I have noted in recent weeks the existence of an organization called the Small House Society. They cite as a motto the notion of "better living through simplicity." My experience draws me to this motto like a moth to the light.Owning a home large enough to house 15 people (see "What We Did" post below) will not ever be--nor has it ever been--easy, particularly when one attempts to employ the Alice Haddow House for Grownups rules. Despite our pure motives in building Poppy's Place as a gathering place for our large family, I now know we could have accomplished the same thing far more simply and efficiently had we joined the Small House Society at the turn of the 21st century.
How do I know this? I know it because I purchased a small home in South Carolina just before my youngest's senior year of high school. As we made plans to gather the family there for Katy's graduation, we knew that a dozen or more people simply would not fit in two small bedrooms. We asked to rent one of the 11 villas on the same street, which led to an epiphany. Nothing could beat this arrangement for family happiness. One tiny house for the tidy grandparents (plural here only because Alice Haddow chooses neatness on behalf of her hapless husband) and their tidy offspring plus a second tiny house for free-spirited offspring equals a fabulous solution. It eliminates all nagging, guilt, or other unpleasantness involved in the AHHG rules.
Best of all, when everyone leaves, Poppy and Sugamom resume their simple lives of golf and swimming at a fraction of the expense incurred in the Virginia countryside. There is a reason Alice Haddow refers to her SC villa as a little house of joy. Access to a home computer in the coming week will also provide access to the pictures that will show precisely why.
