The Simple Life in 100 Square Feet

VickiP
VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭
edited October 2020 in Building Projects

I have been following this fellow's personal challenge to grow or forage 100% of his food for a year. He is nearing the end of that year, this video though is for his tiny house and how he lives happily in 100 square feet. I love the idea of tiny living, not sure I could manage what he is doing but there are a lot of ideas in this video that I could incorporate. What about you? Is this, or something like it, a life style you would be interested in? Have a look and see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqX9hTC2HKA&fbclid=IwAR1sD69hnIQ0W118XmVQAIw8wMMAKD1EyMTO5hSB6y8WUBvR83eujSYhz98

Comments

  • ines871
    ines871 Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @VickiP - Yes, I've seen this video, as well as others of his. - And I've watched about 40 :) of other people's. Agreed, it is Exceptional. = However, when you add his Outdoor-kitchen, plus a separate Toilet space, plus a separate Shower-space, it's really almost 200 sq.ft. - But I would need a child's bath-TUB instead.

    Too, I have lived like this in 140 sq. ft.: my very 1st. Apartment was a converted Garden-shed. I LOVED it, & grew food on all 4 of its sides. And have continued living Frugally (tho not exactly like him), & Minimalist my entire life, because I have spent most of my life in Service to others: truthfully. -

    We do not need 9/10 of what people only Assume they need. Less possessions IS MORE life/quality.

  • VickiP
    VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭

    He made two points that resonate with me. One was that he had not formed an emotional attachment to his things and that allows him to focus more clearly on the present. I do form emotional attachments to things, my Great-Grand Ma's berry dish, her Mother's table the needle work done by generations of my kinfolk, an old ladder of my Dad's etc. I do enjoy touching those things and wandering through the past. I have found I connect more with the long gone than the here and now and that is, in my opinion, a loss. The other point I really liked and I didn't write it down so will probably not express it correctly, was that in permaculture there is no such thing as waste, it is just something out of place. So you don't have kitchen waste, you have chicken food or pet food or composting material but certainly not waste. Just a new way to look at things. Anyway, I did enjoy his video and I love that outdoor kitchen, I have one but it is focused on smoking and barbecue I am going to try to make it more serviceable for regular family cooking.

  • wbt.affiliates
    wbt.affiliates Posts: 100 ✭✭✭

    He lives if FLORIDA. His growing season is 365 days. If he needed to grow 3/4 of his food inside, his would be a different story. He couldn't do it in his tiny home. Besides, tiny homes, unless you're young and can build your own, cost more than my used trailer. It's rare to find one for under $32,000, which is what we paid for our home. True, we don't own the land. We live in a trailer park. But that's also a reality that many of us must face. In my opinion, his solution doesn't fit the majority of people at all.

  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @VickiP

    Yes, I have things from my grandparents that I would never want to give up. And books. So many books. But these things bring me great joy, and I prefer to keep them in my life. A life with no emotional attachments seems sad to me.

    I've lived in an apartment over someone's garage, and had to keep most of my stuff in boxes. I hated it. Having beloved reminders of people who loved me are important to me. My current home is only 800 square feet, and is much more comfortable to me. It's too discouraging to cook in the living room and to have no place for books!

  • VickiP
    VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭

    I don't think he was trying to say that everybody should live like him. In fact soon he won't be living like him haha. He was just showing that most of us can simplify our lives, or stream line them. I shared the video because I thought some of his ideas would work for some of the users of this forum not because I think we should all live out of a backpack or in a 100 square foot home. I know I couldn't do it. The older I get the more I like comfort.

  • Leslie Carl
    Leslie Carl Posts: 255 ✭✭✭✭

    When our last 2 children moved out of the house, we took a job that required us to live in a company RV and travel. We had 3 months to downsize from a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home with a garage, to a 360 sq. ft. RV trailer. We made it, barely, after having a huge garage sale and giving the leftovers to charity. We loved living in the RV, and when the job went down, we bought our own 17 ft. RV trailer (which was about 135 sq. ft.) and had to downsize again.

    We lived in that for the next year. We had a van to pull it with and kept our extra storage in there. It wasn't as nice, and we had to squeeze to get past each other in it, but hey, that was enjoyable too!

    Later we upgraded to another 360 sq. ft. trailer and are now in a motorhome with about the same square footage. We've been living this way for about 4 years now and are still enjoying it, but the last 2 years we've been living on 11 acres and that's when I started gardening again.

    Our small living space isn't great when it comes to harvesting and preserving bumper crops of produce and herbs. So, we've added some large outdoor sinks and some shelves under an awning, for washing everything and 2 storage sheds so we can keep things in the RV to a minimum. I keep our dehydrator out in a small greenhouse we built for starting seedlings.

    So, what can I say? The more you do, the more tools you need, and the more space is needed too. So much for small living LOL!

  • ines871
    ines871 Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Good for you! @Leslie Carl did you read my 1st. response ?

    (Btw, it took me 7 tries just now, to get this comment to stick, without those as of late Disappearing acts). Finally put the " Good for you! " in Front of your name, & then it stayed. LOL)

  • ines871
    ines871 Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭✭✭

    RE Attachments: I remain Attached to my beloved Sweetie LOL, & Garden-equipment, & Food-storage plus related existential needs, & essential clothes, & the computer, & unending books, but (yet also the bookcase holding our Homeschooling Notebooks, etc). When you spend over a decade lovingly guiding Kiddos in their learning Successes, you can't just "give it away, or toss it all out". - Why? - because it is a very Valued & Treasured part of life...

  • merlin44
    merlin44 Posts: 426 ✭✭✭✭

    @Leslie Carl We did the same thing, except we started out with the 17ft RV trailer, spent a few years on the road traveling the country with my husband's job. It teaches one what possessions are needed and what is unnecessary. Embraced a minimalist lifestyle then and have never regretted the choice (and much less dusting is required LOL).