To enjoy independence with the home on the trailer, Tiny House owners hope for. But how is it really? They also face the reality of life.
Thank goodness that Marco is right-handed. If it were the other way around, it would be difficult for him to operate his computer mouse. Because his workplace is a pedestal on the floor. There, the computer scientist sits with his laptop on his lap, right next to him the stairs lead up to the sleeping area, the steps serve him for hand and mouse.
For one and a half years, Marco, his wife Kaya and two dogs live in their Tiny House. This means 18 square meters of living space including bathroom, kitchen and living room. Sleeping is in the “loft” – so Tiny House owners call the extra level, 192 centimeters above the ground, which creates an additional five square meters of living space, except that you just can not stand on it. “Six square meters remain in the living room to run,” Marco calculates, but the 35-year-old and his wife have no problem with the fact that they can walk in their house only a few steps.
Without water and electricity no Tiny Home
Tiny Houses, these tiny homes, promise cuddly togetherness in freedom, away from rent increases and annoying neighbors ringing at the wrong time to pick up their packages. The Tiny Home Movement from the USA has long been swarming over to us.
In Germany, there are now manufacturers that offer complete Tiny Homes. On their advertising flyers you can see radiant homeowners in chic mini houses sitting on the corner sofa. It just should not give the impression that life in the carton has something to do with expropriation out of poverty. And indeed: cheap Tiny Homes are not exactly. From 25,000 euros are usually made of wood four walls to have, depending on the equipment, the limit is open to the top.
But no matter whether Danish Design or Eco-Stube: In Germany, the dream of owning a home can be a maximum of 4 meters high and 2.55 meters wide and must stand on a trailer. And anyone who thinks he can settle down with his Tiny House where he pleases is mistaken. In Germany, the house-hold trailers may only be on construction or private land and must have access to water and electricity – domestic infrastructure without which even Tiny Home residents can not cope.
Drop 80 percent ballast
If you do not want to land hard on the ground of Tiny Reality, it’s best to do it like Marco and his wife: their wooden house stands on the trailer in the garden of a friend’s house in Lower Saxony. In the middle of the country, the two enjoy nature, along with their three horses.
If the space problem remains: Where with all the things that you have accumulated even in a small apartment? Tiny home owners have no choice but to practice minimalism. Max and his girlfriend Noreen, Tiny House owners in Brandenburg have thrown away, sold or given away 80 percent of the ballast of their old lives. The decision to exchange a Berlin 80-square-meter apartment for a 28-square-meter house on a trailer, fell with the basement sample: “If you do not touch the things in the basement for months, that means you do not need them.”
For many people, living in a confined space would be punishment rather than profit – not so for Marco and Kaya. “After the first winter we sat together and found that instead of 6 meters house length would have done 4.5 meters.” Not to believe, but true: “In such small houses, one is forced to resolve conflicts, it makes the relationship much nicer if there is no fat air.”
Nevertheless, the Tiny House adventure of Marco and Kaya is soon over. The two got a small daughter and will move to a small house without wheels in Thuringia. Your Tiny House have advertised on a classifieds page and are confident to sell it soon: 3,000 people have already viewed the good piece online.