Over the years, I’ve built a few log structures and along the way, timber framing got into my blood. I love the beams, the posts, and the tight fitting joints made by a builder using mortise and tenon.

I remember the first time I viewed the clean lines of a timber frame structure. The frame was draw pinned together with Red Oak pegs that were cut by hand on a shaving horse—I was hooked. And, for framing, you don’t need fancy or high-tech tools—framing square, hand saw, chisel, and auger bit have performed quite well for hundreds of years.

When I decided to build a timber frame, I was clueless in regards to technique. Of course, like always, this didn’t stop me. Normally, I just plod blindly ahead (or in the case of the TV remote—I just mash every button randomly on the four separate remotes that are clearly critical to the operation of my cable system—something is bound to happen). However, in this case I decided to at least gain a basic understanding of the process, as there is a certain liability associated with handing big heavy things, like timbers. So, I read a few books that described traditional timber framing techniques and I took a framing class at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

For my first project, I decided a 10’ x 12’ timber framed shed would give me the opportunity to learn timber framing techniques and provide additional storage at the house (although now that the shed is complete, I still can’t get a car in the garage).

My normal approach to building is “wing it” which works fine for log cabin building where “close enough” and “moose hair” are appropriate units of measurement. For timber framing, a plan of some sort is required. I opted to learn Google SketchUp with Timber Frame Rubies and then used this software to work up my plan.

Because I have a small TimberKing 1220 sawmill at the hand-scribed cabin I built up near Hinckley, Minnesota. I decided to cut the timbers and haul them home. Maybe not the best approach because the cabin and sawmill are quite a few miles back in the woods. Cutting and hauling the timbers was certainly an adventure—an adventure that is otherwise known as Reindeer Games.

I cut the frame in my garage over the winter of 2010-2011. Well, actually, I cut parts over the winter and cut parts in the spring and cut parts a bit into the fall, too. Things never go exactly as planned. Then, in the fall, I recruited my brother, Petey, and we spent two days raising the frame.

After we got the frame installed, it didn’t take long to install the roof (twice), install the windows and door, and install the board and batten siding.

Overall, I was very pleased with the result and I certainly learned a great deal about timber framing that I can apply to my next project.

[View with PicLens]

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After graduating from college, the couple lived communally as organic farm volunteers in Europe. As a child in his native Belgium, Cedric lived on a 38 foot steel sailboat, and after school he lived in a re-built 27 foot sailboat in Charleston Harbor. So the 200 square foot home they are building will not be a far stretch. The couple (Cedric is a seasonal bicycle tour guide and Andrea is a Spanish teacher) also knew that they did not want to go into 30 years of debt for a home during an uncertain economy.

“People my age, people I talk to that don’t want to be indebted, people that are coming out of college in an economically unstable time…many are interested,” Tremols said to her local television station.

When complete, the home will have a kitchen with a stove, a small refrigerator and a sink with an on demand water heater. There will be a bathroom, a composting toilet, shower, a living space and an enclosed loft. The couple based their design on a photo they saw of a Protohaus, and most of the materials for the house came from the Sustainable Warehouse in Charleston. The house design utilizes cross ventilation without air conditioning and will eventually be hooked up to solar power. When the summer heat and hurricanes converge on Charleston, Andrea and Cedric plan to move their tiny home into the mountains.

The Protohaus design that inspired Andrea and Cedric

Photos courtesy of Andrea Tremols and Cedric Baele and Protohaus

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The Mighty Cabana is pre-cut from solid wood and is connected by a patented building system for strength and ease of construction. They can be used as a small house, a small business, a vacation home, an artist studio, pool house or storage shed.

The Mighty Cabana comes in two configurations: the Cabana Series and the Gable Series. The Cabana series starts at $5,240 for a 10×12 foot structure and goes up to $7,520 for a 12×16 foot structure. The Mighty Cabana Gable Series starts at $4,790 for a 10×12 foot structure and goes up to $7,450 for a 12×16 foot structure.

Cabana Series Interior

Cabana Series Interior

Gables Series

Gable Series Interior

The price includes:

• Treated floor joists, plywood floor and skids
• Pre-cut 2×6 T&G SPF solid walls and timber with Glulam columns
• A 60” porch roof (Gable) or 36” roof overhang (Cabana)
• 2×6 T&G SPF roof decking on Glulam wood roof beam
• 30-year black composition roof shingles
• Vinyl sliding glass door system
• Vinyl windows
• Western Red Cedar exterior trim package, glue and fasteners
• Free customer support

Delivery of the Mighty Cabana is included up to 30 miles of Tacoma WA. There is a $2.00 per mile charge beyond 30 miles. Each Cabana can be connected to an on- or off-grid electrical system.

Photos courtesy of Pan Abode

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

by Kent Griswold

The other day I found a real intense peace sitting in front of this fire conversing with my new friends, Diana and Michael Lorence. Diana wrote a popular article for Tiny House Blog earlier this year entitled Diana’s Innermost House.

There is something almost unbelievable about Innermost House. When I received Diana’s invitation to visit, I was so curious to see it for myself.

144 square feet. No hot water or electricity. All their heat and cooking from the fireplace. I had seen the pictures on Diana’s website, and it’s hard to believe the house belongs to modern times. But Innermost House is real I can now say, and I can see how a couple really could live there. Seeing is believing.

It turns out the Lorences have lived there full time most of the last seven years. It’s their only home, though they do travel some. They didn’t even own a car until recently.

Now it’s a few days later and I’m still trying to pin down what makes Innermost House so special. What brings such peace to a person experiencing it. Here are a few of my thoughts.

The small enclosed space. The living room is about 7×12 feet and 12 feet high. At first I felt a little pressed in, but when I sat down close to the fire and started conversing the feeling soon went away. Then I just felt the deep peace.

The light. It has a feeling of an intimate chapel, with the fire, the natural light coming in through the windows, the candles in the close space and the old books.

Freedom from outside, worldly distractions. No electricity, appliances, noises that come from our man made complex lives.

The simplicity of the furnishing, books, well chosen articles each with a purpose. Everything super clean and minimal stuff. Everything in its place. There are two small storage sheds on the sides and they rotate what they need in and out of them.

The fact that Diana and Michael have lived this type of life for seven years makes their personalities and conversations a part of that secluded and secret atmosphere.

The peacefulness of the fire, the simple and delicious meal. The back to basics that we all crave. That is my draw to tiny houses and as my tag line goes “Living Simply in Small Spaces.”
I can’t really explain Innermost House but there is something there (spiritual, refreshing, unexplainable). No way to nail it down and no way to really capture it, though I think the photos do to a certain degree. I spent some time at their website afterward and really soaked in the photos, they meant so much more to me now that I have been in that special space.

My interest has always been to have a small simple cabin in the mountains. It’s always been my dream. Could Innermost House be replicated? I wanted to take it with me or somehow build my own version.

I need to look for ways to apply this knowledge to my life as it is now, get rid of the clutter, enjoy simple things, not crave the latest and greatest toy, enjoy each other’s company and conversation. I’m going to get that fireplace of mine going this winter.

I still have a peaceful feeling I brought away from their company and the Innermost House. Anyway just a few of my thoughts I thought I would share before some distraction takes them away. Enjoy the new pictures.

You can read more and see more pictures of the Lorence’s unique style of tiny house life at Diana’s website, www.innermosthouse.com.

Lammas is the United Kingdom’s first planned ecovillage and is sited on 76 acres of mixed pasture and woodland in Pembrokeshire. The houses use low-impact architecture which uses a combination of recycled and natural materials. The village will contain five detached buildings and one terrace of four dwellings. The homes will be built of straw bale, earth, timber frame and cob; they will have turf roofs and wool insulation and will blend into the landscape.

The videos (also available as podcasts) cover everything from searching for land, working with local codes, inspectors and design councils, examples of different types of natural building including straw bale and cob, surviving cold weather, self-sufficiency, growing your own food, and keeping community intact. The ecovillages profiled are Cae Mabon, The Village, Ireland and Findhorn. That Roundhouse by Tony Wrench is also featured.

The videos are filmed and produced by Undercurrents, an alternative news blog, and presented by Paul Wimbush, an architect who has lived in several intentional communities where he learned gardening, horticulture, goat-tending, land management and simple living skills.

You can support both organizations by purchasing a 50-minute DVD of all the videos.

Photos courtesy of Lammas Ecovillage and Undercurrents

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The company also offers a pad foundation, Thermowood® siding, cedar roof shingles or insulated metal roofs, French doors, skylights, exterior lighting and decking. Interior options include laminate flooring, electrical and lighting, heating units and blinds.

The Stable Company also offers its customers the use of its in-house, planning permission and building regulations services as well as deposit protection and an insurance backed guarantee.

Photos courtesy of the Stable Company

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

*New photos added below of loft, kitchen and bathroom

This is Innermost House, my home in the coastal mountains of Northern California. It is the latest of many very small houses my husband and I have occupied over twenty-five years, all for the same reason–to make possible a simple life of reflection and conversation. I am delighted now to be a part of Kent’s public conversation with others who share my love of tiny houses, and I’m grateful to Michael Janzen of Tiny House Design for introducing us.

Innermost House is about twelve-feet square. It faces directly south beneath an open porch that shelters our front door. A hill rises to the north behind us and the forest lies all around. The house encloses five distinct rooms: to the east is a living room eleven feet deep by seven feet wide by twelve feet high; to the west the house is divided into kitchen, study, and bathroom, each approximately five feet wide by three feet deep, with a sleeping loft above the three of them, accessible by a wooden ladder we store against the wall.

The living room is the heart of the house. It is where my husband and I spend most of our time, and where we receive our guests. On the east wall of the room is a small fireplace set a foot above the floor, with a hearth extension of bricks projecting a foot and a half into the room. On the west side is a wall of books four feet wide and seven feet tall. Between these walls of hearth and books, our two low chairs sit facing each other a couple of feet apart. Everything about the space is conceived to make a harmony of conversation possible.

I know that sounds strange in a world where conversation seems to go on all the time every day. But pause for a moment and try to remember the single most moving and meaningful conversation you ever had. Perhaps it was with your mother or father in days long past, or with your husband or wife when you were first in love. Perhaps it was when you said goodbye to someone for the very last time.

Now, how would you design, build and furnish a place so that those conversations could happen every day? That is the question we asked of every detail of Innermost House, and we are still asking it.

The fireplace is where our conversation begins, just as it began a million years ago when human language and domesticated fire were born together. The fireplace is the original tiny house. After all, what is a cave or a tipi or a wigwam but a big, enclosing fireplace? The fire is our link with the wild. Gazing into the fire seems to release our dream life into words.

The books complete the circle of conversation on the other side. They are our link with the world. All of our books have been carefully chosen over the years as contributing something essential to the Innermost Life. It is strange that it was not until I saw them all together, illuminated by the fire at Innermost House, that I realized nearly every one was first written by firelight. In some way they represent the last light cast from that first fire at the mouth of a cave.

We do not have electricity or power of other kind, so we warm the cabin and cook our food and heat our water for bathing all over the fire. Our firewood comes of local orchard prunings that would otherwise be burned as waste in the field. In the summer we cook over coals and wash with cold water. We light our home with beeswax candles. After examining all the options, we installed a conventional septic system, though we use very little water.

The house is of mixed post and beam and stick construction. Our floor is of yellow pine tongue & grove planks, our ceiling of fir planks and rafters and beams. Our interior walls are of plain white lime plaster applied by hand over blue board. The exterior walls are clad in rough-sawn redwood board and batten. The roof is of cedar shakes. Both the redwood and the cedar are naturally resistant to rot, fire, and insects–all important considerations in the woods. The house is constructed of natural, simple materials, with a lot of care taken to render them neat and plain.

Real wood, real plaster. The real things really do make a difference, at whatever sacrifice they must be had. It’s worth waiting and saving for if you can.

The building project required the better part of a year for two men working part time. A good deal of that time was spent in familiarizing ourselves with the traditional building language of the region. We would have built a rather different house in New Mexico or Massachusetts or Virginia. My husband always limits himself to the vernacular of a region so that, as he says, nature can have a hand in the building.

This kind of life has been made possible for us by living in partnerships of one kind or another over the years, often in guest houses. We have moved many times, and have never owned a home. My husband is a private confidant and friend to people in public positions. Men come to him for the special kind of conversation he makes possible. Innermost House was built for us on the land of such a partner and friend. Many local building ordinances allow for small guesthouses.

I have loved our small houses, and I love Innermost House most of all. There are many reasons for wanting to live in a tiny house. A simple life of high conversation is my reason. I could not live any other way. Visit another post by Diana here.

Diana Lorence is an inspirational speaker on the pleasures of the Simple Life. Innermost House was designed by Diana’s husband, Michael Anthony Lorence. More photographs of Innermost House and stories of Diana’s life in the woods may be seen by visiting her website www.wordsfromthewoods.com.

I just finished moving my house from my shop at the Firehouse to a spot in the woods on the other side of the city. There is still work to do before I move into it, but it is a huge relief to have finished the move. There are many pictures and a short video of the first part of the move on my blog

Tiny House Moving Day (Ode to teamwork) from pvander on Vimeo.

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The 8 foot by 8 foot structure has a built-in sleeping loft, a readily available 5-gallon bucket wash basin, a City of Vancouver rain water barrel and modular furniture, which could be easily configured to create a second sleeping space. Because the individual unit does not provide running water or electricity to reduce cost, it would function best in a community of such dwellings with central kitchen/washroom facilities.

This project is intended to open up a dialogue about a variety of ways in which homelessness in Vancouver could be addressed. Quarters was initially exhibited in Vancouver and Granville Island is is now currently situated on Bowen Island, British Columbia with three others like it.

Photos from Amanda Huynh and Anna Gukov

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The caravans are built from partially recycled timber and meet high quality environmental standards. The insulation is made from wool and the windows and doors have double glazing. A hot water heater and electrical wiring is included.

Most of these caravans are around 215-230 square feet and include a kitchen, a bathroom and sleeping facilities as well as plenty of storage, heating for winter use, outdoor living spaces and lovely details including polished brass port-hole windows. They come fully equipped and can accommodate up to four people. Some are even accessible for the disabled. The units start at €29.800 or $41,000 and take 2-4 months to be completed.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]