As I mentioned the other day, I reserved a couple nights at a tiny house in upstate New York via Airbnb, and I found it to be a very pleasant experience. As soon as I got there, my fascination with tiny houses in general had me investigating everything in and around this particular tiny house, since it was my first experience being in one. I wish I could have had a twenty questions session with the owner on how it was built, who built it, how much it cost, and other such logistics, but I don’t believe she was on location, and didn’t want to push it (asking questions via text), as I’m sure she doesn’t want to have to go through details like this every time a curious guest arrives.
So, a few initial observations: the tiny house was built on a trailer flatbed, as evidenced by the covered tires, as seen below. I walked off measurements, and it was about 8 feet by 32 feet, at least the interior measurements were as such from my footsteps. My estimate for interior height was about 11 feet, based on visual observations. Of the full 32 foot length, about 6 feet or so was for the bathroom; I don’t know how 48 square feet sounds to you, but I found it to feel quite spacious for a bathroom. The shower stall seemed to be a normal size, and the sink counter was as big if not bigger than plenty of bathrooms I’ve seen in regular sized homes. There was nothing claustrophobic about the bathroom at all, in fact it felt like a very comfortably sized space.
As you can see from the picture above, the kitchen was decent sized too – normal sized sink, normal sized refrigerator, a decently sized oven and stovetop (at time of this picture, covered with a butcher block for additional counter space), and sufficient cupboard space – there was also a pantry cupboard behind the ladder. Maybe it’s not a kitchen where you’d want to cook a Thanksgiving meal for numerous guests, but then again, I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen this size when I lived in a studio apartment in NYC years ago. That’s actually a perspective that a friend gave me: a tiny house may seem tiny to the average suburban home dweller, but it’s not that tiny when compared to more than a few NYC apartments (of which I had 10 different ones over the years).
The thought that kept coming back to me was: an 8 foot width should feel tight, especially for an adult man with a 6+ foot arm span. But it felt so much wider than 8 feet, and it amazed me the whole time I was there, “this doesn’t feel like only 8 feet wide.” I’m sure having windows on all sides – with expansive views in all directions – definitely helped with a perception of a bigger space. But I think that’s fantastic, and quite interesting that interior constraints can not feel constraining at all depending upon the surroundings, and views. Here’s an example using a view of the bedroom loft area – as you can see, with windows on all sides, it definitely feels open and more spacious than it really is.
There were actually two bedroom lofts in this tiny house – the one over the bathroom, as you saw in the earlier picture, and this second bedroom pictured above with the windows, which was over the “living room” where the sofa and tv were located. While one bedroom was accessed via a ladder, the second one picture here was accessed by stairs. So, this brings up the one – and only negative – aspect of tiny house living that gave me pause. Let’s say my estimate of an overall interior height was 11 feet, and the living room ceiling clearance was about 6 1/2 feet, that leaves about 4 feet of vertical space in this bedroom (since the structure of the loft itself takes up at least 6 inches, if not more). So anytime I went up the stairs to this bedroom, I had to crouch down once I was up there to move around. Or, on the flip side, to get out of the bedroom loft and go down the stairs, I had to crouch for part of the transition before I could fully stand up on the stairs. It definitely wasn’t a big deal, and didn’t stop me from fully enjoying my tiny house stay as a getaway destination, but I’m thinking about if I were to ever buy or build a tiny house for myself – I wouldn’t want to have to move around hunched over on a daily basis indefinitely if I were to live in a tiny house full-time.
This doesn’t rule out tiny houses as a potential main residence in the future, but I do think I would want to configure mine in a way where most of the living space was either on a single floor, or have the overall height taller where I could stand fully upright in all areas. Maybe this height of 11 feet is just a limitation of how tall one can build on a trailer bed – I don’t know – or maybe there’s some other restriction in place structurally or otherwise that forces the limited height of the loft.
At any rate, it was a great experience, and overall I loved it, and it further piques my curiosity about the potential of living in one, and thinking through how I would want my own tiny house to be designed.