Why Tiny Houses?
An old friend asked me a question privately on Facebook.
“I have seen you post a lot of things lately. What is the deal with the small houses pursuit? Is this a hobby or part time job or are you just trying to promote a different way of living? what’s the story?”
I sent him this answer (slightly edited) and thought it made sense to post it here. I suspect there are a few people wondering if I’ve gone completely insane.
I connected my twitter and facebook accounts so now all my tweets now show up on my facebook page. I guess tiny houses are a hobby but they have provided a real eye-opener to the benefits of living more simply.
Up until six years ago I/we had always lived happily in smaller spaces. But when Julia and I moved to Sacramento we bought an 1,800 square foot 3 bedroom post-modern house.
When the housing market collapsed I got an abrupt wake up call. So in classic artist style I’m exploring by making stuff… a free tiny house… and a nine square foot house (next).
Ironically blogging about all this has already gotten my story written up in the NY Times and has generated a lot of traffic to my blogs. But more importantly I’ve been having a ball drawing and exploring tiny house design.
Slowly this stuff is becoming more than an artist’s exploration. I have even had a couple publishers ask if I’d be interested in submitting book proposals… so who knows… I might just turn these lemons into lemonade and get out of my debt-trap by writing about it. Maybe that’s a day-dream… maybe not. The most important part is that it’s been good therapy and fun.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is:
The true value of a home should be measured by the happiness and security it brings instead of its size and cost.
