I’m closing in on 17 years of publishing this blog and decided to step back in time and look at the history of the blog and see if it is still relevant in 2024.
The way I discovered tiny houses in 2007 was not by looking for them but by researching simple cabins and the different types of construction.
I grew up in Prescott, Arizona in the mountains and have memories of simple cabins like you still see in some National Parks. They are very basic with maybe a simple kitchen area and a small bathroom. Some still had outhouses.
My dream had always been to have a cabin in the mountains. A basic cabin for a place to get away or maybe eventually retire to. I had been bookmarking different websites with simple structures. Even looking at yurts, and other types of construction.
In my research I stumbled upon a simple website called Tumbleweed Tiny Houses.
Jay Shafer was the designer and builder and had posted pictures and plans and a tiny self published book he had created. I was enthralled and reached out to Jay.
Jay never responded and the website gave his address in Ohio.
I had been learning about a new thing on the internet at that time. It was called blogging and used a new software called WordPress. I found someone who had an online course and decided to purchase it and learn it. It was back in the day when you had to put all the pieces together. Create a database and connect the WordPress software to it.
Since I was enthralled with tiny houses and had all these bookmarked sites I purchased the domain TinyHouseBlog.com and decided I would share what I learned.
Not being much of a writer I thought I would just keep each blog post short and share pictures and links to the different types of ways to build cabins or tiny houses. You could decided what you wanted to call them.
By researching through the fairly new Google search engine I could only find a couple of references to tiny houses at the time. It turns out that I was the first one to start spreading the word about the “modern tiny house” which really was Jay Shafer’s creation.
My first post was about Montana Mobile Cabins.
My first love log cabins and these constructed small and simple. Montana Mobile Cabins was my first choice to share. They still are in business. Unlike many other tiny house companies that have come and gone over the years.
At this time Google came out with Adsense and I joined up and pasted code onto the site. This way the little bit of income generated by the banner ads helped pay for my hosting and my time.
I was surprised at the traffic I was getting as I tracked the traffic through Google’s analytics program.
I continued the first year or so to just publish about construction techniques but in the mean time I found out that Jay Shafer had relocated to Sebastopol, California and now lived around 20 miles from me. I reached out again and we finally met in person.
I was able to see his tiny house where he lived in an apple orchard and share with him what I was doing with the Tiny House Blog. We became friends and have kept in touch ever since. I have relocated as well to central Oregon.
The next stage I moved into for the blog was sharing stories of people actually living tiny.
I asked people to share their stories with me. Had them write the story and share pictures. I then would format and edit them and publish.
In the early days I was initially publishing 5 days a week. When the blog was really popular I moved to a 7 day a week cadence but soon started to burn out. I did that for around 2 years.
The next stage was hiring a writer and that is when Christina started writing for me. She has published my Monday post consistently for over 12 years. Recently she cut back to biweekly because of the health of her mother but still remains faithful. I really appreciate her.
I have also added in the last couple of years Alexis who with her partner Christian post videos on YouTube. She shares their videos with a writeup on Fridays.
So is the Tiny House Blog relevant in 2024?
Frankly I haven’t come to a final decision. Traffic is way down and I know people prefer short form video. Attention spans are way low.
Yes, I think there still is room for quality, educational content and I’m trying to move the blog in this direction.
Time will tell and I’ll revisit it every year.
I feel this. I love print media and blogs. It seems like the world’s attention isn’t for long form media. Whatever decision you decide, thank you for the years of quality content.
I loved this site, expecially seeing Tiny Home in a Landscape, because my imagination could go wild with those. If I was single, it’s how I would want to live. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen any of those. I rarely visit now because I spend most of the time slogging through ads. There were 10 on this page alone. 🙁
It’s funny, I just decided to check back in on this blog after being absent for a few years. So maybe it is still relevant. Have to agree with the above comment about the intrusive ads, though.
I don’t like the ads either but unless I can generate some income another way it is the only way to keep the blog running. Sorry!
Hello Kent, you published pictures and a story about my very first tiny house, “The Darling”, built with all recycled materials. I have since built 7 others, one in which I’m still living. I’m not sure how I ended up on another blog site with the others. I think the name was so close that I mistook it for you and kept sending things into that site for years. One day I realized you still have your site and have been browsing it since. Honestly, I prefer pictures to lengthy videos. Who has 20 minutes to watch a video? I can read so much faster, and with pictures, I can zoom in and really study details of a person’s tiny house design. I have noticed that the other blog has really slowed down, too, with viewers and comments. It’s sad, but I think it may be because instead of seeing unique tiny houses built by owners, we see large stick built mobile homes under the guise of tiny houses built by industries, and they’re all the same! I’d love to see some cool DYI truck campers, and boat houses, but please somebody get us back to the honest and true tiny houses that Jae Shafer built. He was the inspiration for my leap into tiny houses and still is my inspiration for everything I have ever built. It’s cool, Kent, that you two are friends. Anyway, I hope this blog stays and grows stronger. I appreciate you, Kent.