments section is that tiny housers have thin skin.
Hahahaha! I was crying from laughing while reading this. I talk to so many people here in Colorado who want to build a tiny house and ‘live off the land’. I think it is absolutely fantastic… as a weekend getaway. The sex thing is almost always my first thought too… and don’t you just want to take a bath sometimes and read a book instead of hovering over your toilet while showering?? However, to each their own.
Absolutely hilarious! Best read in a long time. Love your writing style.
Dear critical folk, there are other articles to read. About the sex, I had a friend who said that sex in her 5th wheel was great because she could plant her feet on the ceiling and get what she wanted. Several people who do this that I have read about want to be able to move around the country without sacrificing stability/home. I think it’s a cool idea. Someone mentioned the storage unit which occurred to me as well, a place to store your alternate season gear. You probably sacrifice a garden if you’re mobile, or create a fabulous one if you aren’t. And why design your own? So you get exactly what you want. I would want a very cushy sofa of sorts. I would also have to make sure that my “other” vehicle was a bookmobile. Technology has downsized our gear so much that it makes this lifestyle possible, photography is minimalist, computers can replace magazines and books, you can wash your clothes in a rough tote and hang them on the line, cook outside if you’re into that. I think my biggest concerns would be fridge size and my age makes climbing a ladder look not that cool. But this is a great movement. I also love to read about glamping. I think it would be very cool in my elitist mind if there were special parks for these sorts of homes, a bit more bohemian with a free-share area. I am rather attached to my big old clawfoot tub, but I would love to put it outside. I think that if someone lived in one place for a long time, it would be really interesting to see what they do with the “yard”. And I would love to see it whimsical with a few garden gnomes. Awesome article!
I lived in a tiny cabin that was just a bit over 300 sq ft with two kids and a husband for nearly 5 years. Truly some of the best years of my life! I would not trade it for anything. On the rare occasions when I felt “sorry” for myself that I didn’t have more room, I quickly reminded that in that tiny space with a roof over my head, water, and a wood stove, I had more than 90% of the planet does. So large or small, count your blessings.
Thank you! Your comment helped me appreciate what we have now. I live in a 1000 sq. ft. apartment with my wife and son and I’m always feeling like THAT isn’t enough. He doesn’t have his own room, and we have STUFF. You get a bigger place, you fill it with more stuff. Didn’t George Carlin have a routine like that? Anyway, what we have is A LOT and it is more than most have. Thanks for brightening my day and the next time my friends and family try to guilt/push us into a crippling mortgage for more space, I’m not going to sweat it. I’m where I need to be right now.
Noah-
Space + Stuff + Mortgage works for some and not for others. Since I didn’t want the $$$ pressure, I found ways to live “outside of the box” and can’t foresee me doing it any other way in my future. Less is more for me!
The backhanded humor is a bit much. But I’m from Boston and it makes me sensitive. But I’m happy to answer some of your questions. My family has lived in 160 square feet for a couple of years. I have never regretted it. Our secret (to sex, farts and more) is that we sleep in a separate 8×8 structure and spend a great deal of time out doors. Two adults, one 5 year old and both a dog and a cat. Our space limits our stuff which we love. It prioritized what we valued. Another saving grace is that we chose to have full size things in our tiny house. Stove, larder etc. I am sure this lifestyle isn’t for everyone. Our culture values stuff and “my space, the story of me” far too much. I think folks who are brought up in different environments would react differently. Lastly, I ADORE my husband of 10’years. Most people I know have some degree of antagony in their marriage. Having been in those relationships in the past I can be sure that if that was the case, it would be a deal breaker. My husband and I have to touch 50 times a day just to do dishes. I love it. But if it was anyone else I might freak. Hope that answers some of your curiosity. For us, it was the happiest decision I ever made. And like anyone else’s life, of course it is messy sometimes! So is my hair. At which time I avoid being photographed…
https://tinytinyhouse.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/dear-people-who-write-articles-called-dear-people-who-live-in-fancy-tiny-houses/
Here you go! 😀
LOVED this response!! Sounds like me life!
OK, I might have peed myself here. Haha…just kidding! *looks around nervously*
While my house is not a micro/tiny or even small (at 2,200 sq. ft., that is most definitely true. My laundry room might be 250 sq. ft.), it IS a half-underground earthship built of adobe blocks and fully off-grid. I know how people in the “alternative housing” sect take themselves too seriously sometimes, myself included. And I know how smug we are (see how I included my own house with specs in this post)?
That said, I TOTALLY appreciated the light moment. This had me laughing out loud like a crazy person, and it was fun to be in on the joke, even if it is in a slightly different way. Thanks so much for this!
OMG! Laughed so hard. Thank you. I needed that today. 🙂
Hi Lauren,
Kudos for how you handle the haters. I live in a 226 square foot house. YES, I SAID 226 SQ FT! Unfortunately you can’t capitalize numbers. It is totally difficult. Yes, I’m a sustainability saint (as far as first world perspectives go) but it’s work to adapt. I’ve also lived for a year in a tent so I guess I have more adaptability than most, but still. It’s difficult. I love my hubby but sometimes I just want to be alone. Winter is the worst. You can’t even open the windows to get the mexican food farts out. Luckily, no kids so the sexy time is fine but sometimes I just wanna spend sexy time by myself, no such luck. We’re very serious about planning our addition. It will double our square footage. I can’t wait to live in a 552 sq ft mansion!!!
Hello. I actually do live in a tiny house. It’s a fifth wheel RV, to be exact and it’s around 300 SF. To answer your questions, one by one…
Yes, I love living in my tiny house. It takes me almost no time to get it cleaned, thus freeing me for other tasks. I know where everything is, everything has its place, and I never have to look hard to find anything. The money we save living here is incredible — with it, we can afford all the vacations, dining out, and other pleasures in life we couldn’t have with a huge house. No yard work is also glorious beyond words.
There isn’t much privacy here, but it’s just me, my husband, and two cats. If I want to be alone, I can sit outside when weather permits, or go into the bedroom which has a sliding door. My husband and I have worked out certain “leave me alone” protocols to mitigate our need for privacy. And if he farts (it’s never, ever me), there are ceiling vents with fans.
I don’t wear overalls or Birkenstocks or any of that stuff. Since I’m paying so much less for living expenses, I can splurge on really nice clothes.
It’s clean most of the time, though my desk and his are both usually cluttered. It doesn’t take long to clean it at all. And ours is more punk rock than whimsical, but to each their own. Unlike the typical tiny house, the RV is very optimized for space — every nook and cranny is used for storage. Overhead cabinets, storage bays under the RV, even the bed lifts up to store things underneath — this tiny house makes amazingly efficient use of its space. And we have plenty of towels — easily enough to go two weeks without having to do laundry.
We don’t have kids, though our cats sometimes try their best to divert our attentions from each other to them. But we have plenty of sex, and it’s lovely.
Our RV does have a pull-out bed in the couch for guests, but it would get a little cramped after a minute. So, because we’re saving so much money on living expenses, we can easily afford to cover a nearby hotel for out of town guests, so we all can be comfortable.
Our lives are very fulfilling, surprisingly — they’re more fulfilling than when we had a 2600 SF house. We don’t have to devote time and attention to a giant house, and instead can focus on what matters to us. Our hobbies, thankfully, are all small — most are technology oriented and exist in our PCs, but I have plenty of room for my sewing machine, art supplies, craft supplies, tools, fabric, materials, and so on. He has plenty of room for all of his electronics projects. We even have a computer controlled milling machine set up in here for doing metalworking. Oh, and the RV park where we’re staying has a pool (that we don’t have to take care of!), hot tub (same!), and gym — stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily have in a regular house.
Lauren, thank you for your incredibly humorous insight about the hipster phenomenon of tiny houses.
I live in a small town in the Pacific Northwest where decent sized lots are inexpensive, yet people still aspire to live in a shoebox.
Yes, I live in a large home on 40 acres, which is payed for and self-sufficient, but I still don’t understand the idea of living in a space the size of prison cell, unless it’s in an urban area where land is unavailable or priced at a premium.
Avram what areas in the Pacific NW are inexpensive? Not being sarcastic- looking to move out there.
This is a great article. I’ve always thought this about THs, and about those IKEA models where they show you how you can have an entire home in 320 square feet, if you buy all their cabinetry. I find downsizing admirable (to echo every single comment so far.) and am perfectly happy in my lil 1 bedroom apartment.
I will say, i never even considered the horror of a FAMILY living in a TH. Mostly i see them as abodes for 1, maybe two people. Jiminy christmas, that’d be wretched.
Part of what makes me wiggy about the TH idea for myself is…I’m 6’2″ and 300 lbs. I pretty much don’t think i’d fit inside one!
Other than that though — if you can live that lifestyle and always keep EVERYTHING NEAT AND PUT AWAY, more power to you.
Thank you for your brilliantly written piece! You made my day.
Well-written and funny! I want a tiny house, mostly because I am a slob who would rather clean 250 SF instead of 2500 SF. I have no spouse nor spawn, and my dogs and I all enjoy Mexican food farts equally. I might be a new fan; I am just not sure if I can hurdle the Jeff Goldblum obsession.
My cheeks, eyes, nose and every facial muscle I have hurts! Absolutely hysterical read and I want to know the answers too! I’ve considered a TH for a rural part of Arizona and some of the options are pretty limiting. Off grid and all that that entails makes a city person like me scratch my head with there same questions. What would movie night with my friends be like? Would we round up some projector and just watch it outdoors like a drive in movie? If you’re eco-aware, what exactly is the one flush or two flush rule? Do you post that on a stickie note in the bathroom mirror? 🙂
Sooo this whole thing is hilarious. I love tiny houses, I love this blog post, and I love the insanity of responses that often follows such things. I didnt read all the posts but perhaps an amazingly loud inline ventilation fan will solve some of the problems related to south of the border olfactory hues that color the walls of our homes….it also will mask some of the sounds of sexy time….I like to think of a freaky tiny house wagons ho! type of situation, or even a circus train. yes…the possibilities are endless…as are the hilarious range of responses. Many thanks for your contributions to abject, yet informed silliness
p.s. kick the youth out during sexy time….also teenagers in spain have a lot of park sex, good ol’ park sex
Ha! My wife and I are recent converts, and will make the change to a tiny house in the next year. Space for stuff is being pretty meaningless since we’re getting rid of a lot of stuff. (11 bookcases -> 1 shelf I think has been the most painful)
It’s an interesting process, but I’m looking forward to the freedom it will provide in being able to pickup and go. We do plan to travel for the first year as well.
Hey Lauren, love the story. OK, first things first, where do I go to fart? I generally point my tiny tush out the window in my loft. The birds nesting in the grapevine that envelopes my roof probably hate it, but my sexy time partners appreciate the tiny effort.
Now I don’t have any offspring, so I can’t offer much in the way of managing teen angst in a tiny dwelling. But I’ve got a rather rambunctious cat who likes to wake me up in the morning by digging his razor sharp claws into my chest. Perhaps that’s his way of telling me we need a bigger place.
My shit consists of a few t-shirts, some raggedy shoes and a few bikes. So there’s not much to store or covet. And when the zombies attack I plan to make a quick getaway on the bike while Peanut (the cat) claws their dead eyes out.
The only regret I have is not downsizing sooner. If you ever find yourself in Santa Cruz you’ve got an open invitation to stop by for a tiny tour. I’ll even show you how to prepare for the zombie apocolypse.
Ian
I love tiny houses and apartments! I’ve always found tiny living fascinating. Yes, sometimes the design magazines can be a bit ridiculous, but that happens when the houses are large and ostentatious as well. I think people find workarounds for most of the things you mention, including enjoying private sexy time. I’m really fascinated with tiny living in other countries and cultures, where it’s sometimes status quo, even for very large families. Here’s one of my favorite photo projects: http://photomichaelwolf.com/#100×100/1
Shoot, I thought it was funny.
I used to live in a tiny little one-bedroom apartment. It was not a studio, but rather a 400 sf apartment with a separate bedroom, a little bathroom (away from the kitchen), lots of light, cross-ventilation and non-cable TV. It was less than a block from the bar. I would sit in there, smoke grass, have people over and I got laid alot. I loved that place.
Hilarious article! Unfortunately I am one of those crazy happy people living in a Tiny House. Now before y’all judge me too harshly you should know that I am a messy, lactose intolerant, ice cream loving, 20something that works at a clothing store. To make matters worse I’ve managed to con my 6’5″ chef boyfriend into building and living in it with me and I somehow managed to even talk him into getting a dog. All in 160 square feet!
So now my shoes live outside, we eat on the couch and my boyfriend bought a huge fan that quickly airs out the house for when I indulge in a little too much Ben and Jerry’s. Whatever he’s the one that needed the full size fridge and stove “to practice his recipes” when I had to sacrifice precious closet space.
So our general rules are as follows:
1. Keep kids out of the Tiny House (in all forms)
2. Adventure sex
3. If someone is in the loft farting it probably means they want some alone time.
4. but try and let them come to bed before curling up on the three foot “couch” causes them permanent damage.
Thanks for the laughs. Someone without living tiny, you nailed quite a bit of it. After being a little too obsessed with Tiny House Blog, my husband and I homesteaded 9 acres in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, converting a 12×16 mouse nest/cabin into a bathroom and kitchen and adding our 18 foot yurt. After a winter of 300 inches of snow and trying to fit us, two 60 pound dogs and a cat in that space, we added another 15 foot yurt and a porch. It’s small. The kitchen/bathroom is definitely tiny and you can often here us, struggling to make dinner in the small room, yell “tiny house!” It’s not always pretty. Maybe my husband and I are just assholes and other tiny folks have smiles pasted on their faces from sun up to sun down, but I doubt it. You can read more [honest] stories about living off the grid and in small spaces from our journey at circularlodgic.com.
Oh, and “Do you have a tiny river that runs behind your tiny house? I bet you do. I bet your whole Goddamn property is whimsical.” That part’s true too.
Oh man, good stuff. I can’t stop laughing. My mother just made the switch to tiny house living and I shared this with her because I feel like I’ve said all of the same things (in my mind) about her doing this. I love the idea but I could never do it. I need my sexy time.
ot murder my children.
Laurenot murder my children.
Lauren,
Your article is hin,
Your article is hilarious. Thank you for writing what so many of us are thinking when we read about tiny houses. I often dream about downsizing and living a more simplified life, but then I remember that I need alone time in order to not murder my children.
If my only dwelling was a tiny house I would end up on medications I can’t pronounce for various mental disorders I also
If my only dwelling was a tiny house I would end up on medications I can’t pronounce for various mental disorders I also can’t pronounce.
I’m not sure if all of your readers understand hyperbole, so I will add a disclaimer. I will not murder or harm my children if I don’t get alone time…
probably…
maybe. 🙂
Lauren,
Your article is hilarious. Thank you for writing what so many of us are thinking when we read about tiny houses. I often dream about downsizing and living a more simplified life, but then I remember that I need alone time in order to not murder my children.
If my only dwelling was a tiny house I would end up on medications I can’t pronounce for various mental disorders I also
If my only dwelling was a tiny house I would end up on medications I can’t pronounce for various mental disorders I also can’t pronounce.
I’m not sure if all of your readers understand hyperbole, so I will add a disclaimer. I will not murder or harm my children if I don’t get alone time…
probably…
maybe. 🙂
HILARIOUS, Lauren! I just laughed my ass off. We are currently living in an Airstream while renovating our house. Let me tell you…you can’t escape any smells. When someone goes to the bathroom, it’s like they just took a poop on the floor right in front of you.
BAM. I answered all of your questions. Thank you so much for the laughs and the creative direction to get me through my writers block. <3
http://tinyhousegrowingfamily.com/dear-hipstercit/
This is absolutely hilarious!!! I grew up in a tiny home on the western slope of Colorado, the three of us lived in a 200 sq ft home on thirteen acres with our seven horses. To be honest it was hard at times especially as a teenager. I learned real quick that walks outside cured everything and we actually had quite the amount of “unnecessary” items that I have no idea how we kept all in perfectly organized places. I have no idea how I didn’t hear/witness sexy time (I guess I was fortunate). Once I moved away from home I started out in a 800sq ft studio in San Francisco. I had no clue what to do with all of the space so I spent money buying random things to decorate and fill it up (ridiculous). Now being a 20 something and a newly wed living in a two bed two bath town home that we pay way to much for, I miss the tiny living it was fun. I grew up exploring and living my life away from the safe confines of home that we all dwell in now. We spent our weekends hiking and backpacking and riding horses. Tiny living is a blast but also I love the outdoors and am fine with using an out house at three in the morning when it’s 15 degrees outside. I love all of your questions. As I have asked them myself and I lived that life. Let’s just say if you decide to live tiny make sure the person you are doing it with loves absolutely every thing about you right down to the embarrassing post Mexican nuclear farts.
Much Love
Sam
I totally want to live in a tiny house in the middle of the woods. Maybe not until the kid is grown up…and my wife will never go for it. So I guess it’s just a tiny dream.
Hi Hipstercrite, I live in Portland, Oregon. I have my reservations about people choosing this lifestyle…because it’s a choice for them. What I found missing from your critique is the fact that for billions of people in the world, to live in such small quarters is not a CHOICE but a way of life, and a sanctuary. The problem I have with the tiny house movement in my city, and beyond, is the lack of discussion of topics such as #whiteprivelege.
I have a 1200 Sq ft apartment, a kid and a teen, and no privacy. Sexy times happen at my partners house
When I grew up in Serbia during the Bosnian-Serbian civil war, we had 27 people (2 families) living in a 3-bedroom flat. We could not leave our block for almost 6 months because of snipers… we lost 4 neighbors this way. It was very dangerous.
Yet even though we had 9 people sleeping per room, we still lived well. I think it is amazing how Americans can be so passionate about having large empty houses all to themselves, when they have never faced any real hardship in their lives.
So funny! Many of my friends/family have said their life goals include tiny houses. I currently live with my partner and quite a few pets in a 7p0 Sq ft house, and we will be moving to a 1700sq ft house next month. Every single day I think “I can’t wait to move!”.
While for some people I’m sure it will be bliss in a tiny house, at 34 I’ve had life throw so much at me a tiny house would be impractical and down right dangerous. Becoming disabled 6 years ago means I need space to use mobility aids to navigate my house, areas I can do my physical therapy, extra space to be able to bathe. Add in that my conditions often make me clumsy and weak, all a tiny house would likely do is kill me.
Don’t even get me started on all the family that have lived at my house off and on while the economy wreaks havoc on people’s lives.
Yeah, that was funny I was Lmao 🙂
I live in 23ft trailer with my five kids and hubby… Not joking. We like to travel around. But we use outside like living space. In the rain the kids still play out. We use our car like a living space too and the teens all hang out watching movies a s using Internet in the car.
Oh and sexy time is a fine… We have perfected the art of finding things for the kids to do outside or in the car!
Next up is gonna be a converted truck for a bit more space! You have to want to live this life to do it, we do, so it’s cool… But it’s not all farting rainbows anymore than having a house is… Its just different challenges
I am guessing you never lived in NYC. 8 million people live in tiny homes on top of each other, like me and I would prefer nothing else.
I’ve wondered the same thing but please don’t use the Lord’s name in vain when writing an article. Good writers no how to make their point without using profanity.
Your writing my dear is hilarious and very very enjoyable. Love your style!
I too live in a 700 square foot home with my hubby and 2 kids and during the loooooong Wisconsin winter…..we go a little stir crazy. However during the summer it is just enough as we can go outdoors.
Keep up writing your articles….you are simply wonderful!
This is exactly what I needed in my life today. THANK YOU. And yes, I too dream of having a tiny house, and I too have these questions. I’ve got 2 people in 970 square feet and have shit laying around EVERYWHERE! How in the world do folks survive in 250 square feet??
I live in 256 square feet and have for years. Most of that time with a Great Dane. Also, I understand sarcasm and general curiosity. Ask me anything!
This was hilarious! I’ve thought of these questions while watching a tiny home show. Always thinking that the woman in the show is going to regret it! But I’m fascinated, and sort of jealous of tiny home living. I could never live in one with my sweet son, aka captain caveman! But a small cottage with a awesome front porch I would love! Love your blogs!
I thought the article was hilarious. Thank you for the laugh. To all the haters on this thread. ..”Really folks? Is your life so tired and sad that you can’t just appreciate an article for its humor? “
Thank you!!!
<3
Every time I see a fancy tiny house I think “these people have no idea what tiny is” everyone’s making a big deal out of living in mini luxury. Here’s my “I used to walk 5 miles to school in snow” story… Except I never went to school. My tiny house story is that I lived in a converted Ford Econoline van with my parents, a minimum of 5 siblings at any one time and two dogs. We lived in other tiny abodes throughout my childhood and adolescents but the van was the tiniest. We all slept, read, ate, traveled, and had all of our earthly belongings neatly packed away in there. So even though I now live in a sprawling mansion (just as you suggested ones children might;) I could very easily live in one of these tiny mansions and feel completely at home.
[…] by kadian [link] [comment] Full article:Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny […]
That was fun. The reactions are a bit much.
I lived on a 34ft sail boat for 2 years as a teen. I want nothing more then to live in that space again for the rest of my life.
Mexican farts . . . you don’t eat Mexican. What if there is a spark? Seriously, do you want to kill every one!
I imagine living on a sailboat must be sublime.
I spent ages 7-16 living on a 44 foot yacht with my 2 sisters and parents, circumnavigating. Basically a tiny home with a heated swimming pool (except when we were in Alaska). And I totally can’t wait to take my wife and 1 year old son off on a 2 year cruise to the Med and Caribbean on the yacht we just bought (43′ classic) ….yes it means a different lifestyle and definitely reduced wardrobes. And my books will have to go into storage….but the quality of life experiences is second to none.
Thanks, thank you so much for encapsulating in this hilarious article how I feel about all the raving articles on tiny houses that appear on TreeHugger…
I guess this concept only works for couples without kids. Three people couldn’t possibly live in there together…
Tiny houses, large problems !
lmao @ Mexican Food Farts. That could put anyone’s relationship in jeopardy!!
Tell me about it. I have a boyfriend who LOVES Mexican food… 😉
Absolutely hilarious. Lauren achieves Internet fame in 3, 2, 1…
Thanks, Mike!
You know I find this piece of writing pretty pathetic. Its really not funny. Relying on fart jokes in a blog is really sub par. And a little blip at the bottom stating that you are “half serious” is not helping. There are many positives to living in a smaller house, including easier ventilation systems (SO NO FARTS WOOOHOOO!!). These houses that are several hundred square feet are extremely well designed and as many people have said make you reconsider what you use, reuse and throw out. This kind of article proves you are a privileged pathetic sad person aka the kind of american the rest of the world hates. Calling a “tiny house” fancy is so backwards… can’t you see that? They are designed to cost less, be less, use less, take up less and be efficient… now what part of that is fancy? Fancy is the exact opposite and I’m a bit concerned you don’t realize this major flaw in your title. You should seriously rewrite this whole article with useful facts about eco-houses rather than made-up facts about farts because people need to stop taking things for granted and that is what these houses are all about. You should also reconsider your job. You take a concept of using less and of being more efficient and you take out farts from it. You and the rest of america laughing at this poorly written article should really be ashamed and recognize that you are the problem. I mean common you are practically bullying people who have sacrificed so much for the greater good. We live in the tragedy of the commons and you make fun of a way out. Pathetic.
I think you will find she is taking aim not at tiny houses per se but rather the cult that is surrounding them….
omg, DUDE !!
omg, DUDE !!
I’m having trouble believing that anyone who read the same article I just read could possibly get bent out of shape by it. I always fantasize about world peace, but then I am constantly reminded that world peace is impossible when there are people who will get upset by a tongue-in-cheek article about tiny houses. We’re all doomed.
I had a good laugh at your article — thanks!
I love you.
[…] you can watch fire dance inside the woodstove as it warms your feet. Dearest Katelynn posted Hipstercrite’s blog on my Facebooks the other day and I laughed maniacally in the little computer lab assistant office […]
Tiny Houses are just glorified middle-class trailers for people who don’t want to live in a trailer park, or in a van, down by the river.
“I have a NY driver’s license, a LA mailing address, and an Austin physical address.”
We all can’t be somewhat involved in all the coolest places at the same time like you, Heather.
Who is Heather?
omg that was the funniest thing i’ve read in ages, seriously my kids freaked out because i couldn’t stop laughing, my four year old wanted to know why i was crying!! hahaha!! well written, bloody funny piece Lauren! loved it, shared it, want more!! :))
Awww man! Thanks, Amie!
[…] Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses – Lauren at Hipstercrite asks all the questions you have ever wanted to ask someone who lives in a Tiny House. I actually want to know the answer to these, so I hope she does a follow-up interview with an actual Tiny House dweller. […]
Perhaps she could have done an actual interview in the first place. Writers these days.
Ha. My wife and I lived full time for 5 years in a 300 sqf motor home. We had plenty of room for everything we needed, including a queen sized bed where we had lots and lots of sex: sex overlooking the Grand Canyon; sex surrounded by Oregon vineyards; sex beneath California redwoods, and on and on.
Now we’ve downsized again to just a couple of backpacks whith which we’re traveling the world; having sex in Dubrovnik, Croatia , Venice, Italy . . .
Neither one of us farts much, which I guess is our secret.
Enjoy your big house, though. I’m sure it’s a blast.
This could have been a rant of any of my girl friends; as we discuss retiring to a farm (sans Kale), each with our own tiny-ish house, cabana boy(s) and an odd emu or two. Thanks for the laugh. *the comments are pretty damn funny too*
Livin’ the dream!
Awesome article! It’s too bad people can’t laugh and take things for what they are! I am sure even tiny home dwellers ask(ed) themselves the same questions at one point. I think a tiny home would be really fun with just a significant other, no kids! Bc then, sexy time can happen anywhere on that 250 sq. ft. house 😉
<3
We raised our 2 kids in a 400 sq’ creekside cabin. In order to get some ‘sexy’ time we eventually added on a 10×12′ room. Of course, we waited for several years to build because who has the time and energy for ‘sexy’ time w/ 2 young sprites running you ragged and besides, they were as entertaining ,not all of the time but some of the time, as ‘sexy’ time. and simply fart in the bathroom and close the door-this is not too hard people! and the butt control needed is like the Kegel exercises and makes sexy time way more fun….just sayin’… a win-win in my book. And I LOVE cleaning a tiny home…well, at least more than cleaning my 3000′ footer now. oops, I forgot, we have a house cleaner so it’s actually easier now..but you get the point,right? Well,I gotta go now. gotta make that big bundle of cash working to pay off that wild west coast mortgage. There may be a yurt in our future. cheers…
I live in a 130sqft tiny house alone and LOVE it! I think this article is hilarious.
Woohoo!
For the record, I live in a 120 square foot ‘tiny’ home. I love it and now wouldn’t live any other way. But also for the record, I agree with most all of it, satire or not. I see the pictures that get posted and articles and comments, and then I look around and think. Uh …. NO. I hear the expense of building one of the popular plans on wheels, blah blah, and ask why?
How I live is not for everyone. I especially would not recommend it if you have kids. And 120 square feet is enough for one person, but after a day or so is definitely NOT enough for two, or even one and an indoor pet. And having lived like this for over 5 years now, not once have I looked around said, “yup, just like in the magazine.”
Interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Being a writer myself, I thought this was a cute idea for a story – a little sarcasm levied towards the tiny house movement, in a playful tone. All in good fun, right?
Unfortunately, your potty-mouthed, foul obscenities drew attention away from what you were saying, to the point that this reader no longer cared to hear your opinions — even for the sake of a laugh. But then, you’re a hipster, right? What the civilized world wants is of no interest to you.
You are undoubtedly right in assuming a tiny house is not for you. While it’s true you would need less space, for your under-sized vocabulary, your EGO would require much more square footage to house it. Your flippant attitude, crude behavior, and disrespectful pets would require additions of their own to adequately house them as well.
The article made me laugh and feel happy. Your post made me feel sad. I like laughing.
[…] I am intrigued by the people who chose to live in teeny tiny houses. I have always wondered why they have to be THAT small though? It seem so does Lauren from Hipstercrite who wrote Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses. […]
This made me laugh out loud! I thought it was very insightful and witty and asked many of the questions that we all have wondered. Although, I have been seeing a lot of “sustainable apartment” communities popping up in my area. It’s a great marketing technique. The apartments are still expensive and don’t have green space. Actually, they are just really small. Like, 300 sq ft or less. And expensive. So even city dwellers like tiny houses. The just want to pay more for them?
If I had a tiny house, I’d much prefer to be in the country. Then you can enjoy the land around you. I can’t imagine living in a dinky place in NYC. I’d probably lose my mind. I’ve lived in my fair share of apartments. I can do apartments, but it’s nice to have a little bit more space!
First, I have to say, this article is hysterical, my husband and I laughed a lot (we love fart jokes)…and all your concerns and questions are completely legit. I can answer them honestly for you as my husband and I built our tiny (160 square foot) house back in 2011. That’s right, we’ll have lived in it for four years as of August 21st. We aren’t hipsters. We didn’t do it to be green (although that is a nice consequence). We don’t have children and definitely wouldn’t have chosen this lifestyle if we had. Our reasoning for living this way is purely selfish. We wanted to work less and play more. We wanted to live in a way that would allow us to stretch our meager incomes- low rent, little to no utility bills and to have money SAVED. My husband is a cook and I am a customer service supervisor. We don’t make a lot of $, never have. With what little we had (that we had to work our lives away for) we had to give it away, every month. Rent, utilities and every other bill AND we never lived beyond our means… Neither of us has ever had a credit card and we would only buy things that we could afford with cash. We never, ever wanted to buy a house. We never wanted to be tethered in that way and we both understand that when you “buy” a house you don’t REALLY own it… the bank does. If you are unlucky enough to have something happen to your body or your job and you can’t afford your mortgage, the bank can just take it away. FUCK that. One day, I was home and I saw PBS video about this lady named Dee Williams… She had the coolest little tiny house. I showed Joe as soon as he walked through the door and we decided to do it. It made perfect sense. For Us. Joe and I are originally from upstate NY. We have lived in tiny apartments our entire existence together. In fact, we got married in a studio. NY is expensive, no matter how far north you live, and tiny was what we could afford. So, the tiny part we had a LOT of experience with. It was a no-brainer. We never had enough money to buy a lot of stuff, so that was easy. The idea of having our OWN place was so, so appealing. We started saving and it took about a year with extra work (I photographed a cook book which paid for our trailer-the base of our house) and eating crap food, we managed to save roughly $30,000 dollars, cash. We didn’t borrow any money (and we have no credit cards)to build it, we sold things, beloved things like my camera to afford stain for our cedar siding. We had some help from friends in building it which Joe paid back with free computer help (as Joe is a certified repair tech) We are forever indebted to them. Exactly one year, to the day, that we moved in, Joe suffered a major stroke. I was with him, in the house and we were doing nothing, just milling about. He started to feel strange. He expressed his symptoms to me and about a half an hour later his speech was jumbled. I had training at my job for signs of stroke (F.A.S.T -Face, Arm, Speech and Time) as I work in a fitness facility. I knew immediately what was happening and with in 15 minutes I got him to the ER. His bp was 270/170. It was bad. One of the top pros on our pros and cons list for building our house was that if anything ever happened to Joe or I , we could each afford to live on our own in it and would always have a roof over our heads. Joe was paralyzed on his right side and had to work really, really hard for the better part of a year to regain his mobility. Don’t worry- thanks to that amazing work ethic of his he is 150% better than he was before the stroke. ..and as he was in rehab, he didn’t have to worry about me once, he could concentrate on getting better. What a gift. What a gift our tiny house was. Our house had to be deemed safe by his physical therapists in order to be released from the hospital and if it wasn’t we had to find a place that was. I was nervous about this. I wanted him home. To my surprise they thought our house was ideal for recovery! If he fell, he could catch himself easily … too small to fall! We built our house with fold out futon on the floor level, he could sleep downstairs no problem. That being said, the tiny house has saved our ass numerous times over the years. Joe could not work, if I alone had to pay our rent while he was recovering, we would be homeless. That alone is worth the wind of a thousand mexican food farts.
About the farts, we built our house with 13, yes 13, windows with that very thing in mind. We also have a lot of fans. I call them my fart shields. We eat a LOT of veggies (no, we are not vegetarians) which contributes to the flatulence. We have two skylights above our heads in the bedroom loft and it’s dormer-ed so as to sit up comfortably in bed. Joe designed the house to be as comfortable as possible. No, there isn’t a lot of privacy but we can easily get away from each other by walking out the front door. We both have our own space and computers so we can each do our own thing and we’ve lived this way for many years so it works for us. We are not perfect or better than anyone. We’ve just been living this way for so long that we know how to make it work.
If there is a forest fire (we live in Montana) or zombies for that matter we could pull our house away as it is on wheels. Yet another benefit.
If there is one thing I have a lot of, it’s clothes. I have a much bigger clothing area than Joe. I have to purge, several times in 6 month period. If I buy something new, I have to get rid of something old. I generally give it to a friend or send it to the thrift. We can’t buy a lot of things and stuff with our extra money because there is no place to put it. So, we budget for trips. When we rented we never traveled. We lived in Montana for several years, never having time or money to go to Seattle, even, which is only 9 hours away. With the house, we finally went and saw the gum wall. Drank great coffee. Visited Roslyn (where they filmed Northern Exposure, my favorite show as a kid). Well, now I’m rambling. I’ll cut it off here, with one downside to living in a tiny house, unless you build it so that the loft can be closed in some way, your cats will walk on your face when they want to go out and it will piss you off every morning… but I’m sure there is a way to fix the problem. A tiny way. With your tiny tools.
*Sorry about the punctuation, I’m sure it’s terrible. Also, there is SO much more I could say but you get the point.
Meg, your place sounds awesome! Is there a place where we can see photos?
Thanks Lauren! Absolutely! http://blog.oregonlive.com/homesandgardens/2012/03/from_the_home_front_meg_and_jo.html
Also, Alex at Tiny House Talk did an article as well- http://tinyhousetalk.com/meg-and-joes-tiny-house-tour-would-you-live-here/ But these are both really old. The house wasn’t finished so the inside has changed considerably.
Amazing story, thanks for sharing! Great to hear about your husband’s recovery too!
Thank you so much, Cammi!
Thx for the laugh..the comments are even funnier. That is a clever piece of writing people are way too serious theses days
Thanks, Carole!
[…] blog post was shared with me yesterday. Tears. Legitimate tears of laughter. OMG. Read it. Read it […]
Dear People Who Live in [Austin, TX] and actually [BLOG],
Do you actually love living in [Austin, TX] and [writing about your latest ponderings?]
You look so freakin’ happy [sitting at the cafe on your macbook, reading Dwell, talking about Tiny Houses and planning your next vintage clothing purchase. Or how long your bangs should be]. Gosh, your life just looks so good, but do you ever sit on the toilet after that double espresso and think, “I’ve made a terrible mistake! [I should have moved to Portland!]”
Look, I’m not criticizing you for [being artistic and moving to the hippest city on the planet] — after all humans have [tried to be cool since….Lucy?]
[INSERT: Pretend to know everything about the demographic so you can ask nonsensical (“hysterical” to your audience) questions and get people to like your article. I mean, like, really guys, it’s all about the viral these days.]
———
Actually, can I get my money back for this Satirical Template I just bought from “HowToGrowYourBlog.com”? It’s just too easy and I don’t think it’s trendy anymore….
You put a lot of thought into this comment. Thank you.
Oh, thanks! I thought it was very original, too. I worked really hard on it. Like, I just really really tried to think, like, “What would it be like to be a mover-and-shaker in the world today?” and then, like, is it really *that* great to do something so different and positive for the world? Totally not! I’m so glad people are so humorous though and enjoy my style of satire. In a half joking sort of way. Kinda like when someone says “you’re a loser. i’m only half joking.” C’mon people! I’m only HALF joking! Like, how funny is that!
Congratulations (in all seriousness), Lauren! Isn’t it fun when you strike a societal nerve?!?
1. I saw this originally in my feed, shared by one of my random facebook friends thanks to your medium post.
2. I saw this post AGAIN when you shared how awesome Medium is to one of the billion blogging groups I’m a member of.
I’ve since accidentally closed the tab, but wanted to drop you a line to thank you for sharing that wonderful piece of advice and also to say how WONDERFUL this post is. You’ve brightened an otherwise completely miserable work night. (Also, because the comments on this thread seem to be all about sharing: I don’t live in a small house, but contemplated either a: small fancy house living or b: ridiculously expensive tiny apartment in Manhattan living with the ex-boyfriend who I now can’t stand. SWEET BABY JESUS WHAT A BULLET DODGE THAT WAS.)
Thanks for this wonderful post. Keep being awesome.
Tiny house pics remind me of winter camping pics on Outside or similar sites. Looks soooooooo cool and romantic. Have you ever actually been winter camping????????? You spend most if not all of the night staring at the tent ceiling wondering when the sun will come up so you can thaw out. And the nights are long in the wintertime!
I loved your article. I have the same questions to these people. where I am from I get people talking about tiny houses all the time. As if its a real choice. Yeah, if you are single and will always be alone it might be a plan. But some of us work to get out of a hole in the ground like that. I am not embarrassed by living in a proper mansion. These people try to make it out that I should be ashamed for having so much space. But c’mon which way would you rather live? I worked for it. For a long time. I ain’t going to work for 20 years only to live in a tiny room forever. No thanks. I think life is bigger than that.
You are hilarious. Gonna bookmark this and read some more….
The comments cracked me up even more. Always funny when people don’t get it…..
[…] piece Dear People Who Live in Tiny Houses has been floating around social media this week, and it turned me on to the Hipstercrite’s […]
[…] http://www.hipstercrite.com/2015/05/22/dear-people-who-live-in-fancy-tiny-houses/#comments_wrapper […]
I saw this linked around on Facebook. It raises a lot of real questions with the tiny house movement (to those of us not accustomed to minimizing our belongings), but you make it so funny!
A tiny house reality show would be a good idea.
[…] week we stumbled upon The Hipstercrite‘s hilarious open letter to “people who live in fancy tiny houses”. It was full […]
I live in a 200 sqft yurt in the woods of Wisconsin. I used to live in condos and apartments in Chicago, Mpls, and Detroit. I couldn’t be happier. My property taxes are $180 a YEAR and I have everything I need. The quest for MOREMOREMORE is killing this planet. Learn to live with less…it’ll do wonders for your character.
I love how people who’ve chosen to list spare lives like to assume they are of better character than others. There are zillions of shades of green between you and the Trumps of the world, and some us on the continuum take exception to having our character questioned by random people whose true characters are an unknown.
I think these are awesome questions raised in a a really funny way! My husband and I are planning on building a tiny house to use as a vacation house for ourselves and rent out when we aren’t there. We watch all of the tiny house shows and are always asking questions like this. I mean…should I feel guilty that I don’t shit in a bucket of saw dust….or does it make you better than me that my bedspread isn’t covered with bacon grease because my bed is a foot away from where I cook. I think that downsizing and tiny living is very admirable, but I also think that it’s taken way too far, and almost becomes an obsession at times. It creates a level of pretentiousness in people, which is the exact opposite of what “living simply” should stand for. I grew up in a 400 square foot home, and currently live in an 800 square foot home. We have plenty of room to have hobbies (yes tiny housers, we have STUFF) and that doesn’t make us bad people!!!
My 19 year old son is building a tiny house. We live in No. Cal where real estate prices and rents are extremely high. So a tiny house is a wonderful alternative for a young person who would like all the amenities of the nice place that we live without insane rents. He would much rather live in his own house than in some crappy apartment with a half dozen roommates.
I live in a 200 sq. ft. cabin, and I laughed because I’ve read the ‘tiny house’ articles and had exactly the same thoughts.
For the record: I’m a 60 year old hermit, so ‘sexy time’ is not an issue. I do however share my space with two dogs, one of whom masses approximately as much as I do. They’re necessary because they keep the coyotes and other predators away from my food animals – which live outside my Tiny Home, in among the two sheds where I keep my power equipment and all my actual stuff.
See, my rule for all those pictures of Tiny Homes is the same as that for all the other pictures of places found in architectural magazines: If the number of visible throw pillows exceeds the number of visible books or cooking utensils, somebody’s selling something you may not want to buy because it will not conform to reality in any meaningful way.
My cabin is 200 square feet. One comfy chair. Lots of books. A fairly major kitchen with not enough counter space. Two dogs. No throw pillows, and no wheels. And a yard with sheds, because that’s the only way it can really be done.
[…] Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses I f’ing love the idea of downsizing and living a “simple life,” but seriously, where do you put your shit? You still have some clothing and shoes and towels and all that jazz, right? Or do you just wear overalls now? Overalls and Birkenstocks and one towel that you share with your entire family. Where do you wash that towel, hmm? Do you have a tiny river that runs behind your tiny house? I bet you do. I bet your whole Goddamn property is whimsical. […]
Hilarious! I recently moved from a huge 5 bedroom house into an apartment that is 575 sq. ft. While my fiance, my cat and I don’t need a ton of space, there’s no way we could go smaller than this. We’re definitely going into a bigger place once our lease is up. Our biggest challenge, trying to find a place to put the toilet paper!
[…] read your article, it was funny. Very funny in fact, nearly every single person I know sent me a note making sure I […]
Got here by way of Macy’s blog http://minimotives.com/2015/07/14/dear-hipstercrite/
I was amused by your article, not offended. I’ve lived in everything from a tent to a truckbed camper over the last few years, so I think I can legitimately claim to know what living tiny is really like. I actually think your disclaimer at the end did your writing a disservice ~ it changed the tone of the article to a kind of “bully making fun and then saying you can’t take a joke”, when it was clearly tongue-in-cheek.
I built a large percentage of my own Tiny Home, which I’m now probably going to either drastically reduce in size, or sell, or abandon. Not because I can’t live in a very small space, but for other practical reasons. As another commenter said, this seems to be the place for sharing our own personal stories, so here goes!
I’ve come to realize my trailer isn’t heavy-duty enough to withstand road travel. That can be rectified, with some $$$ and some time. But, I’m not sure I want to spend those on it. After getting a life-changing injury doing something stupid, I’ve come to realize that my plan for living alone in my TH on a very beautiful but remote piece of land in the mountains is a little too dangerous for my, a single woman. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I had a partner.
So, what to do? Well, build an even tinier space to live in, of course! The one-ton flatbed I bought to tow my TH…hmmm. It has a pretty good-sized bed on it, and I still have plenty of building materials left, and I want a safe place to call my own…light bulb moment! My new Tiny Home will live on my truck!
See, I already know I am comfortable in a very small space. I’ve already learned what I like and what I NEED, and what I can live without. Not saying I don’t have wants and wishes that won’t work, of course I do. I’m an overly-pampered American, after all. But that’s OK, that can be overcome.
I will have a freaking huge closet, and decent kitchen, and a queen-size bed area. I’ll have a very small bathroom, with barely enough room to shower. Staying clean is a necessity, and I don’t have the room for it to be a luxury, sadly. I do have a gym membership for when I want a long, hot shower. 🙂 I’ll have a pantry for my scratch cooking, and a marine alcohol stove for when I cook inside. I’ll have a tiny wood stove for heat and to keep a kettle of water warm (hot water on demand is definitely a luxury I want!). I’ll have electricity for my laptop, lights, fans, and a tiny freezer.
Because I hope my mid-20s son with travel with me sometimes, I’m making sure that the storage bench is big and comfy enough for sleeping. The two sleeping spaces will be separated too, for the much-valued privacy!
Here’s the big (huge?) downside: I have a dog and 3 cats in my care now. This came about due to my mother’s passing away ~ I wasn’t about to kill her pets because of any inconvenience. I did find her dog a lovely home, thankfully. I can’t rehome my dog though ~ he’s my friend and he defends me. No one wants to take in older kitties. So things will be awfully hairy sometimes, I suspect :p
This is an extreme lifestyle that certainly wouldn’t fit most people, but for me? Wanting to be able to travel? Needing to know I have a safe and comfortable place to live that can’t be taken by the bank? Loving the fact that I can build my own home with my own two hands? It’s perfect. For now. 🙂
Lauren,
Loved your post so I wrote a response I thought you might enjoy as well. 😉
http://fynyth.blogspot.com/2015/07/re-dear-people-who-live-in-fancy-tiny.html
~Ariel
[…] This post originally appeared on Hipstercrite. […]
[…] This post originally appeared on Hipstercrite. […]
[…] This post originally appeared on Hipstercrite. […]
[…] article was hilarious: “Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses.” As a side note, tiny house living isn’t all “peaches and cream.” I’ve tried to […]
I LOVED your article! My howling laughter disturbed my usually imperturbable dogs! And I’m currently building a 200 sq. ft. THOW!
Having read the comments, I am struck by how easily many are led to believe that those who do something, and those who blog about doing it, are the same demographic.
I loved this so much and immediately FB’d it. I’ve loved tiny homes for a decade but have all the same questions as you for sure. Personally as much as I like the design, the ethic and (primarily) the lower cost, I could never live in just one. I thought for years, since first seeing them, that I wouldn’t mind my own tiny home compound. Buy a property and circle the wagons, so to speak, with each one (and I’m talking the itty bitty cute ones, not the uber loft for family ones) for a different purpose. Bedroom, closet, bath, lounge/office/crafts, meditation/exercise, guests, kitchen/dining. So, I’d only need 7, ~150 sq ft tiny homes with a central courtyard (maybe one more facing the road for either a home decor store or Chiro clinic, depending on how I want to work). I couldn’t handle divesting of all my books or items picked up traveling. Totally respect people who live small but my first thought it always that all they have room/stuff to do at home is reading (good) or TV (meh) or garden (yay) so all of *life* must be lived outside of the home. Also not bad, given that happiness comes from experiences, not things… but that first thought I always have is that these people must spend an awful lot of MONEY going out to do things, since there’s no space or supplies to do things at home and pretty much everything there is to DO these days (except perhaps hiking) is far from free. So, do I give up a cuddly home space that’s beautiful because I’ve collected beauty in my travels, because of an ethic to live small? Or live slightly bigger and spend less money going in search of something to do? Can’t believe the people attacking this post of yours, it’s exactly what I’m sure many of us wonder! xo
It helps if you are older, you don’t have as good a sense of smell. but the ladder would be my undoing. It seems that with part of the tiny tiny house movement, it became, because city codes don’t allow houses to be built that are small, so you are left with a non permanent dwelling that by necessity had to be very small. however the fact the people are aware that we are over run by stuff, in debt and so spread apart, that we don’t connect any more and want to change that , is commendable. I think out of this movement will come a new awareness, and this early part is pioneering. I for one am impressed
YO LAUREN!
I’m so happy to find your site, this article made me laugh so much, that I would have fallen off my tiny chair, if only I had one…no space for it in my house you see! 😉
I am a mad person, and live in a Ford Transit van which is 8 metres square, WITH my boyfriend, who is mad too. Mexican fart times are awful, but he is well trained and does them out the door. I LOVED reading this article, cos all of it is true – apart from ever thinking that I made a terrible mistake! 🙂
As a tiny home dweller, I’ll tell you what I love about my little house – it makes me giggle all the time! It’s ridiculously small, and I have nowhere to put my shit, so I just got rid of it, which makes me madder and happier by the day! Best of all, we live under heaps of snow throughout the winter in the French Alps, which makes us even madder, but even cosier. We live in a community of about 17 other vans housing other mad people and dogs, and this is my favourite part of this tiny living malarkey – our community. Our homes are too small to own everything we need, so we are constantly popping round to our neighbours to share food, fun, drinks and love. It warms the cockles of my heart.
Keep writing, and keep up the great work, I can’t wait to read your other stuff.
Love, Katie. XXX
[…] Joel included a link to a blog called Hipstercrite (awesome name!) that really knocks it out of the park: […]
That’s it….I’m leaving Alaska and moving back to my tiny yellow house in Austin just so I can be best friends with Lauren and answer all of these questions…hopefully without ever getting to the children building a McMansion.
Our house is about 1400 square feet. Our family of five uses about half of that space on a regular basis. Once we become empty nesters, my husband and I have discussed building a house in the 400 square foot range.
That said, we spend a lot of time outdoors. We have a few acres with horses and chickens, and I have a large garden. Most evenings are spent hanging out around a camp fire.
Cleaning a small house takes much less time….our bathroom floor is exactly 4″ x 5″. What takes time is dealing with clutter. A small house can go from pristine to looking like something from an episode of “Hoarders” in about a half day.
I could live in a real tiny house, though, if it had a large covered porch. A good, outdoor living area would be key.
Great article, Lauren! I too live in a 10X20 tiny house on wheels and far worse than Mexican food farts is dog flatulence in the winter, when animals should not be outside – and the occasional 2 a.m. stealthy pounce on my stomach while sleeping in my 7X10 log raftered sleeping loft by one of my two cats, who by now have learned to jump from floor, to kitchen counter, to windowsill & then leap up to my loft and surprise me. THOW living is not for the faint of heart…but I wouldn’t trade it for anything at this point in my 61+ years…
Mark, I don’t about your cats, but I could live in a mansion and they would still jump right on my head.
[…] Live in Fancy Tiny Houses, do you actually love living in a fancy tiny house?” wonders Lauren on Hipstercrite. Portlandia mocked the trend as only Portlandia can — with fold-away cat boxes (shudder). It […]
Oh wow I’m surprised by everyone who took offense! I thought this was pretty damn funny.. My boyfriend and I are building a tiny house soon (200 sq ft) 100 for living and the other 100 for storage (mostly food, water, and recreational stuffs). We don’t have kids, but our two cats will have a “catio” attached to the house which will be good for their escape during our sexy time LOL. The height of our loft isn’t high enough to stand, but not nearly as low as the avg. tiny house. We definitely would have liked something a bit bigger, but tiny homes are really pricey for what you get.. Our place has huge windows and our lot is on the ocean so the view is absolutely surreal, and was way more important to us than having a bigger home. We’re always kayaking, running, hiking etc. so we’re not in the house often and with the moderate ocean temperature we’re always outside grilling or gardening. For those who say “I could never” it really depends on your situation and what is most important to you. Oh and as far as farts? I could never escape those things anyway haha!
your article had me laughing to the point of tears- you my dear, are freaking funny. We live in a 250 sq ft vintage camper. My sweet guy is my best friend and we are both weirdos …so we do fine with this arrangement. Everyone is always asking us if we drive each other crazy…we don’t – it’s amazing. He does have Chinese food farts/ I’ve acclimated.
We don’t have kids. The people who have kids and live in tiny houses freak me out—what the hell….?!! For all the reasons you stated above…families were not meant to live in less than 500 sq ft- my Irish ancestors did…but they also ate only potatoes and shit in pots…
And you are welcome to visit us, too, Lauren, here in the middle of the woods in British Columbia.
I desire the tiny house lifestyle. I have done ever since I was a kid. I’d build my own huts. I recall downsizing my bedroom by placing two large free standing wardrobes around my bed. The tiny house thing isn’t as bizarre as you think, unless you like pacing around your floor constantly, or require an unusual amount of room to move. I own a modest 64 square meter home that requires a lot of work to even be considered “average condition.” To earn enough money to support the house (and yes, that IS the majority of what I am supporting) I end up with little left over to renovate, or little time, or energy. Sad fact of life is a lot of low paid working class jobs are also EXTREMELY physical and demanding, with no financial reward beyond “home ownership”
My wife and I recently did the sums and for two very cheap cars, utilities like power and phone plus internet for a family of four… the mortgage, the rates, the insurances, over half our income is GONE BEFORE we get to buy food.
Once you start to consider your ACTUAL use of space, things tend to get very interesting. A large house essentially only provides MORE steps to the next piece of furniture or work station you will be occupying. Moving from chair A in your large lounge to put a plate on the bench. Sitting at your table to eat, use a lap top, write. Going to your room to get clothes, get dressed, or laze on the bed. Your normal activities aren’t restricted. If you want to do yoga. cartwheels, basic athletics, there is a place called OUTSIDE.
Now getting to your stuff. Unless you are a hobbyist that has a hobby that requires storage, like a cabinet maker, or some sort of restoration project, there isn’t much argument against a tiny house beyond your expectation that houses must be of a certain size. And as someone that wants to live the life, and is working towards it, I share the same doubts that this author raises. I expect that is natural for anyone breaking free of the usual societal indoctrination of “normal”. I don’t use that phrase to be snide, I believe at one time that the way we lived was financially sustainable for families. It really isn’t sustainable now for those of us with 60k incomes and families to support, and all hippy bias aside there are solid financial and stress reduction reasons to considering this life.
That being said, thanks for the laugh
Geez Louise, it’s satire, folks. SATIRE. Give the girl a break. She made you laugh. Don’t tell me she didn’t make you laugh. I laughed so hard my dogs scurried under the bed until I stopped. I too love the tiny home movement, and write about it on my blog on a fairly regular basis. And since I’m alone with two little dogs that fart little farts, I would live in one in a heartbeat. But we have to have a sense of humor to survive in this world. Just let yourself laugh and don’t judge why.
Brenda
This would be a fantastic, well written, and very funny article…..except for the use of God’s name in vain. It is so ugly, draws attention to itself, is NOT funny, and caused me to stop reading it. I decided to continue, and you did it again. Girl….you don’t need to trash your great article like that. You’re funny on your own.
When did the whole world forget their sense of humor, why can’t anything just be funny anymore, when did people’s skin become so thin? Sorry it was funny, seriously I’ve thought all those things and the small house idea has always intrigued me!
If you could drop the GD’s it’d be great
Other than the GD’s,I enjoyed the article 🙂
Enjoyed the satirical article. It would have still been funny without all the nasty language. I wish I could share, but my young daughter reads all my posts.
Do you ever stare at your account balance after writing another mortgage (or worse, rent) check and think “I’ve made a terrible mistake living here?”. Do you look around the giant mess in your kitchen and wonder why you have so many dirty dishes. Do you ever pay a housekeeper or gardener or handyman to come fix yet another broken appliance? Have you ever gotten a quote on replacing carpet or flooring and though “gosh, that’s a lot of money for something I just walk on”.
Tiny house living is about living within your means, being happy with what you have, and not needing for more. It’s less about sacrifice and more about shedding external worries.
I love watching our savings grow. I love knowing where everything I own is, knowing it is clean, safe, and right where I left it. I love being close to my family and enjoying a simpler life with them.
As with all things, there is some sacrifices made, but the benefits far outweigh any of the negatives of living small.
Agreed!
Tiny house living is also reflective of the demographic change in our country away from a relentless focus on marriage and children, working and entertaining – what most everyone on here would be doing 40 years ago, instead of blogging and living small.
[…] She’s totally calling them out about what happens when someone farts Mexican food farts. […]
[…] everyone is thinking about tiny houses…but this writer so clearly and hilariously states… (a bit vulgar, but very very […]
Oh my goodness, I fell off my chair laughing while reading your awesome article! I too would love “someday” to live in a tiny house and I’ve also wondered about all those nagging questions. Great article 🙂
[Though I promised myself I’d never contribute where more than a dozen or so others had already commented, this topic just begs for….well….comment.]
I’ve also wondered about the exact things the author mentioned–in particular the lack of storage space in ‘tiny houses’. Do they vacuum? Then where does it go? Do they wear more than the clothes on their backs? I don’t recall ever seeing a closet capable of storing more than….wait…I don’t ever recall seeing a closet in a tiny house plan.
As a single person (with a dog) I don’t need much space, but only realized this after moving into a new 1250 sq.ft. house with a full basement and wondering “what have I done?!”.
As the tiny house advocates might tell us, it’s about the planning, and they’d be right. I can’t count the number of atrociously laid out 2000 sq.ft. or even 3000 sq.ft. houses I’ve seen, for example, with nary a single big room to host guests in. (Really? I’m supposed to pay for all that space but I can’t host a big group of friends for a dinner party?)
On the other hand, I once saw a 650 sq.ft. apartment that looked about 200 sq.ft. bigger, due to its well designed layout.
Perhaps the answer for some of us rather than a ‘tiny house’, is a ‘much-smaller-than-we’ve-lived-in-up-’til-now’ house (or condo).
[…] – Have you read Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses? […]
This article is hysterical!! SO TRUE! I think the exact same thing when I watch all the tiny house shows.
On a more serious note, I am currently watching an old episode of Tiny House Nation where the house they built for this couple has already been left by said couple (per an article on a tiny house blog) due to problems and actual cost incurred after the cameras and crew left and things started to go awry. It’s sad to know they couple endured so much hardship losing their original house in a wildfire only to see that the ‘workmanship’ done by these two show hosts wasn’t high quality.
Jealousy is a bitch, isn’t it?
Yes, it is.
I really REALLY want to see a neighborhood of nothing but these tiny houses. Not a tiny neighborhood, but a real planned out area with normal sized trees, & a pond, sidewalks, etc. I just think it would be interesting to see.
If you buy a piece of land and talk to the town planning board, I would imagine this is possible. Vacation trailer parks are possible (including pool, lots of trees, etc.), so why not this?
If I had a tiny house, I’d like the option of moving it from town to town for vacations–to a planned site where the tiny houses are welcome.
Anyone doing this? I’d consider building/buying…
An excellent excellent muse on small living. Having now done it for 6 months roadschooling our little wee ones across the U.S., it rings too true not to just laugh all out. Our best – Jason & Diedra
Loved your take on this subject. And I agree with all you said about the real need of downsizing and being more aware of what we are doing to our planet, but I do to wonder how they do it? I have to say I am intrigued but amazed with how it “all” fits, how… it looks so complete. I guess it depends on the perspective of the idea what “all” is and how much of it we really need. Great article. Gonna go browse some more, I like the way you write.
Regards,
Goa
I’m torn on tiny houses… The designs can be really cool and functional. And I think most Americans have way too much crap, that they often pay 100+/month to keep in a storage unit because they can’t fit it all in their house and probably never will…what a waste (George Carlin had a bit about this)
But the young couples buying tiny houses on HGTV just seem kinda…douchey. “Look at us pooping in a bucket and washing our clothes in the spring meadow! Aren’t we just so fucking idyllic?” They’re not better people than the rest of us just because they’re trying harder to be “green”. Not everyone needs to live in a tiny house and compost their poop to ~save the earth~. There’s a middle ground between that and McMansions. (“Overpopulation” is nothing to worry about btw. Fun thought experiment: all 7 billion people on earth could fit in Texas with the population density of New York. Lack of space for people to live will never be an issue. Look at a map of the Western U.S., for starters. )
[…] June, I republished my “Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses” Hipstercrite blog post on Medium and it got less than ten recommendations in 30 days. The […]
People who get defensively riled by sarcasm should be scratched by feral cats, sprayed with cayenne, and tossed into a pool of hungry sharks.
We cannot paint all the tiny housers with one broad stroke, folks. I have a friend in a design phase of his puny house (surprise! he lives in Portland!) and I see how much he gets out of the design, planning, and consideration of having a smaller footprint. It’s not for be but it’sl also not my place to judge what others do based on a few photos or a magazine spread. Where’s the boundary where it falls into fashionable fetishism as so hilariously, fart ladenly written here? It depends.
I live in an un-hip, never to to be written in a glossy magazine or 3 episode tv series, *small* house (867 sq ft), no debt, composting, and when needed drive my boxes of used glass to be recycled in a 17 year old truck. Am I hipstier than thou? Hardly. But living with less, to me, is ultimately rewarding than living with more.
Oh my god this is funny!
I’m obsessed with tiny houses and it’s my dream to live in one (by myself, lol), but I intend to give up a lot more stuff before I let my sense of humour go! Great article.
I’m laughing out loud from my shelf bed on the 42 foot sailboat that my husband and I call home. You’ve hit the nail on the head with the privacy thing, the sex stuff (no kids here, thankfully) and the farting. We love our lifestyle and still think it’s worth it, but to your point, the photos of us covered in shit from the time our toilet tank backed up never made it to my Instagram feed.
Ohmygod. I would have loved to have seen that photo. Hahaha.
(P.S. I’m sorry you were covered in poop.)
This was a great article! Thank you! I as laughing so hard I was crying! My wife loves tiny houses. I personally cannot stand them. We will probably in up with a tiny house in our backyard to keep her happy. (yes I know that defeats the purpose, but it beats divorce)
You know people didn’t understand Van Gogh during his time either.
As I get older, I enjoy more space for hobbies and office. I currently live in a 5200 sq ft house with my wife and no children. I do, however, own a tiny house that sits in the back on my property, I keep the lawnmower in it.
OMG!!! IM dying!! This was so0ooo funny! I have been lookiing at getting a tiny house for a couple weeks now, I want to be able to afford lots of quality land so I can have horses, goats, chickens, and cows and a nice garden and fish filled pond. I also like that they can be luxurious for much less than a bigger home. MY husband thinks Ive lost my ever luvin mind! So Ive started looking at bigger tiny homes like this one http://wheelhaus.com/caboose/ that gives more square footage and a luxury feel. I think he would like this better. I really want to get away from all the clutter we have, so I want to be forced to simplify and spend most of our time outdoors. I want it so bad I can taste it!!!!! At this point if we went with a traditional mortgage we would be paying into our 80’s. That sounds like a trainwreck to me. Thanks for this laugh and all the hilarious comments too! By the way I am a conservative female with a 4 year old daughter and 3 chihuahua’s. .. just for yall statistics.. lol 😀
Dear Lauren,
you’re so fucking stupid.
Dear, Tom.
Have you ever thought about anger management classes?
The bigger the better..My current house is about 6400 sqft. I could only go larger…Hopefully will sell this one before the next housing crash then pick up something much bigger and better on the cheap in a year or so.. When I was a kid I had a 68 vw bus with the camper insides. It was fun to take to the beach with my friends and spend a few days in it but that as far as I would take it. I think for an individual a minimum 5000 sqft is pushing it as far as comfort goes and would really recommend 6k or larger. If you have a family I would suggest at least 10k sqft to have enough privacy for everyone and not be cramped. I have a friend of mine with a 13k sqft house and that is a decent size for a human being. Nothing wrong with owning smaller places as long as you dont have to live in them just rent them out. I think most of these people once they grow up will realize they are basically homeless and live in a shoe.
I don’t live in a tiny house but really enjoyed reading this article.
I hope you don’t mind that I will share link to it with my readers in the Friday Newsletter.
You actually raise some very legit questions in a funny way. I also want a tiny house but the logistics just do not make sense. Where would I park it? How will I keep my fridge running? How will I wash my clothes or flush my toilet? Will I be safe and secure because it looks easy to break into? What will the kids do when they are teenagers and want to invite people over? Is it hard to resale if I need to? Anyways, kudos for going green. If everyone acquired less, reduced and reused, this world would be a much better place!
Hi there! This is absolutely wonderfully hysterical! I was hoping to get your permission to use this as an audition piece. Good witty writing for women is sometimes hard to come by and when you do find it, you find out that it’s a monologue that’s overdone. It’s really great writing and I’d love to use it! (No public performance, just audition) Thank-you!
Hey, Stacy!
I am honored. Please go ahead!
She certainly pointed out facts about these things. They’re so cute on TV while you’re lying in bed in your master bedroom thinking “damn, that whole house could fit in here” Yeah, that wouldn’t work for me.
Very clever and funny.
OMG I laughed so hard and so many times, when reading this article. To each his/her own, but I’m with you, I wouldn’t live in one of those unless desperate. I’d way rather get an extra part-time job if I had to, in order to live in a apartment or something (fortunately I don’t need to). I’m reading it again, that was the funniest thing ever (and not written in a mean spirited condescending way at all) – thanks!!
Ditto Pamo! I laughed so hard I woke up my husband! I’m fascinated with these tiny homes and have wondered the same things. I don’t read blogs. However, a friend shared this article on Facebook so I had to find out more about you. I didn’t think your article was offensive. I love to laugh. You go girl!
[…] Molly sent me this article, “Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses” and it killed my […]
I received this blog post as sad, rather than satirical. As a huge fan of humor and potential, and one who lives in a 96-sq foot A-frame located in a Hawaiian Tropical Rainforest near the beach with a partner… I could tell you the answers to the questions you pose are much funnier and insightful than this post. If you find yourself looking for material with substance to write about, as it seems you have multiple platforms to express yourself, I would recommend seeking answers from those you mock, or try stepping out of your comfort zone and living “tiny” for a period of time. It can be a transformational experience, but impossible to get through without a huge capacity for finding the funny in life.
Thank you for sharing.
[…] Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses […]
“Even that dog is like, ‘Where the fuck is the bed, guys?'”
Oh geez, you’re killing me. This article is hilarious. We lived in our tiny house for 3 years and never really thought about it all that much. Basically pooping in one’s kitchen is a bit bizarre.
Tiny and large, I’m sure plenty of people are living in their 5,000 sq ft houses wondering, WTF have I done too!
Very funny blog post…
“Don’t you ever want to turn toward your lover or spawn and shout, “Get out! Get out of my tiny house!”
OMG – you are brilliant! This read made my day! The comments. . . hahaha. Imagine getting pissed at someone for not wanting to live in a tent. Hahahaa! My camper is bigger than that dog house. No kidding.
[…] This post is in response to Lauren at Hipstercrite. […]
[…] Before I forget, I came across an absolutely hilarious article about tiny house living. […]
[…] I’m sure most tiny home enthusiasts have stumbled across this viral blog post. If not, you can read it here: “Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses”. […]
I’ve written a letter in response to your post. It can be read here.
http://livingtinycanada.com/2016/02/02/a-brutally-honest-response-to-dear-people-who-live-in-fancy-tiny-houses/
Your article brings up some pretty common questions that we get asked regularity.
I’ve written a letter in response to your post. It can be read here.
http://livingtinycanada.com/2016/02/02/a-brutally-honest-response-to-dear-people-who-live-in-fancy-tiny-houses/
I Respect the person that wrote this article; it is the Common Sense TRUTH.
FROM The BEGINING TO THE END YOU Had ME Laughing. You are more like a comedian. Ignore the caps- stupid phone is don what it wants.
Thanks for the article. Hahaha
I loved this – funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. Please do more of this. You are awesome.
[…] “People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses are like this political Word of the Day at Dictionary.com – sylvan: of, relating to, or inhabiting the woods.” […]
Effing libs are miserable by nature, now they want to force their misery on everyone else. No thanks, I’ll keep my 4500 sqft oceanfront home my family and I enjoy immensely.
I wouldn’t mind living in a tiny house since my lady is no housekeeper and I have to clean the one I’m in now! I have a house with 1200 Sq ft of first floor, 900 sq ft of finished attic and 600 sq ft of finished basement plus a garage and I still have no place for all of my stuff! I’m basically trying to fit 12 tons of shit into a 6 ton house as it is. Maybe I should sell it all, buy a sleeping bag, a box of matches and a rife and go live under a bridge! LOL!
Thanks Lauren,
I enjoyed that sublime tears-rolling-down-my-face-and-no-sound-but-wheezing Borat-laughter for the first time, well, since Borat!
I’m a single woman living in a 250-square-foot apartment. Sexy time? The people who live above me, whose bed is just above the desk where I work late at night get sexy time. Oh, for a tiny house surrounded by a tiny forest.
[…] Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny … – source- Tiny: A Story About Living Small Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses, Do you actually love living in a fancy tiny house*? You look so […]
All I can think is “For the love of God, just FUCKING ‘say’ it!”
Good read. My wife and I enjoy watching the tiny house shows on HGTV—mostly for the unique storage and space saving things that they come up with. We couldn’t imaging actually living in one—maybe just having something like that set up as a guest house.
Not sure why ‘tiny house’ people think they are being Super responsible and better than others…you spend more than an avg small home cost per square foot and you used more resources to build a brand new tiny house that you park in allowed or not allowed areas and use others resources. And as you age you probably will then throw your tiny house into a landfill wheras a smaller home that already exists can be reused easier amd is cheaper and more environmentally friendly. And the 50k plus you spent is pretty much a sunk cost. A house normally appreciates in value.
Not only does someone had the fortitude to poke fun at this unsustainable, no-one-will-visit-me-ever-in-my-tiny-house-life trend, but they also happen to love Jeff Goldblum.
You, Lauren, are a rare commodity and, as a fellow Lauren, I am very very glad that you exist and are doing our namesake PROUD! Keep on it! 😀
I meant “have the fortitude”….yeesh….work day brain fried.
Absolutely, completely loved this. Thank you for saying all the things my wife says in her head when I’m going on and on about how I want to live in a tiny house. I just died laughing trying to read this outloud to her, totally gonna read more of your work.
Apparently when making the move to tiny living, the first thing to get downsized is a sense of humor.
Thank you, every time one of those commercials come on my wife and I cant help but to crack up. While we cant argue with the novelty of the idea, we managed to obtain a house with ocean view and only 1/2 mile walk from the beach at 1700 sq ft and also “off the grid” in California. So basically a bunch of whiny, unsuccessful people. However, tiny homes make great vacation spots!
Loved this! My husband and I lived on our 29ft cuddy cabin on the St. John’s river for a year – before children. Aside from the hurricane evacuation and the hurricane that we sat through, we loved it. We kept a storage space for things we couldn’t bear to part with. We both had regular jobs – but were on opposite shifts most days. I have wondered if it might have been different had we been up close and personal during all of our free time . Great satire and good questions!
Hi, I googled tiny homes are stupid and found this site. Love your article. In one show the mom was trying to make breakfast while the dad was trying to get ready for work, excuse me, excuse me, clumsy reaches, head ducking… It was so awkward. In another show the 4 year old had to walk with her head bent to get to her room, so as she grows she will have to crawl to her room. Crazy. I get a small house, but some of the tiny houses are just too extreme.
It is truly amazing how some folk think it’s okay/humorous to initiate insulting and/or belittling attacks on another, then essentially say the equivalent of “I’m just saying”….like that’s an automatic pass. Be a grownup. When a choice is presented to either be uplifting or negative, don’t dive for the gutter….we become what we consistently practice.
Hilarious article on the latest fad in the saga that is the human race – Tiny ass house movement. Is that like a bowel movement, perhaps? Where if your toilet fails to work, you can poop in a bucket?
Ya know what’s better than a tiny ass freakin’ house? A gold plated card board box! One that you can take any where, like down by the river. No trailer needed. That way you can have gold plated cardboard box down by the river. And guess what? No toilet is needed either cuz you can poop in the river or poop in your bucket. Maybe you can take your box and go OCCUPY some piece of land in a forest or maybe a LANDFILL. Either way, no one will know you reek of patchouli. Plus, there’s plenty of food in both spots and you won’t have to pay taxes…
And guess what again? No sense of humor is needed! Why? Because you’ll be a special miserable fascist snowflake f*ck living in your gold plated cardboard box down by the river using it as a “safe space” as you hide from other people’s opinions as it offends you to no end – which will thus lead to years of therapy, countless empty relationships, numerous dead end jobs, several suicide attempts, alcoholism, drug abuse, crime, financial ruin, heavy indebtedness, homelessness, and endless unsubstantiated FB and twitter temper -rant-trums that no one cares about except you – all because someone expressed a different opinion than yours which is guaranteed under US Constitution.
Yes, because living in 200 sq ft or less is really good for the human condition. Just make sure you never get ill, get diagnosed with a medical condition or grow old….
anyone getting their panties in a kerfuffle over a satire article needs to loosen up a bit. this was funny as hell. and yes, a lot of it is smug ridiculousness but the houses have some practical application.
Many people cannot afford a big house and with the strange employment patterns of today where a job could be gone tomorrow or moved across the country next week, tiny, mobile homes make sense.
I live in South Carolina where it’s impossible to get more than part time work or low waged work. For the past two years my wage won’t pay rent and food and living expenses. Thus I have been living rent free on a friends land while converting an old school bus into a home and subsisting with food stamps.
I cannot afford just to leave my job to go to find work someplace else… Yet. When the bus is completed, I will probably buy a tank of diesel and just go. Hell, I can probably make more begging beside the road than I earn at the only job that’s available.
And get this… I have a bachelors degree, am not a drug, tobacco or alcohol user, have no disabilities nor a criminal record, am white, male and in good health. Nobody ever responds to job applications!
I though the whole idea was to spend more time in the out of doors? Like, does a bear shit in the woods and what are those rabbits doing? Hmm. Just a thought.
My husband and I downsized from 1500 s.f. to 800 s.f. when our last child left the nest and have watched these shows with interest. But noticing how many of these houses end up for sale just weeks after the episode airs makes me realize how many of these people really don’t think this decision through. There was an episode out of Tampa where you could see the wife was really high maintenance and sure enough a couple months after the episode aired the house was for sale. I can see a single person living in 300 s.f., people have been living tiny in New York city for years, but if you’re forcing kids to live like that you should be charged with child abuse.
I take issue with blanket statements about child abuse; the state now raises our children. I’m not OK with that. I can’t imagine how a patriot could be. A tiny house is a step in the direction of taking back our freedom.
I have an 800 square foot house in the ghetto (ghetto adjacent, actually). I paid a cool $63K for it. I too am saving money and traveling more. Come to the ghetto and have space for sexy time. Come to the ghetto and have the space to fart. Fuck tiny houses and come to the ghetto ya’ll.
I don’t know who you are, but I love you. This post is fucking gold!
I rented for years while building other, more together people, real houses or fixing them up and blowing my money. Then one day while being evicted from yet another home I decided to take a year, work a little, build a little until I had a 22′ Tiny House. My monthly housing bills have been $250.00 ever since and that’s great. Plus if the people I rent my spot from ever ask me to leave, I can take my house with me and find a new spot. I have a propane oven/range, and an outhouse which fits into my work trailer and an outdoor bathtub. I love my house. I love being in nature with cool neighbors that always invite me over when they light up their sauna or have game night with their awsome adult kids. Theres a few hundred acres of blm land next door that serves as my jogging trail with my Tiny house shop 5 minutes away, town 7 minuted away, and my sailboat on the lake 10 minutes away. Things could be worse. I’m happy not being homeless. This is the only way I could have something that was mine. I am a recovering addict, have no credit, and have made alot of mistakes. Building my Tiny House is not amongst them. No internet, barely any cell reception, and no TV! Life is good! Amen!
Your teenage kids need sex? No wonder you liberals lost the election. Ever even come close to hearing the word, morals? Nah, of course not.
Eddie, you either haven’t hit puberty yet, or are a unic. Young boys who don’t have a hole to shove it in will still fire it off manually multiple times a day. In fact, even boys with a hole to put it in will still do this. Either way – Privacy, please.
How embarrassing would it be to be sitting on the toilet in this tiny box just to have mom open the fridge (where coincidentally the toilet is housed) only to find you roughing up the suspect?
[…] understand the appeal, as explained by Lauren Modery, who lambasted tiny houses in her blog, hipstercrite.com. She said tiny house dwellers are trying to live out their life “like a Wes Anderson […]
[…] understand the appeal, as explained by Lauren Modery, who lambasted tiny houses in her blog, hipstercrite.com. She said tiny house dwellers are trying to live out their life ‘like a Wes Anderson […]
[…] understand the appeal, as explained by Lauren Modery, who lambasted tiny houses in her blog, hipstercrite.com. She said tiny house dwellers are trying to live out their life ‘like a Wes Anderson […]
Understandable.
people were boinking in fucking teepees and caves and pumping out little brats for centuries before the luxurious multi-bedroom house came around. get over yourself.
Well….you have most definitely generated conversation in regard to various opinions and questions in the arena of tiny houses and realities of living in them. I have built them fro over 24 years now, and as well live in them. I do have to admit that your sarcasm and passive backhanded approach to asking your questions posses quite the conundrum for any human wanting to engage in both a humorous and intelligent conversation. And as for the “we humans” reference right out of the gates….well…that didn’t bode well in first impressions on both I.Q. and awareness, whereas there is a rather large chunk of the world, including most of Western Europe, that live in flats no larger then 300 square feet….and that is with the wages of architects, lawyers, and most others with large investment portfolios. Point being, your not so hilarious claim on behalf of the “human” race, was simply sad. I have to side with the angry human….in that your digging and ill-educated jabbery is sadly setting what seems to be a popular and embarrassing rhythm for many others. Come on humans….you can do better.
Interesting article. A lot of perseveration on mexican food farts….
First of all, there are many different sizes of tiny homes. You have to find the one that suits you. Second, the whole point of tiny homes is that you downsize and live with what you need. It’s about having relationships. Even if you dont care for people all that much you can still build community networks and share a damn lawn mower or other item. Not super hard unless you need drama and cant stay away from problems.
Pmtraditionally, people that live in many european countries have been living in smaller homes for centuries. Even now, many homes there are smaller. Everyone thinks of castles when they think of Europe but regular folk have smaller homes and have lived happily this way for a long time. IRS only because Americans are so used to McMansions that we wonder where to store our crap. If you’re not using it very often, then get rid of it for crying out loud!! If you need it later, borrow it from a friend unless you’re a total loser with no one to connect with. Jeez, Americans are entitled and spoiled! And yes, I’m an american. We just need to get over our attachment to crap!