Tiny House Blog

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 »

For this Christmas Eve, I thought I would do a post on a couple of classic, red cabooses that have been made into the offices of the beautiful Osmosis Day Spa in Freestone, California. Osmosis is located in the tiny hamlet between Santa Rosa and Bodega Bay and features a Japanese-style retreat with bonsai, bamboo and Buddha. The spa offers massages, mud baths and their signature cedar enzyme bath.

Each of the recycled train cabooses are located in the backyard of the spa and hold storage areas and computer equipment. They are also nice places for the staff to hang out and have lunch. Over 25 years, the garden has grown up around each caboose, making them look as if they’ve sprouted out of the ground.

The Osmosis Spa is one of the greenest spas in the world. The spa recycles water from its own wetlands and uses the water for local irrigation. The spa is a founding member of the Green Spa Network and uses sustainable practices in its business.

Photos by Christina Nellemann

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Inhabitat (one of my favorite sites) recently featured this rustic, but beautiful gypsy wagon (one of my favorite tiny houses) which sits in the forest near Kootenay Lake in British Columbia. The 8 foot by 20 foot wagon was built on a $100 salvaged 5 ton chassis, with 2×4 construction and curved rafters. It cost about $8,000 to build and took several years.

Most of the building materials for the wagon were recycled. The floor is locally milled hemlock tongue and groove and the windows were second hand finds from the local classifieds. The exterior shingles were cedar “seconds” split with a hatchet. The round window was ingeniously made from a 1970′s picnic table and is framed with rope for a natty, nautical style. The curved roof is covered with flexible metal sheeting and has two, curved Lexan skylights. The interior of the wagon is covered with stretched canvas, stapled into place and painted with white wash. Under the wagon is space for the storage of supplies and firewood. Continue Reading »

by Travis Moles

Hello all

Going up for sale in August 2012.

Tiny Cabin on a River, one hour West of Portland, Oregon.

Reasons That Might Persuade:

• It’s on a coastal river in Oregon that has a Salmon Run!
• It’s located smack in the coastal range, in a landscape dominated by wildness.
• There is a forest maintained hiking trail within walking distance.
• There is a wild river located a few miles away (river with no road along it -very rare in the US).
• There is a mountain lake located a few miles away with a healthy fish population.
• There is nothing but forest in every direction, except for my AWESOME neighbors upstream, which I can’t really even see from the cabin.
• The property is small, yet there are a multitude of places inside and out to nestle oneself with the main presence always being that of the river.
• Alternative construction process: It’s built modular with as much recycled and local materials as I could scrounge (more details in building section). I used a vegetable oil powered truck to acquire materials and haul them there.
• 5 miles away is a small general store with everything from food and wireless internet to pipe fittings and gas/diesel. There’s good cell service there. It’s nice to be able to go to the cabin and have a focused removed time, with the option to leave and check up on any real world commitments if need be. I like that I have to leave the cabin to do this.

Continue Reading »

Alice spotted this over at Apartment Therapy and I thought it was a great idea and a cute little tiny library. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/little-free-library-172476

I personally have not seen these on a yard near me but maybe you have or will soon. Started two years ago by a man who was honoring his book-loving teacher mom it has blossomed into over hundreds all around the world.

The Little Free Library is built of recycled materials such as barn wood, old cranberry crates, etc.

The Mission Statement of the Little Free Library is: To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide. To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity, and wisdom across generations. To build more than 2,510 libraries around the world – more than Andrew Carnegie!

Why don’t you start one in your yard today…

Photo Credits: Little Free Library

Continue Reading »

So, I live and work in a ‘green’, semi sustainable workshop space that was a shell of a buliding in which I built water systems, heat, and toliet/shower…..

The place is a ‘workshop’ basically, a commercial space that I use for my art/music studio and to live in. The place is in rural Colorado, no address (not on the city’s map), it was a shell building, a large garage basically…the house/studio is heated with a west bay door that opens to a homeade acrylic glass window that in the morning let’s the east sun in for heat, there is also 3 large south facing windows for all day passive solar heat, the ‘running water’ is all carried in (usage is around 5 gallons per day or less) and the sink is made from a water container with a spigot attached (properly) with hose clamps and gasket.

I fill the sink with water as needed but it runs on gravity, the toilet is a composting toilet inspired by the humanure compost toilet system, so I use either peat moss or good pine sawdust for cover material, I also have another toilet just for urine (number 1), the shower is a little less luxurious and is a large plastic basin that I use either a hung solar shower or water jugs with holes drilled in them. I have a small copper quartz heater for at night mostly and a wood stove for heat, the studio is about 1000 sq ft (so not exactly tiny), (but not a large ‘house’ either). Continue Reading »