Over the last several months our house has been a hotbed of countercultural lifestyle ideas. We've been all over the map trying to break out of the mold and plan something for our future that is just for us, and not driven by any cultural expectations of what a pair of 20-somethings in love are supposed to do.

First off, buying a regular house, and signing a mortgage that chains us to payments for most of the rest of our lives was right out. I feel trapped right now by still owing $11,000 on my car, and I can't even imagine the pressure of being indebted to the tune of six figures. Wage slavery? No thank you!

We originally planned on building a small earthbag house here in New Mexico, about 80 miles south of Albuquerque. We're not sure we want to stay in New Mexico forever though, and even if we do stay here forever my professional skills are certainly more suited to the kinds of jobs that are found in a city, not way out in the boondocks. Eighty miles is a long commute, and we don't want to trap ourselves in a situation where we have to do something like that.

Then I got a wild hair and decided that a biodiesel school bus turned RV was the future, and we spent quite some time and energy pondering plans to make a school bus into a home. They're just not tall enough though. The fact that the usable interior space is too short to accomodate a loft just makes it too hard to cram sleeping, eating, recreating and bathing for two into such a small space. A queen size bed is pretty big, and being 6'2" I really do need the length of a queen. A full just doesn't cut it.

Then a few weeks ago we watched this video interview with Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and it changed our world.

Once we watched this video it catalyzed all the thoughts I've been mulling over for the last few years into a compelling urgency to do this now. For the last few years I've been reading a lot: including Lloyd Kahn's Blog, the Tiny House Blog, miss minimalist, social change through simple living (who I believe is the same RowdyKittens I snagged this post's photo from off Wikimedia Commons), The Tiny Life and a million other random blog posts and magazine articles and books about alternative building and the food supply network and consumerism and capitalism and self reliance and all the things that we all aspire to (even if some people do it in stupid ways).

I've lost my faith in the the average american dream house, and the average american dream along with it.

I thought I might sit down and spell out just why I want to build a tiny house, in the hopes I might inspire others to at least consider such a point of view. So here it goes, the big reasons I plan to build a tiny house:

Freedom

This is really the heart of it. I'm not just talking about the simple physical freedom of planting your home on wheels instead of a cement foundation. I'm talking about freedom from debt, freedom from the high maintenance costs of a large house, freedom from the freedom to accumulate all the shit that ties us down - in our hearts and our minds and our giant houses that double as warehouses for disused crap.

Money

There's the elephant in the room. We plan to save a lot of money by building a tiny house and making it our home. Rather than signing away the next few decades of our lives to a giant mortgage we will build our house ourselves, with a flat out up front investment that will likely (based on my initial estimates) cost under $20,000.

That's it, for less than many people spend on a car we'll have our own little 140 square foot slice of paradise. One that we could totally replace the roof on for a pittance if we ever need to. The lower maintenance costs of a smaller house are another enormous financial advantage.

Quality over Quantity

Instead of spending a small amount per square foot on a lot of shoddily built square feet we'd rather spend a lot per square foot - maybe over $150 - to make our tiny house as flawless and reliable as is humanly possible. Since we're not spending $100K to have 1000 square feet of den and living room and a funny room down a hall that's useless for anything we'll be able to afford the very best for every square inch.

Rather than have a 200 square foot kitchen with the cheapest decent looking fixtures and appliances the contractor can find we can have a 30 square foot kitchen with the highest quality fixtures and appliances we can possibly afford.

This will also help with maintenance costs. A $400 professional restaurant faucet is going to outlast any $150 fixture from Lowes.

Simplicity

Trimming the fat from our lives is one of the most important things a human being can do. Not being distracted by all the consumption-driven bullshit of society gives us more time to enjoy the small things that make our lives worthwhile. I assure you a sitting quietly with a loved one will make you happier than anything you can buy.

Building a tiny house is just the obvious progression once you start down the path of minimalism.

It's just the right thing to do

I was raised to ask one simple question of my lifestyle: "Could everyone on the planet do this?" The answer to that question on the topic of 3,000 square foot McMansions in sprawling suburban hell is a simple, unequivocal, thundering and resounding "NO." If you think I'm wrong about that, or think the question is inconsequential - I'm sorry. I can't help you.

There are 7 billion of us on this planet, and our free ride of cheap petrochemical energy is coming to end. Times are changing, and we can either change with them and move into a glorious new age of living consciously and using technology to make our lives easier, or we can keep chugging right along - working long hours at jobs we don't like, ignoring what really matters so we can buy crap we don't need and live in a house we don't use and drive a car we don't enjoy - until the whole mess collapses right on our decrepit heads.