Book Review - Part 3

Living Rich on a Small Income

With more then 10,000 people retiring every day, Dave Taylor wanted to share his idea through a book on how these same people can live rich on a small income. The goal of Dave’s book “Living Rich on a Small Income” is to look at some way to better spend … Read more

Cracking the Code – A Guide to Building Codes

by Kent Griswold

I receive many emails regarding tiny houses and building codes. This is a very difficult subject because every location is different. However, up to this point there has not been a good resource to send people to show them how to go about the process of getting answers in their … Read more

Visiting Lloyd Kahn at Shelter Publications

by Kent Griswold

Monday, April 1, I had a wonderful day driving down to Bolinas, California to visit Lloyd Kahn at his home and work at Shelter Publications. I wanted to get a glimpse of his new book that he has in progress called Tiny Homes on the Move. On the way down … Read more

Coming Home – Letters from a Tiny House

by Kent Griswold

Hari Berzins who with her family of four has been living in a tiny house for some time and who has been writing their story over at the Tiny House Family blog. has just launched her first book. I had the privilege of reading it recently and wanted to let … Read more

You Can Buy Happiness and it’s Cheap

by Kent Griswold

I have been friends with Tammy Strobel for several years now and I did a post awhile back on when we first met in person. Tammy is the founder of the blog Rowdy Kittens and has been simplifying her and her husband Logan’s lifestyle over the last few years. She … Read more

The Ephemeral Architecture of Burning Man

by Christina Nellemann

All over the world, participants of Burning Man live the entire year in anticipation of the month of August. In about two weeks, the yearly event in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada (which is expected to host 60,000 people) will begin, and Black Rock City will burst out of … Read more

My Tiny House Book

by Kent Griswold

Dan Price recently sent me a copy of his new ebook titled My Tiny House. It is a fun little ebook and costs about the price of a cup of Starbucks coffee. Here is Dan’s description with a link where you can purchase the book. After 15 years of living … Read more

Tiny House Floor Plans Book Review

by Kent Griswold

Michael Janzen from Tiny House Design and I have been friends since he started blogging about tiny house design. Michael has a talent for designing and has helped a lot of people who are dreaming about building a tiny home someday. Michael has created free plans, affordable plans (several of which have been built), Google Sketchup videos, and now, his latest effort, a book of Tiny House Floor Plans with over 200 interior designs for tiny homes.

I have had the privilege of previewing both the paperback book and his electronic version. I am happy to say they are both high quality and worth the money he is requesting for them.

Michael’s book is for those of you still in the planning or dreaming stage of building a tiny house. Michael has put together over 200 plans ranging in size from 8 ft. wide to 12 ft. wide. Some finished homes could be put on a trailer and others built on a foundation. These are all floor plans that you could use, you just need to decide on how you want to build the structure to meet your tiny house needs.

One of the neat things Michael does with his floor plans is use standard size fixtures. A standard size toilet, sink, shower, couch, and bed are all included in these floor plans eliminating the need for custom fixtures for your tiny home.

Greening the Cube – 100 Mile Housing

by Kent Griswold

I recently had the opportunity to review a DVD called Greening the Cube – 100 Mile Housing and wanted to share my thoughts about this unique idea of building ones home from sources only available to you within 100 miles. This is a feature length documentary film that covers the … Read more

The New American Homestead

by Kent Griswold

With Spring fast approaching and already here in some parts of the country I thought I would share a new book that is very appropriate for this time of year. The New American Homestead written by John H. Tullock is all about living sustainably in either the city or the … Read more

Tiny Homes Simple Shelter

by Kent Griswold

I have a new favorite tiny house book and I have been anxious to share it with you. It is Lloyd Kahn’s Tiny Homes Simple Shelter Scaling Back in the 21st Century. Lloyd contacted me about two years ago and said that he wanted to do a book on tiny … Read more

Humble Homes, Simple Shacks Book Giveaway

by Kent Griswold

I’m excited to offer a book giveaway of Derek “Deek” Diedricksen new updated Humble Homes, Simple Shacks Book. It is a great book and I’ve enjoyed checking it out recently and am excited to be offering it to you here.

The details are below on how you can win your free copy. I will be giving three copies to Tiny House Blog readers and you might just be one. Derek the author of this fantastic book and I will be the judges.

I will email the winners to get your address and mail your copy to you after the selection is made. I will also post an update so everyone knows who won along with their tip. I’ll turn it over to Deek to tell you what is new with this book and how to enter for your chance to win.

Hey Kent,

Here are a few copies of the new edition of “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks“, as promised, to give away to your readers. The book is up on Amazon.com for only $11.25 right now. I suggest you determine the winners through bouts of ultimate fighting, which we can then film for youtube. No, not really, but I have an idea I’ll recommend in a minute….

The new edition is being put out through The Lyons Press (home to work from David and Jeanie Stiles, Shay Solomon, and so on), and has quite a few new aspects to it as compared to the old hand assembled versions out there. PS- if any of you own the green cover version of the old book (only about 30 were made), some wacko bought one off some online seller for almost $100 not that long ago- yeah, stupid, I know….

Anyway, the new, expanded version of the book has….

14 New full page cabin designs/small living sketches
A new 16 page color insert photo section showing some of the things I’ve designed and built, in addition to almost 40 cabins, shacks, and tiny houses that others have completed. A decent chunk of these are photos I’ve personally taken too- so there are a few things no one has seen, blog-wise, before.
A new chapter called “Tricks Of The Trade” where I interviewed the likes of Lloyd Kahn, Jay Shafer, Mimi Zeiger, Michael Tougias, Cathy Johnson, Alex Pino, Gregory Paul Johnson, Dee Williams, Colin Beavan, Duo Dickinson, Tammy Strobel, and Alex Johnson, for their own tips and ideas on designing with space efficiency, minimalization, and storage in mind.
Many other new sketches to accompany the text sections
An intro/foreword written by Author/Architects David and Jeanie Stiles (one of my favorites/influences)
Read more