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Living Large In Small Spaces - A Tour of Shabby Chic Tiny Retreat

Third post in the series

"Living Large in Small Spaces"

Tonita's Tiny House

"A Tiny place of enchantment

where my heart is able to sing."

(Words from Tonita's blog Shabby Chic Tiny Retreat)

When I first saw Tonita's Shabby Chic Tiny Retreat it was love at first sight. If ever there was a reason for me to do cartwheels over a truly tiny house this is it.  

Hey!  That's my teapot.

Never mind that this little cottage possesses a teapot just like mine.


A tiny house is built

Tonita had been looking at tiny houses for years when in November 2010 she found tiny house builder Scott Stewart of Slab Town Custom Homes in Arkansas.  

The AnneMarie Model- Slabtown Customs

At the time Scott was offering special pricing on The AnneMarie tiny house model.  Tonita contacted Scott and after several phone conversations about customization possibilities she ordered her own tiny house.  

The house is built on a steel I-beam frame with two 6,000 lb axles.

Construction of Tonita's tiny house began in October 2011.  

Scott's digital photographs kept Tonita  visually apprised of his progress.

Although 2,000 miles separated Tonita from her builder and house, she was involved in every aspect of the home's design and construction. "Working with an out-of-state builder is not for everyone," she says, "but with computers and phone communication it makes it easier. 

To maximize the bathroom's space Tonita chose a small tub with shower surround, wall sink and tankless commode.

"I originally was going to use a normal home style toilet, but once it was sitting next to the bathtub it was easy to see in the pictures Scott sent me that it was just too cramped. . .I opted to use a RV low water toilet instead.  It has a full flush that mimics a normal toilet."  

The toilet can be tied into a sewer line or a holding tank.

Upper portion of the bath and shower surround.

To help her visualize the home's interior while it was being built Tonita marked out an 8' x 18' area in her garage with tape.  "I  cut out cardboard pieces the size of my very tiny bathtub, toilet, bathroom sink, refrigerator,  kitchen sink, stove top and counter space," she explains, "and placed them along the floor to mimic the layout of my tiny home." 

The Tonita Tiny House - Slabtown Customs

Scott left the interior wood unfinished so Tonita could paint it as she desired.  The flooring is Allure Trafficmaster.

By the end of November construction was complete and Scott moved Tonita's house from Mountain View, Arkansas to Springfield, Missouri.

Tonita's Tiny House arrives!

From there a friend transported the house to Tonita's land.

Tonita painted the interior white,  and festive decorations were in place by Christmas.

Tonita was "waiting with paint brush in hand" when her house showed up.

The tiny house has a standard size front door.

The house is 8' wide x 18" long and has an 8' x 6' front porch.  Even with the cost to transport the finished house from Arkansas to Washington state, Tonita says her tiny house was a "great deal".

Tonita stresses the importance of using a standard size front door in a tiny house. "Not so skinny people can feel uncomfortable crunching through some of the tiny front doors used on many tiny homes. This will provide your  guests as well as yourself a more comfortable entry into your tiny abode. It will also allow you to move in a table that will seat up to four guests comfortably, that is if you build your home at least eight feet wide by eighteen (ish) feet long. Of course, there is always an option to purchase a table with removable legs or a fold down compact table and chairs in order to move it through a tiny door that is not a standard size. However, with tiny non-standard front doors your furniture options become a bit more limited."


Romancing the tiny house

Filled with her vintage and shabby chic decor, Tonita's tiny house is now a romantic retreat. She jokes that the cottage has been "girly-fied".

The front porch is a study in wicker and lace.

In the summer Tonita's  porch serves as an outdoor sitting room. Thrift store lace panels block the sun and cast fanciful patterns on the porch walls.  A wicker loveseat ($25 Craigslist find) offers comfortable seating. 

Ready for guests.

Mismatched chairs and a wicker table keep the mood relaxed. The little table was a "free" roadside discovery that Tonita brought home and painted white.

A white wreath and antique French key  on the front door whisper "Welcome".

The Great Room

Walking through the door of Tonita's tiny house would be like entering a fairy tale.  One could imagine this as a cottage belonging to a princess.

Quaint gingerbread trim and whimsical decor are found throughout the cottage.

There's a sense of timelessness and enchantment in every detail.

A vintage screen door was repurposed as the pantry door.

Make no mistake, though.  The house is equipped with modern conveniences.  

Built-in apartment size refrigerator with bottom freezer.

Electric cook top, double sink and full size faucet.

The kitchen has ample counter space for preparing meals.  

The dark stain Tonita used on the maple butcher block  countertop contrasts nicely with the white cabinets.

The counter does double duty as a buffet for entertaining.

Tonita gave the base cabinets a beadboard look,  painted them and added glass pulls and knobs.

She added the backsplash and shelves, too.

Christmas kitchen

A built-in shelf unit keeps things organized.  Note that the front of the shelf is a ladder.

The shelf unit's ladder can easily be removed and used to access the two sleeping lofts.

Ladder to the guest loft.

The guest loft is above the reading nook and bathroom.

Tonita furnished the guest loft with a twin feather bed, which allows for extra storage room.

A chandelier and fairy lights cast a dreamy glow.

Ladder to the master loft.

The master loft is above the front entrance.

Master loft.

Tonita furnished the master loft with a double bed, although a queen would fit, too.

Cozy reading nook

The reading nook is fitted with a comfortable chaise lounge, an abundance of pillows, and a throw for curling up with a good book or settling in for a nap.

Reading nook windows

Just enjoying the lovely view of Tonita's property is an option, too.

"My favorite piece in my tiny house -  My chandy from Spain, dressed for Christmas." ~ Tonita

The reading nook's chandelier is one of nine that hang in Tonita's tiny house.

"Lots of mirrors in the tiny house to reflect light" ~ Tonita

A $2 vintage medicine cabinet was repurposed as a spice cabinet.

Christmas mantel

Tonita dressed up a built-in wall heater by placing a faux fireplace in front of it. The mantel was made from an old chippy door.

The delightful bathroom is unabashedly frilly.

One of the many lovely vignettes in the tiny house.

Tonita's small space doesn't keep her from entertaining.   

"You have to be creative to live in a tiny house and even more creative when you entertain in one." ~ Tonita

She hosted an "I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas" party for four friends in her tiny house, planning ahead of time how she would accommodate winter outerwear. "A large vintage coat and hat rack inside my bath tub area held the guests' large, bulky and dripping winter coats," she explains, "while their purses sat inside my little bathtub."

Tonita says her dining table seats 4 comfortably.

A vintage apron adorns an old theater chair.

For seating she uses old theater chairs that fold flat when not in use.

"Just because you live in a tiny house doesn't mean you can't decorate it." ~ Tonita

Tonita's use of small scale free standing furniture instead of the hard edged built-ins typically found in today's Tiny Houses makes it comfortable, inviting and very livable.

Le' Chicken Chateau

While Tonita was waiting for her tiny house to be built she repurposed an old playhouse into a chicken coop for her rare breed lavender Orpington chicks.

Before

After

Shabby chic chicken coop.  "Why not?" Tonita quips.

The coop interior includes a chandelier, washable wallpaper and chicken art on the wall.  An old milk can stores organic chicken feed. "A vintage tractor seat makes a nice place for me to sit and hang out in the coop and watch my little chicks grow," Tonita explains.

"I found these wonderful vintage nesting boxes on Craig's list. They came from and old egg production barn that was over a hundred and fifty years old. I just love them." ~ Tonita

Tonita found old table legs ($1 each) and added them to the nesting box to give it "the look of freestanding furniture."  The hens' names are painted over the nests "just in case [they]start to squabble over what space belongs to them."

Fall at Le' Chicken Chateau

An enclosed chicken run -- accessed from the coop - was added later.

Chicken run door.

The chickens free range when Tonita is home.

The Cottage Storage Shed

Tonita stows seasonal decor and other possessions in her storage shed. "Even in a tiny house I feel it is important to be able to change out furniture and décor," she says. "I could not imagine living day in and day out, year in and year out with the same stuff in the same place all the time. I would go stir crazy and be bored to death."

The 10' x 20' shed is larger than Tonita's tiny house.

Tonita made over the original plain storage unit to give it a cottage look.  Here's a rundown of budget-friendly materials she used for the project:

"My tiny house on the left, the chicken chateau & run in the center and the shed on the right." ~ Tonita

Tonita has created a charming, one-of-a-kind homestead.  I asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to those considering a tiny house. Here's what she wrote:

"What I would like to say to people interested in downsizing or shifting to a small or tiny home is this… There are no rules to tiny or small home living.  Just because you live in a tiny space you DO NOT have to be a minimalist or get rid of everything you own.  I think it is important to fill your space with the things that make your heart sing, and you can have a storage unit or outbuilding to store items and then rotate them in and out with the change of your mind or the seasons.   

Also tiny homes may provide a mortgage free living option for you but remember they are still illegal to live in  (due to size regulations) in most areas of the United States.  Do your homework before you build a tiny home."

Great advice from someone who's living large in a small space.  

Thank you, Tonita, for sharing your tiny house and Le' Chicken Chateau with us.

(All photos are the property of Tonita and used with her permission.)

There's so much more I could share about Tonita and her "living large in a small space" life.  Visit her beautiful blog Shabby Chic Tiny Retreat to see more photos and read about life in her fabulous tiny house.

See Scott's video tour of Tonita's completed tiny house before it left Slabtown Customs. Very informative!

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Join me next Saturday for another post in the special series

 Living Large in Small Spaces

See more home tours in the 
Living Large In Small Spaces Series here.

Would you like to share your small space story 
or have your home 
featured  in this special series?
Send me an email and let's collaborate.
(See the "Contact Me" page for email address.)

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20 Profound Things We Learned From Winnie The Pooh!

Winnie-the-Pooh is a worldwide beloved fictional character created by English author A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about this Pooh Bear was the book Winnie-the-Pooh back in 1926! Kids around the world have grown up listening to Winnie-the-Pooh tales and watching his cartoons, but it turns out there’s so much more to his incredible character! In fact, adults also can learn from these simple yet profound truths.

Here’s a list of 20 best pearls of wisdom of Winnie-the-Pooh through the years! Enjoy and share them with your friends and family

1. Piglet: ’’How do you spell ’love’?’’ Pooh: ’’You don’t spell it…you feel it.”

2. ’’You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.’’

3. ’’The things that make me different are the things that make me.’’

4. ’’If the person you are talking to does not appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in this ear.’’

5. ’’If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.’’

6. ’’As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen.’’

7. ’’Sometimes the smallest things take the most room in your heart.’’

8. ’’Some people care too much. I think it’s called love.’’

9. ’’Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.’’

10. ’’If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.’’

11. ’’Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.’’

12. ’’I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.’’

13. ’’You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.’’

14. ’’Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.’’

15. ’’A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.’’

16. ’’A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.’’

17. ’’Love is taking a few steps backward, maybe even more… to give way to the happiness of the person you love.’’

18. ’’A day spent with you is my favourite day. So today is my new favourite day.’’

19. ’’No one can be sad when they have a balloon!’’

20. ’’How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.’’

Which quote did YOU like the most? Please let us know!

(h/t: Bright Side)

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7 Reasons You Might Not Want to Teach Anymore

Comstock Images via Getty Images

Today marks exactly one year since I left teaching, a decision dictated by my family’s cross-country move. To acknowledge the occasion, let me share with you the top search — BY FAR — that brings people to my site:

I don’t want to teach anymore.

In the twelve years I was a high school English teacher, I watched people leave the profession in droves. The climate is different. The culture is different. The system is breaking, and educators are scattering to avoid the inevitable crushing debris when it all comes crumbling down.

I won’t go into detail about the budget cuts or the massive class sizes or the average salary, as that’s all been discussed ad nauseam. I’m not going to talk about the bone-deep exhaustion that comes from being onstage all day, or the drowning sensation that follows you home on nights and weekends when you have hundreds of papers to grade.

These are the other things — the stuff you might only understand if you have a key to the teachers’ lounge.

1. You are an “authority figure” with no real authority.

A friend once told me, “You have no idea what it’s like to have a real job — something with deadlines and adults breathing down your neck. You get to be your own boss.” The sheer ignorance of her declaration has stuck with me for years, and still needles me, mostly because that line of thinking is an extremely common misconception.

When we close our door each day and stride to the front of the classroom, it’s easy to fall prey to the illusion that we are in charge. It’s your name on that door, after all, so you must be the boss.

Reality check: you are not the boss.

Parents are the boss of you. The administration is the boss of you. Common Core is the boss of you. The students can sense it, which occasionally leads to comments like, “My parents pay your salary, you know.” Truth. And because of that truth, there is often immense pressure to compromise your integrity: to pass a child who has not demonstrated mastery, to allow an extension on a paper you assigned two months ago, to give less homework or different projects or more lenient grades, because sometimes you are expected to avoid rocking the boat.

2. Your day does not resemble that of a typical white-collar professional.

Despite my aforementioned friend’s ignorance, I’ll give her this: sometimes you are painfully aware that your “real job” does seem suspiciously different from other “real jobs” which require a college degree.

Here are the things your friends can do at work:

1. Pee
2. Get coffee
3. Spend fifteen minutes chatting leisurely with a colleague
4. Go out to lunch
5. Complete paperwork and other job-related tasks during the actual work day
6. Sit down occasionally

I’m pretty sure the real reason summer break exists is because the School Gods counted up all the seconds you don’t get to use the bathroom and handed them back to you in one big chunk. Twenty-five-minute lunches are not conducive to nice, relaxing meals beyond the building’s walls, and you can only relieve yourself during passing time — which, unfortunately, is the only opportunity all the OTHER teachers have to take care of business.

Because you know what else is the boss of you? The bell schedule.

3. Everyone thinks they know how to do your job. EVERYONE.

Adding to the sting of your not-in-charge-ness, many people who ARE in charge have literally never taught a day in their lives — and a lot of them are pretty sure they know how to do it better than you.

Most people have lights in their home, but that doesn’t make them electricians. My husband doesn’t know how to manage a restaurant just because we’ve gone out to eat. Can I profess to be an expert on successful lawyering because I watch Law & Order: SVU once a week?

Surely, teaching is different, though, right? At some point, just about everyone has sat in a classroom. We were all students, after all. Six, seven, eight hours a day, ever since preschool, everyone has seen this job, so everyone is allowed to have an opinion.

But even brand new teachers can tell: the view looks a whole lot different from behind the podium. So when your high, high, highest-ups are committees of people who only know what it’s like to be a student, it feels akin to a team of accountants trying to wire a building.

You know what’s probably going to happen? That sucker’s going up in flames.

4. You wanted to foster imagination, not slaughter it.

For a while now, teachers have been battling an increasing pressure to “teach to the test.” Despite our banshee-esque warning cries, this situation is not improving. Courses with “real-world” value (home economics, for example, or shop class) are dying a not-so-gradual death, as there is no “Foods & Nutrition” section on the SAT. Art and music programs are still in grave danger — and, in some districts, have already been slashed to ribbons.

An elementary school teacher I know — who is a part of one of the wealthiest, most reputable districts in her state — attended a recent meeting where staff members were instructed to “drastically limit or entirely eliminate” story time. “It’s not differentiated enough,” they were told, “and therefore is a waste of valuable class time.”

The kids are in THIRD GRADE. They deserve to gather around a rocking chair and feed their imaginations. They deserve the magic of a captivating story. They deserve to learn that you can read for pleasure instead of strictly for information.

“Core” high school classes aren’t immune to the damage, either. English teachers look on helplessly as more and more works of fiction are plucked from the curriculum and replaced by fact-driven nonfiction. Even though we’re sometimes invited to join curriculum committees (as I did) under the guise that we might have a say, it’s ultimately just a ruse: we have only as much freedom as our national and state standards allow. At the moment, there is a relentless push toward FACTS. DATA. STATISTICS.

That doesn’t leave very much room for make-believe.

But here’s the thing: discussions about fiction lead to rich discussions about life, which drives something much more important than the growth of a student — it guides the growth of a human being.

5. The technology obsession is making you CRAZY.

Our beloved works of fiction aren’t just getting elbowed aside by facts and figures. They’re also being trounced by the frenetic crush of technology. “The children must learn ALL THE TECH!” everyone shouts, flailing their arms and stampeding toward the nearest Apple store. “It is the way of the future!”

Then why are some big-shot technology CEOs sending their kids to computer-free Waldorf Schools? There’s an app — er, a reason — for that.

This one is tricky. OF COURSE, as teachers, our job is to adapt to the changing times. But I might argue that our job is also to challenge our students with something new — and, to this generation, technology is not new. In fact, it is all they know. Our kids don’t need more of it — most of them have been swiping and zooming and smartphone-ing since they were toddlers — and they continue to do it right in the middle of your (probably fact-driven) lecture about some (probably nonfiction) book, by the way. It’s incredibly frustrating when all that glorious innovation serves as more of a distraction than a learning tool.

Though we teachers tend to stick together, I also have a group of friends and family with a wide range of careers — they run the gamut from successful marketers to mechanical engineers to human resource managers. All of them have interviewed prospective employees for over a decade, and all of them now have a similar complaint: it’s becoming close to impossible to find candidates they actually want to hire.

The three C’s people suddenly seem to be missing? Curiosity, creativity, and communication skills.

Technology is wonderful — nay, necessary — for a plethora of things, but it’s killing those beautiful C’s. And as a teacher, you don’t just witness the death, you are expected to assist in the murder. Because of standardized expectations, you must incorporate more and more tech, even when all you want to do is take a hammer to anything with a screen.

6. All the entitlement and the trophies and the apathy and whatever.

The air inside your classroom walls is probably thick with the stench of “It’s not my fault, it’s your fault,” and it sure seems like the smell is coming from the students.

Ironically, this is not their fault.

Like cigarette smoke, it gets carried in from home, rising from their backpacks, woven through the threads of their clothes and the fibers of their upbringing. Their whole lives, generations of special snowflakes have received copious awards and accolades just for playing — NOT for excelling — so it’s no wonder kids have come to expect an A “because I tried.” But sometimes a D paper is just a D, which doesn’t necessarily mean that Johnny has an evil teacher. It means that Johnny might have actually earned a D this time. It means he might not have written a perfect paper. It means he needs to stop waiting until THE VERY LAST SECOND to start an essay he’s known about for three weeks.

But Johnny doesn’t know it means all that, because what he hears at the dinner table is that his parents are UNBELIEVABLY ANGRY that his teacher had the nerve — the nerve! — to give their baby a D. (Brace yourself for the irate phone call in the morning.)

Of course, for every helicopter parent, there is a devastatingly absentee parent, as well as an equal number who are so remarkably supportive that you wonder if they’re even real. They are warm and generous and responsible. You tell them at conferences, You are REALLY doing something right, and you mean it.

I hope I will be that kind of parent.

I became a mother a few years ago, and I must shamefully admit I get it now. My children ARE special. My children DO try. I do not EVER want them to feel like they are anything less than the most important people in the world. When my daughter’s preschool note tells me she was not a good listener that day, I feel frustrated and helpless and a little bit sure the teacher is just being too demanding. When she ran her first Toddler Turkey Trot last November, the people in charge asked if I wanted to buy her a medal. “Um, obviously,” I said. “She will obviously, absolutely get a medal.” Without hesitation, I forked over my money and contributed to the Trophy Generation Fund.

As a parent, I understand.

But as a teacher, this is what you wish you could say: Stop making excuses for your kids. STOP IT. Teach them to earn things, not demand things. Hold them to a higher standard. Challenge them. That way, when I try to challenge them, they’ll know we both expect it.

They’ll know we are on the same team.

Left to their own devices, the kids will be the first to tell you: Yeah, I totally forgot about that assignment. I didn’t really try my best. I just didn’t feel like finishing the reading. Whoops — sorry, Ms. B! They’ll cringe at you with raised eyebrows and endearing self-awareness. They’ll laugh uproariously when you pull a pretend trophy from your desk and give it a quick shine as soon as they catch themselves in the act of whining.

They know. Deep down, despite that wafting air of entitlement, they know exactly what’s going on. They are smarter than that, and they are capable of more failures — and consequently, more successes — than the world is allowing them to experience.

7. There is no reliable way to assess who is ACTUALLY good at this.

If you’re a teacher worth your salt, this might be the most troubling of the bunch.

In order for people to really know how well you’re doing your job, they have to watch you do it. But when there is only one administrator for every thirty-plus teachers, adequate observation time is often a physical impossibility. Even if an administrator’s ONLY JOB was to sit in classroom after classroom, there would still be too few hours in the day, so lawmakers and district higher-ups are scrambling to figure out a way to fill in the blanks.

A popular bright idea is to examine students’ test scores. In theory, this should work — but in practice, you’ve got to be kidding. Students are not products tumbling off a cookie-cutter assembly line. They are human beings, and there are thirty-five of them per class period, and they are influenced by FAR more than yesterday’s vocabulary lesson. You are not in charge of how well they slept, or the breakup that happened last week, or if their family has enough money for breakfast — but all of those things affect test scores. So do IEPs, 504 plans, and whether or not you are teaching an AP or Honors class filled with students who might perform well with or without your help.

As more and more districts begin to adopt this nonsensical practice, who will teach the kids who are struggling? Which educators will potentially sacrifice their own careers to guide the students who work hard for a D+? Some of the very best teachers do that now, with only intrinsic motivation working to retain them.

Another method is to place the burden of proof upon the teacher. Instead of spending your prep hour — or your Sunday night — creating a brilliant lesson plan or grading the ten dozen essays you just collected, you must spend that time figuring out how to meet arbitrary goals and initiatives that will become irrelevant and obsolete by the following school year. After that, you must waste utilize class time implementing said goals and initiatives, and then you must spend more prep time and Sunday nights writing reports to prove how well you implemented them. That, combined with your students’ test scores, shall determine whether or not you are an effective educator.

Can I please just talk about Of Mice and Men instead? Can we spend that time learning why some words on a page just made us cry a little bit? That’s the important stuff. That’s what matters. Those are the things that teach us who we are.

Here are the other things that matter: Helping a group of students work through a disagreement civilly. Keeping everyone calm when someone vomits on the floor. Watching the shyest student in your class, the one who never ever spoke back in September, volunteer to read a part in The Crucible — and he’s hilarious, and he does it with an accent, and he makes two new friends because he finally let himself be vulnerable.

Your job is so much more than test scores, meaningless goals, and cyclical initiatives. It is tying shoelaces and distributing Band-Aids. It is listening to a parent cry about her crumbling marriage. It is showing teenagers how to debate thoughtfully, how to think critically, how to disagree respectfully. It is hearing from students ten years after graduation, because they just thought you should know it was your Spanish class that made them want to study abroad, your passion for science that led to a major in biochemistry, your quiet encouragement during their dark days that convinced them to keep coming to school in the first place.

Where does that fall on the “highly effective” checklist? How can you document that kind of delayed impact? It certainly can’t be measured by A’s and E’s, or even by weekly walk-throughs. It’s no wonder you’re getting frustrated.

It’s no wonder you don’t want to do this anymore.

But if these are the reasons you might leave, here is the reason you might stay: the kids, man. The kids. After a year without them, you might miss their unbridled school spirit during Homecoming Week, their contagious sense of humor, the way they draw pictures for you and wave joyous hellos in the hallways. You might miss their ability to make you forget about the rough start to your morning, or the looks of awe on their captivated faces when they finally learn something that matters.

If it weren’t for them, instead of Googling “I don’t want to teach anymore,” you might already be gone.

A version of this post first appeared on Michifornia Girl.

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How to turn small talk into smart conversation

Tips from a comedian and a journalist on the art of going from small talk to big ideas — all summer long.

Imagine almost any situation where two or more people are gathered—a wedding reception, a job interview, two off-duty cops hanging out in a Jacuzzi.

What do these situations have in common? Almost all of them involve people trying to talk with each other. But in these very moments where a conversation would enhance an encounter, we often fall short. We can’t think of a thing to say.

Or worse, we do a passable job at talking. We stagger through our romantic, professional and social worlds with the goal merely of not crashing, never considering that we might soar. We go home sweaty and puffy, and eat birthday cake in the shower.

We stagger through our romantic, professional and social worlds with the goal merely of not crashing, never considering that we might soar.

We at What to Talk About headquarters set out to change this. Below, a few tips for introverts (and everyone else) on how to turn small talk into big ideas at the next Social Obligation Involving Strangers:

Ask for stories, not answers

One way to get beyond small talk is to ask open-ended questions. Aim for questions that invite people to tell stories, rather than give bland, one-word answers.

Instead of . . .
“How are you?”
“How was your day?”
“Where are you from?”
“What do you do?”
“What line of work are you in?”
“What’s your name?”
“How was your weekend?”
“What’s up?”
“Would you like some wine?”
“How long have you been living here?”

Try . . .
“What’s your story?”
“What did you do today?”
“What’s the strangest thing about where you grew up?”
“What’s the most interesting thing that happened at work today?”
“How’d you end up in your line of work?”
“What does your name mean? What would you like it to mean?”
“What was the best part of your weekend?”
“What are you looking forward to this week?”
“Who do you think is the luckiest person in this room?”
“What does this house remind you of?”
“If you could teleport by blinking your eyes, where would you go right now?”

Break the mirror

When small talk stalls out, it’s often due to a phenomenon we call “mirroring.” In our attempts to be polite, we often answer people’s questions directly, repeat their observations, or just blandly agree with whatever they say.

Mirrored example:
James: It’s a beautiful day!
John: Yes, it is a beautiful day!

See? By mirroring James’s opinion and language, John has followed the social norm, but he’s also paralyzed the discussion and missed a moment of fun. Instead, John needs to practice the art of disruption and move the dialogue forward:

Non-mirrored example:
James: It’s a beautiful day!
John: They say that the weather was just like this when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. If that actually happened.

See? Now James and John are talking! Be provocative. Absurdity is underrated.

Leapfrog over the expected response

An even better way to break the boring-conversation mirror is to skip over the expected response, and go somewhere next-level:

Instead of :
Ron: How was your flight?
Carlos: My flight was good!

Beverly: It’s hot today. Gino: Yeah, it sure is hot.

Riz: What’s up? Keil: Hey, what’s up?

Try:
Ron: How was your flight?
Carlos: I’d be more intrigued by an airline where your ticket price was based on your body weight and IQ.

Beverly: It’s hot today. Gino: In this dimension, yes.

Riz: What’s up? Keil: Washing your chicken just splatters the bacteria everywhere.

Go ahead, be bold. Upend the dinner table conversation! Turn small talk into big ideas at the next summer wedding reception you’re forced to attend! You never know which ideas will be worth spreading next.

This excerpt is adapted with permission from What to Talk About: On a Plane, at a Cocktail Party, in a Tiny Elevator with Your Boss’s Boss by Chris Colin and Rob Baedeker (Chronicle Books).

Featured artwork by Dawn Kim.

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http://historyguide.org/europe/madman.html

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Parable of the Madman (1882)

THE MADMAN
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. 

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." 

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves. 

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" 

[Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.] 

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