Comments

1
Europe appreciates old houses..
2
still pimpimg small spaces from the comfort of your single family home
3
yes, but at least the neighborhood is diverse. in this city, you have to make tough choices.
4
Living in tiny spaces sucks but I've made that trade off to live in a city I loved. The option should be available.
5
Splinters from those beams would be embedded in my scalp on an almost daily basis.

My only problem with the clever trap door compartments is that they are incompatible with my primary method of storage, aka "strewing crap on the floor."
6
I don't see a stove or oven in any of the photographs. If so, she doesn't have a "kitchen" so much as a "breakfast nook." Charles would celebrate this, but sustainable food requires real cooking (no instant or microwave crap), and it would be classist to suggest that we all just eat out all the time. The poor would be stuck with the unhealthy and unsustainable food of McDonald's.

Anyway, as with just about every person depicted in these urban microliving stories, this woman appears to be young and there's no evidence that she is in a relationship with a live-in partner. As always, it will be interesting to see if she's still living this way if she decides to get married and have or adopt children. Can we check back in ten years?
8
@6
That's a very good observation. Micro living/spaces aren't for everybody. I can't imagine someone over 70 y/o wanting to live that way. Also, children or lack thereof will make a HUGE difference. They need space inside & outside. Finally, I like to cook. A stove and refrigerator are absolutely essential in any quarters that I dwell in.
10
Because nothing says home like hunching over on my knees in a hole in the floor to shave!
11
I could live in a tiny house, but it would have to have a kitchen, and an outdoor summer kitchen. I would design my tiny house quite a bit differently than any I have seen so far.
12
Huh. I wouldn't call 620 square feet a "tiny home." I would call it "larger than my conventional one-bedroom apartment."
13
As a single person I lived in less than 620 square feet, and did so happily. But aside from having no spouse and kids, this woman apparently has no hobbies. I saw no books, sewing machine, musical instruments, computers, sound equipment, pets, houseplants, or artwork. I didn't even see a television. It's possible they were all out of sight in well designed storage, but I find it more likely that all she does there is bathe, sleep, dress, and occasionally eat.
14
@6, 8: This past weekend I attended an open house for Caravan, the tiny house hotel in Portland's Albina district. It was packed - there must have been 500 people waiting in line, easy. Contrary to the cliche they weren't all young - a sizable proportion were people at or close to retirement age, looking to downsize into a granny flat; or people like me who were considering converting our existing freestanding garage into a tiny house that we could either rent out or live in ourselves, thus bringing the day of retirement closer. I did see a couple of floorplans with a bed on the main floor and no stairs/ladders, so it's a viable option. However we're going to stay the night in one to see if this is really something we could do. We gave up our car for ten years and survived - I think we could do this too, under the right conditions.

There is definitely an emerging market for tiny house rentals. But during the recent cold snap they all had frozen pipes, so some problems are yet to be solved.
15
That's true, 620 sq ft isn't like the 100-200 sq ft places usually designated as such. But since it's in an attic it probably feels a lot more cramped than apartments that size.

Also, being on the top floor of any building is better. No noises coming through the ceiling. And it's possible she's not sharing walls with any neighbors either. They don't really say, though.

Judging from the money invested in this place's remodeling, I'm guessing it's not a cheap place to live. More classism in the microliving lifestyle.
16
620 square feet? Some of us in our 580 sqft apartments consider that palatial. Man I could have a dining room table!
17
Nobody actually wants to live in something the size of a couple of refrigerator boxes.
18
I thought they drug Anne Frank out of that attic years ago. Good to see she made it through! Someone should tell her it’s safe to come down now though…
19
For someone seriously looking to downsize, may I recommend the book, "In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats" by Michael Litchfield (Taunton Press 2011). It features many living spaces smaller and more livable than this Madrid apartment. Taunton has published several good books about living in smaller spaces.
20
Actually the tiny house we are considering is 180 square feet. 650 square feet isn't a tiny house, it's a studio apartment. An attic room isn't a house.

To make it work requires a very different attitude about material possessions. There's more to it than trying to cram all your existing stuff into a compressed space because you have no choice, or because that's all you can afford. You have to want to own less stuff and be open to downsizing your footprint. It has to be framed as a gain rather than a loss.
22
So much plywood. Even in the bathroom. Ugh.

@6,

It looks like she has a range, but not an oven. Also, Europeans often have much smaller kitchens than Americans. They'll make do with a half-size refrigerator, for example, and the urbanites in particular tend to shop for groceries on an almost daily basis. Considering how much better they eat on average, it seems to work for them.

@20,

650 square feet is a pretty normal one bedroom, not a studio. I lived in a 500 sq. ft. apartment on Capitol Hill, and I didn't have any of that creative space saving stuff. I didn't even use the area under my bed as storage, and I have a lot of crap.
23
@15 - It looks like she actually has two stories, a regular main floor and a pitched-ceiling upper floor bedroom area. Otherwise, I agree that 650 square feet isn't really all that small. And as someone else noted, I don't see any indications that she actually spends much leisure time at home -- no books, television, musical instrument(s), knitting bag, or any provision for creative hobbies -- so I'm thinking she probably does most of her socializing and much of her living in public spaces and isn't at home all that much.
24
@21: I'm not proposing to change anybody. If others want the white picket suburbia thing, more power to them. I don't consider myself part of a movement, and the only mission I'm on is to retire as early as possible. Having to keep working just to maintain a house full of stuff is unhelpful to that goal.

A tiny house isn't comparable to a small apartment. A tiny house is designed to be as compact as possible without skimping on quality. They cost double per square foot than a full sized house and there are starting to be appliances furniture etc that is specifically geared towards these. For instance, I recently saw a combination two-burner grilltop, small oven, and dishwasher unit - it stacks.

For me, it's about simplicity. Having fewer "things" means you make a greater investment in the quality of each of those possessions. But, it still has to mesh with what gives you enjoyment and satisfaction in life. We like to cook, read books, and watch movies - our space must be configured accordingly. I'll give up stuff, but I won't give up the activities that make life enjoyable. Your mileage may vary.
25
620sqft could hold 4 or more of the micro-units that we are seeing in Seattle...
26
@20, 24. My husband and I like to cook, too. But we also like to have family over to share it. Depending upon the design, we might be able to to that in 600 square feet. In 180? Not so much.
27
@26: that's why God created outdoor grills.

Not much help in the winter or in rain, though, I agree. Entertaining at home is problematic. Restaurants work for that, sort of, but I get what you're saying.
28
620 sf is a palace. I had a lovely little cottage in Capitol Hill in the '80s that was 420 sf. It was built in the 1920s but I gutted and reworked the interior. It had a proper kitchen, dining room, bathroom, living room and loft bedroom, and none of this silliness of hunkering into holes in the floor and tables coming down from the ceiling.
I sold it about 24 years ago, but it's still occupied and apparently loved by its current owners.
I couldn't live there now though--no way I could go up and down a ladder to&from my bedroom.

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