Construction Articles

Straatlokaal Dumpster Structures

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Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zwieten of FOUNDation Projects in Utrecht, Holland  have been making recent news for their ability to turn the ordinary dumpster into a unique space – with items actually recovered from dumpsters. Their current designs are being used as meeting spaces and bars, but with a … Read more

SkyLift Bracket for Outdoor Living Space

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skylift side view

Homes with a small footprint often need to take advantage of outdoor living areas. Recently, a means to attach an attractive and functional porch or patio cover was invented and is now widely available. This product, the SkyLift Roof Riser Bracket, is a simple piece of hardware that can support … Read more

Tiny House Powermover

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Dee and Powermover

Holly recently contacted me and had a question about moving a tiny mobile house once you had it near it’s final location. She had seen an article somewhere and was looking for it. I knew right off she was talking about the Powermover that Dee Williams and Logan Smith have … Read more

Tiny House Fair

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The Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont will be hosting the first ever Tiny House Fair June 14-16, 2013. The fair will include presentations on tiny houses from Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed and Four Lights Tiny House Company and Deek Diedrickson of Relaxshacks as well as workshops on how to design … Read more

Designboom’s Container Office

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Designboom is a publication and blog that focuses on design, architecture, art, photography and graphics. Their main offices are located in Milan, Italy, but for the hot summer months, the crew of Designboom recently moved their offices into a series of cargo containers on the island of Sardinia. Their DIY … Read more

A Shed with Shade

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The latest issue of The Family Handyman has a beautiful house on the front cover that happens to be step-by-step plans on how to build an Arts & Crafts style shed with a front porch. I think with a little tweaking, and the installation of electrical and plumbing, it could … Read more

Celina’s Tiny Abode

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Sixteen-year-old Celina Dill (“Celina Dill Pickle” on her blog) of Whidbey Island is not only building her own tiny house from her own plans, but she’s cutting her teeth on architecture and building with Ross Chapin. Celina is an intern for the Pacific Northwest architect who is famous for his small homes and “pocket neighborhoods“.

Celina decided she wanted to build her own tiny house after living in 15 homes with her parents. Since she is close to moving out on her own, she figured a tiny house on wheels would be the perfect solution to having a place of her own at a cost and size that she could handle.

“I think tiny houses are in the future,” Celina said. “Living with less.”

She designed her 10 foot by 18 foot house with Google Sketchup after reading a book recommended by Chapin: “A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander.

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Cozy Home Plans

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Kevin Harrington, a licensed realtor and home remodel expert in Colorado has created a nice selection of tiny and small home plans called Cozy Home Plans. The homes range from 288 square feet to 781 square feet and his plans cost between $99 to just under $700. Kevin also runs a blog where he posts articles on home construction and DIY tips. He has posted about how to mix concrete, installing electricity, useful household tools and tiny house Feng Shui.

A few years ago, Kevin downsized from a 2,700 square foot home, got rid of about 90 percent of his possessions and moved into a 280 square foot 5th wheel trailer. He was in the process of researching alternative building techniques and stumbled onto the tiny house movement. He decided to start a website and blog to showcase his small home plan ideas.

“This tiny lifestyle I was living gave me back serenity,” Kevin said. “This was something that had been sorely missing in my life for a very long time. I just wanted to share my experiences.”

His goal with Cozy Home Plans was to add a few more feet onto tiny homes to make them more livable.

“Can a person live in 100 square feet? Absolutely, but can they share it with guests or a partner full-time? How about a larger kitchen, washer/dryer capabilities and storage for extra stuff in such a small space? Answering “Yes” to these questions became more difficult in such a tiny space,” Kevin said. “My solution was to add a few more feet to each house.”

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Mad Woman in the Forest

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Take a look at that window. That glorious window was the catalyst for the design of Laurie Halse Anderson’s cottage in the forest. Laurie is the author of several young adult books and historical thrillers and she writes in a small cottage in the forest. She expressed her need for a “room of her own in which to write fiction”, and her video from 2009 recounts the conception and building of her writing cottage. It was built over the course of a year by her carpenter husband and several of his friends. Laurie and her family wanted it to be off-grid, made with reclaimed materials and easy on the environment.

That amazing window (which Laurie called “a magic window”) was found lying up against a barn and turned out to be a church window from the 1800s. Custom glass was made for each round section of the window. She and her husband also perused the salvage yard and found old growth pine boards to use for the floor and chimney pots for the roof. Soybean based foam insulation was sprayed into the walls and the roof is Vermont slate. The house is powered by wind and solar.

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Built by Friends: Evan and Gabby’s Tiny House

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Like an Amish barn raising, Evan and Gabby’s tiny Tarleton house is going up piece by piece with the help of friends and family. The Illinois couple were inspired by the Tumbleweed houses and decided to downsize their already sustainable lifestyle even more. With no prior construction experience, they have been working on their tiny home for just over a year and plan to move in (along with their two cats) soon.

The couple also plan to move around the country, staying in campgrounds that offer year-round rates. They then want to purchase some land where tiny house living is more acceptable.

Their 117 square foot Tarleton, built on a car hauler trailer, will have a great room, a sleeping loft above the bathroom and kitchen, another storage loft above the door and a bathroom with a custom shower and composting toilet that vents to the outdoors. The kitchen has four feet of stainless steel countertop, a two-burner stove, a bar sink, a toaster oven, a small fridge and – rare for a tiny house – a combination washer and dryer that they got from a family member for free.

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A Very Modest Cottage

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Fans of Country Living may already have seen this tiny refurbished cottage with an interesting past. The cottage was recently moved hundreds of miles from Central Illinois to a camp in Wisconsin and refurbished by Tereasa Surrat. In its past lives, the cottage was used as a roadside cabin, a “den of iniquity” and a temporary office space for a trucking company after World War II.

Tereasa, her husband David Hernandez, and her brother moved the cottage from where it stood next to her grandmother’s house. Tereasa then proceeded to restore the cottage to complement the other buildings at a resort that she and her husband are also renovating. The cottage now rests on the edge of the woods next to Wandawega Lake. It’s decorated with flea market furniture, thrift store finds and $15 curtains.

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