Tumbleweed Houses

I've come across the story of Jay Schafer before. He's the guy who built a tiny little house called Tumbleweed and has lived in tiny houses ever since then... 89 square feet (http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/) There is something appealing to me in his story. The idea of having a tiny house for $50,000 and living lightly upon the earth. The big thing for me is... the space... or lack thereof. I look around our 1500 sq ft condo and all of the stuff that we have and think... how could that ever be decluttered?? The kitchen alone wouldn't fit into one of the Tumbleweed houses!! Not a chance... not a hope...

Which leads me to wonder... how much of our stuff do we actually use? For instance, there are things in our kitchen that we have never used, or use maybe once a year... Which begs the question... why do we hang onto them? Basically because we have the space, or as my mother would say "it eats no bread" (sounds much better in German!).  We have the space, it's not bothering anyone, so let's just keep it. But instead of always upsizing... what if we downsized? What if we were able to let go of things to the point that we could begin to leave a smaller footprint on the earth?

There's a quote in Jay's book that says:
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. (William Morris)

The Tumbleweed houses are also mounted on wheels... so they are mobile... I like the idea of that, the ability to pick up and go somewhere else. I must have a travel bug...