Going tiny is a big decision and certainly not an easy one. As this niche industry continues to build, so does its naysayers. Don’t give up on your big dream to live tiny! Most of what they say isn’t true anyway. Here are a few of the most common tiny house problems which are really myths.
Myth #1: I have to give up everything I want
First and foremost, let’s get this right out of the way. Downsizing does not mean you have to abandon all of your Earthly possessions. It does mean that you have to make some sacrifices and compromises. When you go tiny, you are trading in the cost of an item for the cost of space for an item. That being said, you are the one who makes the decisions as to what you need to have and what you don’t. On every tiny television show the people moving in are given one Rubbermaid container and told, “That’s all you can have.” You do have to get rid of a ton of stuff, but you do not have to get all crazy about it.
Myth # 2: I have to give up my Privacy
Every time you see pictures or television shows about tiny homes, they are all bright and have as many windows as possible with as much open space inside as possible. The reason for this is to make the space look bigger. But you can have shades, curtains or blinds and even window treatments if you so desire. Also, don’t think that you can only have one big open room. There are plenty of designs where you can have walls, pocket doors and more. And if worse comes to worse, hitch up the home and drive to the middle of Montana.
Myth #3: I have to maintain a nomadic lifestyle
Just because you have a house on wheels doesn’t mean that you have to move it. There are plenty of people who find a nice comfortable spot to park their home and they just leave it there. People build decks on the front and sides of their home, plant gardens and even pour concrete walks up to the front door.
READ MORE: The Pros and Cons of Tiny House Travel
Myth #4: I can’t have guests
This is one of the biggest things for people to wrap their head around. You can still entertain. Sure, if you have 50 people over you will have to bring the party outside, but in most tiny homes there is enough room to comfortably hold a small party. People rarely move from one space when they have guests anyway and nowadays with the culinary world taking off, cooking while entertaining has become status quo. There is no better place to do that than in a tiny home.
Myth #5: I have to be young and childless
Just because you have children or you are over the age of 30 does not disqualify you from owning a tiny home. There are plenty of floor plans that have a room for the kids or have a guest bed in the loft, etc. As you get older and decide that tiny living is for you, there are plenty of single level homes out there to keep you from having to go up a ladder at night.
Tiny House Problems – Bonus Myth: I can’t have full sized anything
When you decide to go into a tiny home, you need to make a priority list of what is the most important to you. Remember here, the commodity is space, not money that we are dealing with. For instance, if you like to cook, you might want to allocate more space to the kitchen. Are you a bigger guy? Maybe you want a shower that is actually big enough for you to move around in. The key word here is priority. If you want a king size bed, you can have a king size bed. Finding the way to compromise between function and form is the true challenge.
Those are just a few of the mental hurdles that people have to get over to get into living tiny. What tiny house problems do you have or anticipate having? Let us know in the comments below!
Very encouraging. Thanks
There is so much truth here! We have two adults, two kids, and a cat living in a 400 square foot park model with additional loft space, and while our home is not that tiny, it’s definitely tight for a family of four.
1. You can definitely keep things that are important to you! You just have to prioritize because you can’t keep everything all at the same time.
2. I have always wondered why so many tiny houses that are meant for multiple people to share don’t go further to provide privacy to their occupants. I hardly ever see curtains! And the sleeping lofts that have no privacy wall would be difficult for me personally. We try to have different zones in our house where we can have a little room to ourselves sometimes, and we do have an actual downstairs bedroom. It doesn’t have to be all one big room.
3. We are not nomadic. Our house is too big for that. We’ve been parked in one spot for almost nine years now.
4. We don’t entertain often, but that is as much due to our personalities and current stage of life with young children as it is to our house. Many of our friends and family love to entertain, so we let them host! Unfortunately there are only a couple of months during the year when moving a party outside would really work where we live, but during one of my favorite get-togethers that we hosted, we opened both of our doors (we have one in our living room and one between the bedroom and the kitchen) and set up a buffet in the walk-through kitchen. People could sit and eat in the living room or outside at the table and chairs we had set up. It worked really well to keep traffic flowing.
5. We are neither young nor childless, so there you go! (We’re in our thirties and have two young daughters.)
Totally agree. I fit all those categories. Alternative storage space also common in THers. Makes letting go a more thoughtful process . Only thing I wish people were more honest about was how challenging it is to find parking space.
My husband and I started our Tiny House 2 years ago. We have now been living in it full time for 4 months. The one question I get asked is how do you both live in such a small space? Or does it bother you that you are so close all the time? The answer for us is no. We enjoy each others company and to be realistic, even in a larger home we were always together. Plus if I have a question for him while cooking etc. He is right there. We love our Tiny Home!
For a year I lived in a 70sq ft tiny home in Colorado, it was a modified tumbleweed xs-house and I had my dog and my girlfriend at the time living with me… the house was completely off grid but my girlfriend had her closet for hangables and I had mine by the front door… mine also had the outback inverter and batteries in it, but we had 3 drawers worth of folding clothes upstairs in the loft, small kitchenette, wet bath with hot water from the solar water heater on the roof, I also had a small 6 gal electric heater for my sink, the only compromise was taking showers at night instead of morning so the waters nice and hot. I had a 150gal cistern under the house that was raid water collected, 12 volt fed into the house, and I had a desk, couch fold down 32in tv, Xbox with Apple TV, and an electric piano that was stored under the desk clan shell style. My girlfriend had her books flanking the desk, and her trinkets were outside since she was a gardener.. my dogs crate and food/water bowls were under the couch build into movable foot stools (scoony doo’s a smaller dog). While I’m now out of the military, and married to a different person, I still keep my tiny house as my man cave and guest house in our back yard in Pa. and it’s my wife and my go to for cross country camping, and more importantly, in our 2 bedroom 850sq fr home, we have friends and relatives always asking to stay in our tiny home. It’ll probably go to our son once he’s in college, and of course I’ll update bits as they come out, like a more durable water pillow, or I’m liking to upgrade the electrics. A great that was an unnecessarily long winded way of saying that if I can keep my happy things and be happily married others can too. Open tour mind to possibilities, think outside your box, or he’ll take a vacation into one of the tiny houses you can stay in on Airbnb. Give it a chance, you might surprise yourself… I know my wife was surprised!
Apologies for the bad typing… still have an older iPhone 4s… my sausage fingers mess up a bit…
17 years in 8×35 and I just moved into tiny. Not a year passed and i’d tell my beloved, ” i still love my house”. I now travel in a Susbaru Forester fully self contained and content.
We bought a 9 sleeper RV, moved onto 5 acres, rebuilt damages, customized the living space and remained non-electric/12 volt with a generator for power tools and well water. Gravity water and holding/using tanks brought inside gathered from the local spring provided winter water. Out building held that ‘stuff’ others say “you may need someday”…which we never did use! Much time was lived outdoors. We had lots of company on family night , and minor arranging when very large people visited. A This Ends Up love seat and built-ins fit my space. Every thing was perfect cozy and content on the home front.
I bought ‘UP’ not ‘sized down’. I moved clothes, survival cooking/ bathroom/bedroom gear into our house and bought non electric as we needed or wanted. Possesions i missed…i went back to retrieve. The stuff…i joke and say i” lost it all”. Truth is, nothing was ever needed or used anyway.
I love tiny living. I love simple chores. Life is good. Imfirmity is harsh but God teaches right from wrong… i just choose the right and be happy.
Dream big… Someday i dream of building a tiny Texas home of qiality materials and beutyful decor. Dream on!!!
I think most people who slam the idea of tiny living are just confused about the difference or definition of a want and a need. Tiny living will help you get clear about that and allow you to save money and do things that you can not afford to do when it’s spent on want’s scrimping for needs…no wonder depression is on the rise . Situational depression makes you “think” the wrong way about your problems. It becomes self fulfilling prophecy….what you think becomes what you believe and once you believe it you end up creating it. I’m going tiny. why should I worry what a stranger or even family thinks about that? I hope I can lead by example not preaching change, but living it. Let chips fall where they may, it’s not my circus…not my monkeys. (insert Big Grin here ) LOL
I love it. Well put. I agree. It’s a drastic change but I’m confident about my NEEDS and not concerned about others’ concerns. Living a satisfied life is good enough. Living an examined life is ideal. Living a luxurious life is often unnecessary and probably no more rewarding.
I like that you talked about how you can still allocate space to places you feel it matters more. I have been thinking about having someone build me a tiny home. I can see how it would make sense for my kitchen to be a little bigger because I like to cook in my free time.
Is there any solution for separate ‘bedrooms’, so that I could sleep and don’t stay awake all night because my hubby snores like a bear? I use ‘extra strong’ eaeplug and still can hear him. So we have separate bedrooms on different floors now…
We have seen some designs that incorporate a bedroom or two. They are normally found on larger houses though.
My husband Steve Coates has built several with two bedrooms on our gooseneck tiny house trailers.So much Dan Louche we have been completely sharing identical information and it’s great to have you giving out so much on your website. You are amazing! I know how much work this takes and I couldn’t do what you have done! A++
Cheryl Coates
Anna from pocketmanor.com (https://www.pocketmanor.com/post/lessons-from-three-months-living-tiny) said it all for me when she speaks of keeping your ‘prized possessions’ – it will be different for different people. All my friends and family have been super supportive though some shake their heads as they know I have two containers – one full of my 5-bedroom house stuff, and the other my wool studio!! However, I have been living in very small spaces (cabins to bedrooms in other people’s houses, and recently out of a backpack and a few bags as I am travelling around the country), so I know I don’t need all that ‘stuff’! I can’t wait to get back to those containers and only keep my ‘prized possessions’! Thanks Anna!!
I am still in the design phase and my biggest issue is the ability of using wood in my tiny house: the maximum weight in NZ is 3.5t, and my tiny will be 8x3m2 with two lofts. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be most happy to hear them!
Thank you all for sharing!
Patricia
I started building my tiny house in July of 2018. I am just now completing the build because weather issue put me behind schedule. I never intended to live in the tiny house I built it to flip after I retired. I have two concerns One- lenders won’t lend buyers money therefore the buyer has to come up with all cash. Two- I can’t find an insurance company that will insure it. Do you know of anybody that will insure a tiny house and land money for one?
Hi Byron
Check out our Knowledge Base, we have some links for lenders there among tons of other great info!
https://www.tinyhomebuilders.com/tiny-house-knowledge-base