Time for a Tiny Confession ~ or ~ Living Small Isn’t Really all that Exciting or Different !!

When Sue and I started Shiny Tiny Mansion a couple months ago, you may have noticed that we were posting twice a week, and we swore to each other that we would keep that schedule. Now you may have noticed, we have missed a post for a couple weeks :>(~ The stats say that about 98% of blogs start and then fail after 2-3 months because the bloggers simply stop blogging. I’m sure there are a million reasons like lack of time or their interest wanes, but I bet the biggest is the perceived lack of interest when no one follows your blog after the first couple months. I mean, there you are, preaching your Gospel of all that incredibly important  info you want to share and no one gives a rat’s ass!

Fortunately, that didn’t happen to us, and we have all you fantastic friends out there who started following us from the beginning. Thank you all so much for that trust. Some of you have even written to us to say “Hey” and talk about your own dreams and Tiny Ambitions. And to our local friends who say hey when you see us at the Grocery Store ~ “Hey” right back and we love hearing from every one of you (;>)~

Living small can be fun when people are asking to see your place and asking questions about your Shiny Tiny Mansion. In fact, just yesterday my UPS driver wanted to know if he could take a picture of the cottage to show his friends. “This is the coolest little house I have ever seen” he said. But, in reality, you habituate to your surroundings regardless of what they are. For us, from the beginning, it was hard to imagine that anyone really finds small living all that interesting. We don’t know any other way to live.

There, I said it! It’s just our everyday boring life. Just like anyone else, we sleep, eat, work (a lot!), and occasionally have a glass of wine or beer and try to unwind a little. No magic here. It’s just all accomplished within a much smaller space with lower utilities than most Americans. Maybe though, that’s not true at all if you count the millions of folks that live in small apartments in the larger cities. I have furniture clients in Manhattan that live in 800SF and are loving it!

When we first were “found” and Mili at Small House Bliss posted the cottage and then shortly after that, Andrea and Alex posted over at the quite ironically large site Tiny House Talk, things really took off for us. On that first day we posted we had over 2500 views directly from their sites. (Thanks Mili and Alex and Andrea!) Not bad for a start up Tiny Blog ~! OK, enough filler ~ here’s the real meat of the matter and we don’t eat meat so you know this is serious. . .

Because we really know no other way to live after 28 years of living small, it kinda makes it hard to blog about our boring life. I could tell you how easy it is to run a business from a TV tray and ship your products all over the USA and beyond  or how we’ve gotten used to my TV tray/desk sitting in front of the bathroom door that we walk around about a million times a day. Or how we have a pyramid of shoes and umbrellas by the door because there’s no where else to put them but do you really want to hear about that?

That’s the thing. Living small doesn’t make you a perfect minimalist, living in an antiseptic environment with no soul or life. We didn’t really clean up too much for the pictures we posted on here, but we did a little. I bet, in all honesty, your home is not ready for the pages of “Dwell” or “Architectural Digest” either. Be honest buddies . . .who really lives like that if you actually LIVE in your home without a live-in house Nanny?

That’s one downside to small living – there’s no hall closet to throw stuff in. Yes I know we read about people like Dee Williams who lives in her 80SF home and are happy with only a handful of possessions, but it’s not realistic for most of us. (I’ll be reviewing her new book soon). I lived with 1 plate, bowl, fork, knife, and spoon for about a year whilst living with a bandmate, and it really wasn’t bad. Had to keep them clean or you didn’t eat!

Most of us though need more than one pair of shoes and more than one plate and spoon. Of course, in reality, no we don’t, but that becomes a very minimal existence when you need to wear your muddy work shoes to the company dinner. Not everyone understands!

So our promise to you is that we will post as often as we can. That may be twice a week or once a month, but  we will try to keep it relevant to your interests of living small. Soon I will post about the real cost of our Shiny Tiny Manion as suggested by one of you, and we also have a contest coming soon. Not a stupid one, but one that you will help us solve a Tiny problem and will be rewarded with the product that I will make to be the solution, YAY!!

In the meantime, hop over to Instagram and follow us there at ShinyTinyMansion, where we are posting pictures about our travels around Amish Country. Or follow us on Facebook. They are posted there, too. We post pics all the time and you never know what you will see from Kitties and Puppies to Amish Schoolhouses to corn and gorgeous fall scenes! Heck, I may even find other Tinies to post pics of.

Please let us know what you would like to hear about and I promise, you will see us post about it. Talk to us even more and don’t forget to be mice and share your cheese with all your friends ~ Get it? We are the cheese. OK that’s bad, but at least I didn’t ask you to cut the cheese ~ BBRRAACKKK! Ron OUT!