Up until yesterday afternoon I had only seen the tiny house in pictures and drawings. Cedric and I went to the warehouse and I stood on the 2ftx2ft space that will eventually be our doorstep. Reality really hit me and I stood facing a space that surprised me with it's size. When we said tiny house, boy did we mean tiny! I had a moment of apprehension which was promptly flooded with excitement. Cedric showed me the windows and the wood he's found for the house and we discussed several details, including the layout of the kitchen and the dimensions of the bathroom. We plan to have workdays on the weekends when I am available to help so that I gain some understanding of the construction and what is going in to the house. Standing on the threshold of that soon to be doorstep, and my imagination, I recalled all the reasons for my choice in this venture with Cedric.
For some years now I have been coming in to an expanded awareness of my complete abhorrence of the environmentally damaging living patterns of my society. I am most interested in living off the land in a way that poses the least possible damage to the planet. A tiny house greatly reduces the footprint I make upon the world. With our goal of 90% reclaimed lumber and materials (windows, doors, fixtures, ect.) we hope to further diminish our impact by reusing materials that would otherwise go to the landfill. Our friend Rebecca is vital to this goal. We also envision the majority of the house powered with solar and wind energy, a composting toilet that requires no plumbing and the application of water catchment methods to provide a water supply. I can not imagine a better way to live up to my ideals. A smaller space is not only less of a burden environmentally but economically it is extremely frugal. No rent, hardly any bills and minimal maintenance are among other tantalizing reasons to choose this style of living.
After living and working on organic farms and realizing the impact my living makes on the land, I knew that the American style of suburban living and use of excessive resources was not what I wished for my life. I can not in good conscience continue to live in a way that destroys mother nature and my life goals include educating the next generations on the importance of changing our lifestyles. The population of the earth only continues to grow along with serious environmental impacts accompanied by resource conflicts and disastrous effects upon land and sea. I don't want to be a part of this cycle any longer. I want to wane my dependency on oil and the energy grid in this country. I find mining to be a deep offence to the earth and nuclear could be a viable and efficient option if disposal methods were properly conducted, however, we know that not to be the case. Why not use what is naturally given to us? Why not become more independent and less destructive? I can't find a reason not to so here we go, Cedric and I, on a journey to try and live a new consciousness, one that provides us with a deep sense of contentment that what we do in this lifetime reflects what we hope future generations will come to find enriching and rewarding lifestyles that respect the earth as well as provide rich experiences to the human race.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The Beginnings: Part I
Bienvenidos! Welcome! Bienvenue!
Cedric and Andrea here with the latest on our path to conscientious living on earth. This is our first blog entry and we expect most folks reading this will be family and friends but for all those others that visit we'll open in an overview of how the tiny house movement caught our attention.
We've lived in all sorts of situations, from single family farms in tiny villages, to international ideas factories in large towns, to olive orchards on isolated mountains and communal house sharing in the city. What brought us to this point? Here's a little history of our path to revelation that tiny house living was our next BIG adventure!
In 2009 we left for an adventure seeking out the rural life as volunteers in Europe, mostly Spain and Belgium (Cedric's home country), through an organization called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farm). We had an amazing 10 month experience living and working in all sorts of rural/urban settings learning to work the earth. The more we learned, the more we realized that a communal living situation was what we enjoyed the most. We discovered this when working with a wonderful group of catalunians in Montblanc, Spain. A group of young people were living and working communally to bring an organic CSA to their area. We stayed with them for 2 months and they inspired and helped us to realize the kind of living situation we most wanted. We returned to Charleston, SC excited to buy land and start a community farm of our own but slowly our ambition waned in the realization that those we wanted to work with were not committed. For several months we had an energetic slump bred of disillusionment, depression and the death of a few friendships. It was a really difficult time for us as individuals and as a couple but slowly we began the search for alternatives to our desire to work and live in community.
Tiny space living was not a new topic really but a continuation of a previous situation for Cedric. From infancy to three years of age he lived on a 38 ft steel sailboat his parents handbuilt. At 3 1/2 he moved back to Belgium and lived in several small apartments throughout Wallonia. Upon moving to the States at age 14 he entered a lifestyle based on excess and fiendishness, as is the American way. In 2005, after graduating from USC, Cedric rebuilt a 27 foot sailboat and lived on the Charleston Harbor til the beginning of 2008. His next living space was a 350 sq ft upstairs apartment in downtown Charleston. Now living in a 84 sq ft space, it just seemed like the next logical step to build a tiny house on wheels.
So that's Part I of our history into the tiny house movement. Look for part II later on this week pertaining to Andrea's discovery of why a tiny house could satisfy her sustainable, conscious living desires and her need for community and how the spark that launched enthusiasm, floor plans and renewed vision was inspired.
Cedric and Andrea here with the latest on our path to conscientious living on earth. This is our first blog entry and we expect most folks reading this will be family and friends but for all those others that visit we'll open in an overview of how the tiny house movement caught our attention.
We've lived in all sorts of situations, from single family farms in tiny villages, to international ideas factories in large towns, to olive orchards on isolated mountains and communal house sharing in the city. What brought us to this point? Here's a little history of our path to revelation that tiny house living was our next BIG adventure!
In 2009 we left for an adventure seeking out the rural life as volunteers in Europe, mostly Spain and Belgium (Cedric's home country), through an organization called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farm). We had an amazing 10 month experience living and working in all sorts of rural/urban settings learning to work the earth. The more we learned, the more we realized that a communal living situation was what we enjoyed the most. We discovered this when working with a wonderful group of catalunians in Montblanc, Spain. A group of young people were living and working communally to bring an organic CSA to their area. We stayed with them for 2 months and they inspired and helped us to realize the kind of living situation we most wanted. We returned to Charleston, SC excited to buy land and start a community farm of our own but slowly our ambition waned in the realization that those we wanted to work with were not committed. For several months we had an energetic slump bred of disillusionment, depression and the death of a few friendships. It was a really difficult time for us as individuals and as a couple but slowly we began the search for alternatives to our desire to work and live in community.
Tiny space living was not a new topic really but a continuation of a previous situation for Cedric. From infancy to three years of age he lived on a 38 ft steel sailboat his parents handbuilt. At 3 1/2 he moved back to Belgium and lived in several small apartments throughout Wallonia. Upon moving to the States at age 14 he entered a lifestyle based on excess and fiendishness, as is the American way. In 2005, after graduating from USC, Cedric rebuilt a 27 foot sailboat and lived on the Charleston Harbor til the beginning of 2008. His next living space was a 350 sq ft upstairs apartment in downtown Charleston. Now living in a 84 sq ft space, it just seemed like the next logical step to build a tiny house on wheels.
So that's Part I of our history into the tiny house movement. Look for part II later on this week pertaining to Andrea's discovery of why a tiny house could satisfy her sustainable, conscious living desires and her need for community and how the spark that launched enthusiasm, floor plans and renewed vision was inspired.
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