You might be excited to return to campus after a summer of…internships, summer classes, summer jobs, idleness. You’re probably already planning adventures you’ll have with your dearest friends and anticipating your impending success in all endeavors.  But there’s one thing you might not be so excited about…like most college students (okay, person under the age of 30), you probably call a very small living space “home.”

The cramped quarters of dorm-rooms or houses converted to hold 12 people is a basic and unavoidable part of the college experience.  But take heart – your lifestyle is actually the latest globe crossing trend.  Yep, from city-dwellers in Japan to middle-class couples in the Catskills – people want to live small.

Take Sandra Foster.  In an interview with The New York Times, she describes the joy of renovating and furnishing a 9′ x 14′ Victorian cottage. Undeniably Shabby Chic, this secluded adult clubhouse features exquisite details like a loft bed swathed in white, a crystal chandelier, and Limoges china.  While she doesn’t live in the space year round (it lacks heat and plumbing) it was the answer to a crisis of space. Foster and her husband had purchased a roomy farmhouse to renovate when they married but its size gave more pain than pleasure.

“The huge house was half renovated, the life was killing me”…Their great big farmhouse, they realized, was ruining their lives.

So they traded down.  A smaller house with separate spaces for husband and wife left each of them happier and more fulfilled.

Elsewhere around the United States, other homeowners express similar desires for a more intimate living space.  In an NPR piece tellingly titled “Do-It-Yourself Downsizing“, the trend was described as anything but tiny.  In fact,

The only thing tiny about the tiny house movement is the size of the houses themselves. There are a slew of websites devoted to the scene, and tiny house evangelists based in California and Vermont are busy traveling around North America helping people build these little homes.

Meanwhile, in Japan, tiny-house dwellers aren’t looking for a relaxation space, but rather architectural eye-candy that actually is their full-time home.  Another NPR story on the topic of tiny homes describes them to be as small as 300 square feet.  Designers of these structures have to rely on their own creativity to solve problems like lack of privacy and storage space, and the psychological impact of such small spaces.  They’re aided by new construction materials and methods to create rather luxurious settings (especially when compared to the more rustic incarnations found in the United States).

Suddenly you realize you can ‘do something’ with that 10′ x 16′ room in Newberry.

-B.C.Bodnar

(and my thanks to KB for sending the link & sharing the space!)