Who on here lives in a "tiny house"

http://s775.photobucket.com/albums/y.../Cabin%20Pics/

See album above. We built this ourselves last year- 384 Sq feet in VA mountains. We are moving from our 4,500 sq foot McBurden into this cabin and I will be building another 900 sq foot cabin for our permanent living quarters. But I expect the two of us will be in this little "guest cabin" for a year or so. Sawing out my new house on my sawmill this spring! Cant wait to sell this big shrine to the mortgage gods and move on up to our farm!

I live alone (besides two yorkies) in about 850 sq ft. I also have a 10x10 shed and a 12x16 shed. and still feel cramped.

but, I run a business out of my home and the 12x16 and the sun room in the house are taken up by it. and it is leaking into other rooms.

if I didn't have an at home business then this house would be the perfect size for me I believe but would hate to go smaller without sheds.

I hate clutter and living in a small space it just multiplies.

Thanks for the replies, there's a lot of cool ideas in the pics. Our plan is to do one of about 800 feet, which should be more than enough room for the two of us. Looking at the pics of the 100 sq ft places in Honk Kong make me feel claustrophobic, do those places not have any windows at all?

That's what I wondered about those 100 s.f. places, too. I could manage to live in that small of a space (if I had to), but not without at least one window. I noticed that almost every picture of those places showed a fan, and many of the people were very lightly dressed.

I've been working on several possible 200 s.f. places, since that's the largest outbuilding we can build here without getting a building permit, and it would be possible for my DD and I to live in that amount of space, using a composting toilet (which would be set in a sheltered spot on the porch most of the year). When my marriage broke up several years ago, she and I and a fifty-pound (pregnant!) dog traveled across country to visit family for four months, living in and out of a six-foot-square plywood box on the back of a little 4-cyl. pickup. While I wouldn't want to live in such a small space permanently, we managed on a temporary basis, and I got a pretty good idea of just how small a space we COULD live in permanently! Things that were difficult about the six-foot-square box: no place to sit during the day (we had two narrow cots, three feet off the floor with our stuff stored under them; that was it). No room for even a bucket toilet inside, no room for even a tiny kitchenette. I had a little hand-cranked 'washing machine' (Lehman's sells them) that worked fairly well for one pair of jeans or a couple of t-shirts at a time. Had a Coleman propane camp stove that had a leak and was totally unusable (brand new, too), so we were only able to cook in places where I could build a fire.

This summer I'll have a couple of young helpers (a pair of nine-year-old girls, one granddaughter and one niece) and I think we'll see how far we can get with a small cob structure, since our soil seems like it would be quite suitable for that and I expect that for children, making a massive mud-castle will be a lot of fun! Then I'll see just how much living space I can cram into it!

Kathleen

Shared Kitchens and bathrooms are down the hall. Kitchen space is pretty small with little storage so most people shop on a daily basis.

deb
in wi

I noticed some kind of cookers in many of the pictures -- not sure what they were, rice cookers or crock pots, maybe. Also what appeared to be small refrigerators in many of those rooms.

Kathleen

I lived with a girl I was seeing & her cousin in a approx 75sqft house for a while. Double bed seperated by a curtain from the living room, no bathroom, single propane stove, took it in turns to sleep bed vs. sofa.

We have an extended body cargo van, a Ford E-250. It's 19' 6" long by 6'6" wide by 6'6" tall. Currently the back half is our pig transport space, the middle has a chest freezer and then we have a bench seat and the front seats. I've sometimes thought that if I had nothing else this would make a great little house. With some very creative shelving, cooking outdoors and slide it would be big enough to live in. It ought to last 20 years more - it's 15 years old now. I think I would drive southward though - our winters would be cold in it. Solar panels for the roof and it wouldn't even get as hot inside in the summer.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

__________________
SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

moose-thanks for all the cool pic's. xcept maybe the hongkong one ). (seriously though, i'll have to go back and check out those pics.)

i just bought my tiny (thought it was tiny till i found out there was much tinyer out there). it's 996 but 'bout 250 is upstairs (attic conversation to 'bedroom/storage'). it's big enough for me a 100# moose. i've also got a 'city lot' sized yard and a garage that could fit 2 cars (snuggled).

i agree, that having a small house makes one rethink their 'collecting' habits (i'm so darn guilty). even knicky-knack things can make it look and feel cluttered. and having a dresser in the living room just don't feel 'normal'. (but it has sentimental value so it ain't goin' nowhere) i don't have the kitchen counter space that i'd like but i sometimes forget that i'm no longer cooking for 3-4. all in all, i feel we have plenty of room (we only live downstairs). thus far my only problem is moose not having enough room to play with his toys in the living room and playing fetch. it's big enough for us but i don't think i could live here with another person. but, i'm sorta weird like that. I REALLY NEED MY PERSONAL SPACE. (probably more than the average bear)

what's so wonderful is that it's so fast and easy to clean, clutter screams to be put away, and recarpeting is gonna be so darn cheap. i'm sure i could go smaller if needed but thus far, i'm having fun in my tiny house.