*New Photos added

The house began with ordering 60 logs from the forest service, which they delivered to the site. Common Fir. Some of these I used to build a small hut, which were all hand-hewn, along with some Birch logs taken from my forest. I lived in this small 12 X 16 ft hut the entire time I was building the house.

The foundation was dug by hand, and filled the same… this was one of the three procedures on the house I had help with – the other two were installing the metal roof, and hanging the drywall – besides these all work was completed by me. In my shed there was no electricity or water – the water I brought in containers in a wheel barrow, or on a sled in the winter – from a nearby farmers well, the old kind, drawing the water with a bucket on a chain and dumping into the old milk containers I used for storage. My light was from headlamps, and kerosene lanterns. I had a propane stove, an outhouse, and an outside bathing shelter.

When I had completed my lumber take-off I sent the logs to a mill and had them sawn. Then, I commenced building. I was alone almost every day, this is a very remote spot, it is very quiet. Sometimes the loudest sound above that of my tools was the flap of a bird’s wings overhead. Did you know crows are very noisy fliers?

I used a modified timber frame system of my own design. The windows and doors were produced by local craftsmen. All hand made.

Winters are long and dark here which slowed me down, but after three summers the house was complete(enough to live in), and had electricity connected. Under such conditions one becomes very intimate with a sharp hand saw. I had them, but still remember counting strokes on the rafters… 144 strokes on the 45 degree cuts….

The principle of the house is very simple. The exterior is light and insulated, the interior walls are all brick, and the floors are insulated concrete. So when this house is warm it stays warm a long time, and in the summer it never needs air conditioning. There is just too much thermal mass for quick temperature fluctuations. The brick stove, which is also the heat source was adapted from an old book lent by a friend called “How to Build a Country House” written in Russian, but with good enough illustrations I could follow it. It is amazing, in that the smoke leaves the stove lower than the fire, but it does not end there. Behind it is a thick brick wall where there is a serpentine chimney. The smoke passes through this chimney heating up, literally, a ton of bricks. In warmer weather there is a damper to open, to allow smoke to go straight up and out. I was very skeptical of this as I was building it, coming from an American background and knowing how they vent fireplaces…. but it works, and works very well. There is never a scent of smoke in the house. Indeed, you will find most country homes here have variations of this same technology, hundreds of years old. And my chimney had added one luxury. On one side of this “warm wall” is the shower, so when you are in the shower there is wonderful radiant heat.

So there it is. The lower level is about 500 sq ft, and the upper level less than 300. It is very comfortable for two people, but a family of four would do well.

I have just recently bought another property here in Lithuania and am hoping to repeat this process soon.

Small hut I built and lived in while I was building the house

I am sending you a picture of the stair, the posts for which were made from a single birch tree that was carefully skinned. Behind it, as in more plain in the second picture, is the warm wall with the serpentine chimney inside. In this one the direction is side to side, but often they are made with the channels going up and down.

Schematic of the "warm wall"

Dan building the stove

“A series of bluffs up the East Tin Hat Ridge presented better and better views the higher we climbed. This is the last open bluff before Tin Hat summit, a somewhat flat and large, though uneven rock outcropping. We decided to build the cabin here.…Below follows a chronology of the construction of the hut which, complete with upgraded trail, took some 30 days over a period of about three months.”

The photos is titled: The first dusting of snow on Tin Hat Hut at the end of October.

Mike Massulo Photographer

The huts are made with 2×2 Red Swedish Pine frames for durability and the 8×8 pressure treated legs and subframe hold up the structure. The decks are pressure treated to resist moisture. Pine boards are used for the interior and the roofs instead of plywood and each hut is finished with galvanized hinges and locks. Each hut is also painted with an environmentally friendly water-based paint.

Many of these beach huts in the UK have storage, seating and dining options, gas or electric burners and sinks. With a little ingenuity, maybe a bed and a bathroom can be added on to create a tiny house on stilts.

Beach huts have been popular in the United Kingdom for over 250 years. The original beach huts were tiny houses on wheels that Victorian sea bathers would use to change out of their clothes at the same time the hut was being pulled by a horse directly into the ocean. The bathers would then be able to step directly into the ocean without having to show their modest bathing gear which usually consisted of skirts, pants and pantaloons.

Later on the huts lost their wheels and became more permanent fixtures on the beach. Some beach huts have been owned by families for generations and some pre-war huts have sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Photos courtesy of James Ward Beach Huts

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Ryo has a very interesting blog and you will enjoy reading it. It is a journal of his experiences in building his hut, so make sure you go and visit it here. I’m going to let Ryo tell his story now.

This past summer, I bought 60 acres of vacant land in northern California, and have been living there part time since August. Sleeping in a tent was fine while it was warm, but as the weather turned colder and wetter, I decided I needed something bigger, warmer, and dryer. I knew I didn’t need or want much; just something big enough for me to relax, cook, and sleep in comfortably.

In keeping with my theme of “minimalist comfort,” I decided to go for something small, just 6 feet by 8 feet, though with some insulation for warmth, and windows for light. Of course, it also had to be sturdy enough to not collapse under the weight of snow. I looked at pre-fab sheds at hardware stores, but even the tiniest, most shoddily made ones cost $500-600, with no windows or insulation. Naively, I figured that I could build a nicer hut for under $300.

With only a rudimentary (and incomplete) design I put together using Google SketchUp, I began construction in late October when a couple of friends came out for a weekend to help with the raising, and then worked on it alone for another 7 or 8 days before it was ready to be moved into. I built a loft for my sleeping pad, which left all the floor open for use, and left enough space for me to put in a small counter table for my propane stove.

The actual cost has since ballooned past $500, but it’s mostly done, and has been more or less comfortable enough to live in through rain, snow, and 20 degree (f) nights. It’s not the prettiest thing, but I’m proud of the fact that I designed and built a nice, cozy and sturdy hut for relatively cheap, despite not having any formal training in carpentry or architecture.

Ryo’s hut is not quite finished as he still needs to finish off the roof, be sure and follow his blog to keep up with his progress. Thanks Ryo for sharing your story.

John Chapman from New Zealand made a neat suggestion for a weekly post here on the Tiny House Blog.

Photo Credit: HB – click on picture to see full size

The idea is to show a tiny house, cabin, or hut in a landscape. It may be a meadow, a snowscape, a cityscape or any other setting.

With this first one I am showing a log cabin in a perfect setting. I am a big fan of log cabins and this is my choice for this week. This cabin is located in Montana and I like the setting with the clouds in the background.

Saturday will become know as “Tiny House in a Landscape day” and I want to encourage you to submit your favorite photo that you find in your search for a perfect tiny house for yourself.

You can email your photo to tinyhouseblog(at)gmail.com. Replace (at) with @.

The picture should be as large as possible and if you can get permission from the photographer please do. If you are not able to communicate with the photographer, at least get their name so they can have the photo credit.

A description of the location would be nice also and why you chose this setting or what your dream is for your tiny house.

I hope this will become a popular post. Please comment below if you have any suggestions or other ideas.

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