Who lives in a "tiny house"?

Thank you. Organization. Sheesh! I can plan for years. I can make lists and plans.....but I have a style of organized chaos. Looks like I will be working on that! Storage seems to be my issue, but I didnt even think as furniture doubling as storage. Oh, I plan on trying to have an "outdoor" kitchen and such. This will be hopefully only for the summer. If that and if at all! I agree, cheaper to build self. But even though I know people who could.....they don't have much free time to do so. And, honestly, financing is more doable for me than coming up with cash up front, what with the up front costs alone I have to have for building my real house. The good news is, once this is paid off, I have a lovely guest house once my regular house is built . Maybe even make back some money by renting out to friends and acquaintances who need a weekend retreat from the city

Hi Sally, did you build this? or did someone else...

I've always wondered about what thought processes were going thru the designer/builder's mind... with logs like these, economy of scale would have made me build something very similar, but a lot larger. The time consuming part of such a project is the joinery and just as easy to build with 20 foot walls as 5 foot ones... At a certain point, one could spend as much time building an outhouse sized structure as a 12x 20 or so...

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*ahem* that depends how quickly I can clean the inside It's a bit of a mess since I've been working on some computers, restoring two typewriters and a singer spartan 192k.

Unfortunately, it may look cute on the outside but it was not built for permanent living. Insects, mold, drafts, and dust have plagued me ever since I moved in. I will be sooooo happy to finally be rid of the place and have a properly set up travel trailer.

I thought of this post when I was in IKEA recently. They have wall rooms setup into living spaces. One was under 600sf, and another under 300sf. If planned right it's amazing what can be done. The 600sf was a two bedroom unit and I could see myself very happy there.

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720 sq. ft. Not done with the bathroom or kitchen. This is a 24' x 30' loft in the top of a 30' x 60' shop building.

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Joni

Joni - that's really nice. I like the light wood in it. Looks very inviting and comfortable.

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I don't know if it have been answered. But what about heating. I want a pellet stove. As my dad says that would be better than just a wood stove. However, my tiny house will be about 432 sq. feet with a little loft room also. Small pellet stove heats up to 1200 sq ft....so it seems overkill. Any "mini" pellet stoves that don't cost way more than a regular? I would settle for a wood stove, but I hear pellets burn longer and heat better. Also, I am surrounded by trees on my land......but the wood from them burns "dirty", making for a lot of buildup in pipes or chimney. Not good for firewood unless you don't care about how fast the crap from them builds up. I forgot what kind of trees dad said they were, and I don't want to buy tons of firewood either. However, if anyone has suggestions on cost efficiency and proper sized wood or pellet stoves for a tiny house, I am all ears!

We built a high mass wood stove into the core of our house. We do fast hot burns. The energy is stored in the 100,000 lb mass of our tiny cottage. This is an advantage of masonry - it warms up and stores the heat. A morning's fire's heat lasts until the next morning on all but the coldest nights of winter. Below about -10°F we will do a late afternoon or evening fire too. We only burn about 0.75 cord of wood a year - that's all our heat other than passive gain. Our chimney stays cleaner than most stoves because it is a very hot burn. The convolutions in the chimney stir the gases so the burn is also very complete. See:

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=woodstove

http://www.sugarmtnfarm.com/?s=firewood

Cheers,

-Walter
in Vermont

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here is our tiny cabin.we are going to retire here soon.its a tad over 200 sq.ft.big enough for me and the mister.

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It's beautiful and I love the setting.

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"Live your life, and forget your age." Norman Vincent Peale

The design, siding, and window---beautiful!

We are currently spending most of our time in our 19ft travel trailer. Since I am a Realtor, I have to keep up with my work, so that has been a bit challenging. The bench seating in this, well,

We are going to go look at a motorhome in the morning, 34ft long, should suffice to live in while we build our retirement home. The plan was a singlewide mobile, but they are too expensive locally, then there is the delivery fee, permit, etc...

So, either we will get a motorhome or a travel trailer, then DH will build a cabin for my office, our washer, dryer, fridge, etc...

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Christie Acres
www.SequimForLife.com
http://www.irealtyvirtualbrokers.com...lori-christie/
http://luxurywaterviewhomes.com/
SequimLiving@gmail.com

hello lorichristie! me and hubby worked on it ourselves and now we are building another building by this one and gonna connect with a deck in between.we look on craigslist.we got the window for free.we got the insulation for the cabin for free.inside we got ruff cut cedar and it was at a yard sale for 50 cents a board.home depot cost 3$ for the same board.we lucked out.
my hubby made the doors.they open up in half like dutch doors.he made the windows in my kitchen himself.it seems fine for us.
your plans sound very nice.those motor homes are so lovely and roomy.good luck on this.how long till u all retire?? here is more pics.

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Raedean52 - beautiful little cabin!

Tmillernn - while I love our pellet stove but there are pros and cons to it. It does draw a lot of power, our power bill goes up over $100 a month in the winter. The stoves can be loud, you get used to it, but wow, when it goes off you are relieved! The stoves can be finicky, you have to learn your particular stove, how to clean it and which pellets burn best.

Fire risk is lower, especially if you're burning wood that causes quick creosote build-up. And they are way cleaner. One reason we haven't switched to a wood stove is our main living area is on the 2nd floor, we'd have to haul wood upstairs an through the carpeted house.

A pellet stove is going to overheat your area less than a wood stove.

the plus side of a small house is easy to heat n cool. the plus side of a giant barn is you get to put all your junk in there . . I found as a cooker /gardener /canner that I needed a bigger working area so I added an out door kitchen and then a shed over a large picnic table BBQ area that also covers my cane mill and evaporator furnace . I got by for years ;with the cabin being one room 16 x24 ,and the bath/laundry room 8x14 . but when I returned to stay permanently when I retired .I added 2 bedrooms 12 x 14 and 9x 12 for when company comes that I can close off and not heat when I want . I heat with an antquie coal burning stove that works fine .coal still being redily available and cheep in this area . one of the biggest advantages of a small house is the lower taxes . big homes with paved drives bring $$ signs to county tax mens eyes ..

arnie

your little house with big storage is basically what I'd like to do. And for the same heating and cooling reasons.

Good to hear it works for you.

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"Live your life, and forget your age." Norman Vincent Peale

thanks Vosey.

we are going to have a sauna/utility area where i can do some canning in.
and i am going to dry alot cause there is so much sunshine in our area.

mosepijo.your place is so beautiful.lovely.

I live in a 34X8 travel trailer. It's a 96 Avion, so it was top of the line when built -- I've lived in it for a year. Helps that it's a higher end one. It's super insulated, all the plumbing and tanks are in heated compartments, and the cabinets are solid wood and there's lots of them. I live and work (sell on eBay) out of it, and have 3 cats in it (though one of the cats gets evicted to a barn during the day by his choice, LOL! He hangs on the door until I take him over to the barn. Can't let him run loose due to coyotes.)

I don't cook in it -- I live on my folk's property, and we eat meals together most of the time. Their cabin has a fantastic kitchen. The trailer's kitchen is small and I hate the oven and sink. Also, when you cook in here, cooking grease gets all over everything. However, if I had to, I could cook out of it too. I'd probably replace the sink with a deeper one and replace the ultra-low-flow faucet with a proper faucet that doesn't take a couple minutes to fill a mug with water for tea! And I'd cook outside using my BBQ grill (which actually bakes stuff better than the oven in the trailer) and get a couple propane burners for canning and boiling water and use hot plates and crock pots for everything else.

On the upside, this trailer is CHEAP to heat. I remember last fall people telling me it'd be horrendously expensive. The highest bill, iirc for January, for propane was $75. Daytime temperatures rarely much above freezing. Nighttime temps were in the teens and twenties. Lots of wind -- 20 to 30 mph sustained not unusual -- because we're on a ridge and this is N. AZ and wind happens. I kept the furnace at 55, slept with a heated mattress pad. It was nice and comfy. For contrast, the propane bill in the main cabin was $300 for the same month.

We have lived in very small houses several times. The most recent was an old fifth wheel travel trailer, 25' long inside. DD and I spent about nine months in that. We had electricity and heat, but no running water. It wasn't too bad. I'm glad we didn't have to spend a second winter in it, though. I got kind of tired of having to make DD sit down whenever I wanted to go through the trailer! Our highest propane bill in the winter was about eighty dollars, plus I was paying my step-father $50/month for electricity, which was probably way more than we were actually using.

On storing winter blankets during the summer, fold them in half and lay them smoothly under your mattress. You want to make sure you don't have any bad lumps (remember the Princess and the Pea story?!?). It will raise your mattress an inch or two (or three if you have lots of heavy blankets), but takes up no extra space at all.

Heat for a small low-budget house can be a rocket mass heater. If you don't want the heat-storage bench taking up space in your living area, run the exhaust system under the floor and have a heated floor! (Works best with an earth floor or a cement slab.)

We are living in a 20' X 40' old double-wide with a 10' X 15' addition that serves as utility room and entryway. I need a bigger pantry, and a root cellar, but when we get those added on, we'll have plenty of space. (I need a bigger barn, though.) Don't overlook older mobile homes when you are thinking about cheap housing. This one has been gutted out and rebuilt with six-inch well-insulated walls, added insulation in the ceiling, high-quality low-E windows, and wood floors (they put down 2 X 12's, which look REALLY nice, except that they've shrunk and there are cracks between the boards which catch dirt. I'm going to try grouting them.). We have a wood stove for heat, and it does a pretty good job of keeping the place warm even at thirty below, but goes through a LOT of wood. We have burned around six cords since I bought wood last fall. That gets pretty expensive! I'm going to see if I can safely add some mass around the wood stove, but not sure how much weight the floor can safely take.

Kathleen

When I was designing our cottage I considered this. It is a method used on old Japanese houses to warm the floors. There is are two small nagging details though which can make it a bit troublesome:

1) Sometimes the houses explode. Partially burnt gases can apparently settle into the under floor vents from the cool evening fire. Then when the lady of the house goes to light the fire in the morning these gasses explode. I've seen photos. Nasty including deaths.

2) Carbon Monoxide Poisoning killing the family.

I think that both of these problems could be designed away from but one should make attention to them.

Cheers,

-Walter

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