Tiny House Blog

This week’s Tiny House in a Landscape was taken by my friend Steve Reeves who blogs part time about Compact Yachts http://compactyachts.com/. I had the privilege of joining Steve on a San Francisco Bay cruise last year in his boat the Kokomo.

Steve was recently at the Bay again and spotted this cute (tiny) house in the Berkeley Marina. He thought of the Tiny House Blog and this feature when he saw it so he snapped a picture to share.

Thanks Steve for this great picture, maybe next time you can get a personal tour of the home and get some interior photos too!

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.

This is an impromptu post. Deek just sent me his latest Tiny Yellow House video and it is about a floating home, my second passion after tiny houses. He gave me the opportunity to put it up even before he did. I have another post that was supposed to go up but you may have to wait till tomorrow to see that one.

As usual Deek shares his great humor and the quality of this video is way up there, I wish I had his talent for videos! I did not have a chance to run this by Kasey so don’t blame her if there are any spelling or grammar errors.

Enjoy the video and be sure and follow Deek at the Relaxshacks blog.

I am in the mood for showing off some floating homes so I did some research using google images and came across this one floating on a river in Amsterdam. I’ve never been to Amsterdam, but judging by this photograph taken by Victor Sounds, it looks like it would be a fun place to explore. You can view more of Victor’s photos at his flickr account.

This looks like a charming little residence and I would enjoy taking in the city life from this home. How about you?

Several of you have sent me recent craigslist ads that I thought were great and worth highlighting. I am pooling all three into a single post and you can follow each one that you like. Craigslist ads do not stay up long if the items sells so I have put screen prints of the ads in this post. Following are a school bus, a floating home, and a container.

1953 School bus, 1981 cadillac (Albany, Oregon)

1953 chevy school bus house car with old dodge front fenders and hood. mounted on top is a Volkswagon van cut in half. inside is a small antique wood stove and full size stainless kitchen sink and cabinet. queen size bed platform above storage compartments in back and a small deck on back bumper. v8 engine 1965 283 chevy, remanufactured in 1985, balanced. 12 volt system. Needs break work, as is. $3000.00 or Offer.

$7500/1br – Floating home

Floating home is a fixer but has potential. Must be moved. Home is currently owned by our moorage and is being sold for the back rent. A good opportunity for the right person to gain “sweat equity”.

Price slightly raised due to prep work done for a potential buyer, but the deal fell through.
Houseboat is a one bedroom, one bath around 700 sf excluding decks.

40 foot shipping container – $1600 (Morris, IL)

40 foot shipping containers. Several to choose from. Also have a few 20′ containers. $1600 for both 20 and 40 foot containers. Contact me at 312-543-5155

If you are looking for the perfect tiny floating home, take a look at berkeley-engineering’s Cape Codder. Built with a 10 foot beam and either 20 or 24 foot length this cool little home is neat to look at and very practical and easy to build.

The Cape Codder is the result of many requests for a liveaboard/cruising houseboat. The Cape Codder makes it possible to have you own private waterfront home.

The Cape Codder is a home. It has a couch and end tables, a diningroom set, a complete galley and a head with a shower and toilet! There is plenty of cupboard and drawer space. The inside ladder leads up to the sleeping loft, which has room for full sized mattresses and more storage space. The forward wall opens up to enjoy your own private sundeck. A roof skylight lets you sleep under the stars.

Plans are available for the Cape Codder for $225 and you can buy them at the berkely-engineering site. Click on the Order Here link. Berkely-Engineering also makes a smaller trailerable houseboat called the Aqua Casa. I will feature this tiny floating home in another post.

Cape Codder Rear View

Cape Codder Open From Dock

Back Door

Living Room

Dining Room and Kitchen

Upstairs Bedroom

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By Margy Lutz, Powell River, BC

Christina Nellemann recently wrote an article here on the Tiny House Blog about living on a boat. In it she pointed out some of the challenges and pleasures of life on the water.  My husband Wayne and I live on the water, but in a whole different way.  You may have read a little bit about it in the October 21 article “Our Little Cabin Up the Lake.”  Kent has invited me back to tell you a little more about living in a floating cabin.

What first attracted us to our cabin on Powell Lake in British Columbia was its simplicity.  We live there in all seasons. While we’ve made a few changes over the last seven years, we’ve kept the simple life foremost in our minds. Our cabin has 420 square feet downstairs and a 200 square foot sleeping loft under the peak of the roof.   Our kitchen is compact but functional. It’s plenty of room for one, but two makes a crowd. On one wall you will find my sink and shelves to store my pots and pans. The window has a great view of the entrance into the Hole in the Wall. With a view like that, you almost don’t mind doing dishes.

Kitchen

When John built our cabin he installed a hand pump. It draws water from about six feet below the lake surface. To be safe, we boil it before drinking. Continue around the L-shaped counter and there is my small stove and oven. Open wall shelves hold our dishes and food. Under the counter are two plastic drawer units. To deter mice, we keep foodstuffs in containers, especially when we aren’t there. But we’ve been very lucky so far.

Pump

Tucked under the stairs to loft is a small refrigerator. It even has a freezer that really comes in handy during the summer for ice to make ice cream. Both the stove and refrigerator run on propane. Along with propane lights, a 60 lb. tank lasts about six weeks for $54. We have to haul the tanks to town in our boat, but once every six weeks isn’t too bad.

Refrigerator

I have to be honest. At the cabin, Wayne is first cook, especially when it comes to the barbecue. But I do have my specialties including cakes, breads and soups. This goes to show you don’t need a big fancy kitchen with lots of electrical appliances to make good food.

Cooking Stove

Especially this time of year, our wood-burning stove is the heart of our cabin. With occasional stovepipe cleanings, it keeps the fire roaring hot, or low and slow, depending on our need.  I’ve even found a few creative ways to use it to back cakes and bread.

A wood stove must have wood. For us, that’s a fairly simple. Especially during high water, the wood floats right to our front porch. All we have to do is scoop it up, cut it up (sometimes) and let it dry. When we are gathering wood throughout the summer, we are dreaming of the cozy fires it will bring during long winter nights.

Wood Stove

Storing wood on our cabin’s float is problematic. We want it close by, but not weighing down the foundation for our cabin. Our floating woodshed and a small covered woodpile on our transition float to shore serve this purpose well. For those really rainy and windy nights, we have our small indoor wood shelf that holds about 5 days worth of really dry wood. It takes up a little space in our “guest room,” but no one seems to complain.

Wood Float

Wood storage shelf

We’ve added electrical power with solar panels and a wind generator, but use it sparingly.  We have a few low powered lights in strategic locations and use it to run and recharge a variety of devices, including a satellite radio and laptop computers.  We have cellular telephone reception with the help of a car antenna, but purposely have no television or Internet access.  The easiest way to make a simple life complicated is with too much TV or web surfing.  We get enough of that when we make weekly trips to town.  Our cabin life on the water may be simple, but is perfect for us.

You can find more information about float cabin and off the grid living at http://PowellRiverBooks.blogspot.com. For information about Wayne’s Coastal BC Stories, come to www.PowellRiverBooks.com.   Up the Lake and Farther Up the Lake have lots of information about our cabin life on Powell Lake.

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