There is no denying that there is a grassroots movement in tiny home that is spreading faster than crabgrass in the southern sun! Thanks in part to the real estate collapse, the continued economic downturn, layoffs of sizable proportions, and just overall changes in attitude, people are beginning to seriously seek out an alternative to risky mortgages, high rents, and oversized homes. Enter Lloyd Kahns book TINY HOMES: Simple Shelter.
Over a year since publication, TINY HOMES continues to be Shelter Publications top-selling book. That comes as no surprise though as the book contains some 150 builders who have taken things into their own hands, and created tiny homes (under 500 sq. ft.). Some of those included are Deek Diedreksen, Tammy Strobel and Logan Smith, and Ann Holley; all friends of the r(E)volution. The other tiny homes include homes on land, homes on wheels, home on the road, homes on water, even homes in the trees. There are also a number of studios, saunas, garden sheds, and greenhouses.
With over 1,300 color photos, the book tells wonderful stories, shares thoughts and inspirations, and otherwise introduces us to some of the most interesting owner-builders on the front lines of the downsizing trend!
And the author? Well, Lloyd Kahn is an advocate, author, visionary, and all around good guy who in 1968 worked as Shelter editor on the Whole Earth Catalog. In 1973, he published the oversized book Shelter, which went on to sell over 250,000 copies! In 2004, Kahn published HomeWork: Handbuilt Shelter and then Builders of the Pacific Coast in 2008. Kahn and his wife live and work in a small coastal town in Northern California.
And so now to celebrate a year on the bookshelves as well as to share our Valentine Love with all of you, we are giving away a FREE copy of TINY HOMES!
HOW TO WIN
Tell us about your favorite tiny home. In less than 300 words leave a bit in the comment section of this post about your favorite tiny home. Perhaps it is one you saw online or in a magazine. What struck you about it? Why do you like it so much? Does it inspire you? Maybe it repulses you. Whatever the case, tell us. In fact, if you found it online, share a link with us!
An example:
In early 2001 I came across Evan and Gabby’s tiny house. I had just recently begun dreaming about a tiny house for my own wife and I. But something about the daily stories told – the adventures had – by Evan and Gabby as they built their tiny home just really captured me. It wasn’t so much the photos as it was the explanation, the reasoning, and the peace they had each step of the way. I think they are what made me realize I wouldn’t be happy in anything but a tiny house trailer. You can see their site here: http://evanandgabbystinyhouse.wordpress.com/
A winners will be announced on Monday, February 18 so comment away!
NOTE: Thumbnail image courtesy of HandyHappy on etsy
Gosh, it’s so hard to choose just one! I’ve always liked Austin Hay’s House. Just the fact that he started building around the time he started high school is pretty impressive to me, not to mention his attitude about it. What if a generation realized that they could do anything? What if a generation realized that debt is stupid? That generation would change the world. Plus his house is really well laid-out for his needs, and the half loft leaves the tall vaulted ceiling in the other half looking so nice and open. 🙂
Darn, I am so stinkin’ biased, but I think it is more the fact of who I share my own house with that makes my home my favorite. 28 years with my awesome husband, and waking up every day to find an amazing son …..the furry calico cat who demands canned cat food. Yep, mine is my favorite 🙂
I love them all!!! My faves –though– are the ones where they say “Look! I found this door in the dirt in a back alley and refinished it and viola I have a beautifully artistic free door!” I’m a sucker for that. LOL
I’m also enthralled by nomadic homes.If my husband would live in a yurt (and our city would allow it) I’d put one up on our back acre. Here is a great video by FairCompanies about how easy it is. http://youtu.be/uW-FRx1Pq2I
And, my favorite converted bus can be found here.http://youtu.be/ux8tjZnEfR0
I’m living on Youtube right now for inspiration as we renovate and downsize one big house into two mortgage-free tiny homes.
Have a blessed day!!!!! Thanks for all you do to spread the word about Tiny House living. Be blessed!
~Chelle
My favorite Tiny House has to the Tarleton built by Will Pederson out in BC that ended up just down the road from me in McKees Mills, New Brunswick.
It’s my favorite because it was the first Tiny House I ever set foot in. Long before I met Will and Alyson I became interested in Tiny Houses but never saw any around and strangely enough I knew Will and Alyson through my membership to CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Project before I even came accross Wills build log. Between joining the CSA, paying my membership fee and the start of the harvest season I had not only found a Tiny House in my area but discovered that it was parked on Will and Alyson’s organic farm and is used every year by their volunteer.
It’s a great little house and Will did an awesome job and the fact that it travelled from the West coast of Canada to the East cost just makes it even more impressive. You can check out the build journal here http://tinyhousejournal.com/wills-tarleton/ and read about the move from coast to coast here http://newbrunswickbound.wordpress.com/2009/10/page/2/
Happy Valentines Day everyone, hope you’re all being surprised by that special person in your life, and if you’re not, go surprise them instead and enjoy your day.
I am seriously enthralled with the tiny house movement! I cannot wait to become part of it (someday). I am also a hippie at heart and have a thing for old airstream trailers from the 60s. I know they’re not the traditional-looking house per se, but my dream is to renovate and live in a small one (under 20ft). I am all for recycling as much as possible. I constantly ogle over the one here by architect Matthew Hofman.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/matthews-refurbished-retro-air-140718
Best wishes to those who have found their way into a big life in a tiny house. One day I will join you all! 🙂
~M
Currently my Tiny Home is a camper I built because I was loosing my home to foreclosure. Turned out to be a good thing as about the time it was just barely done enough for use, the cleaning products my neighbors were using started causing brain damage for me. I’ve been in my 28 sq. ft. home for 3 years, looking for property so I can build a real Tiny Home, probably a TumbleWeed “Harbinger” as I need the space for my piano.
I really love building all kinds of things. My camper is the closest to residential that I have ever built. I had just become a Union Commercial Carpenter before the chemicals caused permanant disability for me. I had to give up my dream job.
I have been trying to make people aware of the need to change laws so Tiny Homes are allowed.
Here is a link to my camper construction album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200312686364846.199313.1384695731&type=3
I’m biased, but I love The Fortune Cookie built by Abel Zimmerman: http://dreadnaughtdarling.com/the-fortune-cookie/
I’m biased because I live in it. I adore my house. I adore everything about it. The little and big details, the warmth of the space. The craftmanship. I am constantly in awe and say, ‘I live here’ while giving my house a mental hug.
Outside of my little house, I have a thing for old school housetrucks, vardos and cob houses. I own that tiny house book (so don’t include me in the contest) and love it! Seriously, if you don’t win the contest buy the book it’s worth it.
I am sitting in my favourite tiny house right now. The curved walls of mud and straw wrap me safely. We built the scrap glass into a round window, I salvaged granite for shelves right in the walls. My loves chair is empty because he is in hospital, but I am not alone because this tiny space is our shared dream.
I am in love with little and tiny houses of all kinds, and for myself am looking at one of two varieties ~ a small home on permanent acreage which would be the Bodega from Tumbleweed built of cobwood (cordwood with cob masonry) construction or a tiny home on wheels so I can travel over this grand country. The traveler would have to be the Popomo, also from Tumbleweed, as I can not have a loft sleeper. I adore the looks of both homes! I look forward to being able to have my own home, but for now will continue caring for my father in his. Until the day I can do my own, I will dream….. and look…. and study & learn…… and drool over the beauties I find online and in books. I will so enjoy reading this book (whether I win one or buy it!) Have a great day…… Live large!!
My better half and I are building a little home in Belize. It is just 340 sq ft, with a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen/dining area. We are doing the work mostly ourselves, and on a “pay as you go” plan. We save during the year, and whatever we have saved up goes with us in January to Belize. No borrowed money, so we are going slow, and work only happens during the time we are there January and February. This is the third year of construction, we hope to finish with a roof next year. We have dug a well, and will use rainwater collected off the roof. No town power is available, so we will be off the grid with solar. At home, in North Carolina, we live in a home that is small by US standards, less than 1100 sq ft, and have spent lots of time on the road in an RV, so tiny living appeals to us. We hope to spend lots of our retirement years in our little place in Belize!
The Fortune Cookie and the Tack House will always have a place in my heart, but my current favorite is the McG Loft from Humble Homes (http://humble-homes.com/plans/the-mcg-loft/). He has many great designs and I really appreciate his commitment to finding accesible layouts for folks who might be challenged by a ladder.
For a long time now I have lived in tiny rooms within big homes, lots of closets converted into livable spaces. There is something about the coziness of such a space. It seemed only natural to convert the space within my car into a living space that allowed me to wonder as I constantly find myself doing and to bring my home with me. Like a turttle who carries her home wherever she goes, I feel privileged to have the same comfort within the city I live in and along the road to wherever I feel pulled.
It is through alternative libraries in Dublin – Ireland, where I came across the book Shelter, which has become my favourite book since then.
This was a fantastic way to expand my imagination on how to build my own affordable house with very simple design and techniques.
In the meantime the recession has hit hard here in Ireland, money and work becoming scarce, it makes now more sense than ever to go on that road.
I haven’t come across any newly built tiny home here yet, but I’d say that the best example for me would be the old caravans build after the famine in the mid 19th century, now reconstructed to be rented out for tourists, mainly in the west of Ireland.
Here’s an example among others: http://www.irishhorsedrawncaravans.com
This symbolises another way of life in the face of scarcity and necessity, a pretty simple solution which gave some of the Irish the possibility to survive this disaster. To sum it all up in one word: Resilience.
It is about time for me to go for it, join the movement and show in this small corner of Europe that it is possible and easy to realise.
I love ALL of them, for different reasons! Christopher and Merete’s (http://tiny-themovie.com/) because of what it means to them and how it’s conception will impact others. Drew and Crystals (here) because it’s for a family and of course the kitchen, SO jealous! Ethans (http://www.thetinyhouse.net/) for what has gone into it and how beautiful it’s turning out. Jonathans (http://gungy.livejournal.com/) for how well documented it is, saved me TONs of mistakes. IDK if I could pick and ‘exact’ favorite. Mine (minimotives.com) is on my knotty list right now for not being done 🙂
Tiny Houses are the perfect little sustainability package for the future. Conducive to off-grid living my favorite Tiny House is a draft in my mind. I ask myself how much self-sufficiency can I pack into this small space. I dream of a water catchment system from a standing seam metal roof flowing to a closed pillow storage beneath the trailer frame. The roof also houses a row of solar panels energizing an ample battery bank. Maybe even ridge row wind turbines. Awning windows for cross ventilation, composting toilet for the garden and rigid foam thermal insulation to make it air tight and moisture resistant all make my off-grid sustainable dreams come to life.
Since it’s already Monday this is probably too late, but my favourite tiny house is the one I’m going to build once I get the last of the money saved this year or next. It will be tailored to my needs, with comfort to spare. It will be a safe, warm space where I can live well, play nicely with others and follow my puttering inclinations to my heart’s content. It will be a living space and work of art combined, though likely to be more defined by my clumsy skills than my artistic ideals. It will be a distillation of every tiny house story on every blog I’ve avidly devoured for the last few years, fairy tale illustrations from my childhood, crazy campfire imagination sessions with friends and some basic carpentry skills my dad taught me. Most of all, it will be home.