In the beginning...

It was never really my plan to live in such a tiny, tiny space with my three daughters, but life has a funny way of working itself out, doesn't it? I had just enough money to buy the cheapest house in Grover Beach. My original plan was to add on a garage with a house above that we could all live in that would be an addition to the 605 feet of living space that already existed, but the banks barely gave me the loan, so asking for any additional funds was completely unrealistic at the time. My jobs were slowing dwindling at the time, as working for the state of California as a part-time professor proved to be a lot less lucrative that I had hoped, another lesson learned, maybe. I decided to suck it up, try to see the positive in the idea that I could actually buy a house by myself in the first place, and just make do, so here I am. It's cute, a little beach cottage, with three tiny 90 square feet bedrooms and one small living room, decent kitchen and a bathroom fit for anyone less than 50 pounds. To boot, whomever build the home in the 50s decided to cheap out and make the ceilings only 7 feet instead of the more common 8 feet ceilings that most houses have. Again, here we are, happy to have a home near the ocean (9 blocks) in the state of California, not terrible by any worldly standard. I think life is about that which you allow yourself to grow accustomed to. I had been living in a 2,000 square foot home with normal ceilings, so this drastic change was felt more than if I had moved out of a one-bedroom apartment that reeked of cigarettes. Perspective. I allowed my thoughts to just recognize the fact that I had a home, and one that I could potentially doll-up and make my own. I accepted my state of affairs and did the best I could. One night I decided to take a look at who else lived "small". I found a plethora of websites of many people, from singles to families, that were happily living the small life, actually preferred to do it for many reasons. Some of the reasons included: - small inside space generally translated to more time to go outside, since there wasn't a whole lot of space to get lost inside - a small house is a lot easier to clean - you tend to spend more time with the people you are living with since there are less places to hide - it's just a lot more sustainable, heating wise especially All of these reasons began to change my attitude, it made me actually look forward to taking on this project, to see if I could be happy doing it. And so I did, and here I am with my three girls, and after all, it's not that bad! Here is our story...