Tiny House Blog

I have featured the Oregon Cottage Company before here on the Tiny House Blog and you can visit the previous posts here. Todd Miller designs his homes to fit his clients needs and the new Alsek Cottage is his latest design. I’ll let Todd tell you more about it.

The Alsek Cottage is Oregon Cottage Company’s (OCC) response for a client’s wish to reduce costs and do a partial build-out. Our client wished to express her talent in finishing the project on her own and to reduce her expenses along the way. She also wanted to flood the interior with light and create additional loft space.

We were able to satisfy her requirements by creating a 4/12 single pitch roof, adding clearstory operable windows and cut costs by:

1. Eliminating an exterior porch to maximize the conditioned space.
2. Creating a 4/12 simple shed roof.
3. Utilizing vinyl in lieu of wood windows.
4. Reusing a window and a solid wood Dutch door.
5. Stubbing out for gas, water, and waste only.
6. Installing pine v-grove interior wall finish and allowing the client to trim out the windows, door, base boards and loft. Surrounding and sealing the wood.
7. Allowing the client to install the finish flooring.
8. Allowing the client to install all interior partitions.
9. Installing T-111 siding with battens eliminating the beveled cedar siding.
10. Finishing the exterior with a field paint of only one color and allowing the client to paint the trim if she wishes. Continue Reading »

My husband and I have been living in a small home rental in Portland, Oreogn for the past year and a half. Our cottage is about 450 square feet. It feels quite spacious to us. Both of us grew up in very large homes full of family, friends, and fun and we loved it, but prefer a smaller space for ourselves.

We got married in Maine (we used to live in Boston/Somerville) and packed our small Honda Civic with all of our possessions and leisurely road tripped to Oregon.

We found this house on Craigslist soon after moving to the area. Because we only brought our clothes and some personal items, we wanted to find a small place that would be easy and cheap to furnish. It took a few weeks, but we were able to get everything in our home (except TV and bed side tables) from Goodwill, Craigslist, and garage sales. It was quite an adventure! Continue Reading »

As many of you know I am a huge fan of floating homes and have often thought of starting another blog focusing just on them. Recently through a google alert I discovered this little floating guest house in Portland, Oregon. Designed and constructed by a company called Studio Hamlet Architects, PLLC based in Bainbridge Island, WA. Julia Zander was kind enough to send me some wonderful photographs and gave me permission to share this project with you.

Floating Retreat
This floating guest house is nestled among a community of eclectic houseboats on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. The project was designed to work as a part-time residence for a couple’s use while their main floating home is being built. After moving into the main house, the guest house will become a vacation retreat for visiting family and friends. Continue Reading »

Guest Post by TR Kelley

We bought this 5 acre piece of land on Oregon’s Siuslaw River in 1998. In addition to the ramshackle house and barn, there were six creosoted pilings driven into the riverbank in front of the house defining a 6×10 rectangle under some huge old firs.

The urge to build some sort of platform for river viewing, birdwatching and outdoor summer sleeping was irresistible. We started with a dozen different 6×4 beams salvaged from a demolished plywood mill to frame the floor out to approx 11×11, with an additional 4x4x5 triangle nook sticking out over the river. An abandoned 100-year-old house upriver yielded the 2×6 T&G subflooring.

The River House at LeisureLand, looking upriver (ESE). River mile 34.5, Siuslaw River, Oregon.

The next year, we built the framework of the cabin over the top with recycled lumber. 3″ peeled poles were recycled from a tipi project to make the rafters, and a neighbor’s remodel gave us the door and vintage bead-board for the ceiling. Continue Reading »

Logan, Tammy Strobel’s husband from the Rowdy Kittens blog sent me an article from The Oregonian that I think is very import for us all to read. It is an article about Rich Daniels who did a guest post on the Tiny House Blog a couple of weeks ago. This article was written by Richard Cockle at the Oregonian and covers some of the issues facing tiny house builders and those wanting to live in them. Following are some quotes from the article but please take the time to go read the complete article at The Oregonian Website.

Photos by Richard Cockle at The Oregonian.

What’s next for minimalist houses? How about a subdivision of tiny houses in Eastern Oregon?

Rich Daniels, a former gold miner and timber cruiser, now builds tiny homes for a living and dreams of creating an RV park for the houses on the edge of his hometown of North Powder in eastern Oregon. The 8 1/2-foot-wide, $42,000 model behind him is small enough to be towed by a pickup, which a thief did last summer. Police returned it to Daniels after finding it abandoned at a service station near the Oregon-Idaho border.

“The biggest problem with the whole (tiny home) movement is the counties and cities are having a hard time accepting these small homes,” Daniels said. “It has to do with revenue — small homes don’t generate the tax revenues for the counties and cities.”

Jenkins, the Union County planner, thinks Oregon land-use laws will put the brakes on several uses people make of the new breed of tiny, wheeled cabins in rural Oregon. For example, siting a self-contained cabin without utilities on a tract too small for a dwelling is illegal under state land-use regulations, he said. A minimum 240 acres generally is needed for a dwelling in a timber-grazing zone and 320 acres is needed on rangeland, he said.

As for using a cabin as a spare guest bedroom, that, too, is a violation because a cabin then constitutes an individual dwelling, even if it’s cute, hand-crafted and on wheels, he said.

“Oregon land-use laws say you have to get land-use approval for a dwelling,” and buyers of cabins on wheels need to make sure they have a legal place to put one before they buy, he said.

Read the complete article at The Oregonian Website.

Mike Jordan had fallen in love with the idea of a tiny mobile house about five years ago. After a divorce, and becoming the primary caregiver of his young son, he realized that his chance had come to simplify and streamline his life. Mike originally looked at small RVs, vans and Airstreams, but decided to go with a small mobile house built by the Oregon Cottage Company.

Mike, who rides a bicycle instead of owning a car, appreciated the green aspects of the tiny mobile home but was a bit concerned about having to pick it up from Oregon and bring it back to his home in Connecticut. So, he looked at it as an adventure, bought a van sight unseen in Washington and towed the house across the country with his son.

“We had a hell of a good time,” Mike said. “It was the best time of my life”. Continue Reading »