What no one tells you about tiny living

Thinking about packing up your current home and lifestyle and getting yourself a tiny house? They look like so much fun on TV shows.

Here are a few things to consider, though. Because truthfully, tiny homes are not for everyone.

You will be downsizing. Seriously downsizing.

We’re all happy to ride the Marie Kondo declutter bandwagon until we actually have to throw out 90% of our existing furniture.

If you’re considering moving into a tiny house, be aware that most of your tables, sofas and bedside tables will not fit. In fact, Aussie tiny homes can be no wider than 2.5m in order to be legally transported by a trailer on the road. So prepare yourself for an intense sense of cosiness.

Multi-purpose zones are all about storage

Portable tiny houses are all about small spaces that maximise storage. Stairs pull out and become drawers, your dining table will fold up and down from the wall, sofas will lift up to store things underneath, and bedrooms will be squeezed in on a small upper tier.

If you aren’t into multi-purpose furniture, tiny house living is not for you. Everything has to do double duty.

Bathrooms are not luxurious – or spacious

Toilets in tiny houses can be situated right under the showerhead due to the small footprint of the bathroom. On that note, some toilets will be the kind you’ll have to have emptied every six weeks. There’s no odour, thankfully, but many of the toilets use no water, so waste is held in a tank that will need regular attention.

Also, think about whether you can handle a toilet that’s close to every other area of your home. It’s extremely intimate.

You’ll experience an unparalleled sense of freedom

The upside to owning a tiny house is that, generally, you can hook it up to your vehicle and hit the open road. There’s nothing quite like the freedom of not being tied down to one location, so travelling types who love moving often will enjoy the portability. And what’s better than sitting on the roof of your tiny house knocking back a few drinks among nature?

They’re way cheaper than a standard home. Way!

Feeling unable to secure that million-dollar mortgage? I feel your pain! The upside to getting involved in the tiny house movement is how cheap they are. You can score a new one for under $40,000 and rent the land it’s parked on as opposed to buying it. Sounds like a dream life to me.

SOURCE: www.realestate.com.au