[HN Gopher] I hate living in my tiny house
___________________________________________________________________
I hate living in my tiny house
Author : fortran77
Score : 42 points
Date : 2022-11-20 21:32 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fastcompany.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fastcompany.com)
| cobertos wrote:
| I have one slightly smaller one (180sqft) and while I still have
| yet to live in it full time (it's a WIP) it already feels
| claustrophobic sometimes. Every inch counts, but it's also
| important to have open-ness outside the tiny home too.
|
| What I really wanted was the ability to experiment with so many
| things I would not be allowed to do in a traditional home,
| without worrying about blowing a bunch of money or hurting a
| $200k+ home I don't own/have a mortgage on. There's a lot I
| inherited from the previous owner, but it'll have custom
| automation and control software for the climate (dehumifier, heat
| exchanger, monitoring of power usage, etc), my dream programming
| space (converting the previous owner's "balcony" into a sort of
| indoor/outdoor deck with a massive transparent rollup door), and
| integrating more screens into my life (controlled by me, not
| loaded with any proprietary stuff that will inevitably hurt me).
|
| But it's also just me and my cat. I've told partners already that
| I don't think I could live in this with anything more than that.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Needs a (2019) in the title
| [deleted]
| design-of-homes wrote:
| " _I also question how well tiny homes make sense as a solution
| for long-term housing_ "
|
| I also agree. This article is one of the few examples of a tiny
| house situated in what seems like a dense urban environment. In
| contrast, many tiny homes are placed among open space. The tiny
| homes don't feel cramped because they're surrounded by nature,
| with beautiful long uninterrupted views out of the windows. No
| noisy neighbours or traffic nearby either.
|
| But take away the countryside location of these tiny homes and
| could the tiny house work in an urban environment? I doubt it.
| The future for housing for most people on the planet (including
| the US) is in cities and urban environments. Can you live in a
| tiny home where you don't have long, uninterrupted views out of
| your windows? Or where you only have windows along one side of
| your dwelling (e.g. single-aspect apartments). Do you feel you
| have enough privacy when your apartment or house is joined with
| your neighbour's home?
|
| Millions of people already live in homes like this and have to
| contend with these issues. Can we have small or modest-sized
| homes that give us light, space, privacy, quiet and comfort in a
| noisy urban setting? It's one of the most pressing and important
| issues in housing design - and one that architects and home
| builders have failed to address.
|
| Also, space can be 'modest' in size rather than 'tiny' and still
| be sustainable or amenable to high density. For example, London
| has it's own housing design guide that recommends new one bedroom
| apartments for two people to be a minimum of 50 square metres
| (538 square feet). That's still less than space standards in
| continental Europe but it's enough space to live comfortably even
| if it doesn't count as tiny by Western standards.
| jrsj wrote:
| This is only tangentially related but at some point we need to
| get over the desire of homeowners in large cities to continue to
| increase the value of their million dollar homes. This doesn't
| seem possible at the local level, so maybe the federal government
| needs to step in and force housing development to happen.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Who could have imagined that taking something to the extreme
| isn't compatible with a regular human lifestyle.
|
| As someone outside the landed gentry, I see having an
| appropriately sized (small) home as my entry point. Most of my
| extended family have these monstrosity homes that serve mostly as
| storage space for dusty boxes and extra rooms that are utilised
| poorly, and took on significant debt to have it. Seems insane to
| me. This, however, is the polar opposite and just as insane.
| serf wrote:
| > Who could have imagined that taking something to the extreme
| isn't compatible with a regular human lifestyle.
|
| the problem is when some extreme style of living becomes a well
| known trend, then you get lots of people that would otherwise
| be incompatible with an idea that try to cope with it anyway...
|
| ... then you get articles like "I hate Living in My Tiny House"
|
| side : these types of articles rarely hit the real point of
| "Maybe I shouldn't blindly follow every trend.". Rather than
| that bit of truth they just list the reasons why the idea is
| stupid from their perspective and conclude it with why no one
| should ever try it.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| I lived in an ADU for a grand total of three months before moving
| out for more space in a typical apartment. I had to pay more but
| it was worth it to escape the claustrophobia.
|
| I've also lived in a duplex that occupied the same lot footprint
| as the bungalow + ADU, yet had much more space for both parties
| to enjoy because simply building up and adding a second floor was
| a more efficient use of the lot.
|
| I think ADUs are at best a stopgap but are so far from an optimal
| solution that they shouldn't be taken seriously by policymakers.
|
| I simply do not understand the aversion to multi-story
| construction in some places.
| wizwit999 wrote:
| His bathroom doesn't have a basin so he goes to the loo and
| washes his hands in the kitchen sink over his dishes... that's
| disgusting.
| quantified wrote:
| More so than washing poultry over the dishes? When you go #1,
| that can't be a big deal. When you go #2, well, your hands
| aren't going to be worse off than the food you got from the
| garden that wandering birds may have shit on, and if you're
| washing the dishes you're taking care of that too. If you're
| not washing anything well, then that's the issue.
| presentation wrote:
| It's useful to have small apartments even for people who don't
| intend to live there for life. Like students or fresh graduates
| getting their careers together, minimalists who don't care for
| accumulating stuff, and so on. Living in Tokyo, it's awesome how,
| if you want to live centrally, you can still do it on a budget.
|
| Separately, Americans don't know how to make space efficient
| homes, I loved my tiny 23m2 apartment in Tokyo and found it quite
| livable. I've never seen American apartments that use space in a
| remotely efficient way like those ones do.
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| Tokyo gets a bad rep, but on average apartments are smaller in
| London than Tokyo for instance.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| I lived in a 250sqft studio with my wife for a couple of years...
| it was worth it for the cost savings at the time.
|
| To each their own
| rpgbr wrote:
| I really enjoy all Never Too Small[1] videos, but as a
| fascinating curiosity. Having lived quite a few years in
| apartments ~400 ft sq apartments, can't think any other reason
| but necessity to do so.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@nevertoosmall
| rzzzt wrote:
| Kirsten Dirksen and Bryce Langston also have great videos of
| peculiar housing:
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/@kirstendirksen
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/@livingbig
| neighbour wrote:
| While I was still living with my parents, I romanticised the
| concept of a tiny house. It wasn't until I bought my own (normal)
| three bedroom house and went on my honeymoon, which was a stay in
| a tiny house, that I realised how valuable the extra space is.
| mozman wrote:
| I value my personal space, and so does my fiance. Having our own
| personal space to decompress separately has been a game changer.
| We are much closer as a result.
|
| I suspect most people connected to the internet and social media
| can be subject to overstimulation. An easily accessible mini
| retreat has really been helpful.
| TedShiller wrote:
| > "There's no silver bullet to solving the housing crisis"
|
| Luckily, there IS a silver bullet: live in areas with low cost of
| living, which is most areas in the country
| mjevans wrote:
| There aren't enough dwellings near the jobs. That's the whole
| problem.
| layoric wrote:
| That might work for some but moving away from common
| infrastructure creates other problems. I found this video [0] a
| decent dive into issues and possible long term solutions. None
| quick or easy but I think are most likely to succeed in a lot
| of places.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/sKudSeqHSJk
| hk1337 wrote:
| I like some of the ideas in a tiny home but I couldn't see myself
| enjoying it long term. I definitely would want it on a slab
| foundation instead of a trailer and maybe expand it out a little
| bit.
|
| I'd really like it outside of the city, have a simple kitchen and
| living room inside and more elaborate outdoor kitchen and living
| space outside. Build a barn big enough to house my truck, piddle
| in, storage for lawn and garden, and an office to work from home.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Most of the "tiny house" that are on a trailer are because it's
| legally registered as an RV, same as a real travel trailer.
| With a trailer title for the underlying frame registered in
| your state with a license plate in exactly the same legal way
| as if you bought a boat trailer or a flatbed cargo trailer.
|
| _Theoretically_ this means it doesn 't need to meet building
| code and go through the approval process in whatever rural
| location you put one on land as its only dwelling, or as an
| ADU. It's an attempt at a legal workaround saying to the local
| government "this is totally NOT A HOUSE it's my RV trailer!".
|
| But by the time you hook it up to water supply, electricity and
| sewage disposal it effectively becomes fixed in place.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Yeah, what I have heard is that it's _technically_ not a
| "tiny house" if it's not built on a trailer. Which I'm okay
| with but I guess it also means there might be other housing
| regulations from whatever city I setup in.
| jmathai wrote:
| We recently remodeled our 1.2k sqft house to a 2.1k sqft one. My
| wife and I have 4 kids and 2 dogs. Our kids are 12, 10 an d 2x
| 1.5 (twins). That gives some context.
|
| Before the remodel, we had 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. We made it
| work but it felt a bit small.
|
| By American standards, 2.1k sqft for a family of 6 is not large
| by any means.
|
| When remodeling, we spent a lot of time on the final layout,
| drawing inspiration from homes we felt good being in. My wife is
| an interior designer which played the largest role in our
| decisions. Interior designers have very technical backgrounds and
| a lot of knowledge in space planning.
|
| Our remodeled house feels the right size. Not because of the
| sqft, but because of the layout. We looked at 3k sqft houses
| prior to remodeling and they felt smaller than our 2.1k sqft one
| despite an extra 50% of floor space.
|
| All that is a way of saying that "space" matters. It's not
| "bigger is better" and you can't Marie Kondo your way out of tiny
| spaces. There's an optimal space + layout that can reduce stress
| in your life.
| et-al wrote:
| To your point, I've noticed open floor plans often offer less
| flexibility. E.g. having a formal dining room allows you to
| turn it into an office or another bedroom much more easily.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-20 23:01 UTC)