Your potential new lawn mower.

There’s a lot to be said about living in a ‘real house’. As I’ve mentioned before, the divine presence of an automatic washing machine is number one in my book. Here are some other great things about it:

‘Real House Pros’ –

1. The ability to watch t.v. and movies on giant screens.
2. The ability to shut yourself in a room and get some peace and quiet from other humanoids, dogs, parrots, llamas or whatever you live with.
3. The ability to stuff your dishes into a dishwasher if your mother-in-law or other visitors are on their way to visit.
4. The ability to have visitors on a rainy day and send their kids into the next room so they may scream, throw things around and maul each other without getting up your nose.
5. The ability to use taps that pour water out for as long as you want them to.

On the other hand, there are some not so great things about having a ‘Real House’:

‘Real House’ Cons –

1. You have to mow the lawn. Unless you have a llama…
2. You have to have lots of furniture, which is a total pain when it comes to shifting and can cause loss of friends.
3. It takes ages to heat the whole place up on a cold day, meaning bigger power bills, unless you are lucky enough to be able to stay in bed all day with somebody yummy in which case you won’t give a damn.
4. There is great potential for unsociability as everybody shuts themselves in their own room and plays with their Playstations/Ipads/Kindles/whatever rips their nightie.
5. You just don’t go out and look at the stars as much. Why would you when you have an inside toilet?!

There’s also a lot to be said for living in a Tiny House. Let me count the ways:

Tiny House Pros –

1. You don’t usually have to mow the lawn. Unless you own the property you’re on. In which case why don’t you have a llama??!!
2. You don’t need lots of furniture, which means that on moving day your friends still love you – they may even come and watch and laugh as you play Tiny House Transit.
3. If you’re smart (like me) you have one laptop that does everything. This means that you can lie in bed watching movies/Tv on Demand with the excellent justification that you are being practical by keeping warm and saving on the power bill/battery consumption. Even if you do have to heat the place, it usually only takes about five minutes – just long enough to put your llama away for the night.
4. When friends come to visit, you tend to play Scrabble and other games that make you look intelligent. Plus all that extra body warmth in a small place helps warm your Tiny House up.
5. You take a lot more notice of Nature. That bird in the tree that serenades you every morning. The stars that glimmer gorgeously above you when you’re on your way to the bathroom. The morning dew sparkling in the sunshine. The cute hedgehog that has snuggled up in your gumboots. Woh, wait a minute…

In all fairness though, Tiny House living is not for everybody. For some of the following reasons:

Tiny House Cons –

1. Watching Lord of the Rings on a 12 inch screen just doesn’t cut it, no matter how loud you have the speakers up.
2. Indoor privacy? What privacy?! If somebody comes to visit you and you’re not dressed yet, there’s that embarrassing moment while they wait outside for you to make yourself decent. Not a great way to keep friendships if it rains a lot where you live.
3. Everyone can see your dishes all of the time. Which makes being a slack housekeeper really embarrassing.
4. If your friends come to visit and bring their kids, you can’t shut them in another room. Which means you have to put up with the little sods darlings being under your feet, interrupting your conversations and running their sticky little fingers all through your stuff for the duration.
5. If you live like I do, you will have to fetch your own water regularly, several times a day in fact. Unless you have a water tank and pumps and stuff, which means having either a hose setup, or a gravity tank, and running a pump to get the water out of your taps which will run your battery down unless you have mega solar panels, which means you must have a set of trickle batteries, all of which costs you lots of money to set up. Personally I’d rather just go for a walk with the big jug.

So there we have it, a few of the pros and cons on both sides of the argument. There are many more, but that’s another bottle of wine for another day. But if you’re giving any thought to Tiny House living, go and talk to somebody that’s already doing it before deciding if it’s for you. They’ll be able to give you a bit of a run down on the reality of the situation. And you may even get to pat their llama.