Rocky Mountain Tiny Houses
by Greg Parham
Tiny or small houses in America are nothing new. Even before European settlers arrived, small and/or portable architecture could be found among the hundreds of Native American tribes scattered across the continent. Most everyone is familiar with tipis (teepees), but Native Americans also lived in humble structures such as wigwams, longhouses, waddle and daub, chickees, grass houses, and small adobe structures, to name a few. Pioneer settlers usually adopted the tried and true log home with chinking. Apartments in crowded cities during the industrial revolution were often Historic Stanley houses and very small. Tiny Houses in olden days were much more a factor of necessity rather than of choice.
Since making the switch to a Tiny House, I have no debt. I have hardly any bills. I have very little house to clean and maintain. I don’t own any furniture, and own very little housewares. I have to write one check a month, to rent the land that I park my Tiny House on, and if I really wanted to I could get creative and find a land sitting situation to live on some land for nearly free. If I don’t like where I’m out, I can hitch up and move on along.
It is with great pride that I announce the completion of the first model for sale, the long awaited Boulder. I began formulating the concept for this tiny house over the summer, particularly during my trip across the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming rockies. The desire to build a house with a more modern flair was in my head long before that trip, it just began to manifest itself more completely during that time. So many tiny houses stick with a tried and true gable design with cedar siding, similar interior layouts, tongue and groove pine walls, etc. They’re very “formulaic” if you will. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this, after all, my personal tiny house more or less fits this bill, but, I feel like a lot more can be done in the realm of tiny house design/construction, and the Boulder was a good opportunity to explore new possibilities.
The other HUGE design goal of this house was to see if I could build a quality, desirable tiny house for around $25,000. There a lot of tiny houses on the market in the $45k-60k range. I understand why, but at the same time I have a deep desire to make Tiny Houses more affordable. All those comments you see about RV’s being so much cheaper just drive me crazy. It’s not my goal to compete with RV’s, after all, I am providing a MUCH higher quality product, but, the whole goal of a tiny house is to own it outright, not have a mortgage, and live simply. For a lot of folks, $50k is just not feasible. $25-30k, well, most cars cost more than that these days so something in this price range is much more likely to get someone who is on the fence about going tiny to jump in!
I have triple checked my numbers and paperwork, I have cut no corners, left no stone unturned, and it is with abundant joy that I am offering this hand made custom designed Rocky Mountain Tiny House at $27,350. It’s a tad bit over what I was aiming for, but, this being the first build of this model, I had some kinks to work out. I also wanted it to be just a little nicer than had I stuck to a strict $25k budget.
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