Cabin Fever Shelter Series
The modern prefab cabin company, Cabin Fever, in partnership with award-winning architect, Ed Binkley, has designed a new series of homes called the Shelter Series. The basis of these homes begins with the question: “We don’t buy cars by the pound, so why should we buy homes by the square footage?”
This series of homes meets all of the fundamental criteria in a house. The space is sized to be functional while also allowing flexibility. The uses for these homes include high density small lot urban and suburban infill, relief housing, student housing, auxiliary dwelling units, and specifically, affordable housing.
The Shelter Series homes range in size from 340 square feet to around 1,400 square feet and are also designed to meet a variety of green certification programs with the real emphasis being on energy and water savings along with a superior exterior shell.
Available now is the Shelter 640. This small home features 2 bedrooms, a full bath, generous kitchen, and ample storage/closet space. The interior is filled with light from the standard and clerestory windows. The lot for this design may be as small as 30 feet by 60 feet, and the 640 can be built on a concrete foundation or a raised floor system. The Shelter 640 is priced at $47,300. Continue Reading »
Bend me, shape me: Space saving furniture
Tiny houses usually necessitate thinking out of the box when it comes to furniture. Standard furniture for “regular” homes may not fit into a tiny house, so several designers have come up with some interesting and innovative designs for space saving furniture. Interestingly enough, while most of these designers think out of the box, their designs fold up into boxes!
Trick
Trick is the name of this multifunctional furniture that can be used as a bookshelf, a chair, and a dining set. The minimalist multifunction furniture is made from Milan based industrial designer Sakura Adachi.
LEAP Adaptive Hummingbird
LEAP Adaptive sells modern, green home plans online and they have recently designed their smallest home plan and are making it available to owners, contractors and architects. The Hummingbird is a 480-square-foot home that is energy efficient and utilizes a passive photovoltaic framework, low-VOC materials and the latest in green technology.
The Hummingbird has a living and kitchen area with a fire-ribbon fireplace (which requires no venting) and a large, covered deck which LEAP calls a “chill” space. A small bedroom and bathroom suite are also included. Plans for the hummingbird are priced at $995, the building kit is around $55,000 and an on-site built Hummingbird is about $80,000 which does not include the general contractor fee, building or permit fees.
Other green options included in the Hummingbird are:
- Cement board or teak siding
- Trex recycled content-engineered deck planking
- Low-mass Structural Insulated Panels
- Multi-unit sliding glass doors with dual-pane Low-E glass
- Simpson “Strong-Wall” seismic resisting brace-frames
- Low-flow plumbing fixtures
- EnergyStar rated Heat-pump HVAC system, lighting and on-demand water heater
LEAP Adaptive is a home design group in San Diego, California. Design director Brian Darnell has spent the last 22 years designing multi-million-dollar residential estates, but realized that “the lust for size and granduer has given way to the realization that the economics and ecology of our flattening world can no longer support such extravagance.” LEAP seeks to create environmental designs that are easier on the owner’s wallet as well as on the earth.
Image Courtesy of LEAP Adaptive
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]
Wandering Book Artists Gypsy Wagon
Peter and Donna Thomas are book artists from Northern California who have been spending the last year traveling around the U.S. in a handmade gypsy wagon. The wagon is their temporary home as well as a place for them to sell their books, teach book arts workshops and give talks and lectures. Wherever they’ve gone, their gypsy wagon has attracted attention for its whimsical color and design.
Peter and Donna fell in love with gypsy wagons when they were craftspeople at Renaissance fairs. Many of the fair vendors built the wagons to sleep in and sell their wares from. Peter and Donna built the wagon on a 16-foot Carson car hauler. The entire trailer weighs 3,800 pounds and it took them three years to build. The rafters were made with laminated pine boards and the floor with locally milled sugar pine. It is insulated, contains a small kitchen and electricity. They have a camping toilet in the closet and a solar shower that they keep in their tow vehicle, but the couple usually use campgrounds, friendly locals and universities for their bathing. Continue Reading »
Managing Miniaturization
Guest Post by Matthew Hofmann
10 advantages of living and working in tiny spaces (with wheels)
Hofmann kicked off his quest for inner peace at the most logical place – CraigsList. He found an Airstream in “fair condition.” A 4-digit deal was struck and one dark and rainy night he rescued the abandoned abode from behind a chain link fence guarded by a Pit Bull in Mira Loma.
“Crap! I’d just written a sizeable check for what looked like a glorified dog house. The trailer’s swaying back and forth along rain-soaked 101, like the pendulum of doubt pounding in my brain.”
The body was solid, but inside the trailer was a mess. “I’m fairly certain the last resident was the junkyard dog.”
- Step #1: Demo – Take everything out (which got the wet dog smell out).
- Step #2: Design – The creative process, Hofmann believes, isn’t accomplished by adding more, but by taking away what’s distracting. “The design questions were How much does one remove? How much does one keep?
“For me the solution was creating open space using honest materials. I wanted to bring a sense of outdoors in, so it needed to be bright and airy by nature, yet warm and multi-functional.” Continue Reading »
Bill Brooks Tiny Solar House Part 4
Tiny Solar House part 4 by Bill Brooks. This video covers his loft design and sleeping area. Bill also goes into some design issues he came across as he built his house. Some things he would change if he was to build it again. Thanks Bill for sharing your knowledge and your tiny house with us.
View Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and also be sure and subscribe to the Youtube Tiny House Blog Channel here. You will than be notified of any new videos on this channel.
