Rosie our Airstream Home
We are ‘snowbirds’ from Canada, 60 something, who have always tried to have a small footprint. We were environmentalists and vegetarians long before it was the ‘in thing’. In our retirement we sold all the trappings of our old lives and travelled in a van and backpacking tent. That proved to be the most liberating experience of our lives! It came to be though, that we wanted a home base in Canada so we bought a bit of land and built…by ourselves…as small a cottage as the local bylaws would allow. Winters, however, have been spent in Texas pursuing our simple passion for birding. For this purpose we bought an 1983 Airstream Excella, that we named Rosie, to refurbish and be our winter home. We have been comfortably living in ROSIE’s 232 sq ft for 4 months a year. She has everything we need and more. We enjoyed the challenge of making her liveable and easy to maintain.
A change came over us this winter though. We decided that we needed less space! We would like to explore but do not own a tow vehicle for Rosie. We needed to think even smaller and lighter to make more travel affordable; we needed to think even simpler to make boondocking possible. So, to that end, we have purchased a used 17 ft Casita Spirit Deluxe, already named Megg (for the EGG that it is 
), that our Toyota can easily tow. We will be downsizing to 102 sq ft! Our plans are to stay down south for even longer periods, maybe up to 6 months. We’ll have the option of summer trips up north too. Continue Reading »
Tiny Homes Finding Fans in the Pacific Northwest
Seattle Tiny Homes Press Release
“Honey, I Shrunk the House – by 1,377 Percent”
A local Seattle-area family has just built a new home that’s only 159 square feet. They’re part of a national movement toward smaller, more sustainable housing that is taking root in the Pacific Northwest.
Seattle, WA, February 16, 2012 — This week, thousands will converge in Century Link Field for the Seattle Home Show (February 18-26, 2012) to browse the latest trends in building the American dream. However, they’ll likely miss one of the fastest-growing trends: living in tiny homes that are sustainable, flexible, and often mobile.
To learn more about tiny homes, you need to venture a few blocks north to a gathering of fewer than 100 people: the Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshop held the same time (February 25-26, 2012) at the Pioneer Square Courtyard Marriott.
Photo Credit Seattle Tiny Homes
One Seattle-area resident planning to be there is Sharon Read, with a tiny home in tow. She’s just built a new home that is only 159 square feet – 1,377% less than her family’s current dwelling. With classic Craftsman styling, beautiful cedar siding, and lots of windows to let in light, the tiny home has a kitchen, a “great” room, an office, a bathroom with a tub/shower, and even a washer and dryer. The home also features two sleeping lofts that have room for two queen size beds and storage.
The home’s foundation? A sturdy 22-foot steel trailer, meaning the home is portable and can be positioned anywhere.
While Read and her family hope to live in the tiny house as much as possible, the home is also the show model for Seattle Tiny Homes, a company Read founded to build high-quality, custom tiny homes – both portable and stationary – that can be used as primary residences, vacation homes, guest cottages, auxiliary housing for elderly relatives or college students, or an office or studio.
Read and Seattle Tiny Homes are part of a growing movement of tiny home advocates that is spreading across North America – and taking root in the Pacific Northwest. Spearheaded by Jay Shafer, called the guru of the tiny homes and author of The Small House Book (learn more at www.tumbleweedhouses.com), the movement touts the freedom and flexibility that tiny homes offer – plus the “green” advantage of a greatly reduced environmental impact.
The public is welcome at the Tumbleweed Tiny House Seminar. To register, visit www.tumbleweedhouses.com/workshops/seattle/. Classes will be taught by Dee Williams, a tiny house pioneer and co-owner of Portland Alternative Dwellings (learn more at www.portlandalternativedwellings.com).
Photo Credit Tumbleweeed Tiny Houses
Read’s new tiny home – all 159 square feet – will be on display and open for viewing during the seminar. For exact times and location, contact Sharon Read of Seattle Tiny Homes at:
(425) 445-3675
[email protected]
www.seattletinyhomes.com
Wingfoot Homes Instant House
Article reproduced from the Instant House Blog
When is a trailer not a trailer?
Answer: when it’s a Wingfoot House! Wingfoot Homes was the brainchild of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Apparently, selling tires wasn’t enough. The world’s best known tire company tried to cash in on the low-cost, post WWII housing boom. The company’s intention was to sell a completely outfitted home (including built-in furniture) for less than $2,000. The idea was that unlike other prefabricated or mass produced housing. The house would be built completely in the factory. Most prefabricators were building components that were later assembled on-site. Wingfoot homes were not designed to go over foundations and were ship completely built – the forerunner of today’s mobile homes.
Getting It There
If you’ve read my previous posts (because you’re my friend, you take pity on me, or both), then you know that shipping is the biggest problem with most prefabricators faced. Shipping a completed house presents a unique problem – the house can’t be more than 8 feet wide! Today’s “Oversize Load” tractor trailers make wider loads possible, but they are quite expensive. Wingfoot decided to avoid this altogether by engineering their house to be 8 feet wide at the time of shipping. Once the house was on site the bedroom sections pulled out “like drawers.” The final house measures 26 X 15 at its widest point when extended. See below for plans.
Cozy Home Plans
Kevin Harrington, a licensed realtor and home remodel expert in Colorado has created a nice selection of tiny and small home plans called Cozy Home Plans. The homes range from 288 square feet to 781 square feet and his plans cost between $99 to just under $700. Kevin also runs a blog where he posts articles on home construction and DIY tips. He has posted about how to mix concrete, installing electricity, useful household tools and tiny house Feng Shui.
A few years ago, Kevin downsized from a 2,700 square foot home, got rid of about 90 percent of his possessions and moved into a 280 square foot 5th wheel trailer. He was in the process of researching alternative building techniques and stumbled onto the tiny house movement. He decided to start a website and blog to showcase his small home plan ideas.
“This tiny lifestyle I was living gave me back serenity,” Kevin said. “This was something that had been sorely missing in my life for a very long time. I just wanted to share my experiences.”
His goal with Cozy Home Plans was to add a few more feet onto tiny homes to make them more livable.
“Can a person live in 100 square feet? Absolutely, but can they share it with guests or a partner full-time? How about a larger kitchen, washer/dryer capabilities and storage for extra stuff in such a small space? Answering “Yes” to these questions became more difficult in such a tiny space,” Kevin said. “My solution was to add a few more feet to each house.”
Our Tiny House in the Hills
by Neil Norton
Here are some photos of our tiny house made from a storage building. We had been living in a 2,700 sq ft home, between upkeep and utilities we were constantly broke. A friend of ours offered to sell us a quarter acre of his property, so I went to work researching tiny homes.
After a month or so of youtube videos, google searches, etc… I decided on this layout. The living room is 10 ft 6 in X12 ft. The kitchen/bathroom is 6 ft 2in X 6 ft 10 in with 6 ft 7 in ceiling to accommodate the storage loft above. Our bedroom is 10ft 6in X 7ft 8in. All rooms except for kitchen have 9ft 6in ceilings. We have two lofts, the front one overlooks the beautiful rolling hills of Northern Arkansas, it measures 10ft 6in X 48in with a 40 in ceiling at the peak.
The back loft is accessible from the bedroom only and matches the kitchen footprint with 40 in ceiling at the peak. We lowered the ceilings in the living and bedroom for structural integrity, but left the lofts for more head height.
Our water is heated by a 7 gallon Ariston point of use water heater. We heat with a 35,000 btu propane heater (overkill yes, but it’s nice to heat our home fast and I got it at a steal for 40.00 bucks) and a electric radiator heater. It’s a livable work in progress, we are adding a 12 ft x 20 ft addition in the spring for a utility room and bath.
Tiny House in a Landscape
This week’s Tiny House in a Landscape is a cabin in Washington state with pristine views of Lake Chelan, the Cascade Mountains, the Columbia River and Canada. You can relax on the deck and watch deer, grouse, hawks, volcanic haystacks, and wildflowers or stargaze when the sun goes down.
This custom built one story cabin has a loft is just under 500 sq ft. The cabin sits on 10.6 fenced acres with a one acre horse corral. This cabin is for sale if you are interested. You can read more about it and see more pictures on the Tiny House Listings website.
Tony’s Hornby Island Caravan
Guest Post by Michelle Wilson
We’ve recently finished our latest caravan here at Hornby Island Caravans – it’s our first year round dwelling which is hugely exciting for us! This is a 10 ft. by 26 ft. caravan- the usual width for road regulations is 8″5″ but you can get a pretty inexpensive over width permit, I think it was something like $15 a day here in British Columbia and you don’t have to do the big pilot car and lights production. In my previous caravans I’ve built the side walls so they slant outward toward the top and we did consider starting with a standard width trailer frame of about 8′ and slanting the walls out to 10′, but in the end our client Tony decided that he’d rather have straight walls and have the maximum amount of floor space possible, so we had to have a wider custom trailer built. Having the extra width seems to have made quite a big difference in the feel of the place-almost everyone that has come by has remarked on how spacious it feels inside.
Photo Credits: Hornby Island Caravans
We’ve also pushed the road height limits which are 13′.6″ from the ground to the top of the roof, so the top of the ceiling is a bit over 9′. I wouldn’t make a caravan this tall if it were meant to be towed around regularly, in fact there are many things I would have done differently if that were the case, but since this is not likely to move for many years, being aerodynamic and light wasn’t as important. Tony’s reasons for choosing a caravan rather than a house were more about flexibility and having a less permanent footprint rather than moving often.
