With apologies to Reba McEntire and her hit song, "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool", we were tiny house living when tiny house living wasn't cool.
If you watch HGTV and similar channels the latest rage is tiny house living, from "Tiny House Hunters" to "Tiny House Living" to "Tiny House Nation" to "Tiny House, Big Living" and so on. We watch some of those shows and while we admire the potential tiny house people for downsizing and being able to pay with cash because tiny houses are cheaper than full sized houses, especially the younger ones, but we just don't get it, especially when they want to take them on the road. Here is an example from the web.
Every once in a while they will take the potential buyers and show them an RV and occasionally they will end up with one but for the most part they get a real tiny house. Sometimes they will even build on a fifth wheel frame which makes more sense. Another one from the web showing a more stationary one.
While we admit that these tiny houses do look cool from the outside and with house type construction they are better insulated than RVs. One thing that we don't get in those type of homes though is the lack of closet space. In our "tiny house" we have a 6' closet across the front of the RV plus a dresser for clothes plus a linen closet. We also don't get the small kitchens, some with dorm sized refrigerators and hot plates for cooking and no counters. We have a full sized residential refrigerator with a gas burning cooktop and oven, an island with a dishwasher and lots of counter space. Here is a picture from Lifestyle RV showing our floorplan with all the stuff mentioned, and more.
We also don't get the bedrooms, most of them in lofts that you can hit your head after walking up a ladder. Our bedroom is three easy steps upstairs and has a king sized bed. Tiny houses built on fifth wheel frames do get better bedrooms. Here is a photo showing our bed and the closet behind the glass doors.
So if you are in the tiny house market, or like "puttin' peanuts in your coke", then consider a RV for more spacious living. Truly a condo on wheels. The great thing about the RVs available, and the tiny houses available, is that you can choose something that meets your needs. Depending on what is chosen a tiny house could be cheaper than a RV. Just make sure to consider not only how cool it is to downsize and how liberating it is to live on the road, you want to be comfortable when you are doing it.
"I'm just glad we are in a country where we're are all free to choose".
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Great blog, we don't get the boom in tiny house especially if you want to take it on the road, with so many RV choices made to travel safely.
ReplyDeleteGreat job of comparing the two. We watch the show a few times and don't get it either. We like our tiny home much much better. And, when we don't like the neighbors any more, we just move on. lol
ReplyDeleteNo TV (for over 40 years), so haven't seen that show... but that photo of your floor plan... just wondering... what's the size of your RV? We moved out of a 1 room house (furniture kind of designated "rooms") into a 27' RV with no slides. Somehow I've never thought of us as living in a tiny home.... However (I can hear the laughter as I write)... as a kid, I once used the top shelf of my closet as a bed, put my desk in part of the clothes space and "lived" there for a while. I had to share a room with my sister and wanted space of my own. Now, I think they actually make units like this... put probably a bit bigger than my closet when I was 10 years old. I think those tiny houses are kinda cute, but practical? Hmmmmm....
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