\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been invited into the homes of architects in Buenos Aires, voguish designers in Hong Kong, community organisers in Sydney and writers in Paris \u2013 except that I haven\u2019t, not really.<\/p>\n
Really what I\u2019m doing is watching episodes of Never Too Small on YouTube. Never Too Small is a media company that makes a magazine and an online documentary series dedicated \u201cto small footprint design\u2028and living\u201d. To me, Never Too Small is \u201cthe company that makes my favourite television show, which I watch while eating toast\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Episodes go live weekly and there are more than 100. Their length (generally less than 10 minutes) is perfect. The soothing graphics of ancient buildings and bustling metropolitan streets are so chic. The minimal music will make you feel as though your insides are in a warm bath. When you start watching these videos, you realise you need more than 100. Suddenly 100 feels like three. It\u2019s like discovering chocolate for the first time then being told that it\u2019s only a \u201csometimes\u201d food.<\/p>\n
Ostensibly the series is meant to demonstrate that humans don\u2019t actually need to build massive cathedrals to be comfortable. This is a fascinating message to receive in Australia, where we\u2019re told daily that if we don\u2019t own property on a parcel of land that takes a day and a half to trot across, we may as well be dead. (We have either Banjo Patterson or McLeod\u2019s Daughters to blame.) Even the guy from Grand Designs said Australia\u2019s obsession with huge houses is revolting! Well, he didn\u2019t use those exact words but it was something like that. Never Too Small shows us that people around the world are taking tiny townhouses and shoebox apartments and making better homesteads than those McLeod girls could have dreamed of.<\/p>\n
Now, I love Never Too Small. I love things that are small. I want to fold myself up into sixteenths and place myself into an envelope and post myself off in a (tiny) letterbox belonging to a bunny in a minuscule beret. I gotta say, though: some of these homes do not feel small!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this small?\u201d I\u2019ll sometimes ask my partner, while we\u2019re eating our toast. \u201cIs this small?\u201d he\u2019ll say back because neither of us really know. What is small? Is small a trick of the mind? Some of these places have courtyards!<\/p>\n
Looking at the square footage \u2013 which is helpfully disclosed at the start of each video \u2013 they are<\/em> actually quite small. \u201cI live in a small house and I don\u2019t crow about it,\u201d you might be thinking, but do you have a Wes Anderson-inspired display of precious stones? What about an airy community library? Or a cabin that separates in two so you can sleep under the stars (but still in your bed, you\u2019re not a caveman)? You don\u2019t, which is why these small homes are special.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Saved for Later<\/span><\/p>\n Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia’s culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It\u2019s fascinating to see how these spaces are transformed. (It\u2019s also hurtful when the owners describe the before shot as \u201cdrab\u201d since it so closely resembles my own apartment.) The bath is almost always the first thing to go, which I find disturbing. An oven gets the chop too, if they\u2019re the sort of professional who prefers to eat out. Sometimes there\u2019s no bath, no oven, but there is a climbing wall.<\/p>\n The subjects wear carefully steamed clothes, artful sneakers and have interesting jobs. Even their pets seem to know more about life than I ever will (you can just tell, something about the arch of the eyebrow). \u201cWhen we host dinner parties, we can pull this custom bench seat out and accommodate eight to 10 people,\u201d they say, gesturing to the most beautiful block of wood you\u2019ve ever seen. Imagine being the sort of person who hosts dinner parties! Imagine knowing eight to 10 people!<\/p>\n The writer, scientist and serious-looking guy Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote: \u201cHe is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.\u201d Which, sure. But I find the most peace looking at videos of other people\u2019s clever homes. We\u2019re all one reclaimed wood dining table or tiny piano away from complete bliss. Never Too Small, never stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been invited into the homes of architects in Buenos Aires, voguish designers in Hong Kong, community organisers in Sydney and writers in Paris \u2013 except that I haven\u2019t, not really. Really what I\u2019m doing is watching episodes of Never Too Small on YouTube. Never Too Small is a media company that makes a magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[1270,1263,1268,187,956,1264,1266,1267,1269,1265],"class_list":{"0":"post-9238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-abodes","9":"tag-antidote","10":"tag-chic","11":"tag-crisis","12":"tag-culture","13":"tag-housing","14":"tag-series","15":"tag-showcasing","16":"tag-tiny","17":"tag-youtube"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}