After years of meticulous planning, researching, and blogging, Carolyn and Tim Dolton reportedly moved into their completed “Tiny House” last week. According to their blog, the couple was “bursting with excitement” about moving into their new home, but the excitement turned to “intense regret” within the first couple of hours. The house is a 400-square-foot feat of engineering, complete with a fold-away kitchen, pop-up toilet, and not much else.
Carolyn and Tim are now referring to their “dream home” as “a colossal waste of time and resources.”
“It’s really small, like so small” says Carolyn, “You don’t really get that until you try to live in it. After one night, we looked at each other had this sinking realization that we actually had to live in this tiny box.”
The couple sold their four-bedroom home in a nice neighborhood to follow the Tiny House movement, and claim that they thought they would really enjoy small living.
“We were so excited! We love tiny things; I love eating a clementine instead of a whole orange, so I figured this would come naturally. But now we have to live with what we’ve done.”
Tim explains how the reality hit him suddenly as well. “I didn’t really foresee having to choose between owning a fridge or getting rid of all of my shirts.”
The couple, who now rent several storage lockers larger than their new home, are expecting a baby in the spring, which they say will likely make their move to tiny living “an insurmountable hell we never imagined before.” Carolyn is reportedly planning to spend her third trimester in a hotel as she will be too wide to fit into the sleeping space.
“When we saw pictures of babies in tiny houses before, they looked so cute!” says Carolyn, “We now realize that you shouldn’t base important life decisions on pictures you see on the internet.”
Carolyn says that she does love the house despite its inconveniences, but that she loves it “in the same way that you love that desktop background picture of an orangutan.” Tim and Carolyn have decided to spread their story in hope that other couples won’t make the same “incredibly stupid mistake.”
“It’s a decision we regret every day,” says Carolyn, “We sold our beautiful home to live in a cuter version of a trailer. This maybe would be fun for like, a weekend, but we realize now that even that’s hard.”
