Truth, there.
Concentrate not on the specifics but the principles. I personally have all sorts of reasons why I would not enjoy a living space like Graham Hill's, so I've chosen the different approach of several people sharing, all keeping a minimalist discipline — this enables the same principles to be lived by different means.
Here's another way of approaching the same basic idea — the Simply Home community in Portland, Oregon — and again here.
The central thesis holds good, I think — that editing is the skill for this century. Check out the many Sharing Systems ideas on Graham Hill's LifeEdited.
graham hill's style is not quite homely enough for me. when i see the photos you post of your own home, that seems just about perfect! we each have our own way of living out our minimalism. our condo is, in my opinion, much too large. we have about 2000 sq. ft. 1000 up and 1000 down. my husband fills up the downstairs, every inch of it. upstairs, i could easily live in half. so 500 sq. ft. would feel perfect to me. the extra space (guest room with en suite and large living room) could be eliminated. we only have guests about once a year so we could simply put them up in a nearby hotel. why have all that room that rarely gets used? tiny houses are great as long as you don't have any disabilities. those of us who are older are going to need some amenities that younger folks might not. otherwise, sign me up!
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to notice that, as tiny houses become more popular, ladders to the sleeping loft seem to be going out of vogue. More people are choosing those stairs that are like Japanese storage chests, like these: http://www.homedesignfind.com/furniture-2/tansu-chests-practical-storage-stairs-from-ancient-japan/
ReplyDeleteWin-win, I think — they look nicer, they're safer and easier to go up and down, and they give you that necessary storage.
On space and husbands — my husband also needs much more space than I do. In our case this has to do with the great disparity in our physical flexibility; I am hyper-mobile and his body doesn't bend much at all. That means I only need a bed — I have difficulty sitting in a dining-style chair at a table or desk. I work sitting on my bed with my laptop on a shoe-box (in which I store underwear) beside me. I don't need (indeed cannot really use) tables and chairs. He, by contrast, can't manage without. So he really does need a desk and properly supportive office chair, a properly supportive armchair to relax in, and a proper bed. He also has more formal relationships in his life (going to the office in London etc), so needs the kind of clothing that must be ironed (so he needs an iron and ironing board) and hung up (so he needs a wardrobe). My clothes are all made of stretchy stuff — t-shirts, cardigans, knitted skirts, stretch jeans, a micro-fibre gilet — so they can equally well hang up or be stored folded on a shelf. To some degree this is planned in my case as part of my burrowing down into minimalism, but there are also issues to do with how we are made physically that make a difference. His room is twice as big as mine. His also has a double bed, because it's nice to sleep snuggled up together some of the time.