Tiny House Blog

Michael Janzen from Tiny House Design and I have been friends since he started blogging about tiny house design. Michael has a talent for designing and has helped a lot of people who are dreaming about building a tiny home someday. Michael has created free plans, affordable plans (several of which have been built), Google Sketchup videos, and now, his latest effort, a book of Tiny House Floor Plans with over 200 interior designs for tiny homes.

I have had the privilege of previewing both the paperback book and his electronic version. I am happy to say they are both high quality and worth the money he is requesting for them.

Michael’s book is for those of you still in the planning or dreaming stage of building a tiny house. Michael has put together over 200 plans ranging in size from 8 ft. wide to 12 ft. wide. Some finished homes could be put on a trailer and others built on a foundation. These are all floor plans that you could use, you just need to decide on how you want to build the structure to meet your tiny house needs.

One of the neat things Michael does with his floor plans is use standard size fixtures. A standard size toilet, sink, shower, couch, and bed are all included in these floor plans eliminating the need for custom fixtures for your tiny home. Continue Reading »

I recently had the opportunity to review a DVD called Greening the Cube – 100 Mile Housing and wanted to share my thoughts about this unique idea of building ones home from sources only available to you within 100 miles.

This is a feature length documentary film that covers the efforts of Canadian green-builders Pete Matheson and Sean Sands as they construct homes from sustainable products that are near by.

They look at taking natural resources that are near you and creating a home using those materials. They also take into consideration different approaches in combining food production, meeting energy needs, responsible management of the waste stream and other considerations that are pertinent to our homes and lifestyles.

I think that we as tiny house enthusiasts can learn a lot by looking at these alternatives. If  you would like to purchase it and learn more about you can go to greeningthecube.com or buy it on amazon.

With Spring fast approaching and already here in some parts of the country I thought I would share a new book that is very appropriate for this time of year.

The New American Homestead written by John H. Tullock is all about living sustainably in either the city or the country. Filled with the essentials, John introduces the principals of permaculture and provides many handy call-outs featuring resources throughout the book.

Tullock teaches gardening basics, composting, how to plant vegetables, herbs, and fruits. He also teaches about foods from animals and how to work with them in the homestead kitchen.

This is a true guidebook in which he focusses on how-tos, such as how to make specific relishes and even very interesting recipes such as pickled peaches.

In the last section of the book Tullock instructs you in how to make a lifescaping plan. This plan shows you how to develop a homestead that will integrate into the local ecology and to maximize the possible share of your families’ needs with the space you have available. The author also touches on water needs, how to install a rainwater collection system and how to manage drainage.

The New American Homestead is a real guidebook, you will want to refer to it again and again. Great to keep handy in the kitchen, and a great resource for permaculture to keep at hand. You can purchase The New American Homestead at Amazon.

I have a new favorite tiny house book and I have been anxious to share it with you. It is Lloyd Kahn’s Tiny Homes Simple Shelter Scaling Back in the 21st Century. Lloyd contacted me about two years ago and said that he wanted to do a book on tiny houses. He asked for contacts to a lot of people I had written about on the Tiny House Blog.

In a way this book is like a printed version of the Tiny House Blog but with Lloyds great writing ability and layout. Plus he has added many tiny houses that I have never seen. He has pulled together a book I think every tiny house enthusiast will want to own.

I recently visited Lloyd and his team at Shelter Publications and saw where these wonderful books are put together and distributed.

In this book there are some 150 builders who have taken things into their own hands, creating tiny homes (under 500 sq. ft.). Homes on land, homes on wheels, homes on the road, homes on water, even homes in the trees. There are also studios, saunas, garden sheds, and greenhouses.

There are 1,300 photos, showing a rich variety of small homemade shelters, and there are stories (and thoughts and inspirations) of the owner-builders who are on the forefront of this new trend in downsizing and self-sufficiency.

Lloyd just released a new video where he takes you through a two minute walk through of the book and Shelter Publications.

You can purchase the book through Shelter Publications or at Amazon.

Thank you Lloyd for sharing your talent with this wonderful new book.

I’m excited to offer a book giveaway of Derek “Deek” Diedricksen new updated Humble Homes, Simple Shacks Book. It is a great book and I’ve enjoyed checking it out recently and am excited to be offering it to you here.

The details are below on how you can win your free copy. I will be giving three copies to Tiny House Blog readers and you might just be one. Derek the author of this fantastic book and I will be the judges.

I will email the winners to get your address and mail your copy to you after the selection is made. I will also post an update so everyone knows who won along with their tip. I’ll turn it over to Deek to tell you what is new with this book and how to enter for your chance to win.

Hey Kent,

Here are a few copies of the new edition of “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks“, as promised, to give away to your readers. The book is up on Amazon.com for only $11.25 right now. I suggest you determine the winners through bouts of ultimate fighting, which we can then film for youtube. No, not really, but I have an idea I’ll recommend in a minute….

The new edition is being put out through The Lyons Press (home to work from David and Jeanie Stiles, Shay Solomon, and so on), and has quite a few new aspects to it as compared to the old hand assembled versions out there. PS- if any of you own the green cover version of the old book (only about 30 were made), some wacko bought one off some online seller for almost $100 not that long ago- yeah, stupid, I know….

Anyway, the new, expanded version of the book has….

• 14 New full page cabin designs/small living sketches
• A new 16 page color insert photo section showing some of the things I’ve designed and built, in addition to almost 40 cabins, shacks, and tiny houses that others have completed. A decent chunk of these are photos I’ve personally taken too- so there are a few things no one has seen, blog-wise, before.
• A new chapter called “Tricks Of The Trade” where I interviewed the likes of Lloyd Kahn, Jay Shafer, Mimi Zeiger, Michael Tougias, Cathy Johnson, Alex Pino, Gregory Paul Johnson, Dee Williams, Colin Beavan, Duo Dickinson, Tammy Strobel, and Alex Johnson, for their own tips and ideas on designing with space efficiency, minimalization, and storage in mind.
• Many other new sketches to accompany the text sections
• An intro/foreword written by Author/Architects David and Jeanie Stiles (one of my favorites/influences) Continue Reading »

Today I received from Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, Jay Shafer’s latest book called Tumbleweed DIY Book of Backyard Sheds & Tiny Houses. I decided to do something different with this review and have put together a video book review.

The drawback is for those with slow internet connections as you will not be able to watch it. Simply click on the graphic below and it will take you to the Tumbleweed sales page, there you will learn how to build a backyard cottage Tumbleweed Style. Okay here goes, it’s not perfect so be kind to me