Tiny House Blog

Trekker Trailers in central Florida has been building vintage and retro style teardrop trailers for over four years, but the company’s owner, Andrew, wanted to take his love of simple, tiny living to the next level and built a 70 square foot house on wheels that was recently sold to a 17-year-old student. His mother is also thinking of getting a tiny house.

“I have always loved campers and simple tiny living,” Andrew said. “I’ve been building teardrop campers for 4 years now, have restored many historic homes in my area, and have a love for form, function, and art. It seemed like a good fit for my talents to build a tiny house. Though my wife and I intend to retire in a tiny house, this one was built to sell so I tried to appeal to the lovers of the craft.

Watch a walk-through of the Trekker Trailer tiny house on the company’s Facebook page.

The Tiffany blue house is built with high quality materials like Galvalume roofing, cypress interior and exterior trim and some interesting and unique storage and space-saving details. The small living room couch (with a lovely skylight above it) has storage behind and underneath the seat and what Andrew calls a “hybrid Murphy bed” folds down from the back wall. The bed can be adjusted to sleep one or two people. The kitchen contains a sink, refrigerator, microwave and a slide-out pantry. The wet bath has fiberglass flooring and a composting toilet that can use BioBags. The water heater is a propane powered heater that is mounted on an exterior wall near the deck. Continue Reading »

My friend Julie’s family comes from a ranching family in eastern Nevada and various antique items have made it into her home including a full-size sheep wagon that now sits comfortably in her backyard. The wagon was formerly used by her husband and father to camp in while they went hunting in the wilderness of the high mountain state. Julie would eventually like to turn the wagon into a place for people to stay and get a taste of the Wild West.

The wagon (which dates around the early 1900′s) has a metal roof that has been painted, the original wood and a full size bed in the back. It also contains the original wood stove and a small table that covers up a storage cabinet and lowers down in front of the bed. Many original sheep wagons did not have a sink, but Julie’s does. It’s covered with a wooden food prep board and the water drains out onto the ground. The sheep wagon shares the yard with an tin-roofed outhouse that she picked up for free. Continue Reading »

It’s no secret to any of my friends or family that I love tiny houses. This very post from your Tiny House Blog is the one that took me from tiny house dreamer to small-living adventurer!

Months after entering Sylvan Sport’s Coolest. Contest. Ever. Adventure Contest! I opened up an email that began, “Hello Meghan, It is my pleasure to inform you”. That’s about as far I as got when recognition hit that my essay had actually been chosen. I began squealing in delight, much to the amazement and joy of the five sheltie puppies I was pet-sitting at the time. Continue Reading »

The summer camping season is starting to heat up and for those Tiny House Blog visitors who are lamenting the loss of the tiny Retro Traveler, the Toad Camper is a nice and affordable alternative to the ultra lightweight trailer. Toad Campers are built by hand in North Carolina with the best American-made products and can be towed by most 4-cylinder vehicles. What I thought was a typo, was that the campers start out at $2,999 for a basic streamlined weekend trailer.

The company offers four basic models: the Micro, Micro XL, Tadpole, and 20-foot Bull Frog. Each of these models have very flexible floor plan arrangements including small bathrooms with showers, full or queen beds or bunk beds. They also come with the following features:

• Heavy duty axle with bearing buddies
• Insulated frame
• 13″ Radial tires
• Laminate flooring
• Various color choices
• Microwave, refrigerator, air conditioner and flat-screen TVs
• Wash station or full kitchen
• Central roof vent
• Durable rubber roof

The Toad Camper company also offers their trailers as rentals so you can test drive their different sized options. They also build custom trailers for just about any other kind of use including kayak trailers, refreshment trailers and restroom trailers. Continue Reading »

I am currently on my way to check out some tiny houses in the tropical nation of Belize. However, I thought I would leave you with a video of my teardrop trailer, the Sunflower, put together by the lovely Kirsten Dirksen of Fair Companies. Last fall, I met Kirsten’s parents at Austin Hay’s tiny open house and began to converse with her by email. She became interested in my bright yellow teardrop and wanted to show the lifestyle from my point of view.

From a mix of random video that I shot with my Sony Powershot, Kirsten edited together a very nice snapshot into the average life of a teardropper. During our final fall camping trip in the Eastern Sierras, my fellow teardropping friends and I get a little goofy in the video as we hike, soak in natural hot springs and cook over hot coals with a Dutch oven. My little cat also makes a guest appearance. If you are interested in learning more about how I got my teardrop and about teardrop trailers in general, you can visit my blog at www.tinyyellowteardrop.blogspot.com.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Is anyone else stuck in the winter blues and getting the Road Trip Itch? Scratch that itch by taking a look at the blog, Drive Nacho Drive. Nacho is a 1984 2.1 liter Volkswagen Vanagon being driven around the world by Brad and Sheena. They quit their jobs at the end of 2011 and have been living out of Nacho as they discover adventure, food, culture and emergency roadside Volkswagen maintenance.

What popped out of this blog was the great step-by-step breakdown as to how the couple adapted Nacho for around-the-world travel. They cover everything from how they added in a hot and cold water infrastructure for drinking and showering, a solar electric system, custom cabinets, custom bumpers, locking storage boxes and the little details to turn Nacho into a plush tiny house on wheels. Continue Reading »