Living in a Tiny House With Kids
Most people would be surprised to find out how much I love living small. Less to clean, less to maintain, and lots of adventure.
One of the greatest struggles is finding personal space in our 40 foot converted school bus. The photo you are looking at is my son Bill, taking some quiet time up on his top bunk.
Because the roof is magnetic, he keeps his magnetic toys at an arms reach and spends many hours building from his bed. I have a curtain clipped up with magnets so he can make privacy, too.
His sister has a small space behind our shower where she has a fuzzy rug to Play on, a meditation pillow, and a hammock. She too has a privacy curtain for alone time.
If I am having a moment, need to rest, or want privacy, I take solace in the bottom bunk and pull the curtain for that area
Other than privacy, the next biggest issue is burning off energy. It's hard to run the kids' energy out in a small space, so our solution is lots of time outside. This isn't really different from when we lived in a farmhouse or apartment.
Because we cosleep, unschool, and attachment parent, the small space in many ways has made my life more simple. Now that we have fully "moved in" (it took 2.5 years to declutter and weed out enough to feel like we fit), our day to day mess is small and easy to contain.
Someday when I can afford a maid I will probably want to start upgrading to small destination homes in areas that I frequently visit (Galveston, Kansas City, etc...), but for now the 40 foot bus is working great. I love tiny house living and am not sure what on earth I would do with a bigger space right now!
I know what you mean about the time to declutter to such living! When we first moved into our 28ft bus with our toddler-at-the-time it used to take us 45 minutes to 'make ready to travel' and 'make the place ok to live in' with the hallways full to beyond knee deep in stuff.
I enjoyed your tale - I reminisced. There's something that's manageable about tight living like that. We spent 4 years living in a yurt and a the bus for some of it with out kids, until we lost the land we were on and had to take a house for a while.
Our 2 (now 4) children really struggled as they had no concept of 'garden' or needing to restrain themselves out of respect for neighbours rights to enjoy their spaces too.
It was a painful adjustment to move back into boxes from the lovely round of the yurt and its blazing fire. We used to find the same thing - people would ask if we would get cold, and while it may be cold in the morning 'til the fire gets going, we could be naked, doors open in the snow outside because it was so hot!
We homeschool too so interested to hear what you get up to, though I've not blogged about that at all yet - really new on here.
I must admit, I don't really add many personal pictures on social media and whatnot and I've seen a lot of lovely personal family stuff on Steemit, but haven't felt like going there yet myself.
I want to hear more about your experiences!!!!! Please tell more <3
Goodness me! Where to start! Would you like to hear about bus life or Yurt life? :D I never thought about blogging about those experiences as there are always so many others who do it so much better than I did... other than the decking on the roof of our bus... that was an awesome move I've not seen others do and it s a GREAT way of securing private space for your family when in strange towns...
I always used to find it difficult to relax outside the bus as it always felt like it was outside someones home, or in a public street, but the deck on the roof with some chairs? people either cheered us or pretended we were invisible.. .it was great! made a rough 'pirate style' throwover ladder for the kids and had a couple of awesome summers with it there... never got round to putting the little herb garden up there, but I wanted to! :D
We currently are living in a camper on our land while we build our home. I love having the kids always in ear shot. It really helps the family stay connected.
Will you keep and travel in the camper when the house is done? I will build or buy a house one day, but it will probably be small and I will have several to travel between. Where is your land?
How insulated is your home? Do you travel to warm climates so that heating is less than a concern?
Homeschooling seems like the right choice these days to raise children to be independent and free thinking. Great job @catherinebleish!
The heat is a bigger issue than the cold. We have a propane buddy heater. In the summer the metal bus becomes a hot oven, so we are used to inside temps in the 90s, I hope to travel north for summer this year to avoid such high heat!!!!
If we removed some windows like other bus conversions it would be more insulated. We have insulation in the walls and floors, but definitely could be imoroved if we were to start from scratch again.
When it was below freezing last week we used the buddy heater during the day and heater blankets at night.
At least in the warmer months, you can spend a lot of your time outside. :-) Of course, in a small space it is easier to heat in the winter!
P.S. We don't have AC in our old farmhouse, so I understand HOT summers. Even with the fans on in every room, afternoons are usually "cooler" outside.
Take care and stay warm!