From the experience of living in our Tiny House with my husband since Dec last year, I have devised a few tips to help you with living more happily in your Tiny House with a partner.
Lights When designing your Tiny Home, I think it is a good idea to make sure that the lights above loft can be separate to the lights above living space. If you or your other half wish to go to bed before the other, you can turn off the light in the loft, and your partner can still have the lights on in the lounge. I have many times gone to bed before Jake, and being able to darken the loft has been awesome. It really feels like it separates the two areas. If you are super sensitive to light you can also wear an eye mask, however for me personally, I struggle to sleep with something attached to my face. 2 way light switches where you can control the lights in the loft and downstairs is also a good way to avoid the debate on who has to go downstairs and turn off the lights! Headphones Investing in a pair of noise cancelling headphones/ear plugs (or any good headphones) can make living in a small space with someone else that much more enjoyable. If you like to watch individual programs, or one person is in relax mode, and the other person is in DIY mode for example, you can block it all out! Have your own space! Have separate spaces in your Tiny House where you can just chill by yourself if you want to. Be it at a desk, on the couch, in the loft. Have a retreat area just for you. You'll be living in close proximity to your other half, which is nice for the most part, but having your own space keeps it from being "too much of a good thing..." My space is in the loft, and Jake's got the couch in the lounge. He has never been forced to sleep on it, so we must be doing something right! ;) ;). I have medical conditions that put me in bed a lot, so naturally my space ended up in the loft, however you can really create loft areas to be great hang out spaces. I have recently seen designs where the second loft has a full on desk and chair, and also a beanbag. Another design had a TV, and a bunch of cushions to cuddle up on. Something to think about when you are designing your own Tiny House. Laundry Try and stay on top of laundry! Some onto it people have limited clothes in their Tiny Houses, so they don't have many clothes to store, and reuse clothes until they really need to wash them. We on the other hand, both sometimes work with wood, Jake every single day #tradielife. So sometimes go through a couple outfits a day, and as it is super muddy at the moment on the land where we are parked, our clothes generally only make single use. Someone recently suggested overalls which may be a good idea... if I could convince Jake to wear them. If you do not keep on top of washing, you may trip up over it. In our home, we don't have much room or many spots to store dirty clothes. So, if we let it slide by a for a few days (which I'm not going to lie, it does happen!), it ends up taking up space in the kitchen or bathroom, of which we keep needing to slide out the way to access things. Sometimes it is inevitable when the laundry stacks up, for example when I have a few crook days in a row, or if there is something wrong with power/water supply. Fortunately, we have managed to fit a full size washing machine in our house (I'd fully recommend this), so it's not too hard to catch up, and if we do keep up with washing, we can store dirty laundry inside it until it's full, and then put it on. Laundry Pulley Rack Now you have your laundry sussed, you need somewhere good to dry it. If it's summer, it's no problem, you could just hang outside. If it's winter and you haven't got a decent covered outdoor area, then you need to dry your clothes inside. If you use the standard drying racks, it will take up so much of your living space. We have been there done that, and it literally eats up your hang out area, and walk about space. We even had guests over once, my clothes were still wet, and it was pouring with rain, so I couldn't take the rack down or put it outside. The guests could hardly reach the couch, and had to sit on the stairs. Not cool... in comes the pulley rack idea. I'd seen a couple about and they were super expensive, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard to make. I was right, and we were able to make one quite affordably out of Jake's wood scraps and disassembling a bike pulley system. If you want to make one, I put up some instructions here about how we did it. This freed up all the living space, dried our clothes much faster, and got the clothes out of eye level. I'm much less embarrassed to have clothes drying up in the roof, out of the way, than people tripping over clothes horses in the living room! Since we are washing clothes all the time, we constantly have clothes drying, so the clothes horse just wasn't going to cut it! Clothes Storage Have your clothes in an easy accessible place without having to disturb your partner in the mornings. If you have to climb over your significant other to grab your clothes, chances are you have chosen a bad spot to put your clothes, and it will soon get old. Unless you just get used to it.. We have ours in custom sized loft drawers that we made. The drawers can easily open, and you can access them without climbing over each-other. Stair's is also a good place to store clothes or in a downstairs closet. Hand Sanitiser or Rinse Free Soap If you have a water pump because you are off-grid, you will note that the pump can be quite noisy. If you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, running the tap may just wake up your partner. A simple solution to this issue is simply having on hand some hand-sanitiser, or rinse free soap. No need for water, no chance of waking up your partner. Also, if you are someone who may get thirtsy in the middle of the night, have a prefilled water bottle handy! Compost Loo I suggest choosing a loo which you don't have to empty every week, which is most standard bucket systems. It will get old quickly, unless it's a task that doesn't both you, in which case ignore what I said. We have a composting toilet that lasts around 2-3 weeks before requiring emptying, and even that feels like it comes round rather quick! If you can take turns between who empties it each time, that would be the ideal situation. Instead of the "whoever is the last to use it when it's full empties it", it's a competition, you don't want to push to the limits! Those are a few tips which I feel could make your lives in a Tiny House with someone better, obviously we are all different, and these are suggestions based on my own experiences, what suits us may not suit you. Take out of it what you want. If you have any other suggestions to add, please comment below. |
AuthorHi, I'm Kasia, and I'm living in a Tiny House with my husband Jake and so far loving it. It does come with it's adventures! Blog posts
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