I’ve always loved the idea of tiny houses. I love the way everything fits together like a puzzle, the thoughtfulness that goes into functionality and design. I love that tiny houses are the antithesis of the “more and bigger” mentality that pervades our culture, that smaller living spaces save money and energy and preserve habitat.
Ten years ago, I moved into my future husband’s 673 square foot home. Though not a tiny home, it’s a small one by US standards. This home has three rooms: a vaulted-ceiling living room/kitchen, a sizable bathroom/laundry room, and an adequate bedroom with a pretty big closet. I love the neighborhood and the transit options, and while it took some finegaling to make room for me and my stuff, we eventually made it feel comfortable and functional-ish there. When I had an editing job, I worked at the kitchen table, and when I tutored, I was able to use the community room nearby.
Then the pandemic happened, and we both needed to work from home. My husband worked in the living room, and we squeezed a tiny desk into the bedroom between the foot of the bed and the dresser for me. My part-time job at the elementary school went remote, and I know Bradley could hear every word of my phonics lessons as I attempted to teach reading over Zoom.
We needed office space. Bradley’s job stayed remote two days a week even after sheltering-in-place lifted, and the kitchen table was not a good long-term solution. We started to think about moving more seriously. I didn’t want a big place. “Just one more room,” I kept saying. Just an additional office/guest room. I certainly had no desire to clean more than one bathroom.
But when three-bedroom places came up on Zillow, my ideas started to evolve. What if I had an office too? What if I had a dedicated room where I could edit and tutor rather than making it work at the kitchen table? What if that room had a permanent space for physical therapy, so I wasn’t always trying to use the bed or floor? Beds are not an ideal surface, and the floor is hard to get down to and up from, and, let’s face it, usually needs vacuuming. It doesn’t take much of a deterrent to stop me from doing something I don’t actually want to do, and I was far from consistent with my PT.
A three-bedroom place for two people? Was it ridiculous, wasteful, upsizing so much? I struggled to justify the increased load on the planet, but still dreamed. Bradley could have a room that was just his, for work and hobbies, without having to shove everything into a closet when guests came. I could have a multi-purpose room to meet all my needs, which could also be a guest room when needed. Our bedroom would be just for sleeping. It sounded positively magical.
On July first this year, my husband and I moved from a 673 square foot home to a 1023 square foot one. Though it is far from our dream home, our 1969 three-bedroom two-bath house feels so big. There’s even an attached two-car garage. What a luxury. In order to have both a PT table (a queen platform bed with a mattress topper and foam gym tiles atop it), and a tutoring table, I get to have the primary bedroom as my office, and it feels completely extravagant and special. There was already a built-in desk, so I don’t even have to clear away my computer and piles of papers when it’s time to tutor.
There’s been a lot to adapt to in this house. The two bathrooms are both small and a bit awkward to maneuver in. Maneuverability is important when you need to pee. Grab bars went into the shower stall in one and around the bathtub in the other. We had remodeled our previous bathroom to take out the bathtub and have a barrier-free shower, but I must admit that I enjoy taking a bath and that it feels a lot safer to wash my hair sitting down than standing in the shower stall. (I’ve never liked the idea of a shower chair, and even if I did use one, the shower is so small here that there’s barely room, and nowhere to put it when someone else showers.)
There are steps to get into the house and steps down into the garage, which is where the laundry is. Laundry has always been a very laborious task for me and now I have fancy front loaders that came with the house. My legs find it excruciating to bend and crouch when removing laundry from the machines and this is something I hope will get better with time. My husband added a handrail to the garage stairs right away, and we managed to fit a storage bench in front of the laundry machines, so that I can kinda sit while crouching and reaching, though room for the washer’s open door means the bench is far away from it.
Perhaps one of the hardest things to adjust to after moving to this side of town is the lack of transit options. At our old place, a bus stop with four bus lines was steps from our house. Here, while the bus stop is close, there is only one line that serves this neighborhood. And there’s nowhere to sit while waiting. Transit riders know that taking buses is generally much slower than driving, at least in smaller towns, so we factor lots of travel time (and wait time) into our daily lives. But this particular bus line is not designed to connect to many others, so I either just miss the next bus I need, or wait 20-30 minutes for it. Or I take one bus and walk 30 minutes, which is exhausting. I recently had a twenty-minute appointment that ended up taking me four total hours to get to and from by myself. If you’re wondering why I don’t drive, you can read the About Danielle page. I also don’t want to spend money on a rideshare service when transit is free for people with disabilities, and I believe in it and want it to be better. (I wrote a letter after that four-hour debacle.)
The goal of this post is not to complain about all the new and inaccessible things I have to adjust to after moving. Rather, it’s to recognize that we are still the same people that we were before we moved. Obvious? Maybe. People (especially this person) tend to dream and then fixate on their fabricated logic: If we had more room, we’d actually have a place to put XYZ. If I had an office, maybe I’d write more/be more productive. If I didn’t have to get down on a dirty rug, I’d stretch more. When we move to a quieter neighborhood (living next to a busy bus stop has its cons), I’ll sleep better and have more energy. Et cetera.
It didn’t take me long to realize that, yes, more space is truly a wonderful gift that I’m so grateful for, and despite that gift, we are still fundamentally the same. I did not transform into some elevated version of myself. We still leave our mail in a neglected pile, still have ever-evolving drifts of crap on our tiny dining room table. (Our additional 350 square feet does not mean there’s a better dining area.) There are still phone calls to avoid making, and odds and ends to avoid unpacking. There are still endless dishes and endless laundry that we don’t stay on top of. Why do humans need to eat so often? And wear so many clothes?
Existing and functioning still feels really hard, even with more space.
There’s so much that I love and don’t love about our new house, just as there was so much I loved and didn’t love about our old house. That’s how life goes, if you’re lucky.
And so I continue to tutor, at my dedicated tutoring table. I continue to provide my perspective as a sensitivity reader, at my built-in desk. I continue to do PT and meditate on my “therapy table.” I continue to be grateful that my living room is now separate from my kitchen. I continue to marvel at how much safer I feel emptying the dishwasher in a narrower kitchen. I am here, still me, in a new environment, making it through the days, living in an ever-constant stew of fatigue and gratitude.
What Happened to Your Legs? 