Tiny House Blog

Colorado Yurt Company wanted to help with the relief effort in Haiti after the earthquake, but was stumped on where to begin and how to make it happen so their donation would not get lost in the shuffle and end up sitting somewhere for who knows how long.

Sam Kigar worked with a friend Chris to get 5 tents to some doctors in Haiti and you can read more about the design below the picture and read his blog post at the Colorado Yurt Company’s blog.

They decided on a simple design: six vertical poles, guy-ropes, and overall dimensions of roughly 7ft x 7ft x 7ft. All the poles would be of the same length– 3.5 ft– the verticals at the front and back would each be two 3.5′ poles, fitted together. The exterior was to be a light weight synthetic material that could be rolled up to expose screen walls. The whole thing would fit into a duffel bag. Continue Reading »

I have had the opportunity of viewing the northern lights on one of our trips up into Canada, but they were very mild and nothing like this. It is a very beautiful exhibit of nature and with this cabin or barn in the foreground makes for a perfect picture.

I like the live roof and of course the old rustic wood. The sun is either rising or setting and the lighting is just right.

Kaomi Goetz from the Aol House Watch phoned me the other day for an interview about the the Tiny House Blog. Today she published her article called “The Giant Tiny House Blog.” Thank you Kaomi, I enjoyed the interview and appreciate your article.

I want to welcome the new visitors from the article and encourage you to look around as there is lots to see. Be sure and check out the Gallery to get a taste of the different types of tiny houses and if your interested in building your own check out the Plans Page.

I discovered Louis Johnson’s yurt on facebook and contacted him and he agreed to let me share some of his photos of his home. Louis will tell you a little bit about living in a yurt in upstate New York. Their yurt is built by the Colorado Yurt Company.

This winter has proved to be a cold one as well, but we had a better handle on our wood harvesting this year and are in good shape. We estimate that we will use between 3 and 4 cord this year… only one more really cold month to go.

Our PV system is small and has a generator plug in to supplement power when needed. We have not used a generator yet however ~ we choose to reduce our usage instead. We only use our microwave and toaster on very sunny days and supplement our lighting with a propane light and candles if necessary. We save a lot of energy by cooking on the wood stove.

This past year we have made a couple of low tec improvements to the yurt. Earlier last fall we finally got our mulch pit (for gray water) in place, that has been a very big help in getting water out of the yurt, and that enabled us to get an operable shower in the yurt. It may just be a bucket with a bulkhead, but it’s strangely empowering. We continue to heat our water in small batches on the wood stove. (In the summer we heat it in black shower bags and we shower outside.) Continue Reading »

Pamala Garant from Sonoma, California contacted me the other day about some exciting small houses her husband is designing. Pictured in this article is their guest house and my wife and I have been invited to come stay in it sometime, so look for an update with a first hand experience of staying in this victorian cottage.

Pamala says: “My husband is a structural engineer and specializes in designing historic reproduction architecture. As we age, we are becoming more aware and responsible about our previously large carbon foot prints. He is currently designing some small houses to post on his web site…. http://www.victorian-cottage-plans.com.”

We plan to “retire” into a smaller cottage, when we replace our current Carpenter Gothic cottage, which was also designed and built by my husband, Robert Garant. It is 2000 sq. ft and we find it too large. We like the idea of small houses but are also snobs about good architecture. Continue Reading »