Tiny Houses

I’m a working class thirtysomething single guy with no dependents. I dont need or want a lot of space – I’ve lived out of my car on occasion and it wasn’t cramped. My only real complaint was the susceptibility to weather – and dont see myself ever making a lot of money so if I ever want to own my own home, I think something like a 200-500 sq ft home on a small plot of land is the best bet for my income and lifestyle. Luckily, I live in an area of the country where land is reasonably cheap so I think it might be a real possibility if I can ever dig my way out of the consumer debt I’m currently in.

I havent done a lot of research into it, though. At this point, it’s just an idle daydream. What about you? Do you have one or know someone who does? If not, have you or would you consider one?

Your dilemma may be solved by this one site:

There’s a pretty large community page for the small home owners.

We recently watched this documentary on tiny houses. It follows a guy who builds his own, and is interspersed with interviews of other folks who are living in tiny houses. We thought it was fascinating, and an interesting solution to the insane real estate prices in some areas.

I’m familiar with it, Locrian. It’s what made me aware of the movement. Ive just not looked too heavily into it because it will be years before I can make any kind of real progress. In the interim, I’m just curious about other people’s perspectives and experiences.

Thanks for the link, pullin! I wasnt aware of it and will check it out.

My first apartment was about 330 sq ft with a Murphy bed in the main room, a bathroom/dressing room area, and a kitchen. I was single and didn’t own anything at the time, and it was great. Its footprint was roughly 14X24.

We’ve also lived aboard 2 different sailboats at times in the last 30 years, and they had much less space than that. To me, the main hassles were having to do grocery shopping more frequently due to lack of storage space and having to go to a laundry. Neither are major issues and one learns to adapt. Compact living spaces make you figure out really fast what’s a necessity and what’s just a nice-to-have…

There’s a part of me that finds that idea really appealing - just strip everything down the basic essentials, and live simply. The problem (for me) is that life gets in the way. I have a job that requires a sizeable wardrobe, I enjoy having pets, I enjoy having separate living areas when my wife and I want to do different things, we enjoy entertaining, etc. The STUFF of [my] life requires quite a bit more space. A LOT more space. But I applaud what these people are doing, and hope it serves as a good counterpoint to the massive sprawl the suburbs have been inflicting.

Also, I wonder how much of this movement was spurred on by this commercial…

I live in DC, and there is a Tiny house meet up that meets every couple months which I go to. There are several people in the group who have built tiny homes in DC. There are certain things they did to circumvent building codes,(they built their homes on trailers for example) but they are sort of in limbo with the legality of their dwellings. The biggest issue for building a tiny home is building codes. Usually you have to go pretty far away from any urban area to find a place with lenient enough codes for it to be fully legal. The people I know spent at least $30,000 or more when all was said and done.

There are also container homes, I think that might be a better option. There is plenty of stuff written about container homes on the internet.

I think I’m not understanding something :
What’s the purpose of a “tiny house”?
How is it different than living in a standard mobile home?

Sometimes I think it’s a mobile home for people who hate trailer parks. Actually though, I believe they are a smaller size for one, furthermore I think it has to do with zoning laws. Mobile homes are forbidden in many places, but I think tiny houses can get more of a pass. I know in DC, where the people I know who built tiny houses are, the neighborhood accepted tiny homes, but a mobile home would not have been accepted at all. Also, tiny homes are often put in back yards, and are a better fit for that.

Actually, tiny houses may not be allowed in many areas with zoning laws, as such cities and towns often have minimum house sizes, of perhaps 1,000 square feet. Putting a tiny house in the backyard might be permitted as a “secondary dwelling”, i.e., an in-law unit or a guest house.

That’s why they are put on wheels; there is sort of a loophole within which they can kind of exist, but not totally legally. There is a legal grey area being tested with these in some areas is the best way I can describe it.

We saw that on Netflix recently. My wife thought the guy’s house seemed pretty neat, until he revealed how much it cost him to build. It was only a little less than we paid for our 1 1/2 story house with 4 bedrooms and two baths 9 years ago.

To a small extend I’m finding these house to be bit of a fashion statement in addition to an attempt to lower cost of living expenses. Another reason for the small size is long term savings on things like heating.

You can get all of your energy needs from a couple of solar panels. IIRC the guy used solar panels - that should be a fairly large part of the total expense, but they did not provide a detailed cost breakdown (I don’t think cost accounting was that guy’s thing so much).

The reason why tiny houses appeal to me is because they force dwellers to really pare back on “junk”. I won’t say they necessarily promote frugality, since you can have a pretty minimalist sense of style and still be attracted to expensive consumer goods and amenities. But I hate the idea of being compelled to buy stuff just to fill the cavernous spaces around me.

I live in a 700 sq-ft house, which isn’t tiny by tiny house standards, but it’s perfect for me. It is just the right amount space for me and my two cats. Anything less, and we’d be on top of each other and it would be difficult to entertain guests. Anything much more, and it would be more of a hassle to clean and “oversee”. A few years ago I had dreams of building something a lot smaller (500 sq-ft) and even started seriously looking for lots. I’m so glad I changed my mind.

I like the idea of a tiny house (well, maybe 500-700 sq ft)… but the ones on wheels turn me off. It looks like they’ll depreciate in value over time like anything on wheels… not the “investment” that a house (usually) is.

I lived in a 10x40 mobile home for several years. (Rented, not owned.) Surely, even a 400 sqft trailer in a trailer park, where you don’t share your walls or ceiling or floor with your neighbors, must be better than a 400 sqft apartment where you have to listen to your neighbors’ every footstep, and every squeak of their bedsprings.

Or, better still, just find yourself a nice little mobile home like that one I lived in for three years! Trailer park? What steenkin trailer park?

Well that certainly looks pastoral. Did you have a well?

Yes. Well pumped water into a HUGE tank elsewhere on the property. A portion of that water was periodically pumped into a smaller holding tank near the trailer, just a bit uphill from it so there was some naturally-occurring water pressure.

Somebody had to manually open the valves for a while, once a month or so, to refill the smaller holding tank. The procedure was to fill it until it overflows a little bit, so all the pond scum floating on top of the water runs off.

Water with pond scum tastes a hella lot better than city water full of chlorine.

(ETA: PS: If you liked that trailer picture, there’s about 6 more views of it there too, at: Index of /pictures )

Unfortunately many towns are zoning trailers entirely out of anything except trailer parks, or replacing previous trailers on a specific property. SO before you think of getting that cute cheap single wide, check the zoning first.

Reported.