5 Tiny Houses that Bring in the Sun

Alternative Living Spaces tiny house and pool

In celebration of today’s 2024 Total Solar Eclipse in the U.S., how about we look at a few tiny homes that bring in the sun all year long? While the eclipse will last less than five minutes, these tiny homes rejoice all day when the sun shines. They are either … Read more

Build Locally with Roundwood Timber Framing

local timber frame

Dimensional lumber — 2x4s, 2x6s, etc., are about as ubiquitous as suburban sprawl is in America. (Maybe there’s some kind of relationship there..?) 2x4s are an industrial product, only becoming a dominant building material in the last century. As priorities have shifted to speed, uniformity, and ease of production, more … Read more

Wooden Wonders

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

From The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again by by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

For the lovers of that hole in the ground, take a look at these little, wooden houses with the quintessential round door made very familiar by the Lord of the Rings books and movies. Wooden Wonders, in Unity, Maine, custom designs and builds these little wooden structures that can be used as playhouses, saunas, writing nooks, guest cottages, yoga or meditation rooms or maybe even a tiny house.

The structures can be integrated into your own landscaping and flower boxes can be added onto the back. The structures can be customized with different colors, additional materials, windows, dormers, interior shelving and other decorative features. Wooden Wonders also features a “heavy duty” package with double doors that allows for storing a lawn tracker or an ATV.

Read more

Yurt Lady: Living in the Round

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.

Read more

Modern Sheepwagon

This beautiful custom sheep wagon by Wizard Wagonworks is based on the original “sheep camp” of the 1880’s with a modern twist. It is designed for both highway and off-road use as well as for durability, comfort and ease of maintenance. Kenny Harris of Wizard wagonworks is in the cabinetry business and built two of these sheep wagons according to a customer’s specifications. One is now being sold for $60,000, but Kenny can build any custom sheep wagon for less than the current price.

The exterior of the wagon contains laminated oak struts, a T&G planked floor and metal roofing. The wagon is insulated and the exterior wood is finished with teak oil. The interior has oak bead board paneling and the benches, tables, cabinet doors and drawer fronts are solid oak. The wagon can by towed by a truck or other large vehicle and handles well on the highway with speeds up to 70 MPH.

Read more

Pacific Domes

A friend of mine recently purchased a 20-foot Pacific Dome to be used as a meditation and yoga space for her and her husband’s spiritual group. I was surprised at how light and airy it looked, yet it’s sturdy enough to withstand our winter winds. I thought it might make a great tiny house.

Their Pacific Dome is attached to a temporary insulated foundation and the entire structure took about four days to erect. Currently the dome does not have insulation, but they plan to order a special cover to be used in the winter. A solar fan is attached to the outside to provide air circulation during the summer. So far the structure has been very sturdy…even in our area’s notorious winds and heavy snows. Unfortunately, a few neighbors reported the dome to the local building department and the department now wants a set of structural calculations about the dome which will be supplied by the engineer at Pacific Domes.

Read more

Findhorn Whiskey Barrel House

The Findhorn Foundation near Forres in Scotland is a spiritual community, organic farm international center for holistic education. It is known around the globe for its sustainable living, ultra small carbon footprint and its legendary vegetable gardens. It is also known for its eco-village and within that village, several round houses made out of recycled whiskey barrels.

The cluster of whiskey barrel dwellings overlook organic vegetable gardens, dancing wind turbines and the sandy dunes of the North Sea’s Moray Firth. More than 40 houses of ecological design can be found at the Findhorn eco-village including a guest lodge and youth building with turf roofs, straw bale houses and earthships using recycled car tires. Near the entrance to the village is an old tin caravan bearing the Gaelic name Tír Tairngire (in English, “the promised land”).

Read more