living

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.”

Yurt Lady: Living in the Round

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Happy Independence Day! With summer fully upon most of the country, let’s celebrate one of the best tiny houses for enjoying the outdoors. We’ve covered numerous yurts in the past, but Becky Kemery a.k.a.”The Yurt Lady” and her book, Yurts: Living in the Round, shows how these structures can be comfortable and elegant while still letting in the outdoors.

Becky has lived in yurts for many years in the mountains of the American Northwest. Her book was completed a few years ago while living in her own portable fabric yurt on a permaculture homestead in Idaho. She has also created an educational website called Yurt Info, a newsletter and a Facebook page for other yurt owners and fans of the wood and fabric buildings. The Yurt Info site offers information on how to buy or build a yurt, and includes a forum and links to numerous yurt videos and photo albums.

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Bumfuzzle Plus Two

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Pat and Ali Schulte have been profiled on the Tiny House Blog before when they lived the nomadic life on their 35-foot catamaran and in their 1958 Volkswagen panel van. Now they are in the process of fixing up a 43-foot Spindrift sailboat and living on it with their two children: 16-month-old Ouest and another one who is on the way.

Their comprehensive and beautiful website profiles their living and working on the boat with a child in tow. They purchased the Spindrift in the San Francisco Bay area, and are living there until they can get the boat ready to sail down to Mexico. They purchased the boat for around $40,000 with money they saved up while working, and are doing much of the boat repairs themselves. For additional income Pat also does some day trading and they have written a book on their around the world sailing adventure.

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Needed: Small House Stories and Photos

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I want to start a feature of stories and photos of people living in what I call “small houses.” What I need from you, readers, are your stories and stories of friends or family living in homes or apartments or other structures that range from 250-1000 square feet. (more or … Read more

Trillium RV 1500

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Last year I wrote about the re-emergence of the Trillium 1300 travel trailer. The brand has recently expanded with the introduction of the Trillium 1500. This trailer is different than the 1300 in that it has two extra feet added to the middle, larger counter space and a larger dinette which converts into a bed. Four floorplans are available for both the 1300 and the 1500 including a corner restroom and a restroom/shower floorplan.

The Trillium is unique to the fiberglass trailer market in that the company bonds all fiberglass components, uses no wood in the structure, uses closed cell foam ceiling and wall insulation, provides upscale, contemporary interiors and builds each unit to the owner’s specifications. The stylish interior of these trailers is what attracted my attention.

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Cheap RV Living

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Tramp, gypsy, vagabond, nomad. Do you want any of these words to describe you? Robert Wells has lived most of his life as a gypsy, vagabond and nomad in various forms of vans and RVs, and documents the tips and tricks he has learned over the years on his website … Read more

Mike Jordan’s Tiny House

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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”.

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Trawlers

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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.

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The Tiny Houses of HabeRae

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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.

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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.

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FirstDay Cottage

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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

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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

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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