Home Life: A Tiny House for Travellin' Bob?

 

I read an interesting article on the BBC News website the other day, about the growing popularity of "tiny homes", and how they fitted in nicely with our eco-awareness in these climate changing years.  Like most such movements, it seems to have originated in the US and spread across the pond to us in Europe (and elsewhere).

Tiny homes are essentially little houses, sometimes a single storey with one room serving as your total living space, and others a bit bigger, with an upper floor, sometimes not much more than a balcony, to hold your bed. The biggest have even gone as far as to have two upstairs bedrooms - an example wasn't shown, so I have a problem envisaging that one.  They come in a variety of styles: some like old gypsy caravans, some like glorified garden sheds, some looking like proper cottages complete with gabled roofs and decking surrounds, and some modernist glass cubes.  The common factor is they are all, as the name suggests, bloody small: perhaps 10m x 7m.

Given their size, living in one requires compromise: you simply can't have the amount of "stuff" that accumulates in a normal household.  From your clothes down, you must downsize: no shelves full of books and ornaments, no racks of CDs and vinyl to play on big sound systems with multiple decks and speakers.  No sofas and armchairs  (unless they're built in and fold down from the walls or something) and 6 place dining tables.  Smaller cookers and fridges and sinks - and forget about a washer and tumble dryer or dishwasher!  Less china and cutlery and pots and pans, small shower cubicle and toilet combined, with a proper bath merely a memory.  But on the upside, your heating bills, especially if the place is properly insulated as part of the build, will be much reduced (and often met by using a solar panel on the roof or windmill generator, meaning you are self sufficient, living off-grid with no mains connection).  The size of the places also means you could put the place in your parents' back garden and avoid rates and complex planning permissions - which would also apparently not apply if you were to buy a small part of a field from Farmer Giles down the road. 

I've seen a number of programs on the telly about the things, mostly from the States where the movement is very popular and growing by the day - there is more space to build for a start, bags of appealing countryside and wilderness around even the biggest cities - and I have to say I can see the appeal.....

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But the article made me think about my own home history, and even its future.

My first home was in a three bed-roomed end of terrace council house with a big garden.  I was born in my mum and dad's bedroom and lived in the house for the first 25 years of my life.  There was no central heating, and for much of my life we had coal fires, meaning regular deliveries on hundredweight sacks of coal, tipped through a wooden door at the side of the house into an under-stairs cupboard we called "The Coal Hole".  After my dad died, when I was 19, the real fire gave way to a three bar electric fire (that was designed to look like a real fire, with coloured lights and little spinners that spun in the heat from the bars and made the orange light flicker like flames) and The Coal Hole converted to a store cupboard that held the hoover and assorted junk we couldn't find anywhere else to put.

The garden was massive, with two front lawns either side of the entrance path, a small back lawn outside the kitchen window and in front of the big shed my dad built with old railway track sleepers, and beyond that a hundred foot vegetable garden.  We never bought vegetables from the shop, as my dad grew everything we needed: potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots, runner beans, peas, onions and parsnips, as well as a raspberry bush and a big patch of rhubarb.  Boy, we ate well, and I swear to God they were the best vegetables I've ever eaten, anywhere, and anywhen.  The gardens were my dad's pride and joy - before the war he had been a gardener at nearby Chiddingstone Castle, but the job was gone by the time he returned from service in Burma in 1946 and moved into this house where my mum and my two sisters had lived through most of the war, three complete strangers to him, as indeed he was to them. There were roses growing around the front window, a pair of big and beautiful lilac trees as part of the boundary fence with next door, and borders around the front lawns full of primroses liberated from the hedgerows in the surrounding countryside, chrysanthemums and a host of other plants whose names I've forgotten.

But despite this, as a child the front lawns doubled up nicely for Wembley Stadium or the Oval (depending on the season) for my mates and I to play in, as did the back lawn, and the very top part of the vegetable garden was turned into a very nice Western Front trench and/or Colditz escape tunnel entrance for our war games, once we had dug a hole two foot deep and three across. Remembering the devastation we caused, it must have broken my dad's heart, but all he did was shake his head with a smile, and say "Well, boys will be boys" when my mum was raging at him about our vandalism.

The house is still there, but much changed. The windows have been replaced by modern uPVC double glazing, and no doubt central heating installed.  The narrow front lawn with lilac trees (now long gone) has been paved over to make parking for two cars, and the other front  garden entirely laid to lawn: the roses around the window vanished like the centre bed of primroses and chrysanth's.  God know's what has happened to the back garden, I lacked to courage to go and knock on the front door, introduce myself and ask for a tour.

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When I married, our first home was a two bedroom semi slum in the middle of a block of cottages at the top of a deep railway cutting and next to the entrance of the tunnel that leads into Tunbridge Wells Central station.  As such, there were about half a dozen trains every hour, noisy diesel powered all, as the lines had not been electrified yet, rumbling past and making the house shake.  Again, there was no central heating, not even a fireplace, the back door opened directly on to our elderly next door neighbour's back door, and the small shared yard led into a walled back alley that ran the length of the terrace.  As for the front garden, it measured 4 feet by three, next to the front door that opened onto a narrow footpath by a not much wider road. We had to re-wire and re-plumb the place before we could move in, which meant the entire front patch had to be dug up to take the required plastic piping, and frankly it never recovered from the damage.

We had wildlife sharing the house too: we could lie in bed listening to mice and, I think, rats scrabbling in the loft space.  One night, as we were dozing off, a mouse scurried across the pillows and through my hair, then dropped to the floor as I turned the lamp on - I saw him stroll out of the bedroom door and down the stairs.  We bought mouse traps, baited them and placed them in various rooms, and frequently heard them snap.  But we never caught the creature (or creatures): we always found the traps sprung and the cheese gone, but no sign of Mickey or Minnie.  Eventually, when we moved out after eighteen months or so and one kid, we found where the mouse had lived: under the oven on the dilapidated old cooker was a small storage space that held a baking tray we had completely forgotten about, and we found it when we were packing.  We had only used it once, for a roast when some friends visited, packed it away and forgotten all about it.  It had been full of the dripping from the joint, and our little rodent had made his home there, living off the fat when he could find nothing else.  A good portion of the fat was gone, eaten, and that corner of the tray filled with the creature's droppings.  A nice, cozy and warm place to live, I supposed, and gently replaced the tray.

I was back in the area earlier this year, but I have no idea whether the terrace is still standing: I suspect not, as the whole area has been completely re-developed.  But for a while, it was home, and my first child was born while we lived there.    

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From there, we moved a couple of miles to a suburb, High Brooms, into a larger cottage.  We had been trying to move for a few months and had been sent this particular place three or four times by estate agents, but ignored it.  Then we got it again, and was about to throw it away (again) when I read the description in full.  It seemed worth a look, so we made an appointment to view the next day, a Saturday, liked it, and had an offer accepted on the Monday.  Things moved very quickly for a change - we had a buyer already lined up for our place and a mortgage agreed in principal - and were moving in within about a month.    I guess some things are just meant to be.....

It was another end terrace, and had three bedrooms (if you accept the big front one that was divided in two by a plywood partition and sliding door was two rooms), and a rear extension that on the ground floor housed a kitchen/diner and toilet and upstairs the bathroom, another toilet and a reasonable sized room listed by the estate agent as a fourth bedroom but I used a study.  The front garden was about twice the size of our old destroyed one and laid to grass (easy to maintain), and had a good sized rear one laid to lawn with flower beds down one side, a footpath down the other and a decent tool shed for the lawn mower we had to buy.  There was also a small rear patio to enjoy the summer sun and a cool beer.  Luxury!

It was a nice neighbourhood, quiet and in my schooldays (my old big school was a ten minute walk) considered very upper class.  Some of the bug bungalows and houses closer to school probably were, but my end definitely wasn't - there was a small industrial park at the far end of the road, and our neighbours, all really nice people, distinctly working class like me.  The station was a ten minute walk away, down a steepish hill that was a bugger to climb after a long working day and a couple of beers, there was pub about halfway and a very good fish and chip shop opposite.  We were fine there, took our time doing it up, had another kid, and one evening finished our last project: a complete redecoration of the lounge at the front: fitted shelves, the fireplace opened up to burn coal again (though we never did: the central heating was fine - but it did look good).  The kids were asleep, we sat in armchairs, I cracked a beer, put some music on and looked around.

"Make a decent profit on this, I said.  "Let's move."

So we did.

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Nearly thirty miles, to a new "village" in north Kent, and a brand new three-bed semi - we had to wait six months for the thing to be built, and then another three to sell our High Brooms home, but we got there eventually.  Sometimes, even now, I wonder if we did the right thing: we were perfectly ok in High Brooms, plenty of room for our family, fine for my commute into London for work, and then financially quite solvent.  But the lure of profit drove us to cash in, and in fairness we did make a good bit - and spent it all, plus an increased mortgage, on the new place.  

But on the plus side, the house was fully and professionally decorated for us by the developer (we were able to choose the carpets, wallpapers, kitchen and bathroom stuff and light fittings), and had a rather cool spiral staircase. It also had an integrated garage, so forced me at long last (I was approaching 30) to finally learn to drive.  The back garden was decently sized but we needed to landscape it and lay the patio ourselves: it  was hard work, took the whole summer, but I really enjoyed doing it.  Our next-door-but-one neighbour helped us and I returned the complement helping him.  Like us, his was a young family, and we all became firm friends.  He was a self-employed printer, and earning much more than I was, and eventually moved to bloody great six bedroom place a few miles away and we lost touch - I hope he and his family are still well.

As a new village (it hadn't existed 10 years before and had no history), we were just one family in a new and growing community of young families - and community was the right term.  A few years after we had moved in there was an absolutely monumental snowfall, and our village, on top of a hill, was completely snowed in, roads impassable.  But on our estate, we all mucked in for the first couple of days, helping each other dig our drives and cars out of the chest high snow drifts, sharing shopping runs to the supermarket in the village, using our kids' sledges to carry bags of stuff, and picking up prescriptions from the chemists - all the simple little stuff you take for granted in normal times.  Then on the Tuesday I had to attempt to get to London for work (my boss had been calling three times a day since the weekend's blizzard), so I packed some stuff in a rucksack and headed off on a dark and bitter morning: it was still snowing.  The roads were still very bad, and there were no buses, so I had to walk the four miles to the nearest station.  I was in luck - five minutes after arriving on an overcrowded platform a London bound train came in and I forced my way on.  It was the only one that day.  A ten minute ride and the most southerly London suburbs were snow-free....  I had a hell of a job convincing my work colleagues how bad the situation was at home, in the days long before mobile phones with cameras could have shown the evidence - that had to wait until the pics I had taken on my crappy old Kodak Instamatic were developed.  I stayed the rest of the week in a hotel, paid for by the company, and eventually got home Saturday morning - a thaw had nearly cleared all the snow and everything was pretty much back to normal.

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We lived there for about 6 years, and had a final child, before the wanderlust hit us again.  The kids were well settled in schools and we felt very settled, but we felt that we needed one more bedroom, so they had one each, and wanted to remain in the village.  We had made some good friends there and in the neighbouring villages, through school and church activities, and I was helping my mate with my eldest kid's football team (I ended up taking over the coaching and managing of it - great fun).

There were a few neighbourhoods that had four bedroom houses, from terraced through semis to fully detached, with prices to match.  After a lot of views, we narrowed it down to an estate on the edge of the village, surrounded by woodland and open fields, a mix of "out of the box" and unique architect designed houses, but all of them detached.  It was, by popular consent, The Address in the whole place. We only looked at one place, because unsurprisingly houses on that estate did not often come on the market, and made on offer, for the sale price: no haggling.  It had been on the market for a while and offers so far had been refused, but the owner, by now desperate to sell, nearly bit my arm off accepting ours.  That might have rung alarm bells, but didn't....

We exchanged contracts, and the very next night the Great Storm that devastated much of southern England hit.  Once more the village was cut off, this time by fallen trees rather than snowdrifts blocking the roads.  After two days clearing up, things began moving again, and at this point we remembered that there was a massive elm tree in our new garden, and we wondered if it was still standing.  We jumped in the car and drove the mile to the new place, worried that as we had already committed to moving in less than a month, any damage would need to be repaired at our cost.  We were lucky: the tree had indeed been uprooted and fallen, demolishing part of the fence between us and next door. Its top-most branches were across our patio, and lay within a couple of inches of a set of double glazed patio doors.  We agreed with the seller and our new neighbours to share the costs of fence repair and cutting up and removing the tree, and moved in on time.

It was lovely house, and the summit of my house purchasing in Britain.  It was a big detached place, four bedrooms with en-suite shower in the biggest, a separate bathroom and toilet next to it.  Downstairs a huge lounge running the width of the house, and another toilet in the entrance lobby.  At the back, a big kitchen/breakfast room, and off from it a separate dining room.  Outside the back garden, laid to lawn, sloped up to the top boundary from a full width patio with walled garden between patio and lawn.  The patio ran around the side of the house and through s gate to a lawned front garden and double garage (the drive shared with the two neighbours in our little cul-de-sac).  The total plot size was a little under half an acre.

We loved it, and spent some years living happily there, but it became apparent that we had bitten off a little more than we could chew - more work was needed than we had anticipated.  We had to re-plumb rge en-suite shower (it never did work properly), replace the downstairs toilet, and I spent huge amounts of time and money replacing damaged fence panels that had never properly recovered from the storm damage. And we never even started on the badly needed kitchen replacement.   It was a difficult period in my life: my career took a downturn, and for various reasons job choices I made didn't work out and I found myself unemployed three times during the decade. Maintaining a big house, plus feeding and clothing the kids, paying for school trips, uniforms and so on was increasingly difficult on the little unemployment benefits and inevitably debts began to build.  It was a struggle, and other pressures came along too, so that by the millennium we were not in a good place, and it all fell apart.

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I found myself starting a new life, in a completely different field (but drawing on my previous work knowledge) and it involved travel - a lot of it.  I lived out of a suitcase, in a succession of hotel rooms in different countries, before settling in Poland where I had a good three years guaranteed work, and gave up on hotels.  Instead, I lived in rented apartments that were paid for by my employer, or more accurately the clients they placed me at.  The big house was sold, but the big profit we made swallowed up in debt repayment and financial settlement, and I haven't owned a house since - or indeed any other personal property in England. Nowadays I'm a fully fledged ex-pat, all my time spent abroad but with regular visits back home to see family and friends. It works fine for me, and I'm very happy.  This is especially true since my new life presented me with a new family, and my rented apartments gave way to a purchase of my own

It's not a house: in the city there were (still are) relatively few available and they are often prohibitively expensive.  As in most European cities, apartments are the favoured housing solution and for the past 15 years I've lived happily in an average sized place, bought new from the developer, in one of the southern suburbs, right next to a Metro station that gets me into the city centre in 15 minutes and by car to the airport in the same time. It's ideal, there is good shopping all round the neighbourhood, and a big network of cycle paths for exercise, including several kilometres through a decent sized forest 5km away. 

I'm used to apartment living now, and even though I've run the gamut of all the main houses Britain has to offer, apart from the really expensive luxury mansions (always way out of my league) I don't miss them, nor the expense that goes with them.  If I miss anything, it's having a garden to potter in, which brings this piece back to its starting point - the Tiny House.

In a few years now, my younger kids will be old enough to have places of their own - this apartment will be a start - as they start out on their own adult lives and careers.  Maybe the Tiny House will give me the opportunity to have a small place that I can enjoy with my Beloved, with a garden and less stuff: a proper downsize.  We've made a start already.  A few years back, we bought a smallish plot of land on a complex of similar plots close to the airport - such developments are very popular across Europe: I've seen them in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and all over Poland - that has lawns, flower beds, many trees (a very productive walnut tree in particular), electricity connection and mains running water.  We've put a decent sized cottage on it, a single room 10m x 10m, and added a brick patio, so right now it's perfect for weekends, barbecues with friends, catching some sun and just relaxing with clippers and a lawn mower.The place lacks a drainage system, so we're restricted to a camp chemical toilet, but that's ok - but it would not suit a permanent dwelling.  At least, not without doing a fair bit of work: there are many more or less permanent residents in the complex, so it's something we could do.

More likely is doing something similar elsewhere.  We also bought a decent double plot at a small seaside village here some years back, and still own it, but until now have not been able to do anything with it due to some planning restrictions.  We now have reason to believe these are no longer in force (or shortly to be removed) so this will open up the option of building something there.  We paid cash for the land so that's done - all we need is to build something on it and develop, essentially, a retirement home.  It appeals to me very much - only 400m from a lovely sandy beach via a woodland walk, and close to shops, restaurants and bars (busy in season, but the village is still undeveloped as the road and rail connections to that part of the Baltic coast have not been developed that much).  

So we'll see.  Maybe this time next year, Travellin' Bob will have his Tiny House by the sea that has frankly been an ambition for most of his adult life!  Or perhaps we'll go totally mad and buy a decent camper van, and become Silver Surfers, cruising the coasts of the Med and the Adriatic and the Aegean, a Tiny House on wheels........

Decisions, decisions......