Tiny House Blog

My husband and I have been utilizing the services of Airbnb for several of this year’s trips (New Orleans and Chile) and we’ve been very pleased with the ease and rental opportunities offered by the company. Airbnb is an online booking service that allows property owners to rent out their home or a room to travelers and it allows travelers to stay in unique places around the world. I was curious about the most popular rental location on Airbnb and was surprised to see that it was a beautiful tiny house shaped like a mushroom.

The Mushroom Dome Cabin in Aptos, California is rated as the number one listing on airbnb.com and consists of a semi-rustic cabin under a geodesic dome surrounded by oak, redwood and madrone trees. The cabin has a double bed located in the loft, an LCD screen with DVD player, a small deck, a couch, a small hot plate, refrigerator, toaster oven, blender and other kitchen supplies. The cabin has a tiny bathroom and shower. The owners provide clean linens and soap. Depending on the time of year, length of stay and amount of people, prices for the Mushroom Dome are about $90 per night and about $600 per week. Continue Reading »

I’ve decided to take a little break today and just give you a photo to enjoy. This is Matthew Adams outside his 120-square-foot house by Modern Cabana on his 160 acres near Red Bluff, California. He wanted a well-designed dwelling that would have the least effect on his land. I used this photo as my banner in the early days of the Tiny House Blog.

This beautiful gypsy wagon, which was used as a prop in the 1988 movie “Big Top Pee-Wee” has been available for sale since the middle of last year. The wagon, restored by Gary Votapka, was originally purchased for his land in Montana, but it is still sitting in a California neighborhood waiting for its next owner.

The vardo was in terrible shape when Gary purchased it for $10,000 and towed it from Barstow to his home in Fallbrook, Calif. The wagon had been sitting in the sun for over 20 years and gallons of desert dust and sand had settled onto the floor. Since the wagon had also been used as a prop in a movie with Pee-Wee Herman and Valeria Golino, none of the drawers opened and the cabinets were facades. Over the course of four years, Gary, his wife and son restored the gypsy wagon (by using a DVD of the movie) to its original colorful state and added a few workable cabinets and a comfortable bed. Continue Reading »

My name is Kerri Tuttle – I’m a scientist and writer. My husband, Geoff, and I live in a 700-square-foot house in Joshua Tree, California, known as “Casa Wabi Sabi” (I run a company by the same name: www.etsy.com/shop/casawabisabi) .

Moving from a 3,000 sq. ft. loft in the city to a 700 sq. ft. house in the mojave desert was no small feat. As you well know, we gave up a lot of frills when we made the transition to tiny house living, including eschewing annual Christmas tree and most holiday decorations. However, each year around this time, our nostalgic sides emerge and so we try to re-invent the holiday traditions for small-space living and in a manner that treads lightly on the earth.

My husband is a sculptor, and several years ago, he made a giant red star as one component of an art installation that he installed in a Sacramento, California art gallery. That star had been collecting dust ever since, but this year, the time seemed ripe to dust it off, add some bulbs, and hang it on the kitchen wall. Of course that got us both in the holiday mood, so I surveyed our living room. We needed something more, I decided, and so I started stringing Christmas lights on our tumbleweed (I’d collected it some time in mid-summer and had given it center stage on top of our curio cabinet). Then, in an inspired moment, I recalled some kanji flash cards that I’d purchased for an art project from a seller on Etsy, I quickly grabbed them, and Geoff and I took turns adding cards to the tumbleweed until there was only one left. That one we added to the very top. But first, we looked at the back to read which word ended up being the “tumbleweed topper.”

The card was ‘Megumi,” which means blessing.

Kerri Tuttle, (owner, Casa Wabi Sabi) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.309264132434785.90514.286641701363695&type=3

Laurel Nest Yurts is offering a workshop in the beautiful mountains outside of Santa Cruz, California and you are invited to join them to get some hands on experience in building a yurt.

Laurel Nest Yurts is offering a “Complete Yurt Building Experience” and a DIY Yurt Building Workshop.

Laurel Nest Yurt building workshops give you all the skills you need to:

• Build the platform
• Plan, design and build your walls, roof and tono.
• Install framed and mesh windows and skylight
• Sew your yurt cover out of Canvas
• Erect the yurt

The cost for the workshop is $125 to help cover costs incurred by workshop (snacks, materials, instructors, printing of the manual, etc.) We will have a limit of 10 people at our workshop, snacks and camping available.

You can get the complete details here: http://www.laurelnestyurts.com/ blog or use the following contact information:

For more information or registration contact:
Adrian
831-338-8300
adriantepperman@gmail.com

It was nice having Kirsten Dirksen of faircompanies.com in the area last summer and she picked up quite a few stories of people living small in Northern California. This video is about Fiver Brown.

Fiver Brown is a musician and the kind of guy who has worked as a rodeo clown, a sushi photographer and a pirate, so he couldn’t really afford to buy a home in his current hometown of Sausalito with an average home price of 2.2 million dollars. Instead, he bought a boat. Technically, he bought a floating home. It’s a former WWII lifeboat that had been converted into a small home and docked at one of the town’s historic houseboat communities.

It’s only 13 ft by 37 ft (481 sq ft), but the views are unbeatable. He watches stingrays and birds from the galley/kitchen and from his lofted bed he can peer down at his floating neighbors and the hills of Sausalito above.

His home is paid off though he still pays a monthly slip rental as part of the Galilee Harbor Coop and he’s living right where he wants to be, in a town known for its arts scene.

In this video, Fiver shows us his digs, including a walk-in closet and bathroom renovation in-progress, and performs one of his recent songs aboard his gently rocking maritime crib.