While poking around online we happened to come across Jay Shafer’s Tumbleweed Tiny House website and the light came on in our heads! We would build a tiny house! A palace on wheels! We’d already rented out our home in the city and moved to the country in an RV, so why not build a small home, we didn’t need the space anymore, and wild horses couldn’t drag us back to city living.

It’s been months and months of planning, but we are finally underway, building our very small home that will accommodate our needs and desires for years to come. It was important for us to try and stay as green and non-toxic as possible in building our home, so finding all of our supplies has been challenging and time consuming to say the least, but we’re always amazed at how open and helpful people are when we tell them about our project.

While we have used many of the tiny homes already built as inspiration, we’re finding that sometimes the best way to do something is to make it all your own. Initially we planned to find a free travel trailer off of Craigslist, strip it down and use the frame, but ended up splurging on a brand new custom length flatbed car hauler frame instead. The 24’ frame will allow us more interior space so that I don’t have to give up the luxury of a washer and dryer, and my hubby can have his larger loft space with room for a built in dresser.

We’re excited to start our journey once our house is complete and start looking for a piece of property to call our own and begin living a self-sufficient life in harmony with our surroundings. Check back with us to see how things are progressing, or take a drive out to the beautiful Washington Olympic Peninsula and come for a cup of tea and a visit )

Mark and Olivia

www.naturallytiny.blogspot.com

Here in New England it gets pretty cold in the winter, and the temperature hovers around the freezing mark. We have already built a 128 square foot micro home to use as a test bed for our energy saving products, and now we are giving serious thought to building an underground micro home test bed so that we can better deal with the cold and windy winters. Our test model, due to space restrictions, will most likely be 100 square feet with only a solar passive heating light wall, but for a full size home design I am thinking about using four shipping containers arranged in a rectangle with a large tempered glass ceiling light well in the center.

Each container would have a door, or doors opening into a central light well patio area with a year round garden. We could cover the exterior walls with waterproof foundation sealer, and then glue on foam to the exterior the same way we cover our concrete foundations now as per our local building codes. The entire project could be set on a suitable concrete slab. The location can be either on a flat lot, or dug into the side of a hill where an additional solar wall could be added. An important note is that you must have at least two escape routes to the outside in case of fire. One can be in a corner of the light well.

Many people already realize that by going mostly underground the first 55°F in the home temperature is a 100% free ride. When you add to that the heat gain from people, refrigerators, cooking, lighting, washers and dryers etc. you pick up a considerable heat gain. However there is also going to be heat lost through ventilation because no one wants to live in a swamp filled with stale air either. Light wells and solar walls can be an asset in the day time for solar heat gain, but must be insulated at night. There are several ways to accomplish this. Some methods are insulated curtains, sliding walls, Zome walls, or sliding covers. Solar light walls and light wells must also be shaded in the warm weather or you will find yourself living in a large solar oven.

If you design your underground container home properly it will cost far less money than a conventional above ground home, and the heating and cooling will be a virtual free ride if you engineer the home properly. This is not a new idea by the way. I had several neighbors that lived in poured foundations during the depression of the nineteen thirties, and some others joined them right after world war two when we had a bad slump in the economy. This was a common practice here in New England during the thirties and forties. You do not need a large central heating system, or air conditioning system either. I also know several people that own large above the ground homes that they can no longer afford to heat. They have made apartments in their cellars to live in in the winter. They drained the above ground plumbing for the winter. They are saving a fortune in heating bills, and they move back upstairs in the warm weather.

People have been living under ground for thousands of years because in most cases they had no choice. With the ever rising prices of fuel we now have to take a long hard look back into the past, because the past may be our future again. I advise you to give it some thought, and play with some designs of your own to make the idea more palatable. Personally, I’m going to work on it, and my design will be totally off the power grid.
A little imagination goes a long way.

© 2010 Walt Barrett President A to Z Global Marketing Inc.
Contact Walt Barrett for permission to reprint.

The interest seems to be in homes like those shown in this post or the Tumbleweed Bodega or a 12′ x 16′ home that Peter King showed in his video yesterday. Of course the issue with these larger homes is the need for land and that often involves getting the local authorities to okay a building permit etc.

Russell Versaci’s Simple Cottage Plans offer quite a range of homes and my favorite is the Tidewater Cottage. These homes could also be put over a full basement which would give you additional storage or a spare room or two.

The Southern Piedmont with the bedrooms in the basement is very novel, small houses don’t take as much advantage as they should of the basement for cold storage and general living space. Anyway check these out and be sure and go to the Russell Versaci’s Simple Cottage Plans website if you want more information on these cute cottages.

Peter has built 11 tiny houses since we saw him last but is not super pleased with his new moniker “The Tiny House Guy.” With the economy in shambles and foreclosures running rampant, tiny houses seem more relevant than ever. But Peter has some ideas that are even bigger than his tiny houses. Please check out the Stuck in Vermont article here and enjoy this excellent video below.

So be sure and visit their website Our Tiny House to view some clips and if you choose purchase their DVD of their tiny house being built. I’ll let Dawn tell you more about the build.

This is the story of the construction of our tiny house built by C&E Construction. In December 2008 we attended a construction seminar in Florida and were fortunate that our general contractor was able to attend the seminar with us. While the seminar was helpful for design, it really did not give us any of the details we’d need in order to build a tiny house. As Chuck Peterson of C&E Construction built our beautiful tiny house he taped the construction details, showing the specific methods and critical tips for success. We now offer a detailed 2 hour construction DVD full of these details and helpful hints that are necessary to actually build a tiny house.

We did buy a set of plans for our tiny house and modified the plans to fit our needs. Some of the changes we made to the original plans were:

• We wanted the tiny house to be usable in a sub-freezing environment.
• We raised the loft ceiling height to accommodate Scott’s height so that we have 7 feet clear.
• We wanted a full size 36″ x 36″ shower.
• We wanted to sleep on the main level.
• We plan to use this as a weekend house and not as our full time residence.

Chuck took the plans we bought and handled the modifications. We went home and taped the tiny house dimensions onto our basement floor so that we could really see how the space would work for our needs. Based on this we decided on a few more changes.

Once we had the trailer we pulled it to the building where Chuck would build the tiny house. This building was owned by friends of ours, who own King Cut – Concrete Cutters, Inc. and we were very thankful for their generosity.

The King Cut building is where the filming begins of the construction. The step by step process explains the difference in the roof pitch, a different framing process, plumbing that is easy to drain, and many more details that need to be considered when you decide to build a tiny house of your own.

Be sure and check out the video clips and see if this DVD would be a help to you in your tiny house construction. Thank you Dawn and Scott for sharing your story with us.

In October, Will drove from Abbotsford, British Columbia to McKees Mills, New Brunswick. Will drove a used 1999 Dodge diesel truck and it worked out great to tow the house.

Will and Alyson created a small blog called Alyson and Will’s Adventure to cover their move and life at their new farm home and you can view it here.

After so many months and so much planning, I drove away with the tiny house and most of our possessions in tow. Left just around lunchtime with everyone on the farm hugging me and saying goodbye. I’ve got my Ipod loaded with songs and we’ll see how far I get today. — Will

Will weighed the house before moving it, it came in at 6182 lbs. empty (well below the trailer’s 10,000 lb capacity). The tongue weight is around 1,100 lbs which is more than the max of 900 lbs recommended in the truck owners manual. He was carrying all his and Alyson’s meagre possessions also and loaded the heavy items in the back of the house to lessen the tongue weight.

Most of the trip, Will slept at truck stops or campgrounds, just stopped and had a snooze when he got tired of driving.

Leaving Glen Valley Organic Farm

Fall Colors

Lunch stop in Golden, BC

I covered about 700 km over the Rockies from Kamloops, BC to Strathmore, Alberta. Kind of slow going over the mountains. It will be flat for a long stretch now. Not too much interesting about driving for hours and hours looking for good coffee and for a place to eat that is not too bad. — Will

Made it to Manitoba

KOA campground near Ottawa, Ontario.

It was nice to start seeing wooded areas in Manitoba after the plains. The northwest part of Ontario was really beautiful with a different lake after every little hill I would go over. Until next time, thanks for reading. — Will

Pulling in the drive-way at our new farm in McKees Mills, New Brunswick.

Will arrived on the farm just before noon today. I am so happy to see him and he is so happy to have arrived! The truck did really well, the house held together and Will survived the days of driving. I think he is feeling a great sense of accomplishment for having made the big trip and I’m so proud of him, too! — Alyson

Got the truck stuck when moving the house so had to use the tractor to move it.

The house after a recent snowfall

I would be willing to sell the tiny house as it is (dried in) if someone wanted to finish the interior,  if you think any of your readers would be interested in this you can let them know that for the next few days I will sell it for $2500 as it is,  picked up here or within 200 miles of my 72560 zipcode, I would deliver it that far for free,  any distance beyond that I would need to charge $2 per mile.

I am also willing to sell it completed but I need a commitment right now. Here are the details:

Here is the deal of the winter, I have enough time to finish this house before starting the bigger unit so I will offer one heck of a deal to anyone ready to pull the trigger today on this house finished and completed with bath, kitchen, wood interior, etc., Same delivery option as above,  free delivery within 200 miles of 72560, $2 per mile after that. The price for the house completed is just $9250 hopefully someone will take advantage of me and my situation and get a real bargain on a quality house, I really do need to move this house asap, to accept this offer the buyer will need to put down a 50% deposit with remainder due upon delivery, I will honor this offer until Tuesday 2-23-10 noon Central Time, the offer for the dried in version will be good thru Friday 2-27-10 5P.M. Central Time.

You can reach Scott anytime at 870-213-5310 or by email ozarksbest@yahoo.com.

To view some of Scott’s finished work I have attached some photos of one of his previous projects. Either Scott or I can send you more pictures of other projects he has done too.

The wooden Victorian is a 12′ x 20′ and it is located in Canyon Lake, Texas. It is lined with 1800 circa metal roofing tiles in the bath area. It also has their new ladder design and a nice rounded loft front.

Brad also told me that he has been busy building and selling homes for several Bed and Breakfasts across the country. A recent one up in the Badlands of South Dakota and three more for another in Pasadena, California. I will follow up with an update on these before long.

Photography: Doug Gaidry III Digital Imaging

Tanner another one of our readers sent me this link to this article in the Austin News about Kittel and his tiny houses. You can read the article called the “Small House Movement hits Central Texas” and watch a neat little video along with the story. Thanks Tanner for sharing this story with us.

My name is Roland Fabiani, I´m a Italian Architect, born in Switzerland and living in Vienna (Austria).

I decided to build a tiny cabin to use as atelier in the summer. Nestled in a broad sunny basin, the atelier is located in the Italian Alps, near to the Austrian and Slovenian border and is a great place of spiritual regeneration and physical restoration ( eg enjoying long afternoon teas and watching the changing mountainscape).

My idea was to design a warm and welcoming place: with great proportions and a dedication to create something very different from the expected modern architecture. The cabin is completely in pine, the closest material to hand and perfect to give the impression of warmth.

The size is 3 meters x 4 meters and the porch is 1 meter wide (I love great proportions like 3×4x5). Being modular, the cabin can easily be expanded on back side to accommodate additional spaces. The walls are inclinated to create a dynamic and give the impression of a larger airy room.

Throughout the year the changing Alpine ecosystem provides a seasonal display that is visible on a panoramic scale from the comfort of the inner space.

Everything (eg the windows, the handrail, the door) is handmade and very much detailed.

Architecture has such an amazing power to influence thoughts and emotions, to uplift and also inspire. This cabin shows that you can transform your living and working environments to be more loving, peaceful and happy places.

P.S.:
I did a lot of designs to explore the possibilities of Tiny Houses, I think the Fungo and Triangle Garden Houses are very appealing (visit my website!) I await anxiously seeing them commissioned: feel free to contact me!

Thanks Roland for sharing your cabin with us. You can watch a video of the construction here.