At first glance you would not think of Cabin Creek Timber Frame company as a tiny house builder. If you view their site you will see huge timber frame homes. But don’t let this first impression fool you. I discovered that Cabin Creek Timber Frames takes their left over wood and builds tiny structures. Recently I communicated with Norma Jo Bell who gave me some information I wanted to share with you about this alternate building style for tiny houses.

I personally think the 12 x 16 with the half loft would make a great tiny home….at a great price. One could enclose it with (SIPS) structurally insulated panels and have an extremely energy efficient unit. Depending on how it was finished out it could even qualify for the ‘new home’ tax credit. The 12ft x 12 ft compound joinery frame in the video is not on attached price list yet but it will sell for $6,000.

The 12 ft x 12 ft compound joinery timber frame and the 12 ft by 16 ft with half loft are both made with surplus lumber from other timber frame projects — thus the low cost.

All of our frames have been trial assembled in our beamery. So they can be reassembled anywhere. We can either reassemble them for you or send a detailed drawing of where the pieces go. Every piece has a handwritten number that corresponds with its location and sometimes direction in the timber frame.

Right now the prices are about a dollar a mile to the recipients location from our beamery here in Franklin, NC. If the frame is small they usually share the load with some thing else going near that location to save on costs. We have been using Custom Transport out of Brooksville, IN, 1-800-338-6288, as a jobber for our shipping. We have been quite happy with them for the past 1-1/2 to 2 years now.

The low prices on these frames – have a reason…. they are not ‘custom’ they were either cut when we had some down time or cut by one of our craftsmen to raise extra money for themselves. We put them on display outside our beamery and people like what they see and stop. These frames are not something we have all the time….while not built for a specific person – they are still at this time one of a kind.

They are handcrafted by our timber framers not cut by machines. We would invite you to compare our craftmenship to anyone that does timber framing regardless of where they are.

So if you thinking of a timber frame tiny house be sure and check out Cabin Creek Timber Frames.

Ann Holley from ProtoHaus wrote that she will be giving a lecture on the ProtoHaus project Friday November 13 at Alfred University. The lecture is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Science Center (building 13 on the map).

Ann will begin at 12:20 and the event will be over at 1:10. There will be an open house right after the lecture. If you are in the area and would like to come Ann would be happy to see you there! The address is: Alfred University · 1 Saxon Drive · Alfred, NY. You can find a campus map at http://www.alfred.edu/map/

“Learn by doing” isn’t that what education is all about and wouldn’t you think so in the field of architecture.

The Rural Studio is a design-build architecture studio run by Auburn University whose goal is to teach students both social responsibility while also providing safe, fine constructed homes with inspirational design for poor communities in rural west Alabama.

The project known as the 20K project is an ongoing project now into it 6th year. The project is based on trying to design and build and create alternative forms of housing on an extremely tight budget.

The project is based on the 20K limit to design and build a house for $10,000 for materials and with a proposed labor cost of $10,000, therefore not exceeding $20,000.

In the beginning four teams were put together to design four 20K houses. The four houses were completed and they are: the pattern book house ; the loft house; the roundwood house; and the bridge house.

Each team approached the design to fit in this tight budget and had a calendar year to complete the home. Currently four new clients have completed and paid for homes owned with the help of HERO.

Joey Fante a future architect showed his 20K project that with his team: Ryan Stephenson, Kait Caldwell, and Aimee O’Carroll designed and built the Loft House as part of the 2007/2008 thesis class at Rural Studio.

To view more photos visit arch daily and Rural Studio.

Photo Credit: arch daily

Kent, I continually check into Tiny House Blog because it is about so much more than small buildings. For me, the tiny house movement has led to a much greater awareness of community development, sustainability, our environment, local food initiatives, and my child’s future. Is this what was supposed to happen? Recently, I saw your note asking for updates on past feature posts so I thought I would send ours in.

Since our post on Tiny House Blog last spring we have had over 150 people tour Camp Coyote and Farmhouse Life. I am often surprised by people’s positive reaction to our little buildings. Most comment that Camp Coyote is the ideal place to “get away.” Proving, I think, that when we aren’t constantly bombarded by external stimuli we have the opportunity to focus on what is important. And while we are going to add small solar and wind for some convenience our plan is to keep things pretty basic.

Taking a cue from our visitors we have added a porch to our bunkhouse. We built two tent platforms that are big enough to house a large tent with room enough to sit and relax up front. A solar experiment was begun by adding a solar heat panel to heat the pool in our grain bin. The water is pushed through the panel with the standard filter pump and on sunny days will raise the water temperature by 20 degrees. There is still some tweaking to do on how to best retain that heat but we are pretty happy with the experience.

Over the summer we transformed our old pole barn to host events for larger groups. This fall we hosted a private screening for the movie FRESH and had lunch for 40+ people from across the U.S., Central America, and Africa who recently attended the Community Food Security Coalition conference in Des Moines. All this interest has encouraged my wife and me to finish a few last projects so we can open in the summer of 2010. I have included a few pictures on these events and you can read more at our website, www.farmhouselife.com.

Moonlight in Vermont? Sunlight might be better for this tiny solar powered home built by Alex Carver and Christopher North of Northern Timbers in Vermont. The Burlington Microhome is a 100 square-foot modular house that is off-grid and ready for additional modules to be added to it if needed.

Northern Timbers built the microhome with design help from landscape architect and metal artist H. Keith Wagner.

Much of Northern Timbers’ work reinterprets the traditional Vermont vernacular by introducing new applications of diverse materials into the residential setting, resulting in homes with a practical yet creative aesthetic. The exterior steel of the building will weather in the extreme climate, giving extra character to the place.

Their design meets the challenges of a northern climate while creating a modern, energy efficient tiny home. Their company has achieved LEED Gold certification, while two other homes they built were awarded American Institute of Architecture awards for Excellence in Architecture.

Northern Timbers devotes personal attention to each stage of the job from planning to completion, working closely with homeowners and architects to achieve custom homes that reflect the unique tastes of the owner yet remain within the reach of modest budgets.

The Burlington microhome has also been featured on the Jetson Green blog and the Simpler Living blog of the Times Union of Albany, NY.

By Christina Nellemann for the (Tiny House Blog)

Ryan one of our readers from Iowa sent me this cool little house model and plans that he had found in an antique store. I’ll let Ryan tell you a little more about it.

Here are some photos, I could not resist trying to get one of the house in the landscape. I found the house model at a very nice antique shop on the Iowa Minnesota border. I paid $5 for it. The proprietor thought it came from an estate in Minnesota.

He had no idea if the house was ever built. The floor plan was tucked inside the model. I really like the drawing, it helps hint at the personality and interests of the designer and builder.

My guess is an older retired gentleman looking to move out of a large drafty farmhouse to something that fits his comforts much better. I really like the way the tub / shower area is designed.

The model is built in 1:48 from foamboard, cardboard, and balsa wood. It will eventually find a place on the rolling hills of my model railroad.

So someone out there could take this basic plan and turn it into a real home someday. Will it be you?

To close off October, I thought this picture was appropriate. The fall colors are extremely bright and the log cabin just blends into them beautifully.

I’m sure this is located back east somewhere, as the log structure is typical of that area and generally we don’t get those bright orange leaves out in the west where I live. If anyone can track down the location of this photograph, I will add it to the post.

Ed sent me this today and I thought it would make a great homeless shelter. At $50 each surely we could afford to do something like this for the homeless in America and elsewhere. I’ll let Ed tell you more about it.

I wanted to share with you my mini cabin-sleep pod I built for a recent 4 day music fest I went to. With decent tents costing up to $100, I built this for around $50.

The dimensions are 4 foot by 6.5, with a 3.5 width bunk inside with storage underneath and room for me to maneuver in. (IE, change clothes and sponge baths. Heh) Being 6 feet tall, I was quite cozy in it. Its a little heavy, but it was fairly easy for me to simply tip it and slide it into the back of my truck. I got a number of compliments.

I ended up using the really cheap chipboard as I wanted to keep the cost under $50 (the paint was $5 ‘oops’ paint) so its not something that would last years and years outdoors, but it was good practice until I want to build something a little longer-lasting. For the bed I just put down a yoga mat and a sleeping bag, it was plenty comfy.

The roof is just a thin sheet of plywood. A while back I had built a simple wooden boat called a ‘bolger brick’ and while doing that I learned one of the properties of thin plywood is it because stiffer and stronger when it is bent, thus made a surprisingly solid roof.

(you can see pics of my boat attempt here and my little adventure, it was ugly but functional)

http://www.weblamer.com/2_19_2007_From_hippies_to_punks_in_a_single_day.html

If you own your own tiny house or are planning to build one, knowing how to do the construction is an education all its own.

I recently discovered a new resource from the Better Homes and Gardens Network’s DIYadvice.com that is the go-to home improvement website for all do-it-yourselfers, from the novice to the experienced, containing step-by-step detailed instruction on everything from drywall, plumbing, electrical and bathrooms and much, much more. If you are building that tiny house this is a great way to get the help you need.

Dave one of the Tiny House Blog readers has consistently sent me some great articles and I don’t always manage to fit them in. Here is one he sent recently that not only could help the world but I think could be used in a tiny house situation or help the homeless as well.

“On the outside, it looks like an ordinary sports bottle. On the inside, there’s a miracle: an extremely advanced filtration system that makes murky water filled with deadly viruses and bacteria completely clean in just seconds.”
Allison Barrie, FoxNews.com

Too much of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Engineer Michael Pritchard did something about it — inventing the portable Lifesaver filter, which can make the most revolting water drinkable in seconds.

Here is an amazing 10 minute demo from TEDGlobal 2009. Very much worth the time to watch.

Using a non-chemical nano-filtration hollow fiber membrane with 15 nanometer pores (it is designed to block viruses), the Lifesaver bottle can make the most revolting swamp water drinkable in seconds. Better still, a single long-lasting filter can clean 6,000 liters of water. Given the astronomical cost of shipping water to disaster areas, Pritchard’s Lifesaver bottle could turn traditional aid models on their heads. You can purchase your own here and if I had a tiny house I would seriously look at the new Jerrycan option.