Tiny House Blog

Trekker Trailers in central Florida has been building vintage and retro style teardrop trailers for over four years, but the company’s owner, Andrew, wanted to take his love of simple, tiny living to the next level and built a 70 square foot house on wheels that was recently sold to a 17-year-old student. His mother is also thinking of getting a tiny house.

“I have always loved campers and simple tiny living,” Andrew said. “I’ve been building teardrop campers for 4 years now, have restored many historic homes in my area, and have a love for form, function, and art. It seemed like a good fit for my talents to build a tiny house. Though my wife and I intend to retire in a tiny house, this one was built to sell so I tried to appeal to the lovers of the craft.

Watch a walk-through of the Trekker Trailer tiny house on the company’s Facebook page.

The Tiffany blue house is built with high quality materials like Galvalume roofing, cypress interior and exterior trim and some interesting and unique storage and space-saving details. The small living room couch (with a lovely skylight above it) has storage behind and underneath the seat and what Andrew calls a “hybrid Murphy bed” folds down from the back wall. The bed can be adjusted to sleep one or two people. The kitchen contains a sink, refrigerator, microwave and a slide-out pantry. The wet bath has fiberglass flooring and a composting toilet that can use BioBags. The water heater is a propane powered heater that is mounted on an exterior wall near the deck. Continue Reading »

By Patrick Clark

Patrick Clark will be joining us for a series on extreme minimalism, chronically his experience choosing to live tiny closer to nature. I hope you enjoy Patrick’s unique contribute to the blog. This is Part 1…

When I think of my proverbial ‘happy place’ it is out under the big blue sky either in a desert, wind swept prairie, or mountain top. It isn’t any one place. It is the world. It is all those incredible places of roaring wild nature that I have not yet seen, as well as just one place that the sun rises a little different every day and the stars travel across the sky a little different each night.

I had already figured out how to pack enough basic necessities to hit the road or the trail for several days, visit friends, do fun things. Abandoning the need to be somewhere, at least for awhile. But there was this huge riff between being on my road trips and backpacking trips and being back at the house.

The author’s tipi in the South Toe Valley of Yancey County. The Black Mountain Range is in the distance. The tipi sides are rolled up on a sunny day like movable walls.

I had whittled my lifestyle and belongings down to one car full of knock down, modular furniture. My friends said all I needed was a modular house to go with it.

I started thinking about minimalizing my lifestyle so I could spend more time in these places. I guess you could say I had wonderlust. But it was more than that. I wanted to experience nature more directly. I wanted to FEEL more. It seemed like there must be some place in between a solid house and a backpacking tent that would protect me sufficiently but not numb everything out—not box me in. Continue Reading »

When a custom home builder and an architectural designer decide to build a tiny house together, there is a guarantee that something special will be born. Shane and Carrie Caverly of Clothesline Tiny Homes are currently living in their new 144 square foot baby and are also available to design, consult and build custom homes for anyone looking for a simpler lifestyle. The married couple decided they were fed up with paying rent and mortgages and having nothing to show for it, so with their 30+ years of combined building skills they drew up their own design that is timeless, clean, and modern.

So why the funny name?

“Shane thought of it!” Carrie said. ”I came up with about a hundred names, including Roadrunner Tiny Homes (which I still think is awesome) but none of them were sticking. We were out in the backyard at our former rental house, next to the clothesline, and Shane said ‘What about Clothesline Tiny Homes, because it’s so small you’re going to need a clothesline.’” 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 »

Admirers of Marcia’s Soo Line Caboose, which was featured in 2011 on the Tiny House Blog, will be able to get more of their caboose fix at the end of the month. Marcia’s tiny house, built in 1909, will be featured on HGTV’s show “You Live in What?” on Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 9 p.m. EDT. Each episode features several unusual homes and HGTV contacted me and the Tiny House Blog to film and feature Marcia’s unusual abode.

“It was an awesome experience,” Marcia said about the two days of filming of her home. She mentioned that the filming was a bit of a challenge since her caboose is only eight feet wide. The 337 square foot caboose sits on a 30 foot train track on Marcia’s 5 acre parcel in Northeast Pennsylvania and cost her $6,000 when she purchased it in 1976.

“Thank you for posting my caboose on the Tiny House Blog,” she said. “I received so many positive responses from your site which, in turn, set things in motion for HGTV. Thank you and keep up the good work. I love the the tiny house movement that seems to be gaining monumental support.”

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

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 »