Although tiny houses are often viewed as ideal dwellings for singles or couples, there are many families living in tiny houses with kids. Ours is one of them.
We have lived in a 350 square foot tiny house with two children, now ages 5 and 8, for three years.
Living in a tiny house with kids has its pros and cons, and I’ll tell you honestly that there are days that I adore living in our tiny home, and days that I dream of the addition we may someday build.
Living in a tiny house with kids requires an extraordinary amount of creativity, patience, flexibility, and organization. Kids are natural collectors and love to display their collections prominently.
They are also blessed with incredible energy and enthusiasm for new projects (many of which involve paper and glue!). My husband and I don’t fret over dust and spider webs, but we do love a neat and well-organized home.
I’ve found that a few general rules help us co-exist relatively peacefully with our kids in a tiny house:
- Everything has a place, and at the end of the day, all items go back to their place.
- Cleaning up, and regular purging of unwanted or unused items is just what we do as a family.
- Loud voices and big movements go outside, where running, building forts, and mud play are all encouraged!
Living in a tiny house with kids also means that spaces have more than one purpose.
For instance, our kitchen table – the built-in bench seating that you see in the photo above – also acts as our homeschool desk, our dinner prep counter, our bill-paying center, etc.
And because we’re sharing our tiny house with kids, we have gotten really creative about spaces that are uniquely theirs, such as this under-the-bed nook that we affectionately call the “Kid Cave.”
I will say one more thing before I share what I think are the benefits and challenges of living in a tiny house with kids:
My kids don’t give tiny house living much thought. It is just what is.
Brian and I are the ones who ponder whether we should build an addition so the kids can have a room of their own. They rarely mention such a desire. Kids are flexible and resilient beings who tend to see the best in each situation!
The benefits of living in a tiny house with kids:
- We have a lot of together-time. This has led to an incredibly strong connection between our two children, and an ease of interacting as a family.
- Because we have to keep our tiny house neat in order to be able to move around in it, the kids have learned young the techniques and benefits of organizing and tidying. There is also much less house to clean!
- Because our house is so small, we often send them outdoors to release energy and play. This has encouraged their nature-centric tendencies, and they opt to spend the majority of their free time engaging with the natural world.
- Living in such a small space has encouraged downsizing. We say no to STUFF as often as possible, preferring to spend our money on experiences like traveling with our kids.
The challenges of living in a tiny house with kids:
- There is little space for works-in-progress. Everything has to be put away at the end of the day, which makes larger or multi-step projects much more complicated. As a homeschooling family, this is very challenging because we don’t have a dedicated school space.
- When someone in our family needs alone time, we hope there is nice weather outside! There is very little indoor space to “get away.” (If I have to do coaching calls or interviews, I sit in my car!)
- It’s challenging for my husband and I to have private time together or even private conversations. We have to steal our moments together after the kids are asleep, or have conversations in two to three sentence snippets!
- When the kids get creative, their projects take over our entire living room! I find this particularly overwhelming, especially when I’m trying to work from home.
Like anything in life, living in a tiny house with kids has its pros and cons, but at the end of the day, being able to share our daily life so intimately with our children is a real gift.
If you would like to share the homesteading lifestyle with kids, you will love my book, Family Homesteading!
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This is a very good motivator for me – I live alone in a 660 sq feet apartment – rents are very expensive in my city and I am looking at moving – my 2nd bedroom is actually a storage area – I call it my basement –
so I am beginning to entertain the idea to move into a one bedroom place – if 4 can live in 350 sq feet, I should be able to do so too
It certainly helps to be an organized person who does not have a lot of material belongings, but I think our 350 square foot house would be amazing for one person. It is really the perfect size for one. The only downside is not having a guest room, but if we had a pull out sofa that converted to a bed, we could solve that problem easily. Good luck!!
I lived in a tiny house as a child, although at that time, it wasn’t called a tiny house. It was called what my parents could afford. As children, we never thought anything of it, not even when we went to someone else’s home. We were more impressed by the presence of sidewalks and nearby neighbors than any indoor space they had. I think the small space, and it’s more rustic features (to put it euphemistically ) were more difficult for my mom, who was a city girl, than for the rest of us. We were not home schooled, and I think she treasured her hours when we were away from home. By the time we were teens, my parents were able to build a larger home on the property. I can’t quite imagine what it would have been like if we hadn’t had the extra space by then, although I had a couple friends whose families did live in small spaces with teens and did just fine.
I am definitely thinking ahead to the teen years and the space we will need to create!
Teri, your little house seems so nice and cozy. I have no doubt that 4 people living in 350 square feet have their challenges, though. What do you do in winter? Do you sometimes get the so-called cabin fever, and if yes, how do you cope?
Yes, it’s true – the winter is the hardest time! We try to get outside every day for walks and skis, and while some days are simply too cold, we manage to get our energy out even if it’s just for 5 minutes.
Ours is not a tiny house, but it isn’t crazily big either, about 500m2… 4 bedroom, one bathroom and the entire kitchen, dining and living space is open plan. It’s based on a yurt, but wooden walls, not fabric. We homeschool too, kids 13, 9 and 5. At this point in time, we have a spare bedroom as the 5yo is still in our bed, so we have the homeschool room set up for Lego, projects, stuff on the go, concerts, loud music Etc. And like you, my kids spend most of the time outdoors, even in the rain 😉
Our bedroom set up is essential for us as all three of my kids have special needs. We need the space to be able to decompress away from the others, down time, recouping time. We’ve tried to get the boys to share…but oh my! Disaster!! I admire those who can fit a family into a small home, and indeed, I don’t ever desire a bigger space. Our home is a good fit for us now…but I reserve the right to change that when we have two teens in the house hahahahaha.
That’s a great use of a small space! Thanks for sharing your set-up!