Tiny House Blog

Community ProjectINDES 145

By Cammy DavisSustainable Design

Why Tiny Homes?• I first became aware of tiny homes

when I was in 2nd grade and my parents ditched our middle class lifestyle, sold our house in San Luis Obispo, CA and bought an Airstream travel trailer and we “lived off the land” in Gig Harbor, WA.

• My dream was to have a “real house” like my friends. Then I became an adult and began chasing the American dream. Recently, the economy and reality intercepted my goals. Suddenly I have a newfound interest in going back in time, simplifying my living situation and having time to actually live life.

• A year ago I discovered the Tiny House Blog and subscribed to their newsletter. I also became a friend on Facebook and get daily postings on my page. They are my favorite source of tiny home information as they have a wealth of resources and a community of followers who give input and ideas. The following presentation is a compilation of thoughts and resources from the blog.

ABOUT the website:•It was developed by Kent Griswold in 2007•Motivation: his love of small spaces•Goal: to discover the different options available for a person looking to down size into a tiny house or cabin•Looking at different type of construction, book reviews, alternate energy for heat and electricity.•Encourages:

• feedback and ideas • Stories of people who are living this dream.• Pictures of tiny houses and cabins, etc.

•Published daily

tinyhouseblog.com

Benefits of Living in a Tiny Home

1. Tiny Homes Save Huge MoneyThe smaller the house, the lower the cost. 2. Freedom from DebtBig houses come with big mortgages. Smaller houses can result in no mortgage at all. 3. Freedom from StuffLiving in a tiny home forces you to declutter and only keep things that you use frequently 4. Freedom to Take your Home with youA large number of tiny homes are being built upon truck beds, making moving a cinch.

Have House, Will Travel.

Benefits of Living in a Tiny Home

5. More TimeHomes are very time consuming. But what if you could vacuum your floor in 1 minute and just be done with it? The size of your home is inversely proportional to the free time that you have. With little home to take care of, you have plenty of time to do the things you really want to do. And that’s liberating.6. Great Minds Think AlikeYou’ll also become a local celebrity of sorts and random interesting people from around the country will strike up conversation wherever you take your home. (This is also true of riding a Vespa in Issaquah.) 7. Better Quality HomeYou should, in theory, be able to upgrade the quality of the home around you because you’ve been able to cut down on the materials and cost of the home so significantly. Putting in that marble counter-top shouldn’t cost that much when it is only 5 square feet. Hardwood floors? You can install hardwoods in your whole house for the price that most people pay for one bedroom!

Tiny Home Interiors

Environmental Impact• The average American home consumes about 75% of

an acre of forest and produces about 7 tons of construction waste! And ... it emits 18 tons of greenhouse gases every year!

• One style of tiny home is made of 4,800 pounds of building materials each, and less than 100 pounds go to the landfill. Plus they produce less than 900 pounds of greenhouse gases during a typical Iowa winter!

The American Dream?• Today in America, 1 in 5

homeowners owe more money than what their home is worth! Many people are literally walking away from their homes because of this tragedy. But that's only part of the story!

• According to RealtyTrac, over 2.8 million homes were foreclosed in 2009.

• Just think, all those months of making the house note, paying steep utility bills, property taxes, and maintenance - up in smoke. Don't you deserve better than this?

• People were sold a bill of goods that they need more home than they can afford and now their finances, relationships and lives are in chaos.

• Being shackled with debt till the grave doesn't sound like the American dream to me.

“I don’t want this life.”• Michael Janzen at 40 has all the trappings of a

successful homeowner: in-ground pool, maid service, a yard landscaped with Japanese black pine bonsai trees. He owns an 1,800-square-foot home in Fair Oaks, Calif.

• So why has Mr. Janzen spent the summer building an 80-square-foot “tiny house” out of free stuff he found on Craigslist?

• There he is on nights and weekends, designing a floor plan whose dimensions are measured not in feet but inches, nailing scavenged wood pallets together for the frame, or fixing up an old trailer to serve as the foundation. The initial reaction from his wife, Julia: “Is this a Unabomber building?”

• According to Mr. Janzen, he came to the realization that “I don’t want this life — the life of someone who’s working too hard to pay a large mortgage to live in this house.” The catalyst, he said, was watching the value of his home plummet with the rest of the real estate market, while the time and money required to maintain the property only increased. “The energy cost is enormous,” he said, “and the bigger your property gets, the more there is to do.”

Simple Living

• “Half of knowing what it is to live simply is knowing how to live happily.“ From YouTube, Thoreau’s cabin redux: tiny homes and happiness video

cammystinyhome.blogspot.com

As I search for simplifying my own life, the idea of living in a small home without a huge mortgage appeals to me. However, the logistics of where to build, how to build, where to someday park it, utilities, etc seem overwhelming. The reaction from family and friends has been a bit daunting as well. I decided to start with baby steps (as I have done with so many things in my life). For my first step, I started a blog about my path towards simple living, a way to explore how a single mom can live the tiny home lifestyle. You can follow me at: cammystinyhome.blogspot.com

Tiny House DirectoryThe Tiny House Blog was developed as a tool discover the different options available for a person looking to

downsize to a tiny home. There are links to related websites, a directory of companies and also a community forum for people to interact.

The Tiny House Blog has a website directory by category and state. These are just the companies located in Washington state:

•Modern Shed - WA•Rainier Yurts – WA•Old Western Wagons – WA•Little Green Buildings – WA•Shed Boy – WA•Penny Pincher Barn Company – WA•Rough Cut Sheds – WA•Green Pod Development – WA•Gypsy Wagon Workshop – WA•Floating Pods – WA

Other Interesting Websites• http://weehouse.com/pdfs/

weeGreen.pdf•

• http://www.blueskymod.com/info.html

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• http://www.cusatocottages.com/selectaplan.php#

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• http://www.livingoffgrid.org/the-pros-and-cons-of-tiny-homes/