A few years ago, I left my big house, downsizing.

OK. Not quite.

Sure, the old house had six floors, six bedrooms, playroom, office, dining room, kitchen… the whole shebang. With one resident- me. It was still the family home, but the family grew up- and out.

It took a while to get rid of stuff. Four beds, four bedroom suites. Goodwill and Salvation Army took them away. Along with more than four thousand books. My technical library went to two universities that wanted my historical texts- including some of the first Chem E textbooks ever written.

Not to mention filled trash bins. And, bags of trash.

Even so, I have way more downsizing to do. It’s a never-ending battle. Not only because I plan to move one more time, but because this smaller abode of mine lacks space.

My kitchen is literally 1/4 the size of my last one. Sure, I don’t keep the Pesach (Passover) stuff in locked cabinets in the kitchen. But, I still have almost four sets of dishes. Four sets of silverware. Plus food. Yes, that kitchen is cramped. And, filled with stuff I need to discard.

See, that’s the thing about downsizing- or living in a tiny house. Sure, it may be less expensive to buy/live in one. And, they may do wonders for lowering our carbon footprint.

What happens if you are family of four? If this were a tiny home, one would feel they were living in a prison cell.

But, I’m not in a tiny home- mine’s slightly bigger. It even claims to have three bedrooms. First of all, all three of those bedrooms would fit into the master bedroom of the house I gave up. Secondly, the ‘third’ bedroom would be more aptly described as a walk-in closet.

Although the walk-in closet may have more room.

Then, there’s no room to store anything. So, you spend lots of time evaluating what you need to discard to save something new. The concept of smaller homes is to eschew consumerism. But, teeny homes force one to adopt a ‘buy, then purge’ cycle. Which is consumerism on steroids.

Or, deciding you need to own only clothing that works for four seasons. Because there’s no room to have two sets of clothes.

What about towels, sheets, pillowcases? Where do they go?

Not to mention- where do you store luggage for when you travel.

You certainly can’t shop at Costco or BJ’s. Because there’s no place to store 12 rolls of paper towels or 18 rolls of toilet paper.

There’s also hidden issues.  These smaller homes can’t handle largish fridges. So, you only cook enough for the meal at hand. Because there’s no room in the tiny fridge to store leftovers. Or, to buy steak or chicken or fish when it’s on sale. After all, the freezer only has room for an ice cube tray and two or three other items.

Are you beginning to see the fallacy of tiny homes?

Wait- there’s more.  What happens if you are supposed to work from home? Where would you do that? (One of the reasons I live where I do is because this smallish abode has a good place for me to work. [No, it’s not that walk-in closet. I have claustrophobia.])

Then, given the small space- if there are three or four folks in the home, the sofa gets overused. While the average sofa lasts about 7 years- maybe 15, if you’re lucky, a sofa that’s used every day by two or more folks won’t last through a presidential election cycle.

Don’t even bother talking to me about a 150 square foot house. Not that they exist in Metropolitan DC, unless they are situated on the plot or a larger home. Where the goal is to keep mom or dad in close proximity. (And, where the kids store the towels, sheets, clothes that mom or dad need as spares, lacking the room in that teeny space.  As far as I can tell, that’s the primary market for these teeny homes- abodes for mom or dad.)

Because, there’s also the problem of finding a tiny home in metropolitan areas (unless you are living in one on your kids’ property).

Where I live these 600 to 900 square foot homes start at almost 1/2 million dollars.

Really!