Tiny House Blog

Guest Post by Merete Mueller reposted from Tiny

Perhaps one my favorite things about our tiny house (other than falling asleep to the sound of rain on a steel roof) is that it is entirely off grid.

Christopher and I are both environmentalists of sorts, having spent chunks of our lives studying, researching, and telling stories about humans’ interactions with our natural resources and waste. Part of this tiny house experiment has always been about learning to lessen our own impact.

And there’s also the practical side of things: 40 miles from a major town, our tiny house doesn’t have access to a “grid” of any kind. No gas lines. No power lines. No water lines or sewage system. We’ve had to figure out our own solutions for each of these utilities.

Park County, Colorado gets an average of 246 sunny days each year, so solar power was an obvious choice for our electric needs. Throughout the building stage, Christopher looked into rigging up a system of his own design, but when we heard about the SolMan portable solar generator, we decided it was worth it to purchase a professional, pre-made solar unit than to build our own. Continue Reading »

Christopher Smith and his girlfriend Merete Mueller of the TINY movie project were recently profiled by Fox 31 Denver. Christopher and Merete have towed their 127 square foot house to their remote property in Park County, Colorado. Their tiny house is nearly finished, but according to the video, the build took them 8 months longer than they expected.

The video shows the couple towing their new home along freeways and high mountain passes and parking it on their new piece of land.

“To see that little, tiny house on this huge, beautiful landscape really feels like home,” said Merete.

Video courtesy of Fox 31 Denver

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

This week’s Tiny House in a landscape is of a remote mining cabin in central Colorado. I discovered it on one of my favorite websites Cabin Porn. I’ve had the privilege of exploring a fair amount of Colorado in my younger days and it is one of my favorite states in the Southwest. My great grandfather was a miner in the Cripple Creek area and my grandfather used to tell me the story of how he kept his dynamite safe and dry. He stored it under the bed in the cabin. Fortunately, they never had any accidents or I would not be here today.

This picture was photographed by Bob Winsett. I love the way the cabin fits into the scenery and blends into the mountain side.

So, I live and work in a ‘green’, semi sustainable workshop space that was a shell of a buliding in which I built water systems, heat, and toliet/shower…..

The place is a ‘workshop’ basically, a commercial space that I use for my art/music studio and to live in. The place is in rural Colorado, no address (not on the city’s map), it was a shell building, a large garage basically…the house/studio is heated with a west bay door that opens to a homeade acrylic glass window that in the morning let’s the east sun in for heat, there is also 3 large south facing windows for all day passive solar heat, the ‘running water’ is all carried in (usage is around 5 gallons per day or less) and the sink is made from a water container with a spigot attached (properly) with hose clamps and gasket.

I fill the sink with water as needed but it runs on gravity, the toilet is a composting toilet inspired by the humanure compost toilet system, so I use either peat moss or good pine sawdust for cover material, I also have another toilet just for urine (number 1), the shower is a little less luxurious and is a large plastic basin that I use either a hung solar shower or water jugs with holes drilled in them. I have a small copper quartz heater for at night mostly and a wood stove for heat, the studio is about 1000 sq ft (so not exactly tiny), (but not a large ‘house’ either). Continue Reading »

I covered the ProtoHaus a couple of times in the past here on the Tiny House Blog. Ann Holley and Darren Macca have recently been featured in a neat video at 9News.com and I wanted to make sure you saw it.

“It’s like a sailboat on wheels,” Holley said.

A couple of years ago, tiny homes caught the attention of the couple. So, for about $25,000, they set out to build one.

“A lot of people think you couldn’t live this way,” Holley said.

They built the home with the help of family in Colorado. Then, when Holley went to graduate school out East, the couple drove the home out there and lived inside.

Protohaus caught the attention of folks on both commutes.

“They would follow us off the highway and they would be like, ‘How
many bedrooms are in there?’” Holley said.

Inside the home is a composting toilet; a stove; a faucet; outlets; even a sink with water. The home is fueled mostly on solar power and propane.

“Cleaning the house takes 20 minutes,” Holley said, laughing.

Read the complete story at the 9News website.

Guest Post by Ken James

Palmer Lake, Colorado is unique. A spring fed lake, it sits on low spot of Palmer Divide between Metro Denver and bustling Colorado Springs. Its waters uniquely drain both North and South. To the North, into the Platte River, route of the Oregon Trail, to the South into the Arkansas River route of the Sante Fe Trail. This little mountain lake links the two most famous historical trails of U.S. History. In the late 1800s when Civilization caught up with the west. Culture came on its coat tails. One of the cultural things folks did was retreat to Palmer Lake for it’s Chatuaqua Festival, a kind of celebration of Arts, Music, and just a slow down from bustle of both Denver and Colorado Springs. Enterprising craftsmen recognized this as opportunity to provide summer housing vs. canvas camping. In addition to pavilions for all to gather in they built cute efficient tiny houses for folks to enjoy their Mountain retreat. The area to immediate south of Palmer Lake is where these Tiny Houses were perched on ascending hillsides at the very edge of Rocky Mountains. They called the area “The Glen,” probably a tribute to romantic Scotland.

My tiny house was constructed in 1924 late in this Chatauqua phenomena. It is one of four within 50 ft., with identical primary dimensions, 17 1/2 ft. by 20 ft. Each of the four has sprouted unique additions. Mine has rooms added to the narrow side of central core. To the North my Library and craft shop were added, measuring 13 1/2 ft. by 6 1/2 ft. To the South end, my Bedroom was added, measuring 17 ft. by 8 ft. with one end a closet. Ceilings in central core area are 9 ft so there is illusion of spaciousness instead of confinement. This also provides opportunities for vertical storage as in bathroom already. Plan a chair rail type fixture at 8ft. to display my “hat” collection from coat hooks with cross shelves in corners for “sombreros” and other glorys of haberdashery. My herd of buffalos led by Buford and Betty (White of course) are feeling at home on the range. I look forward to fitting myself into this niche of time and space.

A lifelong passion for history has led me to this destination. I’m comfortable making this smaller footprint. Tiny houses offer unique opportunities to interact with our surroundings. The unique surroundings of Palmer Lake,Colorado have hosted that interaction for over a century. Its fitting that my old “Tiny” house is on the cutting edge of this efficiency and quality of life vs. quantity of space.

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