No tiny house for me

I’m fascinated by the tiny-house trend. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’re probably aware of the growing interest in downsizing one’s home to the size of a food truck. Lilliputian residences are showing up in magazine articles and even reality TV shows. The dinky dwellings are kind of cute: I could imagine one in my family room.

Some tiny houses carry torpedoes

The tiny-house enthusiasts are ingenious in finding creative ways to miniaturize a lifestyle. I marvel at the discipline of people who can fit an entire wardrobe into a gym locker and bathe in a coffin-sized bathroom. Tiny houses have come a long way since the  Unabomber pioneered the trend in the 1990s. But picturesque and stylish as they are, they look about as comfortable as the crew’s quarters on a submarine and could get tiresome for long-term living.

I am not tempted to move into a tiny house because I grew up in a tiny apartment in Chicago. Our family of four lived in three rooms on the third floor until I was 12 years old. My parents unfolded a sofa bed in a living room that also contained an upright piano, a chest of drawers with fold-down desk and a chair or two. A corner of the room next to the radiator was my favorite place to read in the winter.

My younger brother and I occupied a small bedroom with bunk beds, and we could all fit around the kitchen table with a little squeezing. Somehow, there was enough room for everything we owned in a couple of closets and a storage enclosure in the building’s basement.

The apartment didn’t feel that small at the time, at least not from a child’s perspective, but in retrospect I marvel at my parents’ ability to create a comfortable home in minimal space. We were by no means poor, but living small was what many families did in the 1940s and 50s when it took years to save up the down payment for a house.

I was grateful to leave that apartment and have lived in a succession of bigger houses ever since. I have no desire to live in a mansion but my four-bedroom house is just the right size for me, the cats and the occasional house guest. I rarely use my living room and formal dining room, but the space will come in handy next week when I host a social club dinner for 20 people.

Eventually I may move to a smaller home or condo as age catches up with me. But my next house definitely won’t be tiny.