Our Tiny (Tuscan) House

We live in a Tiny House in Italy!

Well, no, not actually. But at times I feel like we live in a tiny house. We’ve been living in this small studio since October 15^th. Our couch becomes the bed we sleep on . Our laundry consists of one washer that is the size of an American child’s play-house washer. A rich American child, but a child’s plaything no less.

I shave my legs in the bidet. We don’t use the bidet so this is the perfect use of it. The one time I shaved my legs in the shower I came out sweating and bleeding as if I had ran through the woods while being chased by a herd of wild Tuscan boar. But my appearance was only due to the size of the shower.

Besides our bathroom, all our worldly belongings reside in one room. This one room contains a stove, an oven, microwave, sink, washer, TV, small table fold-out table with chairs and the couch that becomes our bed. Sometimes we will put the TV on and watch Italian TV. My favorite is to watch American movies in Italian. I find that it helps learning more words. I also like watching the old italian men on sports shows fight about soccer match results.

Cooking is interesting. If the oven and stove top are on at the same time, the electricity to the apartment goes out! So you cannot have the stove and oven going at the same time. This makes you think before you cook about the order in which you will cook the meal in. We’ve made great meals in the kitchen, it just takes some thinking of where and when we will prep and start to cook each item.

Trash and clutter builds up quickly in our space so it’s harder to keep a place messy for longer. Both our creative minds are messy so we’ve been better about cleaning up more.

After I cooked one night (this is a rare occasion, Paul is the best cook!) we were sitting on the couch and watching Netflix on a laptop that was propped up on a chair. I was so happy and cozy. I said, “Having this apartment I’ve realized how little space I need.”

Paul replied, “I’ve realized how much more space I need in an apartment.”

Then we both laughed at our completely different realizations. He went on to explain how he liked having a bedroom to be a separate room from where he hangs out and works. He said he missed ascending down a stairway, somewhere out of our “bedroom” to make a cup of coffee, sit and look at his laptop and read the news. Right now he steps out of bed and is in the kitchen. I hadn’t thought about this but that is a simple pleasure, having more spaces to do things in.

I do not mind this amount of space. I’m a messy person and it causes me to be tidy. I also lose things all the time and the space helps me find stuff – there are only so many places an object can hide in.

If anything, the apartment has taught me that minimalism is a great way to live your life. The less objects I have, the less room I have,  the more space my mind is allowed to have. There’s not much to distract you from the important things of the day.

Do I think I could live in this small studio forever? No. But it has become a cozy home away from home.

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