American Culture: Shotgun Houses

 

Does the name “shotgun house” scare you? Fear not, because a shotgun house is a typical small Southern style home of New Orleans, and it’s charming and cute. Even though tiny homes are a big trend now, shotgun houses could be considered the original tiny home because they were very popular in the late 1800s.

Shotgun houses are tiny but long, with one room leading into the next without hallways. This style of home is affordable and particularly well-suited for hot climates because all of the doors line up and, when open, a refreshing breeze flows through the entire house. 

Why is it called a shotgun house? Perhaps it’s because of the architectural design, where rooms are connected without hallways so a bullet fired from the front door could pass through the house without hitting anything and exit through the back door. Other evidence suggests that this name actually derives from the word “shogon.” In West Africa, “shogon” means “God’s House.”

Tiny Houses

When I was a little girl, I used to read a fairy tale called Teeny Tiny, which was about a little woman and everything in her life was small. Teeny and tiny are synonyms for small, which explains the title of the story. She lived in a teeny tiny village. She wore teeny tiny clothes. She slept in a teeny tiny bed, and so on. It was a strange story that scared me a little bit.
Anyway, of course she lived in a teeny tiny home, which reminds me of a new, growing trend here in the USA, which is tiny houses. To save money or simplify their lives, a small but growing number of Americans are buying or building houses that could fit inside many people's living rooms.
Measuring 8-15 square meters, these tiny houses are on wheels so some people put them in their backyards to use as offices, studios, or extra bedrooms. Others use them as mobile vacation homes that they can park in the woods or by a lake. There are increasing numbers of adventurous people that live in tiny houses full-time, with only their basic and most necessary possessions.
Could you live full-time in a tiny house, keeping only your most important things?