Tuesday, April 22, 2014

It is Fun to Dream - Microhomes

As I prepare to retire I have been thinking about ways that I will have to live on less, a lot less. Well, that is not quite true, I know how to make six figures when I retire; but, I think I need to take some time off completely. I always knew I would go back to being a minimalist and a hermit. My ex and kids knew it too. My siblings never real saw it.

In law school I lived in a very small studio apartment in one of the worst parts of town and I loved it. I had mini-fridge, a hot plate, a bathroom and a fold out couch. It may have been a whopping 150 square feet. I didn't own a television and only had a radio, there were no personal computers. I didn't have a phone and there were no cell phones. I read a lot and enjoyed the peace and quiet. For awhile, my-exwife, my stepchild and me all lived in it together and it worked okay.

After the divorce I lost a lot of stuff and my 2,700 square foot home. Since then I have lived in a quarter of the space and it feels very roomy. When not cooking I tend to use only a couple of hundred square feet. When you spend most of your time reading and writing, you don't really need a lot of space.

All of this has caused me to follow the tiny home movement. Basically it is people building and moving into 250 square foot spaces. It is the wave of the future as times only get harder in America. I regret to say that many children will never know the job of having the privacy of having your own room. I didn't know that privacy till I was 18, I always shared a room with my brother till then. That was okay too; but, there is something special about getting your own space.

Anyways, there is a movement called tiny homes and it looks good for me. So, I have been watching these videos about different tiny homes and evaluating what amenities do and do not matter to me. I was a cabinet maker long ago and am fantasizing about making my own tiny home and towing it to different places as I have the opportunity to do. I am even thinking of doing something very original using a compound that nobody else has considered that was created for NASA. There is a company that sought to hire me once that made such compound.

What I am doing is enjoying thinking about all the different ways I could build a tiny home for me and make it the most inventive tiny home ever. One of the problem I have with most tiny homes is that they put the beds in lofts which require you to climb a ladder. It does not seem very handicapped or elderly friendly and I am aging. I saw a Canadian guy who put his bed on the first and only floor, he said he drank a lot and didn't want to fall down. He made it a pull out bed that also functioned as a couch. There are some pretty smart people thinking about tiny homes and trying to consider as much as they can. I think I might be able to add to that conversation and might enjoy doing so.

Microhomes, my future and retirement. Questions that are on my mind. With each one of the questions, I feel freer.