Magical World #18: Tiny tiny houses, and what it means to have enough

Tiny tiny houses expo in the library of Rotterdam

This month, the whole city of Rotterdam has events and expositions and festivals related to architecture. I only just found out, and already missed some of the fun. But there will be more events I'm hoping to attend. And this little expo, which was actually more tiny than I expected, is available at the Rotterdam central library for the whole month of June. And it's about the trend of building tiny houses.

The expo showed the models of the tiny homes and gave info on the design and the designers, how easy they are to build and what they cost. In Netherlands, buying a first home can be very tricky because the demand is very high, and so the prices are too. For some people tiny houses are a solution, but then again Dutch legislation (we have a lot of rules here) makes it difficult to find a place to build your tiny home. Now a few places are available, and this expo showed where these homes are now being put up and told a bit about people's experiences.

The tiny house models were exhibited in these glass containers, with some info on the models and the designers presented above. To the right is a map of the Netherlands with the five area's where people are currently living in tiny homes.

Living in a yurt

I had an afternoon for myself, so I wanted to go and do one of those architecture related things now available in the city - it wasn't a particular current interest in tiny houses that made me go there. But looking at these tiny tiny houses, I was reminded of our plans (which now seem to belong to another lifetime) to live in a yurt. My husband and I had actually looked into the topic seriously - we new which yurt we wanted, what stove, how we would arrange warming our water for showering, how we would decorate the inside, etc. That was maybe between 2012 and 2014. Everything we wanted, materials and information on how to arrange that way of living, was available. Where we got stuck was with finding a place to put the yurt.

We met up with some people who were actually living in a yurt, for example in one corner of a farmer's land and paying some rent - but they were doing it illegally. Like I said, many rules here in Netherlands. We didn't really mind the illegal part, but we had to find someone who had some land to spare who didn't mind either. We actually drove around quite a few lovely area's of our country and just rang doorbells and dropped our question. Which never resulted in us finding a place where we could stay.

This tiny house looked a bit more like a caravan to me. But the difference is that these tiny homes are designed for year round living.

Withdrawing from society

Before we succeeded in finding a place for a yurt, we spent time at a school for yoga and meditation, an ashram, in India. There I learned a perspective on life where spirituality has nothing to do with withdrawing from life, from people, from the world. But just the opposite - a perspective where the only way to evolve as a person is by being more and more involved with other people, and with the world. That new perspective made me realise how my interest in living in a yurt was partly based on my disinterest in regular life, that my desire to do things differently was based on disliking and rebelling against.

When I used my time in India to work on my anger and disappointment towards people and life in general, that need to do things differently and to withdraw from regular life dropped away. So after our second visit to the ashram in 2014, we bought our first home in Rotterdam. Which some might consider tiny, since we live on a 60 square meter area. But which has the benefit of very low living costs which I loved about the yurt. Actually, it is even better - the home originally had 90 square meters, but 30 of those we turned into a studio. The rent coming in from that easily covers the mortgage and our basic living expenses like water, gas, electricity, internet.

This design was called the revolver home. What I liked most about the model was the realistic figures of the couple and the cool minibus beside it.

Cognitions matter

So what's the difference between the earlier plans of living in a yurt, and the current situation of having no living expenses? As I said, only through what I learned in India could I later see that my plans of wanting to live in a yurt were based on wanting to escape from life - not being interested in society and how it was running, or in the people who were running in it. It's a mindset, or a cognition of withdrawal, of dislike, of resistance. My time in India made me see how our life will always reflect the cognitions we carry. Resistance and anger towards others are a complete denial of the truth that others are our extension, that the happiness of others and our own well-being are intimately connected.

On the other hand, our choice to move to Rotterdam and to build our own home and to have the studio too - those plans came from a mindset that everything was possible, that having abundance in life is simply a matter of carrying the right understandings. Experiencing abundance does not require years of hard work per se - abundance can be there for all of us, from the moment we remove our anger and resistance towards life. I don't know if I'm making any sense to you at this point. The shift in thinking that happened for me in India was very thorough, and the practical outcomes it got me are amazing. But putting it into words in a few sentences is a bit of a challenge ;).

Tiny house with a roof terrace.

Enough

What does it mean to have enough? I think the whole concept of tiny houses is appealing to many people, because they've found out that having a lot of stuff and a big house and the necessary mortgage comes with a lot of responsibility and possible distractions and restraints. It's the simplicity of the lifestyle that pulls us. And the interesting part is, that simplicity is it's own form of wealth.

For me, I'm very happy I found a way to have financial freedom in my housing situation, to have the simplicity of a relatively small living space. And now that my choice to live in a yurt or a tiny house is not based on anger and resistance towards society, I feel living in one could actually work for me. Which is not going to happen, because I love my home and the city of Rotterdam, where I am at the moment. Still, visiting this tiny expo about tiny tiny houses - it was lovely to see and to read about people being happy with their new housing situations, to be reminded of our plans for a yurt and about how lucky I am with my current housing situation. A fun afternoon activity - hope you enjoyed too!

This tiny house even looked a bit like a yurt - with its round shape and white colour.

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Magical World Series

This is post #18 in the Magical World Series. With these posts, I hope to add a little happiness and light-heartedness to your day. There is magic in every little corner of the world. And if we share it with each other, it does really brighten up the place!

Earlier posts in this series:

• Living someone else's life for a few days a week
• Archikidz Rotterdam, introducing children to architecture event
• Miniature Dutch country side
• Camping in the Belgian Ardennes
• Chessmen from all around the globe
• Streetart at Noordereiland, Rotterdam
• Visiting Villa Zebra, a museum for kids in Rotterdam

All content is created by me, and Steemit original. Camera: Nikon D90.
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