How about they paint them pink? Someone’s sure to write a song about them.
My dad must have been the ur-tiny houser. He said he always dreamed of living “in a tar paper shack in the woods”. I thought he was nuts.
It is not hard. my motor home had a propane forced air furnace. Water tanks under the seat that did not freeze. Hot water, flush toilet, propane fridge. Of course for lengthy stays you need a water hose and somewhere to run the sewage.
And TXJIM, that is an awesome looking little teardrop!
Dennis
Ah, yes, houses out of packing crates…very retro. They used to call them Hoovervilles.
I think people like to dream about a living a simplified life, but having learned the truth of my mother’s dictum, “Whatever size house you buy, you’ll fill it before you move out,” I think the storage issue would drive you mad. You start out thinking you’ll only need a single pan and a few dishes, until you want to make spaghetti and realize a colander would be nice, and maybe an additional pot. Before you know it, you’re stashing the pie plates in the towels basket and looping the measuring spoons over the dishwashing liquid.
Occasionally, they’ll look for 1000 sq.ft. condos, which is a 2 bedroom unit anywhere (not just NYC).
I kind of like the idea of a tiny house. I live in slightly over 600 sq.ft. now, I could lose 100-150 and still feel like I had enough room. (It would force me to declutter, which is something I should do). But I know all the reasons I shouldn’t have one. I don’t watch a ton of HGTV, but when I do see the tiny houses, I wonder why those people don’t seem to know why they shouldn’t have one.
I love the look of container houses. Again, I don’t think it’s a rational thing for me to get (and have never priced one v. a traditional built house), but I love them.
I love the ones where they have 3 kids (2 of them teenagers (of opposite sexes)) and are looking for a tiny house. WHY!!?? Those kids are going to really, truly resent the lack of privacy and space before they’re old enough to move out on their own.
Also, I second the recommendation of Rebecca Lavoie’s “HGTV & Me” podcast. Go listen! She’s hilarious.
I don’t understand why they go so extreme.
There are plenty of small two bedroom homes and a single bath. Around 850 to 1000 sq ft. Many built in the 50’s and 60’s for baby boomer families.
They can be a tight fit if you have several kids. My 4 cousins slept in one bedroom until they were 10. Then the two boys used cots in the living room. Eventually a sofa hide a bed was bought. The line for the bathroom got pretty long. 
But they all remember childhood fondly.
A 2 bedroom starter home still makes more sense than these 300 to 400 sq foot tiny homes.
Builders need to offer more 2 bedroom homes under 900 sq feet.
I do agree modern homes have gotten ridiculous.
3000 sq ft for a small family? I don’t understand that at all. 1500 and three bedrooms is enough.
People whom can afford larger homes (and not ostentatious McMansions) do so to provide each child with their own room, and to have more than one bathroom option…plus have a decent sized kitchen, living room, den and dining room. 3000 sq feet really isn’t all that big for a family of four or five people.
We always said we could live in 2 shipping containers, L shaped. Knock out a couple windows. One mine, one hers, shared bath, kitchen and big deck in the Vee. We could do that very easily.
That’s neat! Back in the day, a lot of motels were separate cabins, and some still are. A “Tiny House Hotel” is a cool idea.
However, I couldn’t live in a Tiny House ™. My 700 ft2 2BR apartment gets cramped sometimes, and it’s just me and the cats.
Someone should put an engine and a propeller on that thing, and call it a UFO. 
I recently connected on Facebook with a childhood friend who lived this way for a while after her parents split up. Her father moved out with her oldest brother when that brother turned 16, into a mobile home that was something like 10x32. I don’t think they even make them that small any more. Within a few months, she and her younger brother moved in there too, because of her mother’s mental health issues, which was why the marriage broke up in the first place. They were a family that were barely middle class even with both parents working, and that was all he could afford.
IIRC, she had the bedroom and the father and brothers slept in the living room, until they could get a bigger place.
As an aside, I’m glad I found her because she has terminal cancer. 
When I lived in Tokyo, my apartment was ~180 sq ft. Lived there for 2.5 years. I was single, nomadic and worked like a slave, so it wasn’t horrible but dang, it was pretty small. All my clothes fit into a back pack and a regular sized suitcase.
One thing I found is you can’t really live with someone in such a small space unless you’re really on the same schedule. You have to wake up at the same time, get up at the same time, etc
A few years back a tiny house went up beside the road on my commute. I had, not tiny home dreams, but affordable home dreams, so I watched it curiously over the four and a half years I had that job. Once per year or so, another shed would show up in the yard, each one a little bigger than the last. By the end they were like hedges lining the property.
Then the “For Sale” sign went up.
That’s a work of art - the wood is beautiful - but it’s a museum piece. Any man who wants a teardrop camper has never experienced the joy of trying to make breakfast with cold rain dripping down the back of his neck.
There are some nice things about teardrop trailers. You can make your own (or in our case, my BIL made ours) for way less than buying one. Ours was about $3500 in materials. They are amazingly simply to use. We can have our entire campsite set up in about 10 minutes. If it was late at night, or crappy weather, we can be done in about 5 minutes. You can pull it with almost any vehicle that can take a hitch. Ours weighs about 800lbs. Don’t like the spot you backed the trailer into? Pick up the hitch end and roll it to a better spot.
Are there downsides? Sure. If you’re over 6’ tall, there is no way you want to sleep in it (imagine a queen size bed, but you can’t go past the edges of the mattress). Changing cloths inside of it is not easy. If the day is rainy, I hope you have a screen tent, or it’s going to be a “cozy” day.
But then, I don’t want a toilet or a shower. I don’t want to deal with waste water. If I want to be away from my partner, I’ll gab a chair and a book, and go sit under a different tree. Ours really is a replacement for a tent and sleeping on the ground.
I read about some lady who built a place (in Maine IIRC) that was 12 x 12’ (with a loft). There was some tax loophole or something. She did live alone which made it easier.
I’m not sure I could live there but I think I would like it as a vacation cabin. I already have a 2 person tent and vacation in that – though I only sleep in it.
My house is actually too big for me (3 BR ~1400 sq ft + semi finished basement + 3 car garage*)-- tried finding a smaller place.
Brian
- one car attached, 2 car detached. The detached garage was nice for building and now storing my kayak
My first apartment was about 12 feet by 12 feet, or around 144 square feet. Emphasis on first. Was basically a place to sleep and maybe heat up some food in between college classes and working full time. Yes, I can live in such a space but I really do prefer to have more room than that. (Current residence is about 1100 square feet, with parking for two vehicles, much more adequate)
I’m the oldest of 5 kids - our family of 7 lived in a 1000 sq ft 3BR/1BA row house (back before they decided to call them townhomes.) I shared a bedroom till I left home at 19. I’d have loved a room of my own, but at least I had a bed of my own. (When my mom was a kid, she had to share a bed with her aunt.)
Yeah, it felt crowded at times, but we all grew up to be productive members of society, so living in cramped quarters didn’t seem to have warped us. Mostly. On one hand, I like the idea of living tiny. On the other hand, a decent sized shower and a separate laundry area, not to mention the attached garage, make life just a bit nicer. Each to his own, I guess…
Or make them out of ticky tacky.
How long until some bright entrepreneur starts making container-style siding for stick houses?