Living Small

      "What a cool idea, but I could never live in such a small space."  This is probably one of the most common sentiments we hear. Our living space is exceptionally small by most American standards. The entire inside living area is only 8' by 25'. We recently acquired a small two horse trailer that gives us an additional 5 x 7 feet of storage space. I call it the garage. In 235 sq. ft, we contain ourselves, most of our possessions, our Shepard mutt named Ryder, and our fluffy orange cat, Lemon. By contrast, a 1500 ft2 home is considered quite small in our country. What we have is minimal, but we love it.

Everything must have it's place in a small home.

 Of course there are times when we tire of the odd sort of dance we've developed in order to navigate this space. With one person preparing food, the other filling the water tank and both animals begging for dinner, things can get a little tight. Mostly we've learned to avoid those scenarios so we usually don't feel cramped at all. We have everything we need and everything has its place. We've learned that sacrificing space does not equate to sacrificing quality of life. It has been an amazing learning experience.


       We didn't know what to expect when we moved on to the bus. We actually thought we were crazy too. When we started out, the bus was nowhere near finished, actually it still isn't, but the early days were truly minimalistic. The trip from Portland Oregon to an of grid goat farm on an isolated mountain in Kila, Montana launched us from an urban life to the back woods. We arrived armed only with a bed, a sink, a propane stove and two benches. Living out of boxes and a tent that we had erected as a make-shift storage facility, was neither easy nor simple. In retrospect, this experience gave us an abundance of new ideas.  We spent hours, days and weeks considering how to design our small home for the most efficient and convenient use of our space.  When you are confined, you realize that space is a valuable commodity! We've long felt that "less is more" but now we're learning  to do more with less.

The first dinner in our bus when it was little more than an empty shell.

I wont divulge too many of the specifics on how we designed and built our bus, because you can find more info then most would ever want to know by clicking this link: Wild Blue Bus Build (edit 8/13: due to unexplained phenomena, these posts have sadly been deleted by the administrators at skoolie.com) . While you are there, check out some of the other bus projects, or "Skoolies" that people have dreamed up. Instead, let's discuss the virtues of small space living. Topping the list is efficiency.  Since we live completely disconnected from the grid, we have become hyper-conscious of our resource consumption. We've been astounded by how little we need to live a fairly normal and completely satisfying life. When water must be carried in 5 gallon containers to fill our holding tank, we do not let the water run continuously while washing the dishes, nor while taking a shower. Our toilet uses a spray type flush instead of gallons of potable water with every use. While the average American uses 80-100 gallons of water each day, our average is closer to 6gallons per person per day. Some adaptation has been required, but it has not been difficult. With electricity, we rely on the sun. Our solar electric capabilities are minimal but provide plenty of power for 8 LED lights, charging our laptop and phones, using small kitchen appliances and power tools occasionally. While we do not have a TV, we can watch movies and programs on the computer and our stereo is on most of the time we are around. The key here is having an accurate monitor. Our batteries, like our water tank, are a reservoir of a precious resource. Leaving lights on in areas that are not in use begins to feel like leaks in the energy tank, which they are. Together, Heidi and I use about  0.17 kWh of electricity per day. The American household average is 31.5 kWh per day. For heat we use wood. Even-though we don't have as much insulation as we would like, it still only takes 3 cords of wood (a couple weekends of labor) to heat our space. We stay very comfortable all winter even when temps drop to single digits. Our small space takes little to illuminate, little to heat and little time to maintain. We can deep clean our home from top to bottom in under two hours!

Fire wood to get us through the winter.

 
        Please don't take this the wrong way. In no way do I want sound pretentious or to cast a shadow on the way the majority of Americans live. After all, that is the life we had lived until very recently. I share these experiences because I had no idea how much energy I consumed with everyday habits. The simple change of monitoring my consumption and having a small pool to draw from has opened my eyes to a new reality. These are valuable lessons in a world of limited resources. The most important thing I've learned is that it's not that difficult to live a more efficient life. Living in smaller spaces and monitoring resource consumption are great places to start. No, I don't expect everyone to start living in motor homes. Maybe consider an inexpensive watt meter that can tell you how much electricity your appliances use. Or, if you are looking to buy new home reconsider how much space you really need. Small homes are less expensive in every way, and besides that, they are awesome to live in!

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Here are some other sites that you might be interested in concerning small space living:

-Tiny House Blog
-How to create a small space homestead 
- Kevin's Micro Homestead
-Living Debt Free In a Tiny House
-Our Cascadia: The Living Bus Project


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