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/

Zol Fox emailed me an interesting article showing some of the logging history of the Northwest and included in the email a couple of pictures of tiny houses built from hollowed out logs.

The size of the trees that were taken down in the Northwest 150 years ago is something impressive. We are not likely to see anything like this in this area ever again. Below I’ve shared a few of those photographs.

A hollowed out log became a mobile office.

Hollowed out logs were used to house and feed the crews.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this shared piece of our history.

CJ just sent me some photos he took at St. Augustine, Florida, he says: These were taken with ipod, so quality is not the greatest but they fit nicely with your post today.

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By Raymond John Anibas

’56 Spartan Executive Mansion

Trailer houses have made sense to me ever since living with my parents and two of my sisters in a ten-wide on Kodiak, in late ’64. Being the only boy, I had a 7′x5′ “room of my own” so the lack of privacy didn’t ruin the adventure…it was just “cosy” living.

Spartans had a special appeal, since I saw my first one in ’62 ( I salvaged that same trailer in ’98 when the owners of the tiny water front site decided they needed a bigger mobil, making it my first Spartan). I loved the Aircraft look and clean lines; the all aluminum structure and serious steel chassis made these houses very rehabitable.(don’t worry about the spelling, that’s a new word)

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Today I received from Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, Jay Shafer’s latest book called Tumbleweed DIY Book of Backyard Sheds & Tiny Houses. I decided to do something different with this review and have put together a video book review.

The drawback is for those with slow internet connections as you will not be able to watch it. Simply click on the graphic below and it will take you to the Tumbleweed sales page, there you will learn how to build a backyard cottage Tumbleweed Style. Okay here goes, it’s not perfect so be kind to me

I would like to bring to your attention to the disaster relief efforts in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama in the wake of the recent tornados. I am hoping that somehow we can present tiny houses as a way to help those people start to rebuild their lives.

I personally have friends who have families in this area that lost their homes completely. Also many have lost their schools and churches too. I would like to reach out and help these people, but not sure of the best way to move forward.

I have several contacts among the builders of tiny houses and could reach out to them to see if they could help in any way. I am open to your suggestions and would like for you to comment below or step forward to help in some way.

Here is a recent article on Katrina Cottages of which I show a couple of pictures below. Could tornado victims find shelter in Katrina cottages?

Thanks for your input and suggestions!

Last weekend my wife and went south to visit our daughter who lives in Claremont, California. This is a college town in Southern California with lots of old class charm. One afternoon we went for a walk and I grabbed my little camera just in case we should pass some small homes.

These three homes are ones we passed along our two mile walk. Each is unique in its design and I am guessing they are one to two bedroom homes and around 700 square feet in size. This is a great size for a couple or someone with one or two small children to live in.

Photo credits: Kent Griswold

I would like to encourage you to check out the area you live in and look for the small or tiny homes. Take some pictures and share them with me. Once Spring sets in here in Healdsburg, I plan to take my bike out and shoot some of the local small homes to share with you. Have a great day!

I just got home from an overnight flight and am quite exhausted. I have lots of catching up to do but had a great vacation. Michael at Tiny House Design just posted a notice about some Historical tiny houses in Vermont that are Free to a Good Home. The only catch is that they have to be removed by July 31. I’ve posted a picture of one of the homes below but please click on through to Michael’s post to get all the details and location. You can view it here.