I bought my property in early May 2011. One third of an acre in a town in Pend Oreille County https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pend_Oreille_County, Washington for $13,000. I am only about 500 yards away from the beautiful Pend Oreille River, but do not have a view of the river.

I had my cabin bulit in May/June of 2011 while I was clearing the property which had an old and dirty shed on it. My builder was Joseph Birky of Birky’s Better Built Barns LLC based in Clayton, WA. Here his website: http://local.yahoo.com/info-63959343-birky-s-better-built-barns-llc-clayton I highly recommed him and his work.

The cabin is 10ft wide and 20ft long, has a 6ft porch, a 10 X 14 ft living space and two 10 X 6 ft sleeping lofts reached by custom built wood ladder. The cabin is a 2 X 6 construction, is R-21 insulated in the walls and ceilings, and is finished with cedar inside with a 3/4 inch redwood laminate flooring. The floor is insulated as well.

The little green shed next to the cabin is an 8 X 10 ft storage shed with a 8 X 4 ft lofted storage space that houses mainly my Loveable Loo compost toilet, miscellaneous supplies, and garden tools. The shed was also built by Joseph Birky. Both buildings turn key with delivery and set up costs at approximately $12,000. The cabin about $10,500 and the little green shed about $1,100.

So in total my two building tiny house project, including land, clearing the land, and gravel foundations for both buildings had a price tag of about $27,000.

The cabin is my holiday and meditation retreat about 25 miles north of my home in Eastern Washington State, North of Spokane, WA.

I am off the grid, collect rain water, have a compost toilet, and have a kerosene heater if I visit my cabin in the winter to stay warm.

I use candles and wind up LED flash lights for light and reading and a wind up radio for entertainment.

In the summer, I use a camping shower to shower or I take my car or bike, which I keep in my storage shed, to go to a very nice nearby community center which has showers, a swimming pool, saunas, and steam rooms. It is called the Camas Center for Community Wellness and is run by the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, here the link to their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/kalispelwellness

I would love to connect with other Tiny House Lovers from the area and show and share my place with them and visit at their places if they have tiny houses themselves.

I love tiny cozy houses and I love this blog. I have been a follower and reader for many years and you inspired me to finally go tiny myself after many years of just day dreaming about it

The following song “You” by Gold Panda represents the energy that I personally associate with my tiny house and tiny living.

Thanks!

Max

[View with PicLens]

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This custom built one story cabin has a loft is just under 500 sq ft. The cabin sits on 10.6 fenced acres with a one acre horse corral. This cabin is for sale if you are interested. You can read more about it and see more pictures on the Tiny House Listings website.

The Mighty Cabana is pre-cut from solid wood and is connected by a patented building system for strength and ease of construction. They can be used as a small house, a small business, a vacation home, an artist studio, pool house or storage shed.

The Mighty Cabana comes in two configurations: the Cabana Series and the Gable Series. The Cabana series starts at $5,240 for a 10×12 foot structure and goes up to $7,520 for a 12×16 foot structure. The Mighty Cabana Gable Series starts at $4,790 for a 10×12 foot structure and goes up to $7,450 for a 12×16 foot structure.

Cabana Series Interior

Cabana Series Interior

Gables Series

Gable Series Interior

The price includes:

• Treated floor joists, plywood floor and skids
• Pre-cut 2×6 T&G SPF solid walls and timber with Glulam columns
• A 60” porch roof (Gable) or 36” roof overhang (Cabana)
• 2×6 T&G SPF roof decking on Glulam wood roof beam
• 30-year black composition roof shingles
• Vinyl sliding glass door system
• Vinyl windows
• Western Red Cedar exterior trim package, glue and fasteners
• Free customer support

Delivery of the Mighty Cabana is included up to 30 miles of Tacoma WA. There is a $2.00 per mile charge beyond 30 miles. Each Cabana can be connected to an on- or off-grid electrical system.

Photos courtesy of Pan Abode

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

We weren’t looking to buy a boat, we definitely weren’t looking to buy a tugboat, we were just looking. We have a home in Port Townsend, Washington but the commute into the city for work was too much to do everyday, so at the time we were renting a house in Ballard (a neighborhood of Seattle). It was a nice house in a great neighborhood, but we really weren’t keen on being renters. When we saw the tug on craigslist we were just curious, but once we looked at the boat we realized we could stop being renters and have a place of our own in Seattle. A place on the water with a million dollar view.

The tug needed a lot of work, the decks needed to be replaced, the interior needed to be completely renovated, and the whole boat was in dire need of a coat of paint. But both my husband and I are comfortable with working in wood, so we decided it was a project we could handle. At first, my husband was worried the space would be too small for the two of us. I work at home and he thought I’d go stir crazy in such tight quarters. But when I thought about how much space I actually used in our rental house, I knew we could make it work. I think most people live in just a small part of their house, the rest of the space is taken up with storing stuff. Luckily we didn’t have a great deal of stuff. So two weeks after seeing the ad on craigslist, we bought a vintage wood tugboat, the Iver.

It took about two months of just looking at the boat to figure out where to start. It was a bit overwhelming, we are not experienced boat owners, we bought our first boat a little over year before, a 28 ft. fiberglass sailboat. We named that boat Troublemaker because we were so clueless about boating.

The first thing we tackled was making the boat water tight, it leaked through the decks. We covered the sides and back deck in cheap plywood and then coated that in a rubberized decking material called Gaco. Then we set about converting the interior into a liveable space. We tore out everything the previous owner had built, which wasn’t really much. A poorly designed galley area, a platform bed in the f’o'clse (the area under the bow deck) and a too large vanity in the head.

The galley cabinets were built in place, nothing on a boat is straight, especially an 85 yr old boat. We replaced a small electric marine stove with a household gas stove converted to propane. The shelves in the cabinets all slide out and the space between the stove and small fridge is a can pantry drawer. We later added a dish storage rack between the portholes on the back wall.

The rest of the cabin is our sitting, computer, TV area, guest bunk and dining area. We built a settee from wood we salvaged from my old work desk that my husband had made for me from a nice oak pallet he found on a construction site. The cushion is cut from a thick full sized foam mattress we had in the attic in Port Townsend. The settee is about the size of a twin bed and we made it high enough off the floor so we could put the dogs food and water dishes underneath and out of the way.

On the opposite wall we built an entertainment unit to house our flat screen TV with storage for laptops and other stuff, as well as a small bookcase. This wall hides the exhaust stacks that come up from the engine room, to the right was a bit of dead space that we turned into a wet/dry locker by adding a door from the built-in to the wall. The wood we used is mahogany tongue and groove that was salvaged from a house on Lake Washington.

Our stateroom is in the f’o'scle (boat lingo for the area below the bow deck) we built a queen size bed frame with storage underneath. We had a hard time figuring out how to get a regular mattress down into the space, but found a sleep number bed was the perfect fit. It came apart and we could put it back together in place. Getting big things in and out of the tug is always a challenge, the doors are not normal house door size, they’re a bit on the small size. When we brought in the gas range, it had to come in through a hole in the cabin ceiling that will someday be a nice skylight hatch.

We then built in a hanging locker (boat for closet), a six drawer dresser (using that old desktop that was leftover when we built the settee) and shelves with doors. Plenty of storage for clothes and linens.

One of the most challenging aspects of renovating the tug as a live aboard was what to do about the toilet in the head. The toilet that was in the boat when we bought it was plumbed to flush directly out of the boat. Not only was that really gross, but it was also very illegal. To install a marine black water system would have been difficult, there was no way to get a decent sized black water tank down into the engine room (remember those small doors, the hatch down into the engine room is even smaller) and paying someone to come pump us out every week just didn’t sit well with me. We could have installed a waste water treatment system, but that was really expensive and possibly not totally legal in our no discharge area of the ship canal. After much research I came up with the idea of installing a dry composting toilet. My husband was not thrilled with the idea, but he couldn’t come up with a better plan, so……..

The commercial units available at that time were a bit expensive, but I found a DIY option that turned out to be inexpensive, easy to build and works very well. My husband is now a complete convert and we plan on replacing the marine head on our sailboat with a dry composting toilet.

We also replaced the large vanity with a smaller unit and did some upgrades on the plumbing fixtures.

We bought the boat in September of 2009 and moved on board July 1st, 2010. While renovating our new home we try to be green, using salvaged materials as much as possible. I joke that we should have named the tug “Craigslist” since that’s where we find most of our materials, especially old growth lumber for replacing the decks. We also shop all the re-use and salvage yards in the area. Our carpet tiles in the salon and subway tiles in the kitchen came from the local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. I made lights in the galley from old coffee cans and just finished painting a floor cloth for the galley from a scrap of vinyl flooring.

During the time we were building in the living spaces, we were also working on the plumbing, replacing old PVC pipe with pex pipe and putting in new freshwater filtration system. Our water comes from a heavy duty garden hose that runs down the dock, the electrical is all household 110v that also comes from the dock. My husband and I work well together, we design everything as a team, he does most of the woodworking (he just likes doing it more than I do) and I do the majority of the painting and varnishing (I hate painting a bit less than he does). We love living on our tug, we find we have plenty of space and being able to live on the water is amazing. Life should be an adventure, right? Sometimes it’s work, but it’s almost never boring.

Juliann Tallino
www.Tallinophotography.com

Would you like to try on a tiny house? This summer, I am happily turning my tiny house into a tiny “tester” home for people interested in building and living tiny. I would love to host you in my bungalow this summer.

The Bayside Bungalow is located in Olympia, Washington, in a rural setting on a waterfront lot overlooking the Puget Sound.

To get the full details visit the For Rent page.

This home is in a small community of four cottages and sits comfortably next to a greenbelt. It is
available for sale with an asking price of $109,000. For further information, please contact us by email at: coastalcottage21@ymail.com

I believe this is one of the Belmar Cottages which I featured about a year ago.

If you are looking for a place to park your tiny house in the Northwest, Sandie contacted me recently and let me know that she has a spot available in the Bellingham, Washington area. Here is her ad.

Full hook-up available for RV or Tiny House on Wheels.  My property has great soils for gardening + orchard.  View of Mt. Baker & Twin Sisters Mountains.  My property is on Bellingham Bay in Bellingham, Washington.

*Note – Site is rented so is no longer available.

Orchard View

View through orchard

Buck in Orchard

Mt. Baker at Sunset

Twin Sisters Mountains

I have now been living in my little trailer for almost nine months. Eight of those months have been parked next to my friends house in Washington State. With an extension chord running from the garage it is essentially like a detached bedroom.

I have power for my space heater which came in handy this winter when it got down to about 10 degrees. I also keep my laptop charged and am able to recieve a wifi signal from the house. Lighting is handled by battery powered LED lights. They do a pretty good job but are not quite bright enough to read by. As I may have mentioned previously, I have a small fold down table, a decent sized closet/cabinet, and my bookcase full of books. All in all, quite cozy.

As far as the not so stellar aspects of tiny trailer living. It can seem a bit cramped at times. Much of my possessions are stored in my friends garage. I did purge a lot of my stuff before this adventure began, however I still have a lot of work to do. It does fit into ( and on top of) my truck but isn’t very accessible. My trailer is pretty easy to get into almost any camp site and I’d like to keep it that way, so I am leaning against a bigger rig. Which means I will need to get rid of even more of my treasures!

Read Peter’s complete story at his IttyBittyHouseTales blog.

Teak House Barge for Sale in Seattle Area – $85,000

Have you ever pictured yourself living on the water, in Seattle, or the lovely San Juan Islands? Are you looking for a permanent waterfront fixture or a wonderful getaway? This beautiful, new, all teak exterior house boat built in Seattle, Washington can satisfy every lifestyle. It is craftsmanship at the highest level.

• 28.5′ long
• 10.5′ wide
• Plywood-Fiberglass Hull
• Teak Exterior
• All New Cabin
• Insulated Aluminum Windows
• Fir Hardwood Floors
• Propane Fireplace
• Tiled Stand-In Shower
• Closet Space
• Electric Toilet
• One Bedroom
• All Douglas Fir Interior
• Stainless Steel Countertops
• Propane Stove
• Storage in Hull Area
• All New Plumbing and Wiring
• 50 Gallon Sewage Tank

Transporting can be discussed. Financing and Moorage is available. Located in Seattle, WA. Contact Bill (206) 910 0957.

Tim says: “We’ve always wanted to teach longer courses as part of our curriculum. We’re going to take that plunge and offer an intensive residential course starting January 2011. This will be a three month/twelve week course that will give any woodworker a very solid grounding in the array of skills they’ll need to develop as a furniture maker, cabinetmaker or (dare we say it) as a maker of Gypsy Wagons.”

He goes on to say: “We’re planning to push the envelope here and offer students the option of choosing to focus on one of these areas in the final part of the course. This would be a way for somebody with carpentry skills to transition to furniture making or finer finish work. For the avid hobbyist to develop a broader range of skills. Or for the Romany at heart to build the skills to complete a Gypsy Wagon.

We believe that this course can change your life. The course will give you woodworking skills that will last the rest of your life whether you make furniture for fun, rebuild your kitchen or plan to finish that gypsy wagon. Through the design part of the course we may uncover hidden passions or flair that help you grow as an artist.”

To get the full details visit the Woodworking website and see if this course if for you.