12 ms·

Living in 80 square feet (2010)

96 points by luu 9y ago

JusticeJuice 9y ago
I just finished a book on this topic. Its a collection of case studies on small, well designed, incredibly liveable homes, I highly suggest it. https://www.amazon.com/Small-Homes-Grand-Living-Interior/dp/3899556984 https://www.amazon.com/Small-Homes-Grand-Living-Interior/dp/...
bby 9y ago
the ladies are impressed when they walk in
uiri 9y ago
This is much less impressive with 10 or 11 foot ceilings than with 7 or 8 foot ceilings. That said, even with more space, I think that effective use of space is a much better strategy than upgrading to a larger space. Stuff tends to have a quality to it that is similar to Parkinson's law - it takes up the space allotted to it. The authors techniques could still be useful in an 8000 sq ft mansion.
Hates_ 9y ago
Reminds me of this set of overhead photos of cramped rooms in Hong Kong: https://petapixel.com/2013/02/19/cramped-apartments-in-hong-kong-shot-from-directly-above/ https://petapixel.com/2013/02/19/cramped-apartments-in-hong-...
- KayL 9y ago
  Yeah. I raised in a similar place. And now I'm sitting on my bed to write this comment. And my bedroom about 3.6m^2. It's also my working space :) (my apartment around 250 sqft. I'm living with my parents)
- Hasknewbie 9y ago
  Sadly, Hong Kong can be way worse than these already super-cramped one-room apartments. The apartments in your link are either tiny 1960s social housing, or subdivided apartments. With the ever-increasing rent, some of these have since then been subdivided further into single beds (a.k.a 'cages' or 'coffins', depending on how they're sealed): https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed...
Symbiote 9y ago
7.5m², to save the search. I think that's even smaller than my room as a student in London.
- iagovar 9y ago
  I actually can't picture it. I mean, if you have a bunch of books, a bed, a computer, clothes, a kitchen, a washing mashine and a bit of storage...
  - throwanem 9y ago
    You probably don't have a kitchen. Maybe a hot plate. (You probably don't have a bathroom of your own, either. Maybe this author does, and doesn't count it as living space. But I doubt it.) You certainly don't have a washing machine. The building probably does, or else you go to laundromats.
  - petercooper 9y ago
    Try picturing it here: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed... .. lots of examples of similarly sized "homes" :)
    - ioulian 9y ago
      Thanks for sharing! It's impressive how much stuff can be placed there, the use of the space is impressive. Also interesting is to see that a lot of people living there have such nice clothes, I see people living in huge houses here that dress less impressive...
  - twelvechairs 9y ago
    Its their bedroom only (presumably in a share house or dorm or similar). Washing/kitchen/etc would be outside this.
  - ctdonath 9y ago
    Books? E-books take no space. Public library has vast storage on your behalf, free. Bed? Futons are small. Air mattress rolls up tiny. Elevate a regular bed and all that space is available again. Computer? Notebooks fold up to nearly nothing. Clothes? 3-4 outfits fold to 1 cubic foot. Kitchen? Hot plate and nesting pots take another cubic foot max. Washing machine? Laundromat, or sink & clothesline. Storage? Under other things, or hang from ceiling. Don't need much. We're talking urban, not rural, so many services are normally available covering anything lacking for space. Even if rural, note that some people go on 2000 mile backpacking trips, taking 6 months, carrying all their stuff totaling just 20-30 pounds.
coldtea 9y ago
> Living in 80 square feet So like billions do in the developing world?
- calvinv 9y ago
  or millions living in big cities, in London 100 square feet is pretty common
drej 9y ago
Until last December, I would live in rooms well under 100 square feet, for about four years. I won't go into details how I got there, but surprisingly, money wasn't the issue. Anywho. I kind of got used to it and it wasn't half bad in the end (Stockholm syndrome kicking in?). My 2c: 1. Get systematic about tidying your room. A pile of clothes is a lot larger than a tiny column and it takes minutes to arrange. Also, clean up right after the fact (especially if it takes no time) and don't leave things for later - a case in point - food. If you eat in your room, take the plates and stuff to the kitchen ASAP, don't leave it be. 2. Use shelves and boxes. I had most of my stuff in shelves above my table, but it soon got out of control. I got a few shoe boxes (for cables and stuff I didn't need to look at) and bought some transparent plastic boxes (for things I needed to glance at). Use lids for stuff you don't access often. 3. Don't get rid of things you care about. I know, space is precious, I got rid of my lovely Dell computer monitor. But I never got rid of my books, even though they took up most of shelf space (and I read on my Kindle anyway). 4. Cherish common areas. I presume you have a bathroom, kitchen and possibly a living room in the building you live in. Figure out when others are not using these areas and hang out there for a bit. Make your work/leisure station portable. I would often cook while watching YouTube lectures or listening to audiobooks (iPad with a kickstand, bluetooth speaker). Or would go to the living room to watch telly while catching up on email. 5. Use your luggage. I would have a suitcase on top of my wardrobe. I would put my winter clothes during the summer there and vice versa. You'd be surprised how much that helps. 6. Get an air freshener. Sounds a bit weird, but in such an enclosed space, any odour can get irritating, because it's everywhere, because everywhere defines quite a compact area :-) I got something from a Coop, a few quid, plugged in a few times a week.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > 1. Get systematic about tidying your room. Strong second. Clutter shrinks spaces.
timwaagh 9y ago
my 'bedroom' is about four sq m. meaning it just about fits my bed. i share the rest of my appartment with others, but its still my appartment, so i can store my stuff wherever i want.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
apricot13 9y ago
I've been decluttering a lot over the past year and "Stop putting things away." is one of the things that took me the longest to get my head around but when I got used to it it made my life so much easier. Reducing the amount of effort it takes to get/store an item means you use it more (cleaning products) but also buy fewer yet nicer things. Definitely recommend Marie Kondo, both her books take only a few hours to read. The joy thing, though initially weird makes complete sense once you've read both books and she insists that everything has a home in the house - if you don't follow that rule you'll quickly become overwhelmed.
pvdebbe 9y ago
The trouble with small spaces is that they cost unproportionally much to rent. I could probably fit my home life in a 80 sqft apartment but when they rent for much more than 1/10th of a 800 sqft apartment, it's very hard to justify the compromise.
- inetknght 9y ago
  ...unless you don't make the money for that 800sqft apartment
  - zxcmx 9y ago
    Being willing to share space almost always ends up cheaper. A bunch of students, for example, can generally outbid a family with 2 workers and 3 kids for a large place. And the students have way lower standards usually. No moral commentary there, just an observation. Fortunately they are generally not after the same spaces. IMHO it actually sucks when property owners try to hoover up what I'd call the "space sharing discount" by renting out rooms on individual leases in a place where most of the space is shared. The culture (or not) is the thing which makes that arrangement work, and I don't feel like they should get to monetise that. I believe there are an increasing number of startups operating on exactly this premise though :/
    - icebraining 9y ago
      IMHO it actually sucks when property owners try to hoover up what I'd call the "space sharing discount" by renting out rooms on individual leases in a place where most of the space is shared. The culture (or not) is the thing which makes that arrangement work, and I don't feel like they should get to monetise that. Culture? Nah, if there's a need people will adapt themselves. We rent individual rooms in a couple of 3-bedroom condos, and it's worked fine even as tenants rotated over the years. Also, while we don't "hoover up" the discount (the total of the rents isn't higher than what we could get renting the whole place), I don't think it'd be wrong to do so, as the arrangement has extra benefits for the tenants: not having to find people to share, not having to worry about an increase on their rent if someone decides to leave or feel guilty about leaving the others with a higher rent, not having to get utility/internet contracts in their name, etc.
throwanem 9y ago
The desk I built myself last month is a quarter the area of the room described, which actually just about matches what I could expect to get for the same rent that gets me a ~600sf apartment here in Baltimore. So I guess I'm never moving to New York! The techniques described here are still useful, though. I've found the method of disposing of old clothes to generalize: if you have stuff you never use, put it in a box, write on the lid what's in it, and stuff it in an odd corner of a closet or somewhere else out of the way. If it's still untouched in a year, or when you find you need the space, take it to Goodwill. Wall-mounted shelves are indeed a marvel. They're easy to build from lumber with hand tools, if you've got the space to do it; it takes time, but you can size them precisely to fit the space where you mean to put them, and for shelves of any size it's it's cheaper in the end than buying the prebuilt sort.
yodsanklai 9y ago
I don't think small space is an issue by itself. It's very manageable if the building has good facilities (shared bathrooms, washing machines) and if you can easily eat outside. More problematic would be noisy environment or lack of window.
yodsanklai 9y ago
I don't think small space is an issue by itself. It's very manageable if the building has good facilities (shared bathrooms, washing machines) and if you can easily eat outside. More problematic would be noisy environment or lack of window.
BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
> My current bedroom is ... Yawn. This isn't living in 80 square feet. This is bedrooming in 80 square feet. There's a gigantic difference. There's no mention of cooking, bathroom, or other shared space. Congratulations, you actually live in a much larger space than you admit. My first apartment in Paris was ~118 square feet (11m2), but that was INCLUDING a kitchenette, an enclosed bathroom (toilet, shower, and second sink), and an inward slanting wall (it was inside the building roof) which eliminated maybe a good fifth of the volume, and also no closet. And I lived there with my partner, so there were two people sharing that space, with two peoples' worth of clothing and coats and computers and other materials and dishes and pots and pans and luggage, and two peoples' worth of constantly being in someone else's way. And only that last detail, the constant interminable contact with another person, was difficult. But an 8x10 bedroom for one? So?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
  Adding more... "Don't be a slob", "Don't accumulate shit", and "Don't be stupid with your space" are just so obnoxiously obvious as to be entirely unhelpful suggestions for anyone with half a brain cell. And "Don't bother putting things away" is a clear sign to me that this person doesn't know what small is, because when you live in an actually small space, putting things away neatly improves your mental state significantly. You will notice your improved condition when you have that extra few feet of floor, desk, and shelf space. Real functional advice would be things like "You'd be surprised at how much space you can save by replacing certain bulky items with compact travel/camping equivalents." Get rid of big fluffy bath towels that take forever to dry, and get small linen ones instead ( We have a few of these, and now I'd never buy anything else regardless of available space https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ ). The same goes for comforters and winter coats that you're going to want to stow in the summer, bags, dishes, and so forth.
  - barbs 9y ago
    Is your arrogant and condescending tone really necessary here?
dopik11 9y ago
det spiller bare
blacktulip 9y ago
[2010] should be added to title.
j7ake 9y ago
how do you have friends or visitors come over? or do you meet up at public places?
- wingerlang 9y ago
  I lived for a few months in probably 30-40 square feet (2-3m^2), basically a hotel room with nothing but a bed and a window. Meeting up with friends was almost always out in public, except for some movie session every now and then in the room. I didn't really mind it, but I probably won't ever go below my current 400sqft anytime soon.
majewsky 9y ago
For those of us with useful units: 80 feet^2 = 7.43 m^2
miguelrochefort 9y ago
Why can't we find 80 square feet apartments for ~$300 in the USA/Canada?
- stan_rogers 9y ago
  In Canada, look for "rooming house". In parts of the States, it would be an "SRO". They're often paid for weekly rather than monthly.
peter303 9y ago
I just stayed in a 8 x 5 sqft NYC hotel room (The Jane). The bed fills over half of it. It has a 3 foot storage place below the bed and shelf above. The wall away from the bed has 6 x 5 ft mirror making the room seem twice as large. It also has a flat screen TV at foot of bed and 2x 5 window. The walls were thick enough you really couldnt hearbthe neighbors except when closing the door. What is amazing is that some of the same size rooms have a second bunked bed instead of the shelf. I guess you have to take turns using the stand up space.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  > 8 x 5 sqft That's 40 ft^4. The extra dimension must be handy for storing luggage :)
ctdonath 9y ago
There's the popular "tiny house" movement in the USA - building complete homes on just 100 square feet.
firmgently 9y ago
I gave up my flat and moved into a caravan. It's about 75 sq ft and less than 6ft high. Within that is a kitchen (I cook all my own meals, bake bread etc. despite only having gas burners and grill) and a tiny wetroom/bathroom which I built myself. I live and work from here (I make and sell art and store my A3+ printer which I'll be using again soon). 27" monitor, spare bed, work area.. I do my laundry by hand in a bucket. My water tap is operated by a foot pump lol. I do a tiny bit of web work (used to be an Actionscript dev but that career died with Flash, the remaining jobs in that tech don't appeal to me and my CV has such a huge chasm in it now that my professional programming life seems to be over). I'm incredibly poor financially but life is challenging and interesting, the miniature home suits me fine and it's really good fun optimising the space.. just requires an adaptable mindset!
valuearb 9y ago
The US is now so crowded that there is only 3.5 million square feet per person.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  For most of that, though, the roof leaks... (That is: You're talking about the whole country, not about the space inside buildings. Most of your 3.5 million square feet is outdoors.)
  - valuearb 9y ago
    And some is covered with water. Assume a third is unusable, at an average family size of 3 people that would still be nearly 7 million square feet each.
throwawaeroi894 9y ago
How actually living in 80 ft^2 looks (Tokyo). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg
- adjkant 9y ago
  This video is about 20x more interesting than the article, which I think is just getting votes because HN always upvotes anything about living in tiny spaces, even though there no insight or interest in this one.
flavio81 9y ago
TL;DW: EDIT: this refers to the video linked by another poster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg House is 8m2, but it is a two level house so the bedroom is not taking up the ground space. She, apparently, lives alone. She lives in tokyo. 2016 minimum wage in Tokyo has been set to 932 JPY. For a 148 hour month, that's 137,936 JPY that currently means $1252 USD. Her house costs her about USD $600/mo. So that's about 48% of minimum monthly wage. Assuming she is getting minimum wage, doesn't sound bad at all. Now here's the deal: in my city the minimum wage is 850 PEN. 48% of that, is USD $123. With $123 here you couldn't afford to live alone renting any kind of house or apartment. You would have to rent a room. That is, no kitchen/washing machine/ clothesline, etc. And a very tiny one at that OR a well-sized one but located in a rather ugly part of the city. (Ugly as in, trash outside everyday, being robbed at gunpoint at night, etc.) So I guess all is fine in Tokyo.
antisthenes 9y ago
As someone who has trouble throwing things out, taking a picture of it to retain the sentimental value has been a huge help.
justforFranz 9y ago
I love how this story fits well into our currently economic ideology of vast wealth inequality, evaporating pensions, vanishing healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, labor with no pricing power, etc.

96 points by luu 9y ago

I just finished a book on this topic. Its a collection of case studies on small, well designed, incredibly liveable homes, I highly suggest it. https://www.amazon.com/Small-Homes-Grand-Living-Interior/dp/3899556984 https://www.amazon.com/Small-Homes-Grand-Living-Interior/dp/...

bby 9y ago

the ladies are impressed when they walk in

uiri 9y ago

This is much less impressive with 10 or 11 foot ceilings than with 7 or 8 foot ceilings. That said, even with more space, I think that effective use of space is a much better strategy than upgrading to a larger space. Stuff tends to have a quality to it that is similar to Parkinson's law - it takes up the space allotted to it. The authors techniques could still be useful in an 8000 sq ft mansion.

Hates_ 9y ago

Reminds me of this set of overhead photos of cramped rooms in Hong Kong: https://petapixel.com/2013/02/19/cramped-apartments-in-hong-kong-shot-from-directly-above/ https://petapixel.com/2013/02/19/cramped-apartments-in-hong-...

KayL 9y ago
Yeah. I raised in a similar place. And now I'm sitting on my bed to write this comment. And my bedroom about 3.6m^2. It's also my working space :) (my apartment around 250 sqft. I'm living with my parents)
Hasknewbie 9y ago
Sadly, Hong Kong can be way worse than these already super-cramped one-room apartments. The apartments in your link are either tiny 1960s social housing, or subdivided apartments. With the ever-increasing rent, some of these have since then been subdivided further into single beds (a.k.a 'cages' or 'coffins', depending on how they're sealed): https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed...

Symbiote 9y ago

7.5m², to save the search. I think that's even smaller than my room as a student in London.

iagovar 9y ago
I actually can't picture it. I mean, if you have a bunch of books, a bed, a computer, clothes, a kitchen, a washing mashine and a bit of storage...
- throwanem 9y ago
  You probably don't have a kitchen. Maybe a hot plate. (You probably don't have a bathroom of your own, either. Maybe this author does, and doesn't count it as living space. But I doubt it.) You certainly don't have a washing machine. The building probably does, or else you go to laundromats.
- petercooper 9y ago
  Try picturing it here: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed... .. lots of examples of similarly sized "homes" :)
  - ioulian 9y ago
    Thanks for sharing! It's impressive how much stuff can be placed there, the use of the space is impressive. Also interesting is to see that a lot of people living there have such nice clothes, I see people living in huge houses here that dress less impressive...
- twelvechairs 9y ago
  Its their bedroom only (presumably in a share house or dorm or similar). Washing/kitchen/etc would be outside this.
- ctdonath 9y ago
  Books? E-books take no space. Public library has vast storage on your behalf, free. Bed? Futons are small. Air mattress rolls up tiny. Elevate a regular bed and all that space is available again. Computer? Notebooks fold up to nearly nothing. Clothes? 3-4 outfits fold to 1 cubic foot. Kitchen? Hot plate and nesting pots take another cubic foot max. Washing machine? Laundromat, or sink & clothesline. Storage? Under other things, or hang from ceiling. Don't need much. We're talking urban, not rural, so many services are normally available covering anything lacking for space. Even if rural, note that some people go on 2000 mile backpacking trips, taking 6 months, carrying all their stuff totaling just 20-30 pounds.

coldtea 9y ago

> Living in 80 square feet So like billions do in the developing world?

calvinv 9y ago
or millions living in big cities, in London 100 square feet is pretty common

drej 9y ago

Until last December, I would live in rooms well under 100 square feet, for about four years. I won't go into details how I got there, but surprisingly, money wasn't the issue. Anywho. I kind of got used to it and it wasn't half bad in the end (Stockholm syndrome kicking in?). My 2c: 1. Get systematic about tidying your room. A pile of clothes is a lot larger than a tiny column and it takes minutes to arrange. Also, clean up right after the fact (especially if it takes no time) and don't leave things for later - a case in point - food. If you eat in your room, take the plates and stuff to the kitchen ASAP, don't leave it be. 2. Use shelves and boxes. I had most of my stuff in shelves above my table, but it soon got out of control. I got a few shoe boxes (for cables and stuff I didn't need to look at) and bought some transparent plastic boxes (for things I needed to glance at). Use lids for stuff you don't access often. 3. Don't get rid of things you care about. I know, space is precious, I got rid of my lovely Dell computer monitor. But I never got rid of my books, even though they took up most of shelf space (and I read on my Kindle anyway). 4. Cherish common areas. I presume you have a bathroom, kitchen and possibly a living room in the building you live in. Figure out when others are not using these areas and hang out there for a bit. Make your work/leisure station portable. I would often cook while watching YouTube lectures or listening to audiobooks (iPad with a kickstand, bluetooth speaker). Or would go to the living room to watch telly while catching up on email. 5. Use your luggage. I would have a suitcase on top of my wardrobe. I would put my winter clothes during the summer there and vice versa. You'd be surprised how much that helps. 6. Get an air freshener. Sounds a bit weird, but in such an enclosed space, any odour can get irritating, because it's everywhere, because everywhere defines quite a compact area :-) I got something from a Coop, a few quid, plugged in a few times a week.

throwanem 9y ago
> 1. Get systematic about tidying your room. Strong second. Clutter shrinks spaces.

timwaagh 9y ago

my 'bedroom' is about four sq m. meaning it just about fits my bed. i share the rest of my appartment with others, but its still my appartment, so i can store my stuff wherever i want.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

apricot13 9y ago

I've been decluttering a lot over the past year and "Stop putting things away." is one of the things that took me the longest to get my head around but when I got used to it it made my life so much easier. Reducing the amount of effort it takes to get/store an item means you use it more (cleaning products) but also buy fewer yet nicer things. Definitely recommend Marie Kondo, both her books take only a few hours to read. The joy thing, though initially weird makes complete sense once you've read both books and she insists that everything has a home in the house - if you don't follow that rule you'll quickly become overwhelmed.

pvdebbe 9y ago

The trouble with small spaces is that they cost unproportionally much to rent. I could probably fit my home life in a 80 sqft apartment but when they rent for much more than 1/10th of a 800 sqft apartment, it's very hard to justify the compromise.

inetknght 9y ago
...unless you don't make the money for that 800sqft apartment
- zxcmx 9y ago
  Being willing to share space almost always ends up cheaper. A bunch of students, for example, can generally outbid a family with 2 workers and 3 kids for a large place. And the students have way lower standards usually. No moral commentary there, just an observation. Fortunately they are generally not after the same spaces. IMHO it actually sucks when property owners try to hoover up what I'd call the "space sharing discount" by renting out rooms on individual leases in a place where most of the space is shared. The culture (or not) is the thing which makes that arrangement work, and I don't feel like they should get to monetise that. I believe there are an increasing number of startups operating on exactly this premise though :/
  - icebraining 9y ago
    IMHO it actually sucks when property owners try to hoover up what I'd call the "space sharing discount" by renting out rooms on individual leases in a place where most of the space is shared. The culture (or not) is the thing which makes that arrangement work, and I don't feel like they should get to monetise that. Culture? Nah, if there's a need people will adapt themselves. We rent individual rooms in a couple of 3-bedroom condos, and it's worked fine even as tenants rotated over the years. Also, while we don't "hoover up" the discount (the total of the rents isn't higher than what we could get renting the whole place), I don't think it'd be wrong to do so, as the arrangement has extra benefits for the tenants: not having to find people to share, not having to worry about an increase on their rent if someone decides to leave or feel guilty about leaving the others with a higher rent, not having to get utility/internet contracts in their name, etc.

throwanem 9y ago

The desk I built myself last month is a quarter the area of the room described, which actually just about matches what I could expect to get for the same rent that gets me a ~600sf apartment here in Baltimore. So I guess I'm never moving to New York! The techniques described here are still useful, though. I've found the method of disposing of old clothes to generalize: if you have stuff you never use, put it in a box, write on the lid what's in it, and stuff it in an odd corner of a closet or somewhere else out of the way. If it's still untouched in a year, or when you find you need the space, take it to Goodwill. Wall-mounted shelves are indeed a marvel. They're easy to build from lumber with hand tools, if you've got the space to do it; it takes time, but you can size them precisely to fit the space where you mean to put them, and for shelves of any size it's it's cheaper in the end than buying the prebuilt sort.

yodsanklai 9y ago

I don't think small space is an issue by itself. It's very manageable if the building has good facilities (shared bathrooms, washing machines) and if you can easily eat outside. More problematic would be noisy environment or lack of window.

yodsanklai 9y ago

BugsJustFindMe 9y ago

> My current bedroom is ... Yawn. This isn't living in 80 square feet. This is bedrooming in 80 square feet. There's a gigantic difference. There's no mention of cooking, bathroom, or other shared space. Congratulations, you actually live in a much larger space than you admit. My first apartment in Paris was ~118 square feet (11m2), but that was INCLUDING a kitchenette, an enclosed bathroom (toilet, shower, and second sink), and an inward slanting wall (it was inside the building roof) which eliminated maybe a good fifth of the volume, and also no closet. And I lived there with my partner, so there were two people sharing that space, with two peoples' worth of clothing and coats and computers and other materials and dishes and pots and pans and luggage, and two peoples' worth of constantly being in someone else's way. And only that last detail, the constant interminable contact with another person, was difficult. But an 8x10 bedroom for one? So?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
Adding more... "Don't be a slob", "Don't accumulate shit", and "Don't be stupid with your space" are just so obnoxiously obvious as to be entirely unhelpful suggestions for anyone with half a brain cell. And "Don't bother putting things away" is a clear sign to me that this person doesn't know what small is, because when you live in an actually small space, putting things away neatly improves your mental state significantly. You will notice your improved condition when you have that extra few feet of floor, desk, and shelf space. Real functional advice would be things like "You'd be surprised at how much space you can save by replacing certain bulky items with compact travel/camping equivalents." Get rid of big fluffy bath towels that take forever to dry, and get small linen ones instead ( We have a few of these, and now I'd never buy anything else regardless of available space https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ ). The same goes for comforters and winter coats that you're going to want to stow in the summer, bags, dishes, and so forth.
- barbs 9y ago
  Is your arrogant and condescending tone really necessary here?

dopik11 9y ago

det spiller bare

blacktulip 9y ago

[2010] should be added to title.

j7ake 9y ago

how do you have friends or visitors come over? or do you meet up at public places?

wingerlang 9y ago
I lived for a few months in probably 30-40 square feet (2-3m^2), basically a hotel room with nothing but a bed and a window. Meeting up with friends was almost always out in public, except for some movie session every now and then in the room. I didn't really mind it, but I probably won't ever go below my current 400sqft anytime soon.

majewsky 9y ago

For those of us with useful units: 80 feet^2 = 7.43 m^2

miguelrochefort 9y ago

Why can't we find 80 square feet apartments for ~$300 in the USA/Canada?

stan_rogers 9y ago
In Canada, look for "rooming house". In parts of the States, it would be an "SRO". They're often paid for weekly rather than monthly.

peter303 9y ago

I just stayed in a 8 x 5 sqft NYC hotel room (The Jane). The bed fills over half of it. It has a 3 foot storage place below the bed and shelf above. The wall away from the bed has 6 x 5 ft mirror making the room seem twice as large. It also has a flat screen TV at foot of bed and 2x 5 window. The walls were thick enough you really couldnt hearbthe neighbors except when closing the door. What is amazing is that some of the same size rooms have a second bunked bed instead of the shelf. I guess you have to take turns using the stand up space.

robotresearcher 9y ago
> 8 x 5 sqft That's 40 ft^4. The extra dimension must be handy for storing luggage :)

ctdonath 9y ago

There's the popular "tiny house" movement in the USA - building complete homes on just 100 square feet.

firmgently 9y ago

I gave up my flat and moved into a caravan. It's about 75 sq ft and less than 6ft high. Within that is a kitchen (I cook all my own meals, bake bread etc. despite only having gas burners and grill) and a tiny wetroom/bathroom which I built myself. I live and work from here (I make and sell art and store my A3+ printer which I'll be using again soon). 27" monitor, spare bed, work area.. I do my laundry by hand in a bucket. My water tap is operated by a foot pump lol. I do a tiny bit of web work (used to be an Actionscript dev but that career died with Flash, the remaining jobs in that tech don't appeal to me and my CV has such a huge chasm in it now that my professional programming life seems to be over). I'm incredibly poor financially but life is challenging and interesting, the miniature home suits me fine and it's really good fun optimising the space.. just requires an adaptable mindset!

valuearb 9y ago

The US is now so crowded that there is only 3.5 million square feet per person.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
For most of that, though, the roof leaks... (That is: You're talking about the whole country, not about the space inside buildings. Most of your 3.5 million square feet is outdoors.)
- valuearb 9y ago
  And some is covered with water. Assume a third is unusable, at an average family size of 3 people that would still be nearly 7 million square feet each.

throwawaeroi894 9y ago

How actually living in 80 ft^2 looks (Tokyo). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

adjkant 9y ago
This video is about 20x more interesting than the article, which I think is just getting votes because HN always upvotes anything about living in tiny spaces, even though there no insight or interest in this one.

flavio81 9y ago

TL;DW: EDIT: this refers to the video linked by another poster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg House is 8m2, but it is a two level house so the bedroom is not taking up the ground space. She, apparently, lives alone. She lives in tokyo. 2016 minimum wage in Tokyo has been set to 932 JPY. For a 148 hour month, that's 137,936 JPY that currently means $1252 USD. Her house costs her about USD $600/mo. So that's about 48% of minimum monthly wage. Assuming she is getting minimum wage, doesn't sound bad at all. Now here's the deal: in my city the minimum wage is 850 PEN. 48% of that, is USD $123. With $123 here you couldn't afford to live alone renting any kind of house or apartment. You would have to rent a room. That is, no kitchen/washing machine/ clothesline, etc. And a very tiny one at that OR a well-sized one but located in a rather ugly part of the city. (Ugly as in, trash outside everyday, being robbed at gunpoint at night, etc.) So I guess all is fine in Tokyo.

antisthenes 9y ago

As someone who has trouble throwing things out, taking a picture of it to retain the sentimental value has been a huge help.

justforFranz 9y ago

I love how this story fits well into our currently economic ideology of vast wealth inequality, evaporating pensions, vanishing healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, labor with no pricing power, etc.