Shipping Pallet photo by Michael Janzen

Tiny Free House

I just found a cool blog, actually three cool blogs just started by another neighbor of mine. Well within a couple of hours of where I live. Michael Janzen from the Sacramento Valley is embarking on a little experiment. He is going to build a tiny house, 90 square feet, that’s a cross between Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond and a Tumbleweed-like Tiny House on wheels. But he is going to build it without spending any money. There will be some things he won’t be able to scavenge. For these items he plans to sell things he can find for free on craigslist.org. In the end he hopes to have a tiny free house. His blog Tiny Free House will be a record of the project. He also plans to write a book on his experience as well. Below are his plans.

Shipping Pallet Construction

Michael’s main source of lumber will from shipping pallets, that you can find free in many locations.

I will post updates as Michael progresses with his project. He plans to have it completed by this fall. To learn more visit two of his blogs: Tiny Free House and Tiny House Design.

6×15 Tiny Free House

Nine Tiny Feet

Michael is not stopping there in fact, I think that he will be building the smallest house out there called Nine Tiny Feet. A nine square foot home on wheels. Quoting Michael at his blog:

OH… WHY?

No I don’t intend to live in it. Building something like this will be an interesting journey and I plan to use it as a home office some or all of the time. I may also use the Tiny Free House as an office too, I just haven’t decided. The other reason is to show people how small, small can be. I’m beginning to develop a theory that nine square feet is all we really need and that every square foot after that is for added comfort, vanity, or people.

So the short version… I’m building a nine square foot house to explore the possibility to satisfy my own curiosity and explore my own values. If successful I hope it will act as a tool to help other people see that the least is the most.

View his plan below and go to his his blog at Nine Tiny Feet to follow his progress. He plans on building this after he has completed the Tiny Free House, so stay tuned.

Nine Tiny Feet Design

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Lakeshore Mississippi was particularly hard hit by Hurricane Katrina which pretty much destroyed all the town’s homes. The reconstruction work is still ongoing and among those doing a lot of the work is Lakeshore Baptist Church, whose buildings were also leveled.

Jamie Dunbar one of the long term volunteers living in Lakeshore and helping with rebuilding efforts, shares a few pictures of the building of her new tiny home. She writes:

“Since I’ve been here I’ve lived in several different places here on the church property, but for the most part I’ve been living in a camper. The church has decided to build me a little home that I had designed. It’s 12 ft x 16 ft with a 4 ft front porch on the front making it 16×16. there is an 8 ft loft above.”

I really like her simple yet attractive design. When I first learned about it from Alex at Shedworking I wrote to Jamie and she shared her plans and drawings with me. Her tiny home is still being constructed so I will have an update later on when her home is completed. Thank you Jamie for sharing your experience with us.

You can find lots more details and photos at Jamie’s blog.

There has been quite an interest in the floating home niche, so I am sharing with you Doug Lundy’s story written by Doug himself.

For this builder living on a 37 foot sailboat provided all the comforts. The boat was his first project and Doug took the boat single handed a hundred miles offshore, sailed through gales of forty knots and spent a year in the Monterey Bay at Moss Landing Harbor. He returned the next year and continued working in the Portland area in construction.

Marina life is low cost and like summer camp, lots of fun once you get used to the intimacy of living with people you might not willingly choose to be particularly close to, a profound lesson in community. But soon Doug wanted a little more, closet space, a deck, workshop, room for a couch and chairs and a place to hang art, but not three bedrooms and 1600 square feet including all the associated taxes, monthly fees and debt. This house is just under 700 square feet, built out of pocket over seven or eight years.

The barge home is designed to meet marine licensing requirements and reside in a standard boat slip. It has self contained systems, dock supplied power and water, plug-in, just like any vessel.

It’s up to marina management whether or not to accept such a tenant, but many marinas will take them for slightly increased fees. With houseboat space increasingly unavailable and expensive, this option may provide a living option in marina space for those unwilling to accept the space limitations of a boat, at much less cost than a similarly sized yacht-quality vessel. Ideally it would be licensed as a marine vessel but the county assessors tend to prey on them, forcing them into the floating home category with their local sway over the state marine board. In Oregon what is clear is that there is a totally unclear statutory description of what is a boat and what is a floating home. Many Oregon barge homes remain successfully licensed in the marine vessel category.

This home is easily towed with any vessel of 25 horsepower or could easily be self propelled and steered.

This design was inspired by local examples and a survey of the best of Seattle area Lake Union barge homes. It features a many level layout which keeps interior headroom and door clearance fully adequate without having excessive overall height.

The living room floor is sunken with a vaulted ceiling to create a feeling of space, and the back room has a raised floor to accommodate storage under the floor. Full windows and glass door for lots of light. There is a full interior stairway to the upstairs loft, skylight over the landing, with washer dryer and a freezer underneath, and the bathroom is raised on a mezzanine level with an extra high ceiling and plant shelving above the shower. The loft provides access to the upper deck.

The house is finished in cedar and old growth salvaged fir taken from remodeling projects, nothing under thirty grains per inch, doors all of solid material to match the trim and shelving. In small spaces matching color and material is crucial and needs to be consistent.

All materials are kiln dried, glued and screwed fasteners to assure a solid unitary structure.

The float is ¾ inch solid plywood manufactured for cement form construction and fiber glassed with several layers of mat and ten ounce cloth, reinforced in all the corners and stress areas. The resin is high tech vinyl ester resin with the moisture and chemical resistant qualities of epoxy and the final coats of resin contain copper to provide increased resistance to ultraviolet exposure above the water line.

If you have any questions write Doug at the following email address: skp3.1416@juno.com

Barge Home Photos

Entry

Kitchen

Stair

Loft

Outside Back