Tiny homes are certainly a trend in the last few years, even among celebrities. In fact, multimillionaire Tony Hsieh (the former CEO of Zappos before it was sold to Amazon) lives in a trailer no bigger than 200 sq feet. However, he does own the trailer park where that tiny home sits. (1)
The unusually long story of tiny homes
You may be surprised to hear that tiny homes are not just a trend of the last 10 years or so. Tiny homes have existed in one form or another since humans went from nomads to settlers. In the Neolithic age (from 10,200 BC to 2,000 BC) when humans started farming and keeping animals, they saw the need for a fixed home. Their first homes were either rectangular or circular, commonly made of mud bricks or timber.
Neolithic homes typically had a cooking area in the middle, that would also be used as a heater, and a living /sleeping area. Curiously this era saw the birth of the indoor toilet (they were holes in the ground).
At the end of the Bronze and Iron Ages (3,000BC – 300 BC), the inhabitants of Ancient Mongolia lived in yurts, also known as Mongolian Gers. Yurts were all wooden structures wrapped with leather/animal skin. They were collapsable and movable, because of this, toilets were outside the yurt.
Another example of tiny homes in the 19th century was the Gypsy wagons, used by the Romani-people to travel across Europe. They were houses on wheels made of wood with mostly golden interior, pulled by horses. The earliest version of RV or camper vans we know today. (2)
Sustainable IKEA
It’s been a long time since IKEA’s creator Ingvar Kamprad was selling matches by bike at 7 years old. His entrepreneurial spirit took IKEA out of the southern woods in Sweden to all over the world. Now, after 60 years of impressive growth, IKEA is a household name worldwide. With all that fame comes a degree of responsibility too, a reason to set an example for others. To that end, IKEA is also wholly committed to sustainability.
In 2020 IKEA removed all single-use plastic products from all their restaurants in stores around the globe. From reducing the number of assembly parts in a sofa from 122 to 13 to offering veggie hot dogs, IKEA keeps incorporating sustainable approaches for future years. (3)
IKEA Tiny Home
In its continuous efforts of becoming a greener brand, IKEA just entered the tiny home market. Together with Escape and Vox Creative, IKEA started The IKEA Tiny Home project.
Escape, a company based in Wisconsin, designs and builds award-winning tiny homes, has 25 years of experience. They customized their BOHO XL model to create the 187sq feet IKEA BOHO XL tiny home. This includes a compostable toilet, solar panels, whitewashed sustainable-grow-pine-paneled walls. It also has built-in storage made from recycled bottle tops and energy-efficient IKEA appliances. Together with IKEA furniture, of course.
With the help of Vox Creative, IKEA launched a digital tour of their $47,550 (start price) IKEA tiny home for customers to experience. (4)
You can certainly live large while staying small.
