New Tortoise Shell Design

Posted May 5th, 2009 by Kent Griswold and filed in Pre-fab, Stick Built
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12 Comments

Yesterday I went to the Tortoise Shell Nursery to see Bill’s new design that is currently under construction. He is building a larger Tortoise Shell Home that may be the sweet spot as far as size is concerned.

This Tortoise Shell Home is based on a 26 foot trailer base, and has a shed style roof. It will include a full size bathroom, a kitchen, living area and a small bedroom.

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Bill is using green components such as bamboo flooring and energy efficient appliances. He will be using both sheet rock and pine tongue and groove on the walls. Cedar siding and windows in the raised roof for additional natural lighting.

The price range will be between $26,000 and $30,000 depending on finish.

This home should work great for a couple, with 208 square feet, I think this home has great potential. I will be visiting again in the near future and will give you updates as Bill completes this home.

Visit the Tortoise Shell Home website and if you think this home might work for you, be sure and tell Bill that you were referred by the Tiny House Blog.

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12 Responses to “New Tortoise Shell Design”

  1. Nice. Will the big open area on the trailer tongue side be a porch or something?

  2. Kent says:

    That is the bedroom area, with the raised roof in the drawing above. It is still being constructed and temporary wall in the front to give it stability at this time…Kent

  3. Kent, by “shed-style roof” do you mean gambrel? Just curious what it’s going to look like when it gets its outer shell on.

  4. Kent says:

    Hi Steph – No a flat angled roof like in the drawing at the top of the post. Really two angled roofs one going each direction…Kent

  5. Benjamin says:

    I never saw a turtle that looked anything like that.

  6. EJ says:

    Is bamboo green?

    Its replacing native forests
    It grows fast
    Its not local, but shipped across oceans
    It needs lots of glue to hold together
    Its made into flooring in many steps in factories rather than in sawmill followed by planer
    Can bamboo flooring be recycled?
    Does it need irrigation?
    Is it invasive?

    I’m not certain that plain old, local, carefully harvested lumber isn’t as green. or “greener”.

    Does anyone know of a good life cycle analysis of bamboo?

    • Kent says:

      Good point EJ. I know Bill is looking at making a green product and is doing research into it and there is a fine line in what is green and what isn’t, thanks for pointing this out.

  7. Darrell says:

    I use Firefox, and when I go to their site, it’s all scrunched up. Everything overlaps and it’s impossible to read. I tried with Opera and It did the same thing.

  8. Kent says:

    Hi Darrell – I passed your message on to Bill and he will look into it. It looks ok in my Firefox and Safari, so not sure what is going on…Kent

  9. [...] you a new design of a Tortoise Shell Home by Bill Kastrinos and showed you a few photographs of the prototype in progress. Bill asked me if I had any suggestions for a name for his new Tortoise and wondered if I would [...]

  10. Paul says:

    Wow great house. It shows great promise. I would love to purchase one. It’s to bad that Bill from Tortoise shell homes has not returned any of my phone calls…..

    • Kent says:

      I passed your message on to Bill, he has been out of the office quite abit lately so may have missed your messages.

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