living

Mike Jordan’s Tiny House

by

Mike Jordan had fallen in love with the idea of a tiny mobile house about five years ago. After a divorce, and becoming the primary caregiver of his young son, he realized that his chance had come to simplify and streamline his life. Mike originally looked at small RVs, vans and Airstreams, but decided to go with a small mobile house built by the Oregon Cottage Company.

Mike, who rides a bicycle instead of owning a car, appreciated the green aspects of the tiny mobile home but was a bit concerned about having to pick it up from Oregon and bring it back to his home in Connecticut. So, he looked at it as an adventure, bought a van sight unseen in Washington and towed the house across the country with his son.

“We had a hell of a good time,” Mike said. “It was the best time of my life”.

Read more

Trawlers

by

With summer on the way, the tiny house dream of some people might take the form of a boat. Instead of a sailboat or other sleek sailing craft, a trawler has all the amenities in a tough little package – with a loyal following.

A trawler or pilot house is a usually a boat used for fishing or for the military and the police, but pleasure versions of the them are built as well that have comfortable areas for living and cooking. These boats are called cruising trawlers or trawler yachts and they come in many styles and sizes. Since they don’t have a sail, they rely on fuel and have cruising speeds of around 14-20 knots.

Typical designs of trawlers include a raised pilothouse or offset deckhouse and a “portuguese bridge” which consists of a walkway behind the foredeck, in front and to the sides of, the pilothouse windows, separated from the foredeck by a (generally) waist-high bulwark. The purpose of the bridge is to deflect water from the foredeck up over the superstructure top rather than slamming against the forward windows of the pilothouse. It gives a semi-sheltered area outside the pilothouse while underway. A secondary benefit is that it provides a “safe area” or handhold when it is necessary to be on the foredeck in inclement weather.

Read more

The Tiny Houses of HabeRae

by

Like many other cities, my hometown of Reno, Nev. has seen more and more people leave the suburbs to make their home in a more condensed urban environment to save on housing and gas costs. Several buildings in the downtown Reno corridor have been redeveloped to include housing for city living. Kelly Rae and Pam Haberman of HabeRae Investments Inc. are creating tiny, beautiful urban infill houses while keeping the history of many of these buildings alive.

2 More on Watt Farmhouse

Kelly and Pam have been redeveloping properties since 1998 and are most well known for their 8 on Center project, but their most recent projects are getting some attention for their tiny size, aesthetics and green design. They have won local awards for historic preservation, environmental design and community improvement.

Read more

FirstDay Cottage

by

The FirstDay Cottage company in New Hampshire offers a house kit which they claim a couple, and a handful of friends, can build in approximately fifteen weekends and for under $45,000. These house kits can be customized for each customer and can be built with almost no carpentry experience. What … Read more

A Year in a Car

by

The reasons for living in your car run the gamut. In college, I knew a few students who lived in their cars so they could afford to go to school, and this article talks about how hard times have forced some people to live in their cars. Jessica Spaulding is … Read more

Lives in a Van

by

The sad news these days seems to be centered on people losing their homes and maybe having to live in their car, truck or RV. Dave Thorsrud has been living out of his van for over a year, but he is doing it in an effort to live a simpler … Read more