Tiny House Blog

I do a fair bit of traveling around the world and my husband and I enjoy staying in tiny inns, hotels, B&B’s and other minuscule accommodations. Some of these rooms have been a little unusual: we had a fun time staying in a fairy chimney cave in Cappadocia, Turkey and at a capsule inn in Tokyo, Japan both of which were tiny spaces.

The latest issue of AARP Magazine recently profiled several chain hotels that are going small. In London, Amsterdam and New York City, micro-hotels are becoming a popular place to stay for travelers on a budget who don’t mind a small space. Some rooms in the Pod Hotel start at $89 a night for a 60 to 170 square foot room. At the Yotel in midtown Manhattan, the tiny, Japanese-inspired rooms include everything you need: flat-screen TVs, media hubs, free Wi-Fi and custom modular furniture. Some of the rooms also have a galley kitchen rather than a mini-bar. In London and Amsterdam, the Yotel rooms are located inside the terminal buildings of Heathrow, Gatwick and Schiphol airports. Both Pod and Yotel plan to open locations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. in the next few years. Continue Reading »

An 11×14 foot former vegetable patch eventually became the home for this tiny backyard house designed and built by sustainable building advisor Megan Lea. Since her veggies were not getting enough sun, she decided to bite the bullet and build an environmentally friendly house out of salvage 100-year-old barn wood behind her main home in Portland, Ore.

Her 154 square foot retreat, which was built in less than six months, contains salvaged lumber from three barns in Oregon, a salvaged copper roof, natural plaster walls and a wood stove. The salvaged barn wood on the exterior is from Barnwood Naturals, a company that sells reclaimed vintage wood. The loft contains a comfy sectional sofa and the floor of the loft and its supports are exposed to show the structural elements. The little living room has seating for several people and a large sliding door. The building does not have a bathroom or kitchen. Continue Reading »

Charles Finn might just be the ultimate tiny house Renaissance Man. He’s a self-taught woodworker, an author, freelance writer, editor of the High Desert Journal, a literary and fine arts magazine, and his custom microhomes also allotted a full color spread in Lloyd Kahn’s “Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter” book.

Charles is originally from Vermont, but lived in Japan for a few years and admired the Japanese tea house designs. He eventually found himself in British Columbia living in a 7×12 foot vardo made by a woodworker friend. The vardo had no electricity or plumbing, but did have a 3-burner propane stove, a Jøtul woodstove and a set of deep-cycle batteries to run his laptop. After his first experience in a tiny home, he built his first “microhome” in Potomac, Montana out of lumber dismantled from old barns. The 8×12 foot cabin with a five foot loft became known as the Potomac Cabin. Continue Reading »

Named after a simple, yet valuable commodity throughout history, Spice Box Homes is the vision of Colorado residents, Edwin Lindell and Chris Curry. They wanted their tiny house company to reflect their own love of the outdoors and concern for environmental impact, and felt that they could create a similar commodity through building, living, and educating.

Spice Box homes started in 2010 as an alternative to renting. When Edwin was finishing up college in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, he got tired of paying rent and decided to construct a tiny home on a trailer that could be moved every six months.

“Chris Curry, my business partner, had built a similar dwelling for himself a few years back to combat the same issues, just not on a trailer.” Edwin said. “Once our prototype was constructed and tested for seven months, we decided to hit the ground running to build a company, lifestyle, and adventure for our community, friends, and our environment. We work to construct custom homes that resemble our clientele and create better living patterns.”

The homes are built from reclaimed materials and include passive solar heating and efficient appliances. The company subcontracts all the electrical, plumbing, metal stud fabrication, insulation and roofing to ensure quality construction. Continue Reading »

Barbara Techel is a writer who recently finished her first adult nonfiction book in memorial to her wheelchair-bound dog, Frankie. Frankie’s story and other stories about animals who have changed Barbara’s life were envisioned and brought to life in Barbara’s 10×12 foot writing studio which sits just behind her 1,100 square foot house in Wisconsin. Even though Barbara still lives in the larger house, she has been actively thinking about tiny spaces ever since reading Tammy Stroble’s new book You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap).

“I’ve begun smart-sizing the stuff in my home, donating many things to second-hand shops as we begin to think about moving to a tiny, or least a tinier home, in the future,” Barbara said. “When I started telling my husband about tiny home living and subscribing online to tiny house communities and blogs, he really embraced the idea also.”

Her tiny studio was built over the course of 3-4 weeks by her husband, who’s a contractor, and has been decorated in a cottage style by Barbara. Her husband, seeing that his wife spent a lot of time reading and relaxing in her little space, named the studio MySpace.calm. Continue Reading »

The Home & Garden Centre in Monmouthshire, Wales has a large selection of garden cabin kits that are currently only delivered to Wales, England and the Scottish Lowlands, but I saw that some of the designs and styles of these kits contains some details not seen in other kit structures and which could be translated over to other stationary tiny houses.

Some of these finished kits have built-in decks and covered porches, large windows, double doors and sit well in a garden or on a deck. The company sells kits for traditional and contemporary style log cabins, log cabins that will fit into the corner of a piece of property as well as smaller structures like saunas and and tool sheds. The packages come in complete kit form with detailed instructions for installation and optional extras like insulation kits and underfloor heating. The sizes of the cabins range from about 50 square feet to about 215 square feet. They range in price from $2,200 to just under $5,000. Continue Reading »