Tiny House Life: Minimalism and Soulfulness—8 Years in 144 Square Feet

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”. -Henry David Thoreau

I loved living in my 12×12 tiny house in the woods.

I did it with ease for 8 years.

What I learned about minimalism is that less things lead to a clear mind and a calmer heart and soul, and that makes it easier to focus on the things that matter.

But minimalism isn’t just about what you subtract—it’s about what fills the space you’ve created.

Things

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” – Bruce Lee

Decluttering the personal space and jettisoning most of my belongings allowed me to declutter my mind and soul as well.

Owning and maintaining and keeping track of things, takes time and energy. Even things that are in a tub in the shed or in a storage unit, there are invisible little tethers to those things that take a little bit of energy.

In my tiny house, my list of things was very small. I’m reminded of the book “The Things They Carried.” How it enumerates the things each man carried in a military unit.

In my tiny house, I had four mugs. 4 bowls to eat out of. 4 plates Some silverware and utensils. 3 pans to cook with. Clothing and shoes. Whatever would fit in a closet that was 6 ft wide, 4 ft high, and 3 ft deep. A guitar. My desk and office stuff. And computer. Stuff I needed for my dog. And books.

My furniture consisted of a love seat, a salvaged sewing table that I use for eating and desk. And two chairs for the table. In the loft, I had a foam mattress.

That’s really it. This is minimalism in practice—not deprivation, but intention.

I had a garage workshop because I was running businesses making art and furnishings out of reclaimed wood I had a wood shed to hold my salvaged wood. My tools lived in the garage.

Truth be told, I also had an 8×10 shed as an auxiliary storage that I split with my daughter, who also had a tiny house on the land. So that gave me 4’x10′ storage for things like: overflow of dry goods and pantry-type items, tubs of books that didn’t fit on my tiny house bookshelf, and seasonal clothing.

Letting go of things made room for something I hadn’t fully anticipated—a life of deliberate rhythms and deep presence.

The Rhythm and Flow of tiny house life in the woods

My days found their rhythm. Mornings started with cold well water showers outdoors and a barefoot woods walk with a canine companion or two. (We had multiple dogs over the 8 year span).

Yoga or kettle bells and calisthenics on my porch overlooking the creek. Tea, and writing/ working at my tiny antique sewing table.

Lots of time outdoors- making art from reclaimed wood, gardening, working at my standing desk overlooking the creek (a salvaged poplar plank mounted on brackets between my cedar porch posts. Cedar harvested from the land).

At the end of each day, everything had its place. It was easy to straighten up and give myself a clean slate for the next day, climbing into the loft to sleep with order and harmony below.

The small closet held what I needed and nothing more. No excess meant no mental clutter about what to keep, what to organize, what to deal with.

The simplicity created a deep calm and a clarity. My mind was quiet. My heart was open. I was present.

A big part of my intention in moving into a 12′ x 12′ tiny house was that I would be at one with nature and spend a large amount of my time outdoors. I did this.

Peeing Outdoors

I am fond of the fact that over an 8-year period, the number of times that I actually peed indoors was probably 25% of my total output. It’s a connection to wildness and is subtly primal.

I had a friend back in the days when we homeschooled our kids together who said to me, “I don’t want to live anywhere where I can’t pee off my back porch.” I like that ethos. it speaks to freedom, privacy, solitude.

Woods Walks

Healing for the mind, body and soul. Especially barefoot woods walks. Earthing. Grounding through the soles of my feet.

Daily woods walks communing with nature are a meditation unto themselves. Being surprised by a myriad of natural delights- from blackberries in season, to the dew clinging to spiderwebs in the early morning sunlight. Wildflowers I had not seen before, the different voices of the creek in various spots, the surreal chartreuse green of moss -all fill my heart with wonder and a sense of unlimited possibility.

Then there were the creatures…

Owls and other creatures

Living close to nature meant being very connected to the sounds of the family of owls who lived in our hollow.
It never lost its magic when they would hoot and holler together. Or when I would catch a glimpse of one gliding through the trees, or maybe even landing on a branch near me. Owls don’t just hoot. They hoot, cackle and make other sounds, often otherworldly, especially in the dark of night.

There are the common creatures that you see living in the woods, of course. Deer, squirrels, opossums, occasional raccoons and skunks. (I once got to witness a mother skunk and her babies ambling across a meadow’s edge. So cute! They have a wobbly, rolling, unhurried gait.)

The more rare creatures that were exciting for me to see were the coyotes, foxes, and otters. I also had the sad and fascinating experience of finding a newly killed bobcat by the side of the road early in the morning. I didn’t even know they lived in my woods until finding this one. it was impressive to see it up close. I picked it up and moved it into the woods, nestled it under a fallen log as its final resting place. Visceral, the weight of it, the beauty of the coat.

In eight years, I probably saw a fox three times. The most breathtaking was when I turned a corner on a trail and a fox was standing in the middle of the trail, focused on some prey and not realizing I was there. We looked at each other for a few moments, and then it ran off into the forest.

Same thing with the otters- Only about three otter sightings in eight years. The most exciting one was very early in the morning by the river with an otter running along the bank with a fish in its mouth.

Coyotes occasionally came close enough to the house for me to hear their yips, cackles, and howls as they hunted and killed their prey. Very primal. A bit chilling.

A Blue Heron would often walk down the creek, hunting. Serene, patient, alert. It was beautiful to watch her take to the sky with a few flaps of her 6′ wingspan.

Conclusion

Living simply and minimally taught me to be more present to myself and my surroundings. I became more attuned to nature, and all the various plants and animals in the sky and the weather.

I grew vegetables and herbs, and made tea from plants and ate stuff I grew- arugula, Jerusalem artichokes, cabbage. I picked wild blackberries every Summer, handfuls of them that hadn’t been gotten by birds or deer.

I feel like the woods are part of me, and I’m a part of them at this point. I feel semi-feral, and I like that.

I will take the lessons of the tiny house forward into everything I do. I’m not leaving the woods; I’m building a slightly bigger house to accommodate a life partner and our kids when they come to visit.

I will keep things simple and spare, to make space for what matters.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Are you practicing minimalism and simplicity? Drop a note in the comments!

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