Downsizing To A Tiny House

[Ed_Usinowicz]

Umm, I disagree,. The key is not storage. The key is eliminating everything from your life except the essentials. A tiny house is not about quaintness or efficiency. The tiny hose lifestyle requires almost nothing. As soon as you need storage for things, you are no longer in the tiny house. You are only trying to stuff your stuff into a smaller space.

 

Yes, I completely agree with what you say, I guess the point I was trying to make was that one needs to be creative in the storage of essentials - food, clothing, toilet paper, medicines... Living tiny is not just about downsizing but about adopting a dramatic lifestyle change.

[The Blue Knight]

I do like the idea of tiny houses I really do see the appeal.

 

However, in regards to one pen variety is the spice of life I'm sure if you slung the packaging you could fit 10 pens in the space of one hardback book. Many of us could get away with one pen but it would be just a little boring.

[mitto]

[senzen]

One pen, no problem, although I'd miss the other 22 inks: Sailor Pro Gear with Tsuyu Kusa. But where to put the bottles of ink and all that paper??

[Ghost Plane]

Practice minimalism in the space you have now. It takes practice if you’re new to it.

[JotterAddict62]

As small as my 2 bedroom home is I can't imagine how my Grandparents did it when they owned the house. They had 7 children throughout the years.

My mother shared the one bedroom with her 5 brothers & 1 sister. The youngest sister was special as when the others moved out she had the room to herself

for about 10 years until she was married. The house did not have an indoor bathroom just the outhouse until my grandfather added on the bath & the kitchen

when they bought it back in the 1940's. I wonder why he never built a 2nd floor? The house works for me, better that Apt. living any day.

[Donald2]

Im half thinking about living in a tiny house with just one pen that I would use in a utilitarian way. Does anyone have experience of this?

 

No, but the only person that I know of who had this type of experience was Ted Kaczynski the Harvard genius who loved living in the deep woods of Montana in a little tiny house just like the one that you are thinking of living in.

[CraigR]

We sold our large 4 bedroom 2 bath home in 2012 sold all of our furnishings, and moved into our 32 ft motor home. Approx 240 sq ft of space (no slide outs). We travelled the country for over 5 years living full time in the RV. Now settled in a house again. I had a collection of over 150 pens that I sold, keeping about 30 to take with us. Only kept a few of my favorite inks. The transition was scary and yet exhilarating and freeing. By the way, our motor home has much more storage than the tiny houses we see on TV.

[minddance]

Seriously, how much space can a pen take?

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

 

Yes, I completely agree with what you say, I guess the point I was trying to make was that one needs to be creative in the storage of essentials - food, clothing, toilet paper, medicines... Living tiny is not just about downsizing but about adopting a dramatic lifestyle change.

I agree with this conversation.

Also, I apologize for my insensitive post in the earlier page. I've lived in dorms during my 4-years-long Bachelor degree, and my last dorm room was a single bedroom apartment in an ex nun convent.

The apartment consisted of a 2,5 x 4,5 meters main room and a tiny bathroom which was probably 1,5 per 2 meters.

 

Now, I was in college so of course I had lots of stationery products, those take very little space, but many many other every day objects were left at home. Stools, chairs, thick blankets, big pots, look around your house and count out many middle-sized appliances because no matter how smartly you organize your storage space, once it's occupied it's occupied and there is no more.

 

I've lived in the above-mentioned tiny apartment for two years and let me tell you, it gets claustrophobic even if you're not at all affected by claustrophobia normally. At some point it stops being a living space and it starts being a sleeping place, and you make up excuses to get out of there as often as possible.

 

If you have the financial means, I wouldn't recommend downsizing to a tiny living space to my worst enemy.

[Newjelan]

I know I couldnt live with only one pen. I love the concept of tiny houses and the Tetris like quality of the storage. Even though Im a minimalist and (except for pens and inks) my house is way too empty for most people, I know I couldnt live in a tiny house. We recently spent 2 months travelling and stayed in 1 Bedroom apartments. We both found the lack of empty space quite claustrophobic. I dont like stuff but I do love space.

 

Good luck.

[Runnin_Ute]

We sold our large 4 bedroom 2 bath home in 2012 sold all of our furnishings, and moved into our 32 ft motor home. Approx 240 sq ft of space (no slide outs). We travelled the country for over 5 years living full time in the RV. Now settled in a house again. I had a collection of over 150 pens that I sold, keeping about 30 to take with us. Only kept a few of my favorite inks. The transition was scary and yet exhilarating and freeing. By the way, our motor home has much more storage than the tiny houses we see on TV.

Out of the whole process, what did you find the hardest? Some of the units on the tiny house shows seem to be about that size, some a bit larger and some a bit smaller. What would you recommend to someone considering it.

[CraigR]

Out of the whole process, what did you find the hardest? Some of the units on the tiny house shows seem to be about that size, some a bit larger and some a bit smaller. What would you recommend to someone considering it.

I think the hardest part for us was the process of distributing family keepsakes to relatives, selling what the family did not want, and selling the home which has been in the family for many years. We parked the RV in front of the house and slowly set it up with what we needed and what we were going to keep. Very liberating and yet frightening. We had owned the RV for 10 years at that point and had traveled extensively in it, making it easier for us to set up.

 

The main difference between our motor home and the tiny houses I have seen on TV is the amount of storage or the lack of it. The 32 ft Fleetwood Bounder that we have has an incredible amount of storage, both interior and in the outside storage compartments. We have not seen a tiny home that sleeps 6 with a full bath and kitchen as well as that much storage - all in approximately 240 sq ft. During the past 5 years we have stayed put at different RV parks for longer periods - less travel, more residence.

 

Advice to anyone considering a tiny home or an RV for full time living? Try before you buy. Rental RVs are abundant. Tiny homes probably not so much, but may be more available as popularity increases. My wife and I have been 24/7 for 20 years, rarely apart for long periods of time. That doesn't work for every couple. We know of many people who rented out their homes, put belongings in storage and tried it out first.

[rwilsonedn]

I've lived aboard boats, both motor and sail. The latter would certainly qualify as tiny. I can't help you choose a pen, but I would make a couple of observations.

First, you can adjust to any amount of space if you don't cling to preconceptions. When I first moved aboard--first day--I looked around and wondered what on earth I had done, moving from a one-bedroom apartment to a boat. But over time I found that I rarely used about a third of the space. Eventually I moved to a smaller boat.

Part of the key is to have definite places for your indoor activities, and keep the things you need for them organized around those spaces. Kitchen stuff in the kitchen, sleeping stuff near the bed, study and hobby things in the areas where you will study or do your hobbies. And be ruthless--obsessive--about putting everything back where it belongs as soon as you suspend an activity, even if you plan to come back to it in an hour. Organized this way, most activities require very few things, and those things go naturally into the space available. Of course there are hobbies that just won't work out: engine repair, weaving, woodworking, playing the tuba: they just won't fit.

The transition is probably easiest if you can part with all your possessions when you move. Just start over, as if you were moving to a foreign country. Then before you buy any new thing, figure out why you need it and where you are going to put it. Pens and inks included. This sounds hard, but dragging a bunch of stuff along with you and then trying to fit it all into your new home can be much harder, and can spoil the whole experience. That would be a shame, because living small can be wonderful and liberating. Only a once-in-a-lifetime relationship convinced me to give it up.

Just my two cents.

ron

[inotrym]

I mean, it does make sense, but you'd have to find which one is THE pen to begin with...

[CraigR]

A small zippered pen case that holds 5 or so pens doesn't take up much space. No reason to limit yourself to just one pen. I would need to enter a 12 step program if I down sized to one pen. Just saying....

[Madeline]

I've been trying to downsize for a year and this thread has more wisdom in it than the dozen or so books I've read thus far. Especially CraigR's idea about the way he moved from a house to an RV: "We parked the RV in front of the house and slowly set it up with what we needed and what we were going to keep." I think that's one of the best ways to simplify. Always we are advised what to toss out, when indeed it can be hard to part with anything. Instead, Craig's idea turns this on its head. Instead of downsizing, reducing, giving away or tossing out, one could look at this from the other end of the telescope: Decide what to keep and why. An empty RV is the perfect tool. (Or a sloop!) Lacking those, I am wishing for one empty room in my house--a place to which I could carry only what I absolutely needed or wanted to keep (it would involve multiple fountain pens, but they're small, no?) When I reached capacity, I would have to quit or swap with things still needed. Ah but, first, there's the problem of finding an empty room...

 

Fountain pens and a simple lifestyle... they often seem to go together. Why is that? To simplify makes space in our minds for other things--more ideas, more creativity, more connections. Without external clutter, we discover internal spaciousness. Maybe the low-tech fountain pen does something similar for our writing?

 

Thank you, Nosferatualso, for this very interesting thread. I am inspired to begin again.

[Sasha Royale]

No room for a second fountain pen ? Small house, indeed !

A Parker 45 is durable, reliable, and more slender. M-series Pelikans are nice, though the M-1000 (my favorite) might have to be taken outside to use.

 

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The house is so small that he has to put his fountain pen into his pocket, before he turns around.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Sasha Royale

[CraigR]

No room for a second fountain pen ? Small house, indeed !

A Parker 45 is durable, reliable, and more slender. M-series Pelikans are nice, though the M-1000 (my favorite) might have to be taken outside to use.

 

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The house is so small that he has to put his fountain pen into his pocket, before he turns around.

Now, that's funny!

[Amory]

Interesting thread on a site mainly about collecting.

Those who actually live in tiny homes rather than posting YouTube videos about living in them tend to be living a minimalist lifestyle having realised that consumerism did not bring them the happiness that advertisements promised and would have no understanding of the wish to hoard multiples of anything.

Blogs and websites I checked out several years ago seemed to be set up by those jumping on a money-making bandwagon the information they offered based on imaginary scenarios rather than personal experiences. Content intended to attract ‘views’ which in turn attract advertisers and so on.

I say this with several years experience in tiny home living as my tiny home is a Fiat Ducato (Dodge Promaster) size motorhome (RV) in which I continuously travel.