Tiny House Living

This past week I published a set of tiny house plans for tiny solar house. It’s a little 8′ by 12′ saltbox that can be built in multiple units so the owner builder can build a larger home (12×16, 12×24, 12×32, etc) from the same set of plans. The 40-page plans cost $9.99 and can be ordered online and downloaded to your computer.

Tiny Solar House Plans

I was so busy finishing up my first tiny house ebook last week I failed to publish Tiny House Living. Sorry about that. The ebook is a 65 page downloadable PDF that includes the plans ans assembly instructions for a panelized prefab building system a do-it-yourselfer could build with common building materials. It’s $27 and includes free updates.

Tiny Prefab – eBook & Plans

Kent at Tiny House Blog has been assembling a great resource page of tiny house plans. One of the newest additions is this Little Red Cabin which was featured in his Little House in a Landscape series.

Little Red Cabin Plans

This is a drawing of a tiny house currently under construction. Instead of normal walls this builder is constructing six box-like structures and connecting them in an unusual cube shape. It might not be the most efficient way to enclose space but it is one of the more interesting designs I’ve seen in a while.

My Summer Project 

Kent Griswold and Stephen Marshall have been colaborating on a tiny house solution called the Sonoma Shanty. It’s a simple 8′ by 15′ tiny house that is easy to build and low-cost. Kent will soon be making the plans available for sale through his website and Stephen will be hosting regular full-day workshops where you’ll learn to build a Sonoma Shanty. Stephen will also be offering a kit version of the house and complete finished houses too. To learn more about the Sonoma Shanty visit Kent’s Tiny House Blog and Stephen’s Little House on the Trailer.

Project Rolling Freedom is an exciting new project just getting kicked-off and is all about downsizing and increasing personal freedom. I’ve been especially impressed with the new tiny house designs on their website. In the near future they have plans to sell blueprints and provide seminars. Photo credit to Project Rolling Freedom.

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.

Until I learned to use Google SketchUp I would often built models of tiny houses I was day dreaming about building. I actually made several models of Nine Tiny Feet until I started drawing 3D drawings of how I imagined fitting a whole house in nine square feet.

When I saw this article on earthbag house model building I realized I wasn’t alone. The truth is taht no matter what drawing tools you use, it is very helpful to build models especially for small structures. Visualizing an idea is not always easy to do and it’s much faster to work out ideas in modeling clay, cardboard, or foam core. Also visit EarthbagBuilding.com for more on model building.

Will up in British Columbia recently finished his Tumbleweed tiny house. It’s a Tarleton and cost him about $13,500 to build. He did most of the work himself with a little help from a friend and a little professional electrical help. You can read the story on the Tumbleweed Blog and see exactly how he spent his money. There is an itemized list of all his expenses.