How Small Space Living Can Transform Your Life

Your home is for you, not just your possessions

In 2014 I moved full time onto a 32ft yacht. For three years.

While I’d only intended on going sailing for a few months, maybe six, it turned into a long-term way of life. The boat well and truly became my home.

Now when most people talk about small space living, or ‘tiny homes’, they’re not often talking about a place with 2 square metre floor space. The boat didn’t have so much small space as no space.

And yet I lived aboard with my then-partner for three years. And we still had everything we needed.

I’m back living on dry land now in a space still modest, but more usual. But the way of life I had to embrace on board the boat has stuck with me and it was genuinely transformative.

Filling the space you have

It’s often not until people move house that they realise just how much stuff they have. Normally it’s at least partially hidden away in cupboards, wardrobes, garages etc. But when you move, sheesh, there it all is. Endless.

I moved onto the boat when I was pretty young and only two years out of university. I hadn’t really had much time to accrue lots of things but still, when I packed it…