Through my main blog I was discovered by John and Finn founders and operators of the United Tiny House Association. They were bringing their Tiny Living Festival to the Bay Area and were looking for local tiny house dwellers to speak at their two day event. I was happy to and wrote a speech on Friday which I then spent all night memorizing to deliver today at their location in Richmond (in the East Bay north of Berkeley). Three of my organizer pals came to root for me and quite a nice size group assembled to hear me. There was no AV so no powerpoint to show my notes and pictures. So I relied heavily on old fashion storytelling which I preferred. I achieved my goal of keeping the audiences attention and they asked some good questions. My pals said it was a very good talk. The following is the transcript of the talk I gave.
“I have been a professional organizer for 20 plus years here in the Bay Area. My work is all about stuff often in huge houses. At the height of my glamorous career I worked for a closet designer. Linda London would fly in from New York and design all the closets and cabinets, the pantry, liquor cabinets and broom closet. This being Silicon Valley the job was for a CEO of a tech company and his wife. It was a brand new house that was just being finished and it was our task to move all the clients clothes into the new closets and cabinets.
On the first day on the job the construction captain came to us and told us that he had good news and bad news. “The bad news is that the elevator is out of service.” We all groaned thinking of all those armload of clothes. “But the good news is that we could use the elevator around the corner.”
One of my colleagues called this the house where the closets had closets. There was the usual walk-in closet off the bedroom with his and hers dressing areas, but then there was the elevator in one wall that went down to the basement where there was a room the size of a California living room and it was lined with closets. Closets for ball gowns, fur coats, hunting gear, one just for suitcases, one for the massage table and the clothes steamer. And in the middle was an island covered with a suede surface. That was for laying out a suitcase to pack for when you went to visit the house in New York, L.A., Palm Springs and possibly Hawaii.
The final irony of this brand new custom house was that it was a one bedroom house. This couple knew exactly what they wanted in a house. And what they didn’t want were house guests sharing their space. They had a guest house built 100 yards away by the pool.
I tell this story as a tiny house dweller because not only is it such a contrast to tiny living, but we too know what we want. Just like Linda’s clients we want the best use of our space.
I thought a lot about Linda London as I designed the interior of my house. I borrowed her methods. She started by measuring everything the client owned, counted every shirt, every piece of jewelry, all the ties and shoes they had, what kind of bathroom products they used, what was in their pantry. And she built spaces to fit everything.
So I measured everything that was going to go in my house and I fit my shelves and my cabinets to the glass storage containers, my one pot and the wok.
I have a pull out island between my cabinets on which I can put either a cutting board or a table top ironing board and have somewhere to store those. So one unit serves two purposes.
I didn’t want a fridge because they are not designed to be efficient. You open the door and all the cold air falls out. So I have an expedition grade cooler and I built a second bench that slides over it. Again I am using this space twice. I make ice for it in a medium size freezer I keep outside of the tiny house.
And yes I do have lots of books. I have 20 feet of books. And I built 16 feet of shelving for them plus installing floating wall shelves, which took a lot of tine and effort so motivated me to give up more books. But if you really love something you can make space for it.
When you’re designing your tiny house it becomes obvious that you only have space for what you use and I mean everyday or at least every few weeks. One pot, one pan, a couple of mugs, just the dishes you use, smaller appliances, etc. A lot of what you owned you won’t be able to use in the tiny house. And there’s really no room for it might be useful one day.
Still the best tip I got from a tiny house owner was that you can fit quite a lot in so don’t be too drastic about throwing it all out. Unless you want to.
I had it easy when I moved into my tiny house I just left everything I didn’t need at my ex’s house. And I’m still downsizing my hoard 3 years later. I just sold the Olivetti typewriter last week and my old 35 mm Nikon camera earlier this year. I started in 2008 selling off the family heirlooms
So if something is worth any money at all sell it and if you can’t take comfort in the fact that no one wants the heirloom china, the furniture (unless it’s mid-century modern), hardback coffee table books or the silver plated stuff, so there’s no need for you to hang onto it either. If you can’t sell it give it away. I have seen silver plated trays in the metal bin at the recycling center. It’s the copper underneath the plating that has value.
In the end it will all have to be given away. The only difference is if you are alive to do it or not. And it’s better if you’re alive because you know the most about these items and how best to give it away.
People pay me good money (up to $100 an hour) to coach them through the process of letting go because this isn’t an easy process. Stuff brings up some very emotional feelings of loss and regret. It requires making many many decisions and decisions are tiring.
To help with this process make rules like if it’s broken, doesn’t fit, hasn’t been used in two year toss it. Sort by category. Sort room by room, drawer by drawer. Weed out a third of any given collection. Then a third more. Once you take stuff out of its home and put it in the giveaway area you will find that you are already letting it go.
You have probably heard of the Marie Kondo method. Her Netflix show and her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I’ve heard of people being able to follow her method. One tiny house couple on youtube did their downsizing in four days with her method. But they were young and didn’t own a lifetime of stuff. Her method is very overwhelming and exhausting. What she asks you to do is pull out everything and touch all of it asking if each item brings you joy.
It doesn’t work for the clients I work with because everything brings them joy; they get an emotional charge from everything they own. In fact we advise the opposite to the Konmari method to not touch an item, especially clothing. So have a friend hold up the item as you make your decision. Take advantage of this social component of organizing. Do it with your partner, a friend or several friends who’ll keep you on track.
Downsizing quickly will give you the advantage of momentum. If slowly you can take time to sell things, have more time to take things to the right person or place. And you can always keep moving stuff out.
I didn’t grow up thinking that I would be living in a tiny house. I more had in mind that I’d live in a house like my great grandfather had in Bangkok. He lived in a three floor mansion with marble floors filled with dark furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay. He had rooms for each of his nine wives and all of his children. Off the kitchen were rooms for the staff. I loved the community of it. I liked the idea of the nine wives too. I grew up in Bangkok in an extended family compound that my grandmother had. She built herself the big house with two stories, but there was room for everyone.
We each had a room. Me and my parents were in our own smaller house. My three aunts, the maids, chauffeur and gardener all had their own rooms at my grandmother’s house. It was great fun for a child to be able to visit all these people and be in so many different spaces. We all had what we needed and we all lived quite simply. My grandmother had just a mattress that was rolled out every night under a mosquito net.
Then my parents got jobs in the U.S and we came here to the Bay Area to live the nuclear family experience. It was very different for me. I saw a card once that said “one nuclear family can ruin your whole life”. That was my life at ten years old coming here. But I made the best of it.
And over the years I watched as the houses got bigger and bigger. And then I heard that teachers and fireman could no longer afford to live here. And my friends and I barely managed to stay sharing rooms in houses. And when I became an organizer and was working in these houses I saw that our lives had become mostly about things and not so much about people. The contrast of it brought to mind a bumper sticker I remember from a few decades back — Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live.
Tiny House living is not the anorexia of consumerism. It is an adjustment, a discipline of priorities. A way to be more mindful of how much consumerism has taken over our lives. But you don’t have to live in a tiny house to do it. And it’s never too early to start downsizing.
That’s my introduction. And now we can go onto questions.”
The following were questions that people asked that gave me a chance to offer more tips.
Where do you sell things? Craigslist, e-bay, Nextdoor
What to do with old coins? Coin dealers, e-bay.
Where do you give away things? Freecycle, Nextdoor, on the sidewalk, but only in San Francisco to discourage hoarding. Also Goodwill and other charities.
My mother left me her paintings. I don’t have room for them, but I want them to go where they’ll be appreciated. Do you have any suggestions? I didn’t.
What about garage sales? Yes go for it. Takes a lot of prep, but can get rid of all kinds of little things.
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