Tiny House Blog

by David Lacey

Owning a school has been an important goal for my teacher/prof partner for many years. We moved closer to her dream when we acquired this lovely 55 acre property in Nova Scotia. Then, our search for a movable school led to this 1875 school house. The school house had been turned into a store and later a storage shed. It was located a few miles away.

The photos tell the story of the tear down, move, rebuild and the now nearly finished schoolhouse. Note, the school house, in 1875, cost $750 completely constructed and furnished! It is now a treasure beyond measure to us.

Moose Brook School

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Cars have carports, why can’t a house have a house port? Designer Hally Thacher was looking to build an eco-friendly home and was inspired by the structures that sheltered hay, alfalfa and farm equipment in the area of northern California where she had grown up. Her House Port and PopUP House designs make for a very interesting concept in home building.

The PopUP House is available in several configurations which are prefabricated and shipped flat-packed to the building site. The PopUP House consists of interior/exterior insulated panels. Over the top of the PopUP is the prefabbed House Port (the large freestanding roof) that protects the home against weather, keeps a consistent temperature throughout the hot summer and offers a covered outdoor area. Several smaller versions of the PopUP, called Cubes, can even be purchased and placed like a small village under the House Port. Continue Reading »

Kevin Daniels lives 10 miles from the Summerville, South Carolina and recently got to view the House in a Box.

Here are some photos Kevin took of the exterior. The interior was unfinished, however you get a sense of how nice it would look when complete.

Kevin also shared the floor plan and and some rendering from the House in a Box website where you can get more information. Continue Reading »

The following is not a tiny house, but it is creative use of a small space so I thought I would let Stew share it with you.

By Stew MacInnes

I thought that your readers might like to see the photos of a cool little project that we just completed. This is a little 780sq ft building in downtown Ogden Utah. The property is located in a rather run down part of town, which the city is really trying to improve. The area has all the trappings associated with urban blight, rampant drug use, gangs, crime…you name it, it has it! In fact, when a family member and I purchased the property, the front window had six bullet holes, the planter had hypodermic needles in the bed, the front door had been kicked in and the furnace was destroyed after vandals went in and ripped out the copper coils. – Interesting side bar, I still had to fight the city council on numerous fronts regarding my plans to renovate the property, much like most tiny home owners find when dealing with city hall!

I purchased the property with the intent of using it as my office, which I did for most of this past summer. Then when Maximus Extreme Living Solutions started to take off, I decided to sell the building since I had moved my office into our production warehouse.

The property once housed a small chiropractic office; the good Doc practiced there up and into his 80’s. After the project was just about complete, the former owner’s daughter and son-in-law stopped by and asked if they could come in and view the renovation. They were very complimentary and said that their dad would have loved what we had done to the place!

I would like to give credit to the commercial contractor that I hired on this project, his name is Mike Smith of Stature construction and he was fantastic to work with. I also used a gentleman by the name of Mic Allen to do the custom steel work that you see on the front of the building (I designed images that were consistent with Ogden’s past and used a 1930’s font for the street address of 868, that you see on the fascia of the building). Lastly, I’d like to credit my business partner on this project, my mom Sue, she is great to work with!

[View with PicLens]

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by Paul and Shari Roten

We are the former owners of Kaizen Tile & Stone in the Seattle area, although are both originally from small towns in the Midwest of the USA.

We spent years renovating others homes as well as our own cottage in West Seattle prior to starting our tiny house outside Newport, Washington. We’ve gone from 10 acres of woods to having an “Ideabox” inspired home well underway with the burgundy metal roof due to be installed in just two weeks!

We’d love to include some pictures and would love to share our story. Because of your site, we have been inspired by others walking a similar path, and made changes to our footprint after seeing some of the plans from Ideabox. As parents of 5 and grandparents of another 5, we’ve decided to make our Roten Retreat a two story to accomadate our lives and loves, with option as we age to be able to live on one level only. The foot print is 500 sq ft with 1000 total for both floors. Continue Reading »

For this Christmas Eve, I thought I would do a post on a couple of classic, red cabooses that have been made into the offices of the beautiful Osmosis Day Spa in Freestone, California. Osmosis is located in the tiny hamlet between Santa Rosa and Bodega Bay and features a Japanese-style retreat with bonsai, bamboo and Buddha. The spa offers massages, mud baths and their signature cedar enzyme bath.

Each of the recycled train cabooses are located in the backyard of the spa and hold storage areas and computer equipment. They are also nice places for the staff to hang out and have lunch. Over 25 years, the garden has grown up around each caboose, making them look as if they’ve sprouted out of the ground.

The Osmosis Spa is one of the greenest spas in the world. The spa recycles water from its own wetlands and uses the water for local irrigation. The spa is a founding member of the Green Spa Network and uses sustainable practices in its business.

Photos by Christina Nellemann

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]