The Other Square Footage

Ta da! I moved into a tiny house. Yay! But. And. Or. There is literally more to that story.

I feel like a bit of a poser. I moved into a tiny house, but that's what others call it. To me, a stereotypical tiny house is 128 square feet, maybe 142, well okay, as much as 240. But that stereotype lodged in my vocabulary when I was writing about tiny houses in the mid-2010s. People wanted to read (and I was sometimes getting paid to write) about the tiniest of houses, or at least the ones with either a good story or good photos.

My house is 391 square feet, which is now considered tiny. Compared to my previous 868 square foot house, it is. 868 wasn't considered small, but it was, especially when compared to the house before that at 1,500, and the 2,200 before that, and the 2,600 before that. Welcome to my incredibly shrinking domicile. I rented a 142 square foot tiny years ago, and that was fine, too.

If a house was a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower; a kitchen with a cooktop, oven, sink, and fridge; a place to sleep; and a place to eat and sit then modern life can commence. A dishwasher is a luxury. I look forward to a washer/dryer. A garage would be good, though I prefer a carport because the weather here is mild. And that's where the boundary to what's in the house or not is crossed.

Brigid’s Loft - Port Townsend

This week, I started renting a workout space, one hour a week. I practice (and practice and practice and still can't get it right) karate. Calisthenics fit in the tiny, so do stretches, as well as some basic exercises; but my style of karate was developed in Okinawa by outdoor people. Some of the routines can fill a space 24x42. That's 1,008 square feet for a place to sweat (and develop some of those other martial art skills.) That's in addition to my 10x15 storage unit. And there are three small sheds outside around the house. So, do I live in 391 square feet or 391 + 1,008 (part-time) + 150 + some incidentals? Poser.

But then, my much more conventional 868-square-foot house had a two-car carport with storage, a utility room that was just as wide, a tool shed, a wood shed, and a fenced backyard with storage for things that could weather the weather.

My bigger houses had garages, more land - and a lot of wasted space.

Tiny house living, even for posers, has to be more intentional. Trying to make one place do everything requires a very large space. I've been in this house for two months. I force myself to visit the storage unit once per week to check on things, add and retrieve as needed, and donate or discard or dispose of at one box's worth. I do Not need those things at hand every day. My dream workout space (aka dojo) is at least that 1,008 square foot space. It would be a healthy indulgence to have that available all the time, but the majority of those exercises need about as much room as a push-up, and maybe a couple of steps in each direction. Having it once a week fills some of that need. As finances improve, I may rent it more often. My health is worth that rental fee.

The conventional American home tries to do everything all the time. Humans can't do everything. We do many things all of the time, but those are things regardless of housing, like breathing. The rest is in series, regardless of claims of multi-tasking.

So, almost every day my life is spent within 391 square feet with a few trips to tend the yard. Almost every day I spend time running errands, being sociable, exploring the world. Once a week I visit the rest of my stuff. Once a week I can exercise without worrying about the future or the ceiling fan. How much space am I really living in? The simple answer is 391 square feet. The fuller answer is as complex as any life.