Homebodies - Everything old is new again...

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Published on Sunday, June 12, 2016

By Rita Friesen

The Neepawa Banner

The tiny house movement is apparently taking America by storm. I admit, I am intrigued by the concept, even watch the television show whenever I can. The settlers of the Canadian prairies mastered tiny house living. My mother-in-law could recall living in a soddie, also known in Mennonite culture as a semlin. Basically a home built of sod, dug down into the earth before forming the walls of sod grass. Even the roof was made of earth. One door, perhaps a window, luxury if it was a glass one, practical if it was one of oiled paper.

The first log cabins would qualify as a tiny house as well. A ten by twelve foot cabin was enough space to raise a growing family. Not saying I would have wanted to call these small crowded abodes home, but they worked. Now there is a movement that is encouraging folks to get a tiny house and place it on their property as a home for their aged parent. We did that before as well. I know of more than one farm home that had a small, one room home where a relative lived. Granny LaPointe loved hers. She could retreat from the noise and bustle of her daughter’s home, filled with the love and laughter of ten children, and seek seclusion within the frame of the family yard. Double bonus, she could come across for any meal she was invited to, and a grandchild needing a bit of one on one could sneak away for hugs and cookies. Assisted independence at it’s best. We have become carried away with bigger and better and filled every nook and cranny with stuff. I can see the appeal of simplifying life, with a tiny house, you can only own a limited amount of anything.

The other fad is re-cycling. I hope it is more than a fad, we need to make it a way of life. But folks are refurbishing unused furniture into usable pieces. Not that I always think the finished result is a thing of beauty, but I didn’t do the work! Turning a bed headboard into a garden bench – interesting. Turning an antique, unused pump organ into a work station, computer, printer and accessories all in one confined space, well, that’s ingenious. There are a hundred and one things you can make out of pallets. Again, some simply use up pallets, and other projects could be useful. Upright against a yard fence to become an herb garden works for me, but the patio bar, not so much. 

Here is my age and era speaking. Back on the farm, we didn’t throw much out. One never knew when that scrap of lumber, that piece of angle iron or tin would be required for a patch job somewhere, or a start to a new project. And so it goes, everything old is new again.