Tiny houses

I haven't been blogging on this site for quite a while, but I haven't been entirely silent either. My latest obsession has been with tiny houses. I've always loved small spaces so these seem like they were tailor-made for me. At various times I've considered living in a caravan or a boat, and the place where I most enjoyed living was also the smallest apartment.

Even as a kid, I wanted the smallest bedroom, and was bitterly disappointed that my parents wouldn't let me sleep in the small metal shed that we called the playhouse in the back yard.

I created another blog where I could post about tiny houses, but have given that up and merged the posts in here. I have more still to come, as so far I haven't yet even written up any of my own tiny house designs. I have created more than a dozen different 3D models in Sketchup exploring different options for layout and design, given the various different physical configurations possible for tiny houses in New Zealand.

It has been quite an interesting exercise in deciding exactly which things are most important to me to live comfortably, and which things I can do without. Most houses are fairly generic and can support a wide variety of different lifestyles. But to live entirely with 15 square metres requires that the house be absolutely tailored to your lifestyle. While there are physically only so many basic ways to lay out such a small space, the small variations are endless and make each house a very revealing window into the person who lives there. Just as an example, my goal is to make a house where I can live comfortably, and I'm willing to spend more to make that happen. Other people are so keen to live cheaply that they sacrifice a great deal of comfort and convenience, even going without running water, a toilet, or any kind of refrigeration in an effort to save money.

I am to document some of my designs here, as part of ultimately deciding when, where and how I will actually build one.