How big does it need to be?

I come and go from this blog as life takes a hold and work my ass off on all manner of jobs I do as a consultant. I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading and I should have been putting my thoughts on this into the blog, but I just didn’t have time to brain dump what I’ve learned. One of the biggest things I’ve found though is that I don’t really need a big house. For our purpose we can get away with something small, some might say tiny.

I’ve been reading about the Tiny House Movement and been reading quite a few of their blogs and following a few different pintrest boards. Now I love the idea of living small and only using what you need, I’m not sure if its right for me or for us but I do like the idea of utilising your spaces better.

It got me thinking though, what does a house really need?

• Kitchen
• Bathroom
• Sleeping quarters
• Relaxing area

The house doesn’t need to be mobile, it may not need fire place, it just needs a nice place to sleep, somewhere to cook, clean and somewhere to relax. I love the idea of a remote cabin in the woods. I came across a magical website called – Cabin Porn. I’ve got lost in this site many times just looking at all the amazing little cabins spread across the world. Mostly using recycled materials that cover the basics listed above.

20sqm or 200sqm ?

A lot of the off-grid cabins/homes that I see aren’t for full-time living, so you need to think about other parameters. Will you rent the property out on say Airbnb? How will you secure the property when you’re not there. If you want to rent out the place, having something that is a real tiny house might not work as it’ll be hard to sell to people that don’t think like this.

The size of the property really depends on who is going to use it, how often and for what purpose. Are you living there full time or are you just going there for weekends? How much storage do you need? There are some great 1 room cabins around but they’re not really made for fulltime living for more than say a couple.

You could go with a Tiny house, you could go small house, or you could go much larger. It all depends on your specific requirements. Remember that this house is for you and you need to power, heat/cool, store and otherwise utilise all aspects of the space. You will also need to consider what building regulations you have in your area. You might have a minimum or a maximum floor size. You might have height restrictions.