Here is our little house story in Spokane, Washington. In the spring of 2006 I was walking through my neighborhood, as I had done so many times over the years and for some reason I really noticed this small, tired and neglected building with its Mission Revival architecture, very unusual … Read more
by Paul and Shari Roten We are the former owners of Kaizen Tile & Stone in the Seattle area, although are both originally from small towns in the Midwest of the USA. We spent years renovating others homes as well as our own cottage in West Seattle prior to starting our … Read more
It’s fun when family and friends get involved with the Tiny House Blog. My sister and her husband are up in Alaska on business and my brother-in-law Geoff saw this sign while traveling and snapped a photo with his iPhone and sent it to me. Here is what he says: … Read more
Guest Post by Deb Durham
Deb Durham here again. Yep, the tall broad with a penchant for small spaces and little automobiles.
When you can’t afford or don’t want to expand a home’s footprint, here are 2 remodel ideas for transforming existing space to best advantage. This is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,200 sq. ft. home I renovated outside of Santa Fe, NM. I call it Asian Adobe.
by Daniel Combellick
*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?