Do you live in a tiny house?

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Any WP members live in a tiny house? I'd love to hear about experiences of aspies/auties living in this type of setup. It seems an almost ideal setup to me, but I wonder if there are a bunch of potential negatives I haven't thought of. Not the general things that could affect anyone, but particularly from a neurodiverse perspective.

Once I was really into building a mini cabin house in the wood. So I used to research on it a lot about 2 years ago.

You can find many many examples on YouTube.
There are much information from how to build to what it is like to live in tiny houses from real people.
Many of people who have lived tiny house were satisfied that they don't need to have any mortgage
and they can simplify their life and more focus on what they like..such as hobbies, interests..

One of my dreams is building a decent tiny house on my own if I ever had time to do that.

We've been looking into it, but decided it was not a good option due to climate, where to put it, etc. - it wouldn't have saved us much money and would cause a very stressful building period.

That being said, if those things are not considerations, I think it could work very well for someone who is able to live a very minimalistic life, possibly combined with seasonal storage. A small house on wheels might be a really good option - if you get tired of your neighbours, you can always move your house

No, but my current apartment is about the size of most of those houses, so if I were to ever build/live in one myself, it wouldn't be much of a big change for me and I could probably be quite happy in one -- particularly since I'd finally be owning the place I live instead of renting, presumably. If it's the only way I could be a homeowner I'd be delighted to have a tiny-house opportunity.

Ideally -- in my dreams -- I'd prefer my own "regular" house though.

I live in a 2200sqft home and it feels "tiny" to me, especially in the winter time. I certainly wouldn't cope well living in something smaller.

I don't understand this obsession with "small spaces."

I would find it cramped.

I live in a 650 square foot apartment--that's not too bad.

But why would people seek to live in a small space--why is it such a craze?

I live in a studio flat, which is all I can afford in the Southeast of England. It is not "a tiny house", unfortunately, and you can see every part of the room from every other part of the room. Having a tiny house with lots of tiny rooms would be great, but as it is, it feels like a prison cell. A tiny house surrounded by a lot of countryside might also be doable. But more than one room, definitely. I often find I have to leave my flat in order to change the subject of my constant internal dialogue, and daydream about having enough space to move the furniture about. "Tiny house" sounds like something I would have romanticised if I didn't have to deal with the day-to-day experience of living in a container.

I live in a strangely shaped small flat by virtue of being in the corner of the block. The rooms are sort of truncated triangles with some very odd angles which caused the carpet fitter a lot of cursing. It's a bit odd but you soon get used to it. I live alone so there is no one else to blame for cluttering the place up.

Could somebody please tell me why one would want to live in a "tiny house."

I really would like to know. This has piqued my curiosity.

I live in a "large" tiny house. It only has 4 rooms and a bath but it is over a 1000 sq ft. It is in a rural area in SE Virginia. It may be considered small by some but I find it very comfortable. For example, my living room/den is 14' by 28'. My 4 dogs and I love it.

Our (spouse and I) first apartment was a 15 x 15 studio. It was cramped but we were rarely home because we worked in retail and commuted. Our second place was more than twice as big, with an efficiency kitchen. It was just about right (but had awful, loud neighbors). When we moved up to the mountains, we spent so much time outside or on the porch that the place seemed too big despite being a really tiny cabin. When we bought our first house it was a bit over 800 sq feet and we found we had too much space. We ended up turning the second bedroom into a sort of "evening room" where we'd decompress from the day by reading, gaming, sewing, whatever. When we did that, the living room went unused. It all depends on how you use the space & how much time you spend there, I guess?

Anyway, then we had kids, and moved to a larger house, and...somehow, a family is like a gas or vapor; able to fill all available room in an enclosed space. In this case with constant sound, movement, smells, animals and...stuff, just left about. Suddenly a good-sized house feels cramped & I know that the square footage has nothing to do with it. And someday they'll move out and I'll miss them and it'll feel empty and I'll look back on the years of over-stimulation with nostalgia. Maybe then we'll move back to a tiny little quiet place and once again spend much of our time outdoors or just..puttering about. I've noticed most of the micro-homes/tiny houses in the ads are sitting on a big parcel of wild land...

Some reasons why I am interested. Some them sort of overlap into just a few main ideas (eco-friendly, affordable, minimalistic):

1. So I can afford to own my own home (on a nice block of treed land) - I could never afford a regular house where I live.
2. To be more environmentally ethical. Smaller footprint and all that.
3. It would be custom made to suit my needs, and better quality than a caravan (plus could be made from recycled materials).
4. To be able to create an off-grid home (an already established home is unlikely to be separate from the grid).
5. To learn to live more minimalistically - I've already gotten rid of a lot of my possessions and it feels great.
6. Can move it around instead of selling and buying a new place if I want to move (if would be on a trailer).
7. Small feels cosy and safe. Big feels impersonal and sterile.
8. Easier to keep clean, not much space to look after.
9. Would force me to be more creative - spend more time outside and find things to do other than sitting around watching tv or whatever.

I would enjoy living in a small studio apartment or tiny house.
I like smallness, as it feels safe and calming to me.
Big houses seem too empty, and who knows what is lurking in the rooms I am not in.
What if the slender man comes into a big house, I won't even know.
Small space is so cozy and easier to keep clean.

Yeah, I dont really get this one either.

I live in a bloated monster of a house. To give a sense of size, my mom's house is a full 2-story house with a finished basement... what many would consider a big house. All of that floor space, if on just one level, would fit in just the basement of THIS house. And people I know that have been here before have this tendency to think it's a mansion; I had one friend, after coming here for the first time, go around telling his family that I lived in such a place. Havent brought anyone over since that. I usually say "it's not a mansion" but I genuinely dont know if it qualifies as one or not. Really, it's huge.

And every night, the whole night, I have the entire first floor to myself. And the basement if for some baffling reason I want to go down there for something.

Yet I still get stir crazy. I still feel cramped in this place. I *have* to get out of the house at least once per day, usually for a good couple of hours, or I start to get agitated and angry. Being stuck here during winter when the roads freeze (and nobody comes into this stupid area to clear and salt them, because argh) is freaking torture.

Generally I'm fine in small places, but only temporarily. Like staying in a basic hotel room for a few nights. But if I had to live in such a place? I'd go nuts.

So I have a hard time understanding the bit about smaller spaces/houses that many autistics seem to have.


Now that being said, I can understand the problem with a huge space that's also EMPTY. The basement here has a ton of furniture in it. 3 big couches, a bunch of big chairs, a pool table, a bench for some strange reason, some normal tables, a thing that's shaped like a bar but isnt one, a table-tennis thing, a giant TV which I assume was brought down there via teleportation, and an arcade machine. And some pillars. Despite this, it's at least 90% empty space. It's kinda spooky, so I dont go down there much. It also tends to be cold. Though, everything that isnt my room (which is directly over the heater units and is stuffed with electronics that are running most of the time) seems kinda chilly in comparison to me.

But yeah, empty + spooky + cold, well.... yeeeaaahhhh. I'll pass, thanks.

The thing is, I've been living both in a small flat and a medium size house. People who haven't lived in small spaces seem to underestimate how much time you spend moving things from one end of the flat to another, and how much time you spend stacking things to fit more in. Small spaces are great for minimalists and neat freaks. If you're messy like me, having a laundry to dry clothes in and store half-finished projects is fantastic. However, if you're a hoarder, a big house is not your best friend. Your crap will eat you alive.

Cleaning is not necessarily easier in a small space. It is more cramped, and the level of finish is important - what you don't want is lots of nooks and crannies where dirt can get stuck, like you find in a lot of old houses. But maintenance, like painting walls an changing roofs, must be so much easier on a small house. However, you'll spend a lot more time on cleaning than on maintenance.

Disclaimer: I'm a design and architecture nut. I've spent hours and hours on coming up with solutions for small spaces.

My house is actually quite small (about 800sq. feet), and I do not mind it. It is easy to clean, and I know where everything is. But it is all on one level. I wish I had an upstairs to go to sometimes, like I did in the house I grew up in.