I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a ...

I inhaled as as I straightened up from pulling a weed last evening, and (too late) saw the small triangular moth as it disappeared into my mouth, and felt it as it fluttered down my windpipe. The song, "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly..." came to mind. Thankfully it was not a fly, and it was not swallowed, but I choked and spit and coughed up moth bits for an hour. My advise to you, dear reader, is - keep your mouth shut in the garden!

I have been preoccupied with that garden, which has fed the neighbourhood with chard and greens all spring. I need to go clear out the last feed of chard and allow the tomatoes a turn. But I have both flower and vegetable gardens. The flowers are going crazy, and the vegetables are flowering. The tomatoes are heavily laden with pea-sized tomatoes and hundreds of blossoms, the squash are putting on buds, the beans are lifting buds, the potatoes are blooming, and everywhere you look is abundance and sheer abandon.

But I haven't talked about the house in ages, and I should. Work on the wee abode creeps along at a snail's pace. I'd love to have everything I envision done in a massive week-long swoop, but at this rate five years, maybe ten, is a more realistic goal. sigh

The "Tiny House" crowd is generally dismissive of the RV as a dwelling, but with a bit of retrofitting they make comfortable and efficient housing for people who are happy in a small space. Our RV is cozy, if a bit chaotic. The structural changes are complete and what remains to do is largely cosmetic; painting, new flooring in the kitchen/entry, some resurfacing of new construction.

Unlike most "Tiny Homer's" we are retired, so our place functions as a full-time home. It's heated 24/7 in the winter and cooled appropriately in the summer. We prepare and eat our meals, shower, sleep and do our laundry here.

We have already talked at length about installing the washer/drier combo unit, and insulating, but more recently we built a platform for the drop-leaf desk we had shoved awkwardly into the living room corner. It's elevated by nine inches to clear the wheel well on the outside wall, thus creating some storage underneath, and allowing us to push the desk back against the back wall. Much better.

As you can see, the platform still needs finishing, the shelf to the left still needs a bit of finishing, the desk is in line for a repainting, and I could have tidied. I'm still thinking about window coverings. Venetian blinds are nice for controlling light, but these are old (metal) and somewhat the worse for wear. They conduct cold like crazy, so we'd like something a little more insulative. Any suggestions that don't involve yours truly sewing, which is definitely not my thing?

We replaced the broken down sofa with the eye-popping zebra patterned one, the only one I could find which would fit into the truncated space. But then I found the perfect wall unit to drop into place in the five inch space at the end, giving us room to display a couple of treasured mementos, and a bit of protection for my curio shelf filled with the collected miniatures from four generations of family members.

These are the things that say home to me, paintings we've hung, little gifts crafted by loving hands of mother, grandmother, husband, child. Touches that are priceless in any setting, small or large, humble or palatial.

Ian tore out the banquette bench seats and table, and built a shelving unit against the kitchen wall. Very handy. On the top shelf a few of the cups and saucers passed down from Tony's Grandmother, the teapot given to me by my late friend Audrey, tea caddy and flower bowls. On another shelf, the family altar. Below, storage for canned goods, pots and pans, crock pot. Oh the joy of not having to climb a ladder to get to these daily items!

The small table and chairs suit us much more than the difficult banquette ever did. We still need to change the flooring, but all in good time. Little by little it's taking on less of a "factory-installed" look and more of our personality.

How Low Can You Go?

There are lots of Tiny House blogs on the web. I am guilty of sometimes neglecting my work to read about the dreams and designs, the gathering of materials, the hammering and sawing, process and progress, that go into each of these tiny places. Most are built with excitement, enthusiasm and love.

You follow, you follow, month by month and then the little house is launched into the world, into a back garden perhaps, or parked in someone's driveway. But there most Tiny House blogs stop. Few of them go on to describe what it's like to actually live day-to-day in a tiny house. This makes me wonder if they are more an expensive toy than a realistic housing solution?

The romantic dream of living in a 120 sq ft doll's house can quickly dim faced with the reality of cooking, eating, sleeping, toileting, bathing, and all the myriad activities that make up an average day, in such a cramped space.

All the gingerbread and clapboard can enclose an unexpected nightmare if you are not very careful. If you are going to live in a tiny house you'd best be prepared to:

1) jettison your stuff. My antique china, silver, furniture and art collection have been sitting in a kindly friend's garage for close to four years. I miss the familiarity of some of these things, although I don't miss the upkeep they required.

2) maintain a small wardrobe. For a tiny house we have a generous 48" closet. For two of us. We each have a drawer for foldables. Many closets are bigger than our house.

3) get along. If you or your significant other need "alone" time and "private space" you better start looking for a divorce lawyer at the time you start framing walls.

4) pick up after yourself. One thing out of place looks untidy, two things out of place looks slovenly, three things out of place will eventually turn you into a raving loony. Points at self as proof positive.

5) believe that less is really more. Ninety-nine percent of the population still believes more-is-more. You'd better be hearing that different drumbeat pretty strongly, because most people will think you are nuts and/or poverty-stricken.

6) not believe in claustrophobia. I like small spaces and feel uncomfortable in large rooms, but the "crawl-space" loft bedrooms in many tiny houses somehow remind me of the iron lung I was in when I had polio as a toddler. Panic and suffocation come to mind. At least we have a main floor bedroom with a queen size bed you can walk around. And no climbing over each other to get in and out of bed, no ladder to climb up and down in the dark when you really need to pee.

7) cook in an area the size of a cutting board. Unless you eat out all the time, which is expensive and usually overrated, you have to devote space to storing, preparing and serving food - and washing the pots and pans.

I can tell you from experience that a four cubic foot bar fridge is inadequate, two burner "stoves" suck and bowl-sized sinks are a headache, even if they are the highly polished metal-of-the-moment. I love my current kitchen which has a eight cubic foot fridge (still considered only half the minimum size required for two), a four burner stove, microwave, two sinks, and a dishwasher, even if the storage is difficult to use. This kitchen was designed by an accountant, not a cook, but it is heaven compared to the 14" of counter space I had in the 119 sq ft Tinpalace.

I'm really not trying to be an old crank. From the ages of 10 to 18 I lived in a succession of trailers, because my Dad's work kept us on the move and rental housing was hard to find and often down-at-heels. And I learned to love living in a small space.

I still marvel at how well those little trailers were designed in the 50s. They were marvels of efficiency. We had a 33 foot long, eight foot wide trailer which had a corner kitchen with full-sized appliances plus a table and chairs for four. There was a full-size bath, two bedrooms, a living room with a full size sofa bed for guests, two easy chairs, a coffee table, an end table and a TV stand. Fitted much like a yacht, not a single inch was wasted, and we had everything we needed.

No house is an end in itself, tiny or not. The adventure doesn't end when you slap the last brushful of paint on your tiny dream, or park it, or wave goodbye to your acreage of floorspace. In truth, that's when the adventure begins. It can be a life-altering, wonderful, experience. As long as you realize that the adventure is in learning to adapt to a totally new way of life.