Some people make a conscious decision to buck the American standard of living and shoehorn their lives into a tiny home. It didn’t happen to me that way. I ended up building a small home through a series of bizarre circumstances. I started off with a career in Software development at the age of 23. By 26 I had saved some money and I attempted a retirement stunt that went sideways, leaving me penniless. That’s when I began living out of my car and decided that instead of returning to software, I would test my aptitude as a carpenter.

Photo Credits Joel Allen

While living out of my car I discovered that I quite liked the sport of compact living. I was in Whistler at the time and although I didn’t own a home, I enjoyed one of the biggest backyards in the world. I even began sleeping outdoors and got a kick out of finding places where no one else had slept before. I called it sport sleeping and it led me to the believe that my home extended far beyond the confines of my car.

That fall I decided to build a treehouse in my spare time. It was meant to be a simple sleeping loft that I could use as a secret camping spot on crown land in the woods. I felt compelled to build something more elegant than the average treehouse so I began consulting a couple of friends who were recent graduates from architecture school. Together we conceived of the egg-shaped treehouse.

Being a fledgeling carpenter, I had no idea about the technical and logistical challenges of trying to build an illicit orb on a steep slope in the woods, with no electrical power. Enthusiasm and naïvety were the two key traits that pulled me through. Within two months, I had finished the skeletal structure and I had my little sleeping loft in the woods. But it wasn’t long until I wanted more.

I couldn’t help but feel that my the egg house would take on a new personality if I could transform it from an al fresco deck into a cozy little home. The only problem was, I had already spent $6500 on the structure and the most expensive part was yet to come. I was no longer living out of my car and I was finding it hard to justify going into debt over a treehouse on crown land, that I technically didn’t own.

The cost of finishing deterred progress for nearly two years until one evening I made a pivotal discovery. While searching the free section of Craigslist-Vancouver for a couch I found bounty of interesting items popping up. People were giving valuable things away for free! The good items were usually gone within moments of coming online, however, I was a little more determined than my competition. Within a couple of months, I filled every nook of our suite, from floor to ceiling, with building materials.

In the meantime, I had also met my soon to be fiancee who was a natural born carpenter, good at visualizing things in three dimensions, and most importantly, not afraid of heights. By the next spring, we were off to a fleet start, packing all the materials I had scavenged over the winter up to the treehouse before the snow gone. At the same time we were also building a house for a German fellow in Whistler so our days consisted of mostly of carpentry. However, it was exciting to be making such fast progress.

Heidi and I worked efficiently together and we could visualize and revise the design of components in our heads before making them come to life. With all the free materials at our fingertips, it was just a matter of putting them together in a creative and coherent way. I spent many evenings thinking about the ergonomics and interior layout of the space. With little more than 100 square feet, plus a sleeping loft, there wasn’t a square inch to waste. However I loved the challenge and I couldn’t wait until we could wait until we were done construction so we could try living in it.

By mid July of 2011, the tree house was complete. Since it was built around a hemlock tree, I called it the HemLoft. It was a small space, but somehow felt grand in its extension into the outdoor world. We had included a plethora of windows including hatches that opened up from the loft, a tall vertical window that nicely framed a neighboring tree only four inches away, and a sliding glass window onto an outdoor covered deck, with a breathtaking cliff-side view over the valley.

That summer we only had a week to live in the treehouse before beginning a cross country trip to Nova Scotia. The stay was short lived, but magical. Although we were living in a small space there was a sense of grandeur in our immediate connection to the outdoors. It was that experience that made me realize that I would much rather have a modest home in a luxurious setting than a luxurious home in a modest setting.

Please visit Joel’s website: http://thehemloft.com/

Eric Rochow of GardenFork recently spoke with Deek Diedrickson, microhome builder and author of the new “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks” book in an episode of GardenFork Radio.

Deek and Eric (two men cut from the same cloth) discuss the merits of publishing your own book, using recycled and curbside found materials for tiny homes, how to build and anchor a treehouse and how Deek is able to make a living with his various building, music and drawing hobbies.

They also talk about Deek’s future plans which include teaching a few of the Tumbleweed Tiny House workshops, building a houseboat, a treehouse workshop and writing and publishing another book.

You can download the episode from iTunes or you can listen to it on the GardenFork website.

Photos courtesy of Relaxshacks.com.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

This triangular treehouse was assembled in the Catskills over two weekends, and stands as one of the larger projects Deek’s tackled for the show. His only given parameters for the design: “It must receive a good deal of natural light, and have enough space to sleep two (floor space).”

I think Deek fulfilled these requirements. Don’t you?

What do Ewoks and Julie “Butterfly” Hill have in common? They have discovered the ethereal magic of living up in a tree.

Tom Chudleigh of Vancouver Island, Canada has discovered the same magic with his Free Spirit Spheres, handcrafted tree houses that bob among the trees like giant apples.

Chudleigh calls his design a bio-mimicry. Each sphere attaches to a web of rope. The web connects to whichever strong points are available. This replaces the foundation of a conventional building. A tree house sphere uses the forest for its foundation, so the occupants of a sphere then have a vested interest in the health of the trees. Each sphere has four attachments on top and another four anchor points on the boom. Each attachment is strong enough to carry the entire sphere and contents.

A suspended sphere is tethered by 3 nearly vertical ropes to each of 3 separate trees. This distributes the load evenly over the 3 trees and results in a stable hang. Like an inverted three-legged stool, there will be almost equal tension in each of the three suspension ropes. The sphere resides in the center of the triangle formed by the 3 trees. It can be slung from 5 to 100′ off the ground, depending on the size of the trees.

Photo from Kiwipulse

If something really big, like a tree, falls through the web then some strands will break and let it pass through. The sphere remains suspended by the remaining strands. A major disaster like that is not likely, but possible. Everything, including spiral stairways and suspension bridges, are hung from ropes. Trees are protected where the spiral stairways hug the trees and ropes pass around the trees. The spheres are well adapted to life in a large mature forest.

The sphere concept borrows heavily from sailboat construction and rigging practice. It’s a marriage of tree house and sailboat technology. The wooden spheres are built much like a cedar strip canoe or kayak and suspension points are similar to the chain plate attachments on a sailboat. Stairways hang from a tree much like a sailboat shroud hangs from the mast. The joinery is yacht style with much brass trim, varnished wood and cane doors. They have closets on either side of the door.

Photo from Kiwipulse

A sphere is accessed by a spiral stairway and short suspension bridge. The two lower back suspension points of the sphere are tied horizontally to the two back trees, to keep the suspension bridge from sagging when it is walked on. The door faces the “door tree” and the suspension bridge connects the two. A helical stairway spirals up or down from the suspension bridge to the ground or next level.

Two Spheres, named Eve and Eryn, are available for overnight rental year round. Eve rents for $125 a night or $199 for two nights while Eryn rents for $175 a night or $299 for two nights Eryn’s rate is based on 2 people. The motion in a sphere is a slow gentle rocking when the wind blows. The rope tethers are almost vertical which lets the treetops move considerably while hardly moving the sphere at all. When another body inside a sphere shifts his/her weight the motion is abrupt. This is because the mass of the sphere is low.

Photo from Kiwipulse

In the Eryn style, there is a double bed on the right centered under the 40″ window. A settee with table is placed in front of the 42″ window on the left. The back wall opposite the door provides a galley area with counter cupboards and a sink. A microwave and refrigerator are also installed. Above the galley area there is a loft bed with full sitting headroom at the center. Circular shelf segments connect the loft bed to the cupboards on either side of the door. An outhouse and washroom are located nearby on the ground.

Photo from Kiwipulse

Free Spirit Spheres can also be purchased as completed projects or as shells and component kits. Wood spheres are made of two laminations of wood strips over laminated wood frames. The outside is then finished and covered with clear fiberglass. The result is a beautiful and very tough skin. The cost of these are sold for about $125,000-$150,000.

Fiberglass shells are also sold at $39,000-$45,000. The skins are waterproof and strong enough to take the impacts that come with life in a dynamic environment such as the forest.

Both wooden and fiberglass spheres are insulated. Vinyl upholstery fabric is stapled to the frames (lines of longitude). Each fabric joint is then covered with a decorative wood strip. The wood strips come together at the top and give a nice cathedral ceiling effect.

Photo from Kiwipulse

By Christina Nellemann

Copyright © 2009 Tiny House Blog

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