Priorities

I've recently watched a few episodes of some popular tiny house shows, and one thing that is clear to me is that everyone has certain items that they own that they are not quick to relinquish. From shoes to unusual hobby equipment to sentimental pieces, everyone seems to have at least one special thing that they don't want to give up.

It's easy to watch and say that these people are crazy for thinking they can keep these things in such a small space, but the truth is that I think we all have those significant items that are meaningful enough to us that we find a way to make room for them despite the storage cost.

I honestly think that is okay. Even in a tiny house.

The key is to prioritize and cleverly organize whatever stays.

Every item in a small home takes up room that cannot be used by something else.

I've already mentioned on here a few of the bigger items we keep around because they are important to us.

Chris has an extensive retro gaming collection that we have finally figured out a good, affordable, compact way to store. We purchased two of these little tables at IKEA, and we keep them up in the loft. They are the perfect size for holding consoles on the shelves and game cartridges and accessories underneath. We store an entire Guitar Hero set under a long table beside our couch. We also have an extensive table top game collection that monopolized our dining room for two years, but we were clearly loathe to get rid of any of it. It now happily lives in the loft as well.

In addition, I have two slow cookers that I give up valuable cabinet space to store, but I love them so much that it's worth it to me. We also have a full size dishwasher without which I would be lost.

We do try to limit the number of children's books that we own in favor of making use of our local library, but books are an important part of our lives, so we have managed to find little shelves and bins here and there throughout our house to hold them. Other books are more scarce with physical copies of only a few of our favorites, like the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings and Narnia as well as our Bibles; the rest are limited to e-books and library loans.

Our daughters have a toy kitchen, and it's often caused me trouble trying to figure out where to place it. Because it's an item that they both actually use, and since it's a pretty small kitchen that doubles as storage for their play pots and pans, we make it work.

On the other hand, we do have to make sacrifices to keep these items around. We own a small vacuum and no broom. We have never had a high chair, just a booster seat that either attaches to a folding chair or simply sits on the floor. We definitely don't have a changing table! We don't have a bathtub. We don't have a full or queen bed, just a sofa bed in the living room. (The girls have their own beds in the bedroom.) We also don't have a toaster or a coffee maker (neither of us drinks coffee).

It's all a balancing act, and it comes down to priorities.

We make room in our lives and our home for the things that are important to us. Living tiny doesn't change that, it just magnifies it.

We have to give a lot more thought to what is meaningful enough for us to sacrifice other possessions in order to keep. The end result is that we dwell in a house surrounded by a few things that we truly love and not a lot else.

It's really not a bad way to live.