Tiny living

[NHN]

I really want to buy a tiny house but It's just not easy to do. And finding land where you can park is even harder. Anyone else into the tiny house movement?

 

[chasingsunshine]

I'm not crazy into tiny homes, but I have a few friends who want nothing more in life than to have a tiny home. I also live in a park model home that by some standards is a tiny/small home, though more out of necessity than by choice.

What I've most learned is that people like to build tiny homes themselves. There are a few websites like tumbleweedhouses.com that will sell you plans and trailers, or whole pre-build houses too. I love the idea of being able to have a DIY house, or at least a beautifully designed home. What I dislike most about living in a small house is how bad the storage is. Part of this is my own problems with liking to hoard kitchen gadgets, and having to store camping gear and instruments, but part of this is just how poorly the space is laid out. I guess I'm trying to give the advice of really liking the space you get, because otherwise you'll be like me and sad whenever you try to get food out of the too-small door the the pantry under the stairs or wish that the plus-in fake fireplace was a woodstove.

As for places to park, I think that really depends on your area. I live in a small rural town, and there are small plots of land available in quite a few areas of "town" and outside of it that would be a great size to park a tiny home, and build a little chicken coop (but a friend who wants to live in a big city in a tiny home has had zero luck finding a place to park one)

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Once the kids are up and out I would totally do it.

 

[Kevin565]

I've been following the movement for about 2 years now and it's been quite eye opening. It's something I would certainly consider doing later in life.

 

[nayeli]

I like the movement its getting back to the basics and less about materialism and more green... I personally need a lot of space not in my house my house is 1523 sq ft but I need space to get away from my husband (not that we fight and rarely do I need too... but sometimes I like to). I might be able to do a tiny house if it was in a great climate with a good outside green area.. but IDK.

 

[speckledhen]

I'm not crazy into tiny homes, but I have a few friends who want nothing more in life than to have a tiny home. I also live in a park model home that by some standards is a tiny/small home, though more out of necessity than by choice.

What I've most learned is that people like to build tiny homes themselves. There are a few websites like tumbleweedhouses.com that will sell you plans and trailers, or whole pre-build houses too. I love the idea of being able to have a DIY house, or at least a beautifully designed home. What I dislike most about living in a small house is how bad the storage is. Part of this is my own problems with liking to hoard kitchen gadgets, and having to store camping gear and instruments, but part of this is just how poorly the space is laid out. I guess I'm trying to give the advice of really liking the space you get, because otherwise you'll be like me and sad whenever you try to get food out of the too-small door the the pantry under the stairs or wish that the plus-in fake fireplace was a woodstove.

As for places to park, I think that really depends on your area. I live in a small rural town, and there are small plots of land available in quite a few areas of "town" and outside of it that would be a great size to park a tiny home, and build a little chicken coop (but a friend who wants to live in a big city in a tiny home has had zero luck finding a place to park one)

You don't have to "park" one. You can build one if you buy a piece of land that doesn't restrict the house size in some way. Small homes don't have to be mobile, though they seem to always show them that way. We downsized voluntarily over 12 years ago, which saved our bacon when the economy went in the toilet. We were already living more frugally so nothing much changed for us; we weren't impacted devastatingly by it. We went from a 2000 sf house to an 1100 sf house on more, less restricted land. There's only the two of us, but we have hobbies and I have an internet business. Where would you store your supplies with no room to turn around? For instance, my fabric and yarn and DH's violins need somewhere to be. I don't see these folks with 200 sf having any real activities they do at home. You can do smaller without being too extreme.

Small home, larger parcel of land seems the way to go, especially today. The worst thing folks seem to do is buy/build a huge house on a postage stamp lot, usually in a cookie cutter n'hood. Used to be, land was valued. It was everything. Now, well, it's not the same.



ETA: this is the first time I've posted in this section, I think.

 

[chasingsunshine]

You don't have to "park" one.

Very true. I guess "tiny" is a pretty relative term. When I think Tiny Home I think of the 100-200 square foot houses built on trailers (or easy to load onto one) because that's what the people I know want. I really agree with you that smaller houses and more yard space are the way to go. If you're choosing to not live in a city, why would you build/buy a house with no space around it?

 

[speckledhen]

Very true. I guess "tiny" is a pretty relative term. When I think Tiny Home I think of the 100-200 square foot houses built on trailers (or easy to load onto one) because that's what the people I know want. I really agree with you that smaller houses and more yard space are the way to go. If you're choosing to not live in a city, why would you build/buy a house with no space around it?

I'm betting you'll end up seeing some of those folks yearning for more storage space and selling their tiny houses. I would, however, love to have one of those on my extra 3 acres to rent out or to have for visitors to stay in.

All around us, car lots and other businesses use these for their offices-they bring it in on wheels and sit it down:
http://www.standout-cabin-designs.com/log-cabin-mobile-homes.html

 

[Trent Hardy]

You don't have to "park" one. You can build one if you buy a piece of land that doesn't restrict the house size in some way. Small homes don't have to be mobile, though they seem to always show them that way. We downsized voluntarily over 12 years ago, which saved our bacon when the economy went in the toilet. We were already living more frugally so nothing much changed for us; we weren't impacted devastatingly by it. We went from a 2000 sf house to an 1100 sf house on more, less restricted land. There's only the two of us, but we have hobbies and I have an internet business. Where would you store your supplies with no room to turn around? For instance, my fabric and yarn and DH's violins need somewhere to be. I don't see these folks with 200 sf having any real activities they do at home. You can do smaller without being too extreme.

Small home, larger parcel of land seems the way to go, especially today. The worst thing folks seem to do is buy/build a huge house on a postage stamp lot, usually in a cookie cutter n'hood. Used to be, land was valued. It was everything. Now, well, it's not the same.



ETA: this is the first time I've posted in this section, I think.

I think the reason they generally show tiny houses on wheels is because the owners use it as a way around the whole "permanent structure" thing. If a structure is on wheels, it's not considered permanent and therefore falls outside of a bunch of the red tape.

In my mind the perfect example of a "tiny house" is the one my grandparents lived in. We call 'em saltboxes, but before writing this I googled the term and the images shown looked a little different - ah good ol' Newfoundland nothing is ever what we say it is . Anyways, basically my grandparents lived in a house that had a footprint of ~400-500 square feet, but was 2 storey and almost perfectly square. Common areas (kitchen, dining room, living room etc) are all located on the first floor and bedrooms on the 2nd. The whole space was kept warm (and boy do I mean warm) by a wood burning (later oil burning) stove in the kitchen. There is no attic to speak of - the roof being at a very low angle, and the foundation is basically a few piers.

One of the big things with the tiny house is energy efficiency, and when you think about it these people had to harvest all their building materials by hand, construct the house, heat it, and maintain it. So, they obviously had efficiency in mind when building it. It's a really cool design, and I just love 'em. My missus' cousin was recently working on his grandmothers 160 year old saltbox and discovered that for flashing around the windows they used birch bark - how cool is that!!!!!

I'm curious, is this a design commonly found in other places? I would assume so, most especially along the northeast coast...

 

[speckledhen]

Quote: That is very cool indeed!