Man builds his own small house
 

It's only 89 sq. ft. :thumb:

I've seen biggers SUV's.

Where does he store his bike? :)

Seriously though, way cool. I could definitely life in a place that size, but I would want it to be in a city.

Try a studio apartment in Manhattan.

That's a glorified shed. That would make me claustrophobic.

He appears to be single.

Want to see something even more hard-core? Check this out:

http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa

89 sq ft... That is so cool! I would love one, but would have to be a wee bit bigger. Either that or I would have to make my husband sit outside while I cooked or did anything in there. We would probably trip over each other or end up with black eyes.

Definitely not the life for me, I much rather have my older, renovated home. Our house is considerably smaller than many of the houses that surround us, but not so small that one cannot raise a family in.

Even if you douple the size (89*2 = ~180 square feet), you still have a small house. I suspect that a huge reason things work well in his house is because of the amount of thought each square foot gets.

Bingo! :thumb:

I completely agree, if you look at pictures of houses/homes back over the years you will see how people have accumulated STUFF. Also many, if not most of the current houses being built today have a huge amount of wasted space in them.

Aaron :)

This type of house is not for everyone, it's targeted for a specific group of people who don't mind living in a very compact environment. Personally, I took the route of fixing up an older established home that was big enough to fit me and my family's needs, but not so big that it would cost a king's ransom in upkeep.

Figures!!!!

And what's wrong with that?:p

I lived in small apartments and studios when I lived in New York. They definitely challenge your concept of possessions and space. Every square inch was precious and unless you wanted to live in knee deep clutter, you were constantly cleaning, rearranging and decluttering.

P.S. Did that house have running water? I thought I saw him getting water from outside at one point.

We're a society where the accumulation of stuff trumps all. We put our stuff in our houses, then into large garages until the car no longer can sleep there. From there, we put our excess into storage units.

For myself, I'd prefer spending on a few quality items instead of a lot of junk.

My preference too....but I do have a weakness for bicycles!

Aaron :)

The Tumbleweed house does not have running water. My tiny house designs all include running water, a dishwasher, clothes washing machine and dryer. I think I need a minimum of two-hundred-fifty square feet to be close to comfortable.

This guy does design houses that are fixed in a location. Some are as big as eleven-hundred square feet with optional rooms. If you own a tiny Tumbleweed House you will need to own a truck to haul it around.

I wonder how he keeps warm at night. It seems like the whole house has a limited life span of maybe 10 years at best. With companies cutting their pensions and 401K plans being nothing more than glorfied savings, most of the population may have to work till they drop!

I was thinking of moving to India where Social Security can actually provide enough income to live comfortably.

But what does it cost to park it somewhere? I know many people that live in RVs of 200 to 400 Square feet by working at RV parks all over the US. But if they didn't work there it would cost about $800.00 to $1200.00 a month to keep their RV hooked up. I have seen other small home plans like this one but it comes down to owning property or renting space.

Lots of options on that one... I used a generator during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I only ran it for 2-3 hours a day in the evening to keep my batteries charged up. I was using propane for cooking and refrigeration. Did not run the AC. My total fuel costs were ~$5 a day and that was with gasoline and propane at premium prices. I was in a set up on the grounds of the factory we were working at so no lot rent or water bill.

I wonder if you could do some form of squatters rights on BLM land? IIRC there is a fair sized colony that lives off grid on an old airbase somewhere in the SW.

At an earlier point in my life I lived rent free in an old pickup camper in the woods on a friend's property. Running water was a well hand pump(pumped the water into the tank on the camper), power was solar cell charging a battery for lighting, heating, refrigeration, additional lighting and cooking was LP gas. A 40# tank would last 6-8+ weeks in the summer and 2-3 weeks in the winter. Refills at the time were $10. FWIW the square footage on that camper was about the size of the Tumbleweed house.

I have an old Airstream that we are going to convert to a guest house, I suppose a family member could end up living in it if the economy gets bad enough.

Aaron :)

Another thought on the small houses, set up a colony on a piece of land somewhere. Unfortunately in too many areas zoning is restrictive. We co-own a sizable lot in a mixed use area of the larger town near me. I was considering the possibility of developing it using small houses in a detached cluster type format...won't fly past the zoning board. But I can cram 2,000+ square foot houses on it with a variance....go figure. Occupation density would have been about the same, the "reasoning" appears that smaller less expensive housing brings in "undesirable" elements.

Aaron :)

I have done dry camping in a RV as well. The hook up part is only part of the question. When you park on a piece of a company's property you may not be paying but the company is. The same thing with a relitive's property. Someone picks up the expense of where you plant the thing. In our area you could stay on BLM land for a short period of time but they would require you to move from one area to another when you reached the limit of that time.

So if I rephrase the question I wonder what it would cost to park it where you won't get rousted like a homeless person does? Living in the warm west we have our share of year round homeless people living in woods, deserts, abandoned houses, and even under freeway overpasses. Sooner or later a work crew comes by and destroys the living enviroment and foaces the people to relocate.

My home is paid for but I used to wonder when the economy went south if I would be forced to live in the Travel trailer. Like you explained I thought about parking it somewhere and living in it. It would be interesting to look into the attitude our government has on squatters in modern society.

I am sure some landowner somewhere would rent space cheaply, shades of the old camps during the dust bowl. Of course we are more regulated by government today than we were back then. But if the economy goes far enough south (or east) governments are going to be collapsing too and there may not be as much oversight as there currently is. You could probably camp out in an abandoned WM parking lot somewhere...

Aaron :)

A friend of a friend lived in an RV in San Diego for an extensive time. He just parked on dead end streets in industrial or commercial areas, or new developments that weren't quite built yet. He moved to a new place whenever he thought he was overstaying his welcome.

As for Walmart, the urban legend is that you can park in an open Walmart parking lot all night, as long as you bought something there.

That isn't an urban legend it is fact. And the fact is you don't even have to buy anything there, but is suggested as a courtesy. There are quite a few WM's where overnight parking is not allowed by local ordinance for a variety of reasons. But I would say there are more that you can park at than you cannot. In some near major interstates it looks like a campground on a weekend...

FWIW I own an RV (Airstream) and even use it on occasion. The main reason for an Airstream is that it can be pulled by a bicycle:innocent::roflmao2:

Aaron :)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/158/3...6403c94237.jpg

Aaron... my only dispute is that the guy pulling the Airstream appears to be riding a fixie. (Although maybe all that fork rake makes this possible.)

Actually I believe he was on a Schwinn 3 speed with a Sturmey Archer. The rider is Latourneau (possibly Letourneau) picture was taken around 1947. Also from what I have read it is just a shell with no interior. However the ones from that era are quite light even fully equipped. My 31' weighs in under 7,000# fully loaded and ready to roll.

Aaron :)