Featured Image Credit: Atlas Obscura
We've all been told many times over the last few years that minimalism can free up so much room in our lives.
Whether it's cutting down on the number of things we own, or just stopping ourselves from buying more, the idea that less is more has become pretty popular.
Still, there's living without much stuff and then there's living in the world's narrowest house, and the latter looks like quite a leap.
The Keret House, in Poland's Warsaw, is a baffling little bit of construction squeezed between two existing buildings, and it stretches the definition of "house" to its limit.
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At its very widest point, the house is just 122 centimeters (48 inches) wide, while it narrows down to a tiny 72 centimeters (28 inches) at its thinnest.
This makes it just about wide enough to house a single bed, which it does at the back of the structure.
It's basically a studio flat compressed down to a strip - with a mezzanine housing that bed.
The main level of the flat hosts a little kitchen area, with a toilet and wet-room shower at the back (again, these are pretty cramped in size).
Impressively, though, despite being really tiny, the construction materials mean that the Keret House isn't pokey and dark.
A lot of mottled glass and white metal has been used to ensure that natural light is maximised, which actually makes it look almost like something of an art gallery in its aesthetic.
The unique house got a heck of a lot more attention thrown its way this week thanks to a viral Reddit post showing it off from the outside.
Unsurprisingly, the post has attracted a whole heap of comments from people speculating about what it would be like to actually live in such a compact space.
Speaking to that use of natural light, one person wrote: "Wow, that is a 'little' less claustrophobic than I imagined."
They're right that the use of space is clever to make the house almost seem bigger than it is, although others have pointed out that photos can often be deceiving.
Another agreed with that, writing: "It’s super cool and I bet it loses its charm very quickly."
That probably comes closest to the truth, too, since novelty can only last you so long in such a small living environment.
However, for some people, there are no redeeming qualities at all about the Keret House. One commenter said: "This is the thing of my nightmares. I have both agoraphobia and claustrophobia. The idea of spending my life trapped in what is effectively a two-dimensional space makes my spine clench."
There's probably no getting around the fact that this would indeed be a terrible place to live for someone with those experiences!
