Tiny House Blog

Out of many of the world’s tiny homes, the Tiny SMART House has one of the nicest sleeping lofts I’ve ever seen. It’s open and airy with two windows and enough space to even put a few pieces of furniture. The 200 square foot Tiny SMART Houses are built in Albany, Oregon with quality materials and are finished with special details including French doors, wood floors and a tongue and groove ceiling. The homes are mobile and can be delivered to your building site.

The SMART House can be custom designed with several different styles and floor plans like the Oregon Trail and the Montana Cabin and exteriors such as cedar plank or Hardie Plank Lap. You can choose between several different doors, windows, wall styles and extras such as solar panels and a rain catchment system. Company owners Tor Barstad and Nathan Light designed the homes with college students in mind but have been requested to build their homes as guest houses and vacation homes.

The SMART House starts at about $20,000 for the base model and the upgrades for size, materials, design and bathrooms are extra.

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The Vardo is not officially a tiny house but more of a sleeping camper, great for getaways to the mountains or the beach or as a guest room for your tiny home. There is no bathroom or kitchen, just a sleeping area and storage.

I had the opportunity of touring Jay’s Vardo before he sold it and it is a high quality little unit. It reminds me a bit of a teardrop trailer in a vardo format. If you are unsure of your building skills this little project would be a great way to learn the basic carpentry skills and come out with a wonderful little project you could show off to your friends and family. With that confidence you could move on to build a larger tiny house.

Tumbleweed estimates the cost to build the Vardo to be around $2,500 (minus the optional heater). The vardo can be placed on a small trailer and towed or put on the back of a pickup such as the Ford F-150.

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company is making a special offer this month and is giving away the plans for free if you purchase Jay’s Small House Book.

The plans include 14 pages:

• Elevation Drawings: The exterior view from all 4 sides is included showing you heights relative to the truck bed, window and door openings, and finish materials.
• Floor Plans: Floor plans are included for both the storage area, and the sleeping area.
• Roof Plan: Shown from above, you see the overhang of the roof compared to the truck and structure.
• Wall Framing: Two pages of wall framing show you how to frame each wall, front, back and sides so that you have the rounded roof and slight angle of side walls. Additionally, floor framing is included.
• Door Detail: The Vardo requires a custom made door, and the door detail gives you the dimensions, and types of wood to use.
• Section Drawings: These drawings cut the Vardo in half both the long way and the short way. They show you where to insulate, what types of wood studs to use, how to properly insulate, which materials to use, how to secure the structure to the truck, and much more.
• Basic Components: Suggestions on specific windows for the structure and the door including the manufacturer and glass type. Also included is a heater suggestion.

This week’s Tiny House in a Landscape is of some cabins in Iceland and was photographed by David duChemin. David shares wall paper photographs and made this one available for his readers during the month of April. I contacted David and he is allowing me to share his photo on the Tiny House Blog.

David is a world and humanitarian photographer, best-selling author, and international workshop leader. David uses his powers for good and not for evil. Thanks David for sharing your photographic inspiration with us.

Get the wall paper of this image here: http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/2012/04/april-desktop-wallpapers/

by Christopher Stoney

When I consider all of the hurdles and hassles associated with building a tiny house in this modern time of high land prices and restrictive zoning, I find myself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to buy a small cottage. My cottage has remained essentially unchanged since the 1940s when smaller houses were the norm.

I have always had an idea of just what kind of house I wanted to live in. For years I had been keeping an eye on the market for the perfect house. Finally, in 2006, I saw an ad in a real estate flyer: ‘Brookside cottage with claw foot tub.’ This I had to check out, even though I was in a perfectly comfortable living situation at the time. When I visited the house, I felt a sense of recognition. It was as if I were returning to a home I had built for myself in a previous lifetime. In a flurry of negotiations I got the price down to what I could afford, and with the help and advice of a Tarot reader, I overcame some legal hurdles and I became a homeowner.

Although I think it would be closer to the truth to say that this house owns me. Even as I have chosen this house to be my home, I feel that in some sense I have been chosen by this house, and by the woodland spirits that live here, to be its caretaker.

Since then, I have been redecorating/remodeling the house one room at a time. The claw foot tub is still there, although the rest of the bathroom has been completely redone.

[View with PicLens]

I recently discovered another small/tiny home builder called Southern Fried Homes. Owned and operated by Tim Watson the company is located on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Tim has been building custom homes there for the past 22 years.

Small, affordable, and Southern Styled, Southern Fried Homes are attainable now, and you can grow them over time.

You might also think of a Southern Fried Home as an Accessory Dwelling Unit. Whether used as a guest house, rental, or granny flat these units are a legal solution to your housing needs in a growing number of East Coast Communities. The goal is to keep these homes well appointed and low priced. They also can be delivered within weeks. Continue Reading »

by Daniel Combellick

*New Photos added

The house began with ordering 60 logs from the forest service, which they delivered to the site. Common Fir. Some of these I used to build a small hut, which were all hand-hewn, along with some Birch logs taken from my forest. I lived in this small 12 X 16 ft hut the entire time I was building the house.

The foundation was dug by hand, and filled the same… this was one of the three procedures on the house I had help with – the other two were installing the metal roof, and hanging the drywall – besides these all work was completed by me. In my shed there was no electricity or water – the water I brought in containers in a wheel barrow, or on a sled in the winter – from a nearby farmers well, the old kind, drawing the water with a bucket on a chain and dumping into the old milk containers I used for storage. My light was from headlamps, and kerosene lanterns. I had a propane stove, an outhouse, and an outside bathing shelter.

When I had completed my lumber take-off I sent the logs to a mill and had them sawn. Then, I commenced building. I was alone almost every day, this is a very remote spot, it is very quiet. Sometimes the loudest sound above that of my tools was the flap of a bird’s wings overhead. Did you know crows are very noisy fliers? Continue Reading »