Micro Living is a Deliberate Act

You read about the guy who lives in a 96-square foot house outside of Sebastopol, California (of course it’s California!) and you think, "Why would anyone want to do that?" Then you see his occupation is "artist-builder" and say, "No wonder." But in reading the article (photo above by SFGate.com), you see it was an evolution of sorts. Back when he lived in Iowa, he wanted less — less of an impact on everything, but mainly housework — so he bought an Airstream trailer, but soon discovered that cold winters in an uninsulated trailer in Iowa is not fun. (I’m cold just thinking about it).

After the trailer debacle, he built his own little house, which spawned his love of simple living, even co-founding the Small House Society and a company that builds small houses: the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. It’s really quite fascinating, this deliberate way to live. Thoreau would be proud, I’m sure.

This must be the week of small things because Wired magazine recently featured the Micro Compact Home, which was developed by the University of Munich. It measures 266cm x 266cm x 266cm, but since I am so bad at math — even worse, it’s in a metric measurement — I’ll leave it to you to figure out how it matches up to the California guy’s tiny house. By the way, the photo to the right shows a micro home being dropped into location. "Oh look, honey, here comes our house!"

I commend anyone who can purge their belongings to this level of living. It is freeing, I agree. I felt a huge victory after whittling my clothes down so much that I no longer have to alternate my "winter clothes" with my "summer clothes" in my highly valued drawer space. They’re all together now: short sleeves with long sleeves.