Bryant’s Little House
It is so much fun to see people I know get involved in the tiny house movement. Recently Bryant Goodwin, the best friend of my former boss at Cable Car Classics, Inc. and a fellow co-worker emailed me and asked me to come see the little house he is building.
Bryant with his background of building cable cars is taking his skills and building a tiny house out of reclaimed materials. His base for his home is extremely unique. Using a reclaimed mobile home chasis and modifying it to the 8 foot width and than using steel road rail guards he has built an extremely robust base for his tiny home.
Bryant is also using reclaimed cedar, redwood and other materials all through the construction of his tiny house. He is just starting on the interior and I will be doing updated posts as he moves forward. Bryant is building this home in Santa Rosa, California and his shop is real easy to find, right off of the freeway. Bryant also plans to build many more of these. If you would like to see his little home contact Bryant via email at: sumguy2008@yahoo.com Continue Reading »
Tiny Houses on the Prairie
“Oh Snap! Homesteader Postcards, the Facebook of 1906″ an article written by Heather Murphy at the Slate website features some really unique tiny homes built by homesteaders out on the prairies.
The images in this gallery were gathered over a period of 20 years by snapshot collector Michael Williams. They are featured in his book, Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America and at The Life and Death of Buildings, an exhibition currently on display at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Williams who spent over 15 years gathering these pictures at flea markets, antiques stores, and postcard fairs. The images were taken in South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana. Improvements were required by the homesteaders and those improvements were made using, tar paper, sod, bricks and wood. It just had to be sturdy enough to stand.
Click here to read the full article and see the slide show showing closeups and explanations of each postcard.
Modern Sheepwagon
This beautiful custom sheep wagon by Wizard Wagonworks is based on the original “sheep camp” of the 1880′s with a modern twist. It is designed for both highway and off-road use as well as for durability, comfort and ease of maintenance. Kenny Harris of Wizard wagonworks is in the cabinetry business and built two of these sheep wagons according to a customer’s specifications. One is now being sold for $60,000, but Kenny can build any custom sheep wagon for less than the current price.
The exterior of the wagon contains laminated oak struts, a T&G planked floor and metal roofing. The wagon is insulated and the exterior wood is finished with teak oil. The interior has oak bead board paneling and the benches, tables, cabinet doors and drawer fronts are solid oak. The wagon can by towed by a truck or other large vehicle and handles well on the highway with speeds up to 70 MPH. Continue Reading »
Bend me, shape me: Space saving furniture
Tiny houses usually necessitate thinking out of the box when it comes to furniture. Standard furniture for “regular” homes may not fit into a tiny house, so several designers have come up with some interesting and innovative designs for space saving furniture. Interestingly enough, while most of these designers think out of the box, their designs fold up into boxes!
Trick
Trick is the name of this multifunctional furniture that can be used as a bookshelf, a chair, and a dining set. The minimalist multifunction furniture is made from Milan based industrial designer Sakura Adachi.
Wood and Wood Storage
As I’m sure many of you are, we’re looking toward spring, which for us, also means looking toward next winter by getting the firewood cut and split so it can begin drying out.
Heating exclusively with our wood burning stove is pretty new to us. We moved to our Little House in 2007, but didn’t begin heating with just the woodstove until the winter of 2009 after a major ice storm showed us how much we could save without using the electric space heaters.
Thanks to that ice storm, we still have plenty of wood for next winter, people practically beg us to come and pick the wood up from their property. A good friend and neighbor has also let us use his log splitter. Continue Reading »
Better Built Portable Buildings
For anyone with vision, a few building skills and a great set of tools, several of these portable buildings by Dix Enterprises in Wichita, Kansas can become a personalized tiny house. Better Built Portable Storage Buildings by Dix are outdoor storage sheds, barns, garages, cabins and offices that are built onsite in Kansas and then delivered by truck. At that point they can be customized by the customer. Dix claims all of their portable barns, sheds, cabins and garages are built to hold up under heavy use and provide a lifetime of service. Most of the buildings are for storage, livestock and gardening, but three of their designs may make a great tiny house: the Lofted Porch, the Portable Casita and the Mini Cottage.
