Living Outside A Tiny House

A thought struck me (ouch) as I was shoehorning something into the back of my tiny Jeep (a 2016 Renegade). I'll just store it out here, in the car. Yeah. Hey, wait. My mindset was visualizing the back seat of my car as if it was extra storage. It was only temporary, and was something I'd store in a carport or garage, but I don't have either of them. My park doesn't allow them, but it made me realize how much of my life is now lived outside of my tiny house. Not good. Not bad. It just is. And that's good enough.

I can easily imagine moving my tiny house to a large lot, one that I own. Step one: buy a tiny house. Done. Step two: buy a large lot. TBD, pending finding enough money. 

A tiny house can have a storage unit the size of a warehouse, but most tinies I see are like mine, slotted into a mobile home park. My lot is fairly large, 5,000 square feet. That's large enough for a lot of landscaping, gardening, storage, and things like large decks and gazeboes. But the park used most of the space for a gravel parking area. A great tree takes up room, though is nice about it. And the park basically edicts that the rest will be lawn, the rest except for a six-foot by eight-foot patch of concrete that I can put a shed on. 

Forty-eight square feet is enough for me to store what I tried putting into my Jeep, but not much else.

I've been in the house for almost a year. I intend to post an annual review and celebrate it because tiny house living has worked out better than I expected. Here are some of the things I'm noticing that make it happen, but that also happen outside the tiny house.

Forget those quaint pictures of a bicycle stylishly hanging on a wall, ready to be used. Mine sits out on the porch, partly covered. It is a 1991 Trek 8000 aluminum-frame hard-tail mountain bike. I doubt that it is whimpering in the rain. It carried me across the continent from an island north of Seattle to an island south of Miami. I even wrote a book about the ride, my first book, Just Keep Pedaling. It should be treated better, but it can deal with it, at least for a while.

I've already described the space I rent at the local U-Haul place about two miles from here. It mostly holds old files, gardening stuff, backpacking and ski gear, and things I have a hard time getting rid of, like family heirlooms and memorabilia. 

The places I feel most active in are a couple of dance halls that I rent for an hour or two a week. Three hours total, $15/hour at one place, $30/hour at another. I've been practicing a very old version of karate (Shobayashi Shorinryu Karatedo) since circa 1984. Some of the exercises can take up so much room that I sized out a private workout space at 24 feet by 42 feet. That's 1,008 square feet. My house is only 391, and that's large for a tiny house. It is cheaper to live in a tiny house and rent the empty space somewhere else. Sixty dollars a week can seem expensive, but compare that to a house that is over a thousand square feet larger, and the rent looks cheap.

Sticking with the movement stuff, I like to dance. This isn't performance dance or an art statement; it is simply moving to the music with a partner. That's usually done somewhere outside the house. I had dance parties at my earlier place, but that isn't happening here. That's okay. I'm more likely to dance to live music this way.

As for work stuff, I wade into the trend of coffeeshops and libraries. No description necessary, I suspect. 

And, being a fan of nature, I also spend hours every week bicycling or hiking or snowshoeing and hopefully getting back to skiing. My tiny house is only a few miles on a map and a mile up to snowcapped ridges. In an hour, I can be at a major visitor center in Olympic National Park, and a half-hour later, be a mile above sea level at Hurricane Ridge, which also has a view of the ocean and Canada. Why stay indoors?

Add it all up, throw in some socializing, chores, and official stuff and realize that living in a tiny house does not have to mean being trapped in a tiny house. Life is everywhere, not just at my house's address.

Tiny houses are not panaceas, but for people like me, who are already living a lot of their life elsewhere, a tiny house can be the right way to balance having a place to live and having time to enjoy life. My tiny house cost $76,500. Others get theirs for less. New ones can go for more. But, even the ones, like the new one next door, can be on the market for $120,000. This Zip Code's median home price is $689,000. Sure, there are ones that are less. For sure, I don't have that much cash. But imagine how much luxury I can afford by renting the luxuries instead of buying them. Ah, then there's the price of the land - but that's something for me to study.

Regardless, I'm glad I've learned that for me, living a life that's involves living a life outside, can be luxurious, and it is easier and more affordable in a tiny house.