Tiny House Blog

By Ben Hurst

Hello, my name is Ben, a 31 year old music teacher. I live in Southeast Louisiana and in the past four years I have been on a journey to create an easier life for myself. From growing a garden, raising chickens, ducks, and rabbits, to aquaponics. I just wanted to find a better, easier, healthier way to live.

I have just started my tiny house project with my dad. We began welding the frame for the trailer and acquired the axles. It is going to be a long project, but the end result will be so amazing I just can’t wait. I have been researching extensively every single tiny house resource I can get my hands on and have almost narrowed down what the final design is going to look like.

Most people that are building tiny houses struggle with a place to put it, but I will have a spot to put mine and enough space to have my small farm. So one day I can live in my small home, on my small farm, living a very big, enjoyable, sustainable life!

You can follow Ben’s build at his blog http://smallhomebiglife.blogspot.com/

My name is John Warren. I met Andrea Tremols and Cedric Baele at an oyster roast last night in Charleston. They told me about their project and I told them about a series of photos I took of small dwellings out on Block Island, Rhode Island. They are mostly highly efficient summer homes that are are all uniquely designed to withstand sustained winds of over 100 miles per hour.

I photographed about 20 of them, but there are many more. I became interested in small dwellings when I went to Whidbey Island, Washington. Continue Reading »

by Peter Bruce

So here is the story behind the Anna Bruce shop on Abbott Kinney in Venice, California… the “smallest shop in LA”

My sister, Anna launched a line of embroidered 100% organic cotton t-shirts, baby clothing, and not-quite-organic hats about two years ago. Her line consists of animal and plant patterns (and even surfer) stitched onto colorful and very soft cotton. She started small, mainly giving her work away as gifts to friends and family – with the occasional sale generated by word of mouth. She soon realized she had something pretty special with more and more people asking to order merchandise. I came on board to help her spread the word and we worked to get her line into shops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Marin County in Northern California.

Continue Reading »

Houses and apartments come in all shapes and sizes, the smaller the place, the more likely you could use some good space saving ideas. Maybe your living room isn’t as big as you’d like to be, and you want to have plenty of room for seating. You might need to save space in your kitchen so it isn’t cramped for cooking and dishes.

If you don’t have a lot of storage space or simply want to save the space you have, there are a number of fantastic and economical ideas that can both create more space and make the most of what you have, while making sure that your apartment looks spectacular.

1. Saving Space in the Kitchen – The kitchens in apartments are usually smaller than houses, which can make it difficult to deal with if you’re a foodie who loves to cook. Bad part is that once you cook there are dishes, figuring out how to find time and space to wash the dishes can prove to be a huge task at hand. Often, downsizing in the kitchen can be helpful, especially if you’re trying to share space with a dining room. For instance, you can set up a small, cozy bistro area, rather than an actual dining room. If you can’t abide by downsizing to a mini-fridge to give yourself more room, then improvise. Cans and smaller boxes can easily be stored in a plastic shoe holder designed to hang on the wall!
2. Lighting Tricks – It might not seem like lighting takes up a lot of space, but if you favor floor and table lamps, it can take up the extra space you have. If you’re allowed, try to use track lighting instead. In addition to making a room look larger, it will free up a surprising amount of space. Closets are one place where you should include lighting, however. That way, you’ll be able to see how much space you do have, so you can utilize it best.
3. Cheat Your Storage Space – One of the hardest things to do in many apartments is find space for storage. You just need to cheat what you’ve got. In addition to utilizing closet space, some things can be stored under your bed, your couch, and your chairs. You can also assign bureau drawers as storage spaces.
4. Shelving – Shelving can be your best friend. Bookshelves may be too bulky, but free floating shelves are ideal. They can hold books, figurines, knick-knacks, and pretty much anything else. They can also be quite attractive, especially “invisible shelves” made of glass.
5. Smart Furniture - The kind of furniture you use to furnish your apartment matters as well. For instance, you might have an armoire. This is a large piece of furniture, true, but it is also versatile. It has plenty of room for storage, but it can go almost anywhere in your home. Furniture that can double as something else, such as an ottoman that contains a storage unit in the middle, is always a good idea.
6. Create Versatile Rooms – You want to use every inch of space you have. Your living room can double as a family room and entertainment area, if you make good use of a wall unit. Your television, stereo, video games, and so on, can go into the unit, leaving plenty of room for seating. As briefly mentioned, you can also find a way to combine your kitchen and dining room in a charming but economic way as well.
7. Cutting Clutter – The fact remains that there are some items you might not be able to make room for in a small apartment. If you cannot store and have not used it in a year, cut ties. That’s the hard, fast rule for getting rid of things when your space is limited. By cutting out the erroneous, unnecessary items in your life, you will be surprised at how much space is left over.

As you can see, there are many ways to save space in even the smallest houses or apartments. These tips work well for small homes as well. You don’t have to be a slave to space. There are easy, clever ways both to save the space you have and make use of storage options you may not realize you had. Hopefully, now you have some redecorating ideas that will help you take the steps necessary to make your cozy apartment a roomy home.

This post was written and provided by Martha Keagan who is a freelance writer and full time mother. She is currently living in a small two bedroom apartment in Kansas City and is constantly finding new ways to pack more things in her home.

Every bedroom no matter how small has to have a bed in it. Imagine still using all the floor space needed for a bed as storage space. The Lift and Stor platform lift storage bed let’s you use all the space under your bed; space normally going to waste becomes available for storage.

The platform lifts on its own hydraulic shocks and stays up in place until you apply pressure to close. The base is 15” high which means you can fit plastic storage bins, golf clubs, suitcases and other large items in storage area. High quality, durable construction and made in the USA for over 20 years.

Available in King, Queen, double/full and twin sizes. Local showroom in Metro Phoenix and Seattle, available everywhere else through the online store at www.storagebeds.com

Platform lift storage bed was featured on HGTV’s Color Splash: Miami.

LEAP Adaptive sells modern, green home plans online and they have recently designed their smallest home plan and are making it available to owners, contractors and architects. The Hummingbird is a 480-square-foot home that is energy efficient and utilizes a passive photovoltaic framework, low-VOC materials and the latest in green technology.

The Hummingbird has a living and kitchen area with a fire-ribbon fireplace (which requires no venting) and a large, covered deck which LEAP calls a “chill” space. A small bedroom and bathroom suite are also included. Plans for the hummingbird are priced at $995, the building kit is around $55,000 and an on-site built Hummingbird is about $80,000 which does not include the general contractor fee, building or permit fees.

Other green options included in the Hummingbird are:

• Cement board or teak siding
• Trex recycled content-engineered deck planking
• Low-mass Structural Insulated Panels
• Multi-unit sliding glass doors with dual-pane Low-E glass
• Simpson “Strong-Wall” seismic resisting brace-frames
• Low-flow plumbing fixtures
• EnergyStar rated Heat-pump HVAC system, lighting and on-demand water heater

LEAP Adaptive is a home design group in San Diego, California. Design director Brian Darnell has spent the last 22 years designing multi-million-dollar residential estates, but realized that “the lust for size and granduer has given way to the realization that the economics and ecology of our flattening world can no longer support such extravagance.” LEAP seeks to create environmental designs that are easier on the owner’s wallet as well as on the earth.

Image Courtesy of LEAP Adaptive

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

If you love houseboats or floating homes, you may want to make a walking tour of the famous Sausalito Floating Homes part of your next trip to the San Francisco Bay area. I thought I would profile these particular floating homes because the community is maintained by homeowners and individuals rather than city officials. This makes this waterside neighborhood unique in that the designs of these homes, that are docked in Richardson Bay, are up to the owners.

M Skaffari/Flickr

The famous Sausalito floating homes community has a history that stretches over a century. During the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s improvised floating homes made from scrap wood, old tugboats, elegant ships and even old Pullman cars were built by professional artists, and since the dock areas were so small, most of the floating homes stayed small. Some of these homes are now offered as vacation rentals and there are usually a few for sale. Some of the homes have names including the Taj Mahal, the Train Wreck and the Pirate. Continue Reading »