Good morning, everyone and welcome to Saturday’s Morning Open Thread.
Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
Join us, please.
I’m interested in economical living and flourishing in a manageable and minimally-damaging footprint. And I’ve been a builder most of my life (even when I worked other jobs to pay the bills). So, the Tiny House movement has been an interest of mine long before the movies and television shows commercialized the market. In a recent Wired article, “What Ever Happened to the Tiny House Movement?,” Eve Andrews does a great job tracing the movement’s origins, traditions, usurpation by ever-changing instagram-esque cultural currents, a faux cutting edge mystique, and practical issues facing the structures themselves as well as the lifestyle. It’s a good read if you have a few minutes.
I’ve worked on dozens of houses and been part of building several from the foundation up. What is difficult for me to grasp isn’t the fact of living in under five- or six-hundred sq. ft. (about 46-56 m2)—my present home of 10 years measures under 800 sq.ft.—or the fact that living in homes under two- or three-hundred square feet is illegal in many places, it’s the fact that construction of these homes can cost in the $450 to $500 a square foot range. That’s expensive, folks: a 300 sq. ft. home at the low end of that estimate will run you $135,000.00. And land is not included in that price. Like all movements, though, there are good aspects that we can benefit from as a community—we just have to look for them.
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Happy Saturday!
My hope for the day is that each of you celebrates life in one way or another and finds peace in these turbulent times. Be well, be kind, and appreciate the love you have in your life.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?
