house

The Signal Shed

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This off-the-grid cabin in Northeast Oregon, named the Signal Shed, was recently featured in Sunset Magazine, and the couple who spent two years planning and two weeks building the cabin are now offering the plans and prefab models for sale.

Mariah and Ryan Lingard fell in love with the woods and lakes of Joseph, Oregon and purchased some partially burned, partially logged land after seeing an ad in the local paper. The 100×150 foot parcel of land cost them $47,000 and is located smack dab in the middle of hiking, skiing and snowshoe territory. The couple has a full-time home in Portland, but they make the 6-hour trip to the Signal Shed about four times a year.

After two years of planning and extended weekend camping trips to their land, the couple built the 130 square foot cabin over a two week period with friends and family. The materials cost about $10,000 and the cabin features several recycled windows, IKEA cabinets and laminate flooring. They found the barn door hardware and the woodstove on Craigslist. The cabin rests on a floating pier to minimize impact on the land and cedar screens used to lock it up when Mariah and Ryan are not around. The Signal Shed has no running water, no electricity and the couple uses the woodstove for heat and some cooking.

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Dee Williams on Peak Moment

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Tiny House heroine, Dee Williams, was recently interviewed by Peak Moment, the online program that features people who choose to live simply during these challenging times. In the video, Dee discusses how she built her famous tiny house, the catalyst that made her want to downsize, her challenges and regrets when building and trying to locate the house, and how her tiny life has actually expanded and strengthened her sense of community.

Marcia’s Soo Line Caboose

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Marcia Weber lives full-time in a Soo Line train caboose that was built in 1909. She purchased the caboose with her husband at the Tunerville Station in Whippany, New Jersey in 1975 from an ad in the Wall Street Journal that simply said “wooden cabooses for sale.”

Big Sur Cabin Rentals

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If you want to get a taste of a tiny house on a big coastline, visit the tiny cabins owned by Richard Wagnoe who has 54 acres on a stretch of Hwy. 1. The carpenter, stone mason and horticulturalist rents out several tiny cabins and a few Airstreams to visitors traveling along this beautiful area of California.

Fab Lab House

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A house designed to act like a tree has recently won the Solar Decathlon Europe people’s choice award. The Fab Lab House, created by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) was visited by over 20,000 people during the event in Madrid, Spain. The Fab Lab House uses the sun, water and wind to create a micro climate that passively optimizes the basic conditions of habitability within the home.

The house was designed to act like a tree that captures energy with its solar “leaves” and sends it down to its roots, where is stored, shared, or returned to the house to produce the fruit of electricity. The house contains a “domestic metabolism” that provides a detailed real-time monitoring of its behavior and its interaction with the environment, creating historical profiles and sharing them socially.

The design of the Fab Lab house has been compared to both a boat and a peanut and has been called a “cinnamon submarine,” “forest zeppelin” and a “whale belly”. The house has also introduced significant technological innovations such as the world’s most efficient flexible solar panels, made with both Spanish and American technology. The project involved architects and experts from 20 countries as well as experts from MIT.

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Jacksonville Tiny House

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Marc and Trudi Boese and their bright yellow 115 square foot house were recently featured in a video and an article in the Florida Times-Union. Their decision to live more lightly on the land was influenced by a trip they took around the U.S. in 2009 in a biodiesel car and a handmade trailer. They are also living smaller for their new baby daughter, who is due in August.

The couple built the house on wheels on an acre of land in Florida that also houses several chickens and their vegetable and fruit garden. The house contains a small kitchen with a sink, microwave and fold down table, a bathroom with a shower and toilet, a small TV room with a couch, and a sleeping loft. The baby’s crib will be placed in the kitchen next to the dining table. They also have a workshop for tools and a prefabricated shed for some boxes of clothes and books. The TV, refrigerator, water pumps, air-conditioner and LED lights are powered by solar panels.

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