Tiny House Holiday

PaulaReyne.com Paula in front of tiny house 640x427

I dunno if it’s the fault of my female brain or not, but there is just a ton of information in my head: some of it is useful, a lot is completely trivial, and some is target specific and really only accessed during arguments with my husband via a delivery method I like to call rapid fire recall

An example of this type of stored factual data, is how I’m able to tell you that the single largest expense for the average family is housing or shelter, with the typical rent or mortgage making up somewhere from 18 to 30 percent of the family’s income.  I’m not a Real Estate agent, never been a banker, so why do I know this?  I don’t know.  I just do.

Maybe it’s information like this that attracted me to the Small House Movement and why my husband and I are big fans of the television show Tiny House Nation.  I don’t know all the reasons for it, but it’s not just a passing fancy, because on a recent trip to Nashville, TN to visit my youngest son, Joel Adam Russell, I found a tiny house on Airbnb and my husband and I decided to see what it would be like to live in one – or at least stay in one – over a weekend.

The tiny house we booked was just 200 square feet in size, came with a full sized bed, a bathroom with a shower, a kitchen, a living room, and even had an fire pit (outside of course), and offered free WiFi – all the comforts of home, just a whole bunch smaller…

(Below is a picture of me and my husband standing outside our tiny weekend abode. To give you feel for the overall dimensions,  I’m 5’5″ and my husband is 6’0″.)

PaulaReyne.com Paula in front of tiny house 640x426

Below is a view of the living room, taken looking straight down the hallway from the kitchen.

PaulaReyne.com Tiny house LR

The below picture is taken from the bedroom, just past the kitchen, aimed slightly to the side to show a better view of the overall layout of the kitchen. (The front door is between the kitchen cabinets and the table in front of the fireplace on the right.)

PaulaReyne.com Tiny house kitchen

Even though the bed was just a full sized bed, and we normally sleep on a king, it was very comfy. (Our girl kitty, Latte – little princess that she is – decided it was the best spot in the whole place and spent pretty much every waking moment there after we arrived.)

PaulaReyne.com Tiny house bedroom

The bathroom, included a full size toilet (thankfully!) and a microscopically small sink and shower (pictured below).

PaulaReyne.com Tiny house bathroom

When I was about 10, my dad built my younger sister and I a full sized play house – which wasn’t that much smaller than this tiny red house.  Next to the 30 year old ramshackled trailers that served as the ‘Married Student Housing’ where I lived while working on my undergraduate degree, that childhood play house had been the last time I’d spent any real time in such a tiny living space, until this weekend.

It was every bit as small as you might imagine, and I think if we ever did seriously considered down-sizing to such a degree, we would definitely go bigger than 200 square feet.  The kitties seemed to like it well enough, but it was a tad too small for us: we had to take turns passing through the hallways and the bathroom sink was so small that I teased my husband about only being able to wash one hand at a time. All that said, the experience was really pretty fun, and I’m definitely glad we gave it a trail run.

How about you?  Would you ever considering spending time a tiny house this small?

PaulaReyne.com Paula with Latte in LR of tiny house 640x480