Tiny SMART House
Out of many of the world’s tiny homes, the Tiny SMART House has one of the nicest sleeping lofts I’ve ever seen. It’s open and airy with two windows and enough space to even put a few pieces of furniture. The 200 square foot Tiny SMART Houses are built in Albany, Oregon with quality materials and are finished with special details including French doors, wood floors and a tongue and groove ceiling. The homes are mobile and can be delivered to your building site.
The SMART House can be custom designed with several different styles and floor plans like the Oregon Trail and the Montana Cabin and exteriors such as cedar plank or Hardie Plank Lap. You can choose between several different doors, windows, wall styles and extras such as solar panels and a rain catchment system. Company owners Tor Barstad and Nathan Light designed the homes with college students in mind but have been requested to build their homes as guest houses and vacation homes.
The SMART House starts at about $20,000 for the base model and the upgrades for size, materials, design and bathrooms are extra.
Tiny House Builders
Many tiny house dreamers want to build their own tiny house, but may be deterred by their lack of construction skills. In addition, fully customized tiny homes can be more than many people’s budgets. Tiny House Builders builds and sells simple, fully completed, mobile tiny houses that allow the owner/builder to customize the house to whatever style they want at an affordable price. The company accomplishes this with three levels of each of their products. Level One is a complete set of building plans instructional narrative, and step by step instructional photos. Level Two consists of a complete modular building “kit”. It arrives at your door with the completed floor system mounted on its own mobile chassis and the building shell in “panelized” form. Level Three is a complete building shell that can be further customized by the owner.
The first product sold by the company is the Wallowa. This tiny house is 8 feet by 12 feet and includes 2×4 framing, a standard home size entry door, two windows, double wall construction, cedar lap siding with cedar trim, and metal roofing guaranteed for 35 years. The interior clear ceiling height is 6 feet 8 inches, and the interior loft height at the peak is slightly over 3 feet 8 inches. The overall height with the building on its mobile chassis is 13 feet 5 inches, just under the legal limitation. Level One ($429) includes a complete set of detailed building plans, actual photos of construction and an instructional video. Level Two ($9,850) and Level Three ($15,975) allow the owner to design and build their own interior including wall covering, floor covering, plumbing, electrical, appliances and cabinetry. Continue Reading »
Livin’ Large, Living Tiny
Guest Post by R Blank (this is a repost from his original blog)
My wife and I have now been living tiny for several months. For those who don’t know, tiny homes (living units under roughly 200sq’) have become increasingly popular in the past couple of years. When we researched many options for different types of tiny homes, we found a lot of information — but very few first-person accounts of the experience.
And, after all, that’s what tiny living actually involves — a fundamental shift in thinking about consumption and space utilization — the rest (what type of tiny home, whether its mobile, how its built, etc) is all just details.
Our Shipping Container from LEED Cabins, in Place, with the Completed Porch and Privacy Fence
Given the increasing popularity of tiny homes I thought it might be valuable to someone out there considering the same to read some of my thoughts on what this experience has been like for us.
In our case, this isn’t a tiny home, so much as a my home-office. But we decided to place this small office structure on the land first, before building our home. Our land is 30 miles away from the nearest town (where ‘town’ is quite loosely defined; we’re literally 20 miles away from the nearest service at all, which is our post office), which makes development quite challenging. So we started small, so we could establish a base of operations without too much trouble (that it took us a year to even get this far, is an entirely separate story). Continue Reading »
Teardrops for MINIs
For those of us who want summer to go on for just a little bit longer, here are some tiny teardrop trailers that exemplify the ease of summer camping. MiniTears are beautifully designed and built by Kurt Bowden in Northern California for MINI Cooper enthusiasts and other small car owners. They are custom made for each MINI that tows it and feature a spacious sleeping compartment with handcrafted cabinetry and LED lighting and a full-size galley with a stainless steel sink, lighting, and a 12 volt battery pack. Each MiniTear only weighs about 876 pound and they start at about $7,995. Additional options like a 12 volt video screen, custom paint, a variety of cabinet options and 120 volt plugs are available.
Since 1985, Kurt has owned and operated Fine Line Design, a custom home design firm located north of Redding, California. The recent downturn in home construction allowed him the free time to get back to his woodshop where “MiniTears” began to take shape in 2008. Kurt’s background in home design and construction, along with the fabricating skills his father passed on to him, gave him everything he needs to build these beautiful Teardrop Trailers.
You can see a video of Kurt’s MiniTear here.
Photos courtesy of MiniTears
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]
Exhibit Mobile Artist Studio
By Jennifer Pecenka
This movable studio is a live/work space for the artist who seeks inspiration from the land and a vehicle for interaction between the display of work to the public as well as a response to the land and context in which it sits.
In a space as confined as this street legal 8.5’ wide x13.5’ tall trailer, privacy with the ability to utilize nature as a living room allows the greatest flexibility of use and comfort. Claiming outdoor space with the unfolding façade is vital for both functionality and inspiration for the artist in addition to its mobility for tours or living simply off-the-grid. Its operation gives the artist control over daylight, ventilation, and security through means of slatted screens, folding awnings, sliding skin, and extending decks.
Joseph’s Gypsy Wagons
Joseph Crowell has been building buses and vans for many years, but was recently inspired to build his first gypsy wagon by Sunny Baba, an activist and spiritualist who has built dozens of gypsy wagons. Joseph, who is in the Ashland, Ore. area, built this gypsy wagon with about 80 percent recycled materials. He gets a lot of his supplies from Dumpsters or from the side of the road. He uses manzanita tree branches as exquisite details in his design.
“If I see an old piece of furniture laying around, and it looks like it can still be used, I’ll saw it up,” Joseph said. “It makes the whole ‘find is and use it’ process more enjoyable.”
Joseph initially designed and built the stained glass window in the gypsy wagon, but he thinks he might look for a local stained glass artist to do the window in his next wagon. The wagon weighs about 1,500 pounds and can be towed by a small truck. It was recently sold for about $8,500 and Joseph plans on keeping his next design’s price to below $10,000.
If you are interested in one of Joseph’s gypsy wagons, email him at jsph.crowell (at) gmail.com.
Photos courtesy of Joseph Crowell
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]
