Tiny homes are the latest trend. Many people want to reduce their footprint and live within their means, so they are moving into low-cost, tiny homes.
Tiny homes are comfortable, space-efficient, dwellings that provide enough room for one or two people to live comfortably.
It will take some planning though. Living in a tiny home requires a little practice and foresight. Most people are used to relatively big, roomy, houses so it may be a shock to start living in a small space. But this is something anyone can do.
Here are 5 tips to think about when you are ready to move into a tiny home.
1. Reduce the number of things you own
This should be obvious, but when you move into a tiny home you won’t have as much room as you are used to. You have to be really stingy with your floor space. Most of the things you have gotten used to in your current large home, simply won’t fit in a tiny home. So, when you are ready to make the move, get a good local moving company in your area that can help you with packing things or make a yard sale to get rid of the things you don’t need anymore.
Most houses have a bed, a sofa, armchairs, a desk, an office chair, dining tables, coffee tables, cupboards, and drawers. That is a lot of stuff that you have gotten used to. You will have to get used to living without most of these.
Try to find a bed that can fold up into a couch. Get a table that has storage space underneath that you can use in place of drawers. You get the idea. Try to get furniture that can double as something else.
The more things you have that serve multiple purposes, the fewer things you will need overall.
You will still need to get used to living without all the comforts that you are used to. But with careful planning, you can be just as comfortable.
2. Purge your belongings
Give yourself plenty of time to sort out your essential belongings. Don’t wait until only a week or two before moving day to figure it out, or you will be sorry.
Go through your house, room by room, and pull out the essential items that you will need to take with you. Everything else is a candidate to be sold, given to friends, or thrown away.
Be harsh with yourself. You will find a lot of things that you think you can’t bear to live without, but is that really true? Do you really need that teddy bear you got when you were a kid? Or sneakers that are too beat up to wear but too good to throw out?
There are lots of things we think we need, but we really don’t.
3. Measure everything
Space is paramount in a tiny home, so make sure you know how much room you are going to have. It’s no good sorting out all the furniture you are going to bring with you, only to find that it won’t fit on moving day.
Measure the floor space of your tiny home. Calculate how much room you need to move around and deduct it from the total. This is how much room you will have to put in furniture and appliances.
For example, you might decide you need a one meter walking path around the sofa. Measure the sofa and add one meter to each side and in front. That is how much space the sofa needs in your new tiny home.
It is also important to make sure that furniture won’t block the doors and windows. If possible, lay down tape on the carpet to mark where everything will fit. This will give you a good idea of how much you can bring with you and what it will be like to move around in the house.
Planning how you will use your space like this will save you a lot of headaches in the future.
4. Label boxes
It’s a good idea to label your boxes when moving into any type of home. But there is another reason to label boxes when moving into a tiny home.
It’s important to know what you are bringing when you are moving into a small space. You don’t have the luxury of throwing things into an attic or cupboard until you need them. Space is tight and has to be regulated.
This means you need to know exactly what you are bringing with you.
Labeling your boxes allows you to make sure you are bringing only what you need. It is also a good idea to take pictures of the contents of each box and upload them onto your computer or laptop. This way you can check the contents if you aren’t sure what you have with you, and you won’t have to go hunting through boxes.
5. Stay organized
The key to living comfortably in a tiny home is to stay organized. Your space will feel bigger when everything is in its correct place.
Conversely, if you let clutter creep in, your space will quickly become cramped.
A good tip for clothes is to pack them vertically in drawers. Use some cheap plastic dividers and arrange your clothes so that you can see them all at once when the drawer is open.
Don’t stack your clothes on top of each other, or you will make a mess every time you are searching for a particular shirt.
Also, arrange our clothes in colors from the darkest to the lightest. That makes it easy to see what you want to wear and you can grab it without having to search.
Another tip is to use clear plastic boxes to store things. That way you can see what you have in each box.
If you have a laundry basket, try to fit it into the bottom of our cupboard. This way it isn’t cluttering up the floor.
If you have big items that take up a lot of space, you may be better off putting them in storage. Skis or a surfboard are seasonal so you don’t need to keep them in your house all the time. They can easily be put in storage until you need them.