Five Reasons to Live in a Tiny Home — And Five Reasons to Not to

“I got rid of everything. My couch, my dining table, seventeen throw pillows, a bread maker I used twice, and a box of cables I could no longer identify. I feel like I’ve been released from prison. I wake up every morning and the whole world is possible.”
— Jennifer M., tiny home owner, Bellingham WA

“Where are my shoes? Where are any of my shoes? I have nine pairs of shoes and they are currently living in the trunk of my car along with two bikes, a set of golf clubs, and what I believe is a kayak paddle. I hate everything.”
— Doug T., tiny home owner, also Bellingham WA

Ok. We made these up. But only a little. Jennifer and Doug represent the full spectrum of responses we hear from people who have made the leap into tiny home living — sometimes from the same person, in the same week. So before you reserve a build, let’s be honest about what you’re getting into.

Five Reasons to Do It

1. You genuinely like yourself, or you genuinely like your partner
   A tiny home will not save a troubled relationship. What it will do is make an existing one very efficient. If you can spend a long car trip with someone and arrive still wanting to talk to them, you’re probably fine. If you live alone and your own company generally suits you, you are, statistically speaking, the ideal tiny home occupant.
2. You need external help getting rid of your stuff
   Some people declutter through willpower and YouTube videos. Others need a hard structural constraint — a space so definitive in its limits that the stuff simply cannot come. A tiny home is the most effective forced minimalism device ever built. You will get rid of things you didn’t know you were emotionally attached to. This is painful and then it is liberating, more or less in that order.
3. One of everything is enough
   One coffee cup (your current fav). One fork. One deep pan that can do most things a kitchen needs done. If this sentence makes you feel calm rather than anxious, welcome home. If you immediately thought “but what about my Wednesday cup and my Friday cup?” we need to have a longer conversation.
4. Your relationship with clothing is already minimal
   There is no closet situation in a tiny home that will accommodate a wardrobe assembled over decades of retail therapy. There is a very nice wardrobe situation for someone who owns seven things they actually wear. If you have already arrived at that place, or have always lived there, tiny home life will feel like it was designed specifically for you. Because it was.
5. Your entertaining style runs toward intimate
   Dinner for two: ideal. Dinner for four: ambitious but achievable. Dinner for eight with a cocktail hour: that’s what porches and fire pits and the great outdoors are for, and frankly that’s a better party anyway. If your social life is built around large gatherings that require a formal dining room, we wish you well and suggest the ADU market.

Five Reasons It’s OK If It’s Not for You

1. You have strong opinions about your cheese drawer
   A dedicated cheese drawer is a lifestyle commitment that deserves to be honored. Some people have built entire identities around their refrigerator organization system. A tiny home kitchen will ask you to let go of that identity. Not everyone should have to.
2. You work from home and you also live with another person
   Two people. One space. One of them on a Zoom call. The other one trying to make lunch. This is a solvable problem but it requires a level of coordination that some couples — perfectly happy couples, good couples — will find erodes the goodwill they have spent years building. Know thyself.
3. You own a musical instrument larger than a ukulele
   Drums. Grand piano. Upright bass. Tuba. These are not rhetorical examples. There is a version of tiny home living available to you. The instrument is not part of it.
4. Your dog has opinions about personal space
   Small dog: fine. Medium dog who is adaptable: probably fine. Large dog who has claimed 60% of every couch they’ve ever encountered: you are going to need to have a conversation with that dog, and the dog is going to win.
5. You have not yet reached peak IKEA
   There is a stage of life — usually somewhere between 22 and 35 — during which acquiring furniture is a genuine source of pleasure. If you are still in this stage, a tiny home will feel like a creative constraint too far. Come back later. We will still be here. The homes will probably be nicer.

The Open Secret

Here is something nobody in the tiny home industry talks about loudly, which we will tell you anyway because we believe in honesty: most tiny home owners have a storage unit. On site if they can manage it — a small shed, a utility hutch, a trailer parked discreetly nearby. Off site if they can’t. The stuff has to go somewhere, and “getting rid of everything” turns out, in practice, to mean “getting rid of most things and finding a dignified arrangement for the rest.”

Let’s not call this a failure. More like how human beings actually live. The tiny home holds your life. The storage unit holds your past. It’s a perfectly reasonable arrangement that we encourage you to make peace with early.

Just… don’t tell Jennifer.

Mount Baker Tiny Homes builds custom tiny homes on wheels and van conversions in Bellingham, Washington. Ready to talk through whether it’s actually right for you? Get in touch.