I’ve fallen in love with Boston. No question about it. This past year has been one of the best of my life. I’ve also fallen in love with city living. And I mean real city living. No car, no traffic or parking anxiety, lots of walking, and public transit for those times when the walk would be a bit excessive, the shoes less than comfortable, or the weather uncooperative. I do not want to return to a car culture! Our wonderful “small house” urban experiment has been fabulous, but a tad on the small side. I want a deck and a grill, a kitchen that holds more than four vegetables and two people at the same time, at least one more room for my office, and a little more storage. If you have read my previous post, you also know we decided we needed a “permanent” home base from which to wander. So where should we plant ourselves?
When we began this whole Urban Experiment, we thought seriously about never owning a residence again. We thought about renting furnished apartments and being free to come and go with ease. Maybe six months in one city, three in ski country, and then a year somewhere else. We could have many urban experiments in cities here and abroad interspersed with travel and vacations. Why own a place? My work involves lots of travel and phone conversations. No reason to travel from the same place all the time! But now, 9 months into this wonderful experiment, we still can’t get Mass Health Connector to get our address right! They aren’t the only ones, but certainly the ones that have sucked up the most time. The day we finally get all the address changes right, we’ll be ready to move again!
When we launched this experiment – sold our house and got rid of a significant portion of our things – we were amazed by the possibilities open to us. Having lived in the country, small towns, and the suburbs, our Urban Experiment was driven by the need to try the one place we had never lived: the center of a city. We are five months into our one year experiment, and though we are loving it, we can’t help but toy with the endless possibilities for the next experiment! For example, we have never lived ON the water. It’s a possibility! Don’t you love those little flower boxes? That one might be a bit too small and rustic. But who’s to say? We’ve never tried it! How about a different city next year? Seattle? New York? San Diego? Chicago? Portland? Why limit ourselves to the US? How about London or Athens or Oslo?
When my parents died, they still lived in the house where I was born. They had no intentions of moving. Ever. It was a big old Minnesota farm house. They added on to it many times, gradually molding it to their lifestyle and tastes. And it was filled with stuff. Bookshelves were plentiful – floor to ceiling, horizontal bands between door jams and ceilings, straight-ahead and above your head as you climbed three flights of stairs. And that was just the books. They had built-in cupboards for all the old record albums as well as several generations of audio equipment. More for the photo albums, movies, and videos of every birthday party and family trip. Once my siblings and I left the nest, my parents traveled the world. Turkish canes, Thai pitchers, Siberian relics – art and memories from more countries than I can name – adorned apparently endless nooks. More cupboards were needed for the companion pamphlets and maps. After each trip, they extolled the virtues of their peaceful, eclectic house, looked forward to reviewing their maps and photos, and enjoyed finding spaces for cherished mementos. After they died, I took one look at the tremendous quantity of stuff and realized I had a choice. I could relive their lives or I could live my own. There was no way I could possibly do both. I chose the latter.
We knew living in the center of the city would mean having less space. But we had also seen plenty of small but efficient living spaces when traveling abroad. Even New York City, with its tiny rooms, sometimes surprises you with the comfort and convenience planned carefully into small rooms. Thus, we were willing to consider something pretty small when we came to Boston in March to determine whether we could live in the city When we visited Beacon Hill apartments, we discovered spaces that failed hands down, no matter how charming, by simply feeling cramped and unmanageable. Most seemed fit for no more than one small, non-claustrophobic person. Back Bay units kick up the size average just a notch, but that is also where we learned how much layout, light, and high ceilings matter. The place we fell in love with scored high in all three, not to mention charm, of course. So now that we’ve been here for two months, I thought I’d give you the low down on tiny house living to date!
Seen the sights of New York, Chicago, or San Francisco? How about Paris and London? Do your memories include a good dose of exhaustion? Endless walking? Long lines? And an open spigot where your wallet usually resides? When we first arrived in Boston on June 4th, we were returning from eastern Europe with fresh memories of the pros and cons of city travel. Take Istanbul, for example. We enjoyed the sidewalk cafes and criss-crossed the old city, sampling the baklava and Turkish Delight with both eyes and mouths. We quenched our thirst with fresh squeezed orange juice available on nearly every corner. We planned carefully to avoid lines, got up early, and hit several of the most wonderful places: the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, Basilica Cistern, and the Galata Bridge. After two days, we were exhausted, ready to move on, and felt we had seen the main sights and sampled the flavors of the city. Rinse and repeat. Budapest, Krakow, and Prague. Had it not been for slower paced interludes in the quaint towns of Hungary and Transylvania and the striking mountains of Slovakia, this trip would have been down right grueling. But what’s the alternative? Once “in the neighborhood,” you can’t skip Krakow! At least I can’t! And with so much to see, it doesn’t really make sense to take a day off and just sit inside the hotel to read. So we pushed onward and onward, enjoying the experiences despite the sprint. Then we returned to a new home in Boston. Another city! And that’s when we discovered the best way to vacation!!
A lot of people freak out at the thought of driving in the city. Why? Because of traffic and parking nightmares! I totally agree. And that’s why we moved to the hill towns of western Massachusetts ten years ago when we’d had enough of the steadily increasing traffic of Minneapolis. During that decade, we came to Boston infrequently, even though it was only a hundred miles away. When I had business meetings, I often drove in the night before because the morning traffic could add an hour or more to any trip. When I left in the morning, it was usually at 5:00 AM or earlier. This past winter, when Boston was the snowiest place in the USA, my only hope of getting to Boston meetings on time required leaving two hours early with my husband driving so he could drop me off, and, if necessary, drive in circles until I was finished. Parking was simply impossible. Being a resident is different! At least in the summer! Residents can park their cars, leave them parked, and walk! But first you have to prove you are a resident and get a resident parking permit. That was our first order of business when we returned from Istanbul in early June! It took most of the day, of course, but in the end, we walked out with our wonderful little Back Bay sticker! Isn’t it beautiful? So let me tell you how this really works:
In the midst of our packing frenzy, I had a brilliant idea. Why not have the movers move everything while we were relaxing at an outdoor cafe in Europe? Before leaving, we would mark all the boxes and furniture with one of three colored labels: yellow = move to storage green = move to Boston red = leave for new owners At this point, I knew exactly which pieces of furniture, as well as paintings, framed photos, and rugs, would fit in our new apartment. I think I measured pretty much every dimension at least five times to be certain. We had boxes matched with each built-in at the apartment. I knew how many inches of books the built-in bookshelves could hold. I even had a floor plan so the movers would know where to put the furniture upon arrival. These were all tagged in green. The boxes headed for storage were accumulating in our basement, they and miscellaneous furniture were tagged in yellow. A few items – guest room queen, screen porch furniture, and others wore red. We met with the mover and I wish you could have seen the look on his face!
Readers and friends alike have told me they can’t picture me living in the city. They associate me with skiing, wood-burning stoves, and wilderness canoe trips. What they don’t know is that I fell in love with Boston at the age of 12 and chose Tufts University for my undergraduate years as a result. They don’t know I bought season tickets just for me to The Theater in the Round and the Minnesota Opera when I was in high school. They don’t realize I have traveled in 43 countries, spent lots of that time in cities, and loved every minute of it. And, if that weren’t the case, if I had never really experienced city life at all, wouldn’t it be about time?!
And then the unexpected happened. Our house sold. Instantly. Exactly a month after deciding we could live in Boston, we were headed there. We had no choice. There was no time to think about Vermont or other alternatives. There was no time to ponder the loss of my local office space so suddenly. There was no time, period. Especially because we were leaving on a three week vacation in less than a month and the closing was set for the day after our return. Did I also mention that our Urban Experiment would be a Small House Experiment?