Cabin Fever or the race for space 🏡

On Friday I went into the office rather than work from home with it being a cold and rainy day. I realize some days are going to be that way, but still it’s tough to be stuck at home in my relatively small apartment with not a lot of places to get up and stretch my legs. From a cleaning and maintenance perspective my apartment is too big, and indeed when I own my off-grid property I think I would want something smaller.

As a raw number, 500 square feet sounds big but it’s just 5 foot by 10 ft, in one direction too small for me to lay down. 750 ft is bigger than that, 7.5 ft by 10 ft but hardly expansive space. Even 1,000 ft is considered a tiny house by modern standards. But small is nice as it means less space to clean, less space to heat, and less room for clutter. If it can’t fit inside, it can fit in the burn barrel, the compost heap, the dead pit, the scrap metal pile or the landfill. There is just too much stuff in this world and industry is always pushing more on us.

If I had my way, I’d probably have a single room cabin which by definition is easy to clean, heat and maintain with no internal walls. Just room for a bed, a propane range and and oven, small refrigerator, woodstove, small wooden table and maybe my old rocking chair. A gun rack on the wall, a place for the solar batteries and maybe a dresser. And nothing more. A chest freezer for meat I’ve harvested is best stored outside in a shed with electric fence. Don’t need anything more. I’d rather do my business in a outhouse or external building incinerator privy with quick on propane heater, and likewise the same for showering. Keep the moisture and smells outdoors.

Space for stuff isn’t the issue. It’s space for stretching my legs on particularly cold and wet days that are inevitable in the woods. Wet days in the truck camper as claustrophobic, as the screen tent or under a tarp. I just like to have space to walk around indoors. Even my apartment seems too small to be cooped up all day. Maybe I’m just spoiled by downtown office hooked up to the Empire State Plaza and the half mile plus of tunnels. But I guess on a homestead there is always animals to feed and wood to split even on a rainy day.