Tiny House Living

Tiny House Living is a weekly newsletter that covers the world of Tiny Houses and the people that choose to live this simpler life. Each e-zine entry will be a short summary that links to the original article.

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Kent Griswold, the fellow behind Tiny House Blog, has busy setting up a website that showcases tiny house construction stories. Over time Kent has gotten to know many of the tiny house builders and owner-builders. Tiny House Journal consolodates all the information and photos he’s gathered over time on the most successful tiny house construction stories. Pictured is a Tumbleweed Tarleton built by Will Pedersen from Abbotsford, BC Canada. This house cost him around $18,000 Canadian in building materials (about $14,500 US). Take a look at Tiny House Journal.

I’ve been busy cooking up more tiny house designs. One of them is esentially a camping trailer that is built more like a lightweight aerodynamic tiny house. In fact it really could be a full tiny house for one person. It’s designed to be built on a 7′ by 12′ single-axle trailer but the house would measure only 7′ by 10′. Above the main living area there’s a small loft and a little space over the porch for storage. I added the porch to make it easier for this little house to be more apart of the outdoor space it occupies. See the 3D drawings at Tiny House Design.

Backyard home-office sheds have been covered a lot in the media recently. Alex at Shedworking wrote up this nice summary of the sheds popping up all over the UK. With more people working in remote locations, like me, sheds and backyard tiny houses are becoming more and more popular.

Stephanie, at Coming Unmoored, spotted this older video interview with Shay Salomon, the author of Little House on a Small Planet. The interview took place before the mortgage industry melt-down and provides a lot of insight into the benefits and appeal of living simply in small homes. Watch the video on Coming Unmoored and visit Shay Salomon’s website for more information about the book.

Christine over at Tiny House Blog wrote up a great story on some modern, yet classic, sheep wagons. They tend to measure 7′ to 8′ wide and 12′ to 16′ long. Typically they don’t have a bathroom but they do provide a place to eat, sleep, cook, and rest. Heat is often provided by a tiny wood stove. Christine also posted a long list of sheep wagon builders if you’d like to learn more about buying or building one. Visit Tiny House Blog for the complete story. You might also be interested in reading more about Shepard Huts in the UK.

Heather at The Greenest Dollar posted a great article on how to size a solar system last week. It’s not a simple thing to calculate because there are so many variables to consider, but this article does a great job of summarizing what you need to know. If you’re looking for a good place to start learning about solar powering your home and saving money visit The Greenest Dollar.

Kent wrote up a nice resource post for those looking to buy a tiny house. Kent covers six professional builders who offer tiny houses and park-models that range in price from about $20,000 to $50,000. Pictured is the least expensive house build by Stephen Marshall at the Little House on the Trailer. Read about all six houses at Tiny House Blog.

This tiny house has been all over the green blogs this week. The aerieLOFT is a little transparent prefab tiny house that measures 10′ by 11′ and is 17′ tall. They describe it as a fancy tent that will cost about $20,000 in kit form. They will also be making plans available for those who want to built it but don’t want to pay the kit price. You can also read about it on TreeHugger, RowdyKittens, and Shedworking.

A few of the tiny house and shed blogs run a weekly summaries of the best stories from that week. Here are my favorite:

• Coming Unmoored (Friday, April 24)
• RowdyKittens (Monday, April 27)

Below are a few of the best tiny house websites:

• Tiny House Blog
• Tiny House Design
• Small House Society
• Small Living Journal
• Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
• Tortoise Shell Homes
• Little House on the Trailer
• Coming Unmoored
• Rowdy Kittens
• This Tiny House
• Constructing a simpler life
• Gypsy Rose Tiny House
• Shedworking
• Green Hamlet