THE PROS AND CONS OF TODAY’S VERSION OF A CABIN IN THE WOODS

BY RYAN LEE PRICE

You could set up your tiny house as a getaway in a secluded area or you could become part of a tiny-house community. HILDA WEGES / DREAMSTIME.COM

These days, it seems like you can’t turn on the TV or click through YouTube without seeing a documentary or spotlight on someone who has shrugged off the shackles of modern capitalism and the humdrum of corporate life to build a tiny house and live a more spartan and frugal lifestyle.

These folks are usually young, idealistic, underemployed as Instagram influencers, and very enthusiastic about their minimalistic endeavor. It’s the new craze to combat exorbitant house prices, energy-reliant dwellings, and environmentally unf riendly building practices, while rejecting the spacious living epitomes of the affluent. Though the tiny-house movement is nothing new, it has gained a great deal of traction in the last 10 years or so, driving more people to live a simpler life with a less materialistic mindset.

TINY HOUSE HISTORY

Although tiny houses were a mainstay for pioneers, fur trappers, and early settlers in the American f rontier, they weren’t called “tiny houses;” they were just simple cabins built with the available materials with a zero budget. It wasn’t until 1854, when Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days in a 150-square-foot home near Waldon Pond that people were first subjected to the merits of modest living, writing in his journal on July 22, 1857, “The rule is to carry as little as possible.”