Guest Post by TR Kelley
We bought this 5 acre piece of land on Oregon’s Siuslaw River in 1998. In addition to the ramshackle house and barn, there were six creosoted pilings driven into the riverbank in front of the house defining a 6×10 rectangle under some huge old firs.
The urge to build some sort of platform for river viewing, birdwatching and outdoor summer sleeping was irresistible. We started with a dozen different 6×4 beams salvaged from a demolished plywood mill to frame the floor out to approx 11×11, with an additional 4x4x5 triangle nook sticking out over the river. An abandoned 100-year-old house upriver yielded the 2×6 T&G subflooring.
The next year, we built the framework of the cabin over the top with recycled lumber. 3″ peeled poles were recycled from a tipi project to make the rafters, and a neighbor’s remodel gave us the door and vintage bead-board for the ceiling.
All of the windows were bought from BRING Recycling in Eugene, Oregon for an average of $5 apiece. The high side of the building faces due south for passive solar gain in the winter, but the eave overhang keeps the sun out in the summer. The small vintage wood stove we already had, pipe and capper were salvaged. Insulation in the walls is a mixture of old polyester shag carpeting and clothes regular fiberglass batts and Reflectix radiant barrier mylar/bubble-wrap scrap insulation given away by a local yurt manufacturer. Foam board is under the floor.
All of the insulation was acquired from other demolished projects. The heavy-duty vinyl wraps on the outer walls are discarded department-store banners and outdoor billboards, creatively cut. The roof is a well-secured tarp. Lighting is by Aladdin and battery powered lamps. There is no electricity, but there is a strong wireless signal from the community’s main house 100 feet uphill across the gravel county road that bisects the property. Water is carried in, a chamber pot serves as sanitation.
Currently this tiny house functions as a bedroom and private area for one of our community members here at LeisureLand. He added the 4×10 deck and nicer stairs in 2008. It has been occupied and enjoyed by many different people over the last decade, and we hope to re-purpose it as a guest cabin this spring.”
TR Kelley, resident of
LeisureLand – http://directory.ic.org/20434/LeisureLand_Community