Michael Janzen

I just canceled my Facebook account. I’ve been finding that I Twitter really works better for connecting with people that share similar interests and issues. I’ve also found that I had to spend an awful amount of time on Facebook to make it work, which kept me off it most of the time. Twitter on the other hand is super simple and desktop tools like Seesmic make it super easy to keep track of the Tweeps I follow regularly.

For all my family, friends, readers, co-workers, and contacts staying in touch with me is really easy… just Google my name and you’ll find at least one of my dozen blogs, all of which have contact forms on them. You can also follow me on Twitter of course and get the play by play crazy world of Michael Janzen’s brain… now back to designing my nine square foot tiny house.

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.

Julia found this last night… incredibly funny and yet so strangely true. Facebook is wonderful for connecting with people from your past and networking but it’s also a strangely foreign place from time to time. But it’s probably this strange paradox that also explains why facebook is so popular.