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How to live large in a tiny house

• ipsin 11y ago
  It's a vacation home that looks fairly secluded, has big windows and nice furniture. Am I just too paranoid? This seems like the sort of thing that's due for an inevitable burglary. That's one attraction to me of the cargo container homes, despite the terrible aesthetic. If you need to go on an extended trip, you can just throw a cargo lock on the front door and be done with it.
  • ghaff 11y ago
    >Am I just too paranoid? Pretty much :-) Not really different from just about any other house in a more or less rural environment.
• analog31 11y ago
  That's pretty cool. For better worse, a pre-condition for living in a tiny house is having the land to build one on. For my family, an amenity of our somewhat larger house happens to be its location, among nice neighbors, near public transit, and within walking or biking distance to all of our daily destinations such as work and school.
  • bmelton 11y ago
    So, you can build portable tiny homes, though that constrains the tininess even more so. Another pre-condition is being in a city with tiny house-friendly zoning regs. As someone who frequently entertains the notion and novelty of tiny living, I keep up with it, and know more than a few folks who have been evicted from their tiny homes. D.C. has actually been making it harder to live in tiny homes, as they are non-conformant structures in which you can "camp", temporarily, but cannot live, so there's this shell game going on of tiny home dwellers rotating out their dwellings just frequently enough to be on the right side of the law.
    • ianlevesque 11y ago
      What laws or regulations have caused the people you know the most trouble? I remember some stories in the past about sewer or water regulations causing problems, but not for tiny houses.
      • wlesieutre 11y ago
        A lot of towns have minimum square footage requirements that are too high for tiny homes to be legal
        • toomuchtodo 11y ago
          That's slowly changing; stop by https://www.reddit.com/r/tinyhouses https://www.reddit.com/r/tinyhouses for details.
      • bmelton 11y ago
        On top of the arbitrary square footage requirements that wlesieutre already mentioned, in a lot of cases it boils down to windows per room requirements, as well as the typical <x> requirements per room, where rooms like kitchen and bathroom are the most problematic. While I'm generally not a big fan of regulations, I get that there are definitely well-intentioned regulations for legitimate problems, such that landlords weren't allowed to cram too many people into too small a space, or demand that too many people share too few kitchens and bathrooms, but for those who choose the path for themselves, those self-same regulations are burdensome.
    • analog31 11y ago
      Another issue in my locale would simply be the availability of land. Pretty much every empty lot was snapped up during the real estate bubble. My house is small by contemporary standards, but not tiny in any credible sense. But it's worth noting that by "tiny homes," we mean specifically tiny detached homes. Within a few blocks of my house are some four-banger apartment buildings with ~ 1000 square foot units, and I could probably afford to buy one and rent out three of the apartments. That could actually be a realistic option if I ever become an empty-nester.
• delbel 11y ago
  *vacation house
  • pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    Which therefore they're not "living in" in the common sense of the phrase but are "holidaying in". Rich people, pah. "I work my office job from a toilet cubicle. You guys paying for offices are schmucks. Here's how I do it, I go to the toilet for free right next door to my office space I rent for $5000/mo. I'm working in entirely cost free space for the whole day. Then for the other 8 hours 45 minutes of my 9 hour day I work from the office. See, it's easy; can't see why people don't do this more!" /tired, bad humour
• tuna-piano 11y ago
  A couple more pictures here: http://www.caswelldaitcharchitects.com/mountainhome/uvoyzzubo4twa7ero1203qz54svuh6 http://www.caswelldaitcharchitects.com/mountainhome/uvoyzzub...
• datashovel 11y ago
  I have a project that I eventually want to get off the ground. It has to do with improving how we build houses by making all interior structure modular. I don't necessarily think "small" is the way to think about it. Instead if a family lives in a house for decades their priorities / needs change. So, for example, the retired couple who still live in the house with 2 bedrooms for their children when they first bought the house. Or what about the house that's available and in an ideal location and has all the right things, but it's a one-bedroom with plenty of square feet, but where will the kids sleep? If you had a modular way of reconstructing the interior of the house, and they redo the walls using inexpensive modular components, all of a sudden maybe now their master bedroom is twice the size it was, or maybe that space becomes a loft / sitting area instead. Suddenly it makes sense that a family could reasonably expect to live in the same house over long periods of time comfortably, if it suits them, no matter the changing circumstances that life presents them. EDIT: And make far better use of the space they have over time as circumstances change.
  • ayuvar 11y ago
    A place here in town builds modular office environments that have snap-together walls, etc. Sort of like huge cubicles that are grown all the way up instead of slapped together. They have giant metal base plates that you install on the exterior walls of the floor and then you click your "fake walls" into them at right angles. You can even get sound deadening panels or colour inserts that slide inside the walls. I asked one of the guys on the tour why they don't do it for houses. He replied that the problem with houses is that it's rare to find houses that are actually built with enough precision to have perfectly square corners and perfectly vertical walls. It doesn't really make sense to go to that extent for a narrow-margin stickbuilt 2- to 3-storey dwelling that doesn't support the immense weight of an office building. The modular idea could still work. You'd just have to add this little hacky layer in between to adapt the out-of-plumb house bits to the injection-moulded modular walls or whatever. I dunno what that layer would look like and still be cheaper than making changes to a home the traditional way. Good luck if you do it, I can't wait to buy it.
    • datashovel 11y ago
• danans 11y ago
  While it's not nearly as small as the one in the article, my house is on the smaller end of many Bay Area homes (1600 sqft on a very narrow lot). But nobody who visits believes that it's only 1600 sqft - they all think it's closer to 2000, probably because the architect vaulted the entry/living-room ceiling to 15ft, and the upstairs bedrooms to 13 ft. What's harder about living in a small house as your primary home (not a vacation home like the article) is storage space, especially when you have kids. There are also clever ways of doing built-in storage in a small home that minimize the use of living space. Of course you also can't be a packrat. I recommend Dwell magazine as a great source for small living space design ideas.
  • lucaspiller 11y ago
    I find it ironic that you call 1600 sqft "small". Here is a pretty standard 700 sqft house in the UK that a family of 4 would comfortably fit in - I wouldn't really call this small: http://m.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/36576725?search_identifier=ebac26e1115e16a6599b7e27c778c8c2 http://m.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/36576725?search_ident...
    • maxerickson 11y ago
      It isn't surprising, the US is relatively empty compared to the UK. California is about 40% the density of the UK, the citified regions of the east coast are denser than the UK average, but that is about it. There are also substantially different histories in play (when was the last time the UK government was giving 65 hectares to anybody that asked? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts ).
      • alricb 11y ago
        when was the last time the UK government was giving 65 hectares to anybody that asked? I think it was a bit after 1066, if you had the good luck of being Norman and if William was feeling generous that day.
    • danans 11y ago
• patcheudor 11y ago
  "(why the standard ceiling height in this country is 8 feet is a concept I will never understand)" One word: efficiency Tall ceilings create a heating and cooling nightmare. In my area a number of builders over the last two decades came into the valley from warmer climates like Arizona and built a bunch of homes with very tall ceilings. People loved them and they kept building, then a cold winter comes along and people complain about their $800/month+ heating bills in what was claimed to be an energy efficient home.
  • nostromo 11y ago
    Two words: ceiling fans. :) My house has a tall main room that spans two floors. People ask me why I have the fans on in the winter... and I tell them that it keeps our heating costs down. It's counterintuitive, but true.
    • frik 11y ago
      Wow, eye opening, and actually quite logic given that warm air travels to the top.
      • saalweachter 11y ago
        Ceiling fans actually have a little toggle on the side to switch from 'blow' to 'suck'. Doing so circulates the air without the direct 'breeze' across your skin which may chill you.
  • cturner 11y ago
    I have wondered whether you could go crazy vertical and try to get rising heat to create a cooling system, as with termite mounds. In winter, pull cloth mezzanines across to create buffer layers.
  • thenomad 11y ago
    Yup. Here in Edinburgh we have quite a lot of Victorian flats with 14' ceilings. They're noticably more expensive to heat in winter than flats like my current one, which is modern and has 8' ceilings. They do also feel a lot bigger, though. Maybe it's worth the tradeoff?
• stickfigure 11y ago
  I love the idea of tiny houses (and not-so-tiny houses like this one) clumped around a much larger shared space. I love it so much that I'm part of a (currently) seven party consortium trying to find rural acreage in unincorporated parts of the outer SF Bay Area to build such a thing. What we've discovered is that zoning ordinances in every county of California are openly hostile to the idea. The general rule is basically one ginormous single-family home (with a single kitchen) per parcel. Sometimes a second, but that's pretty much it. It might be possible to get variances or special permits from friendly planning departments, but it's hard to convince a group of people to make large $ investments in dreams which could be destroyed arbitrarily by changing political winds. We may take the risk anyways, but our problem has gone from practical matters of structure and finance to a fundamentally political one. This is really a shame. I suspect that a lot of people, like us, would be perfectly happy in low-footprint small (<500 sq ft) homes as long as they had easy access to a fancy kitchen, home theater, storage, etc in a space shared with a dozen of their friends. I always wondered why this isn't common - and the answer is, at least in California, it's effectively illegal.
  • stephenboyd 11y ago
    It might be naive of me to think that maybe you haven't already seen this, but if there are any examples of what you're trying to accomplish in California, they're probably somewhere on this list: http://www.ic.org/directory/listings/?cmty-country=United%20States&cmty-state=California http://www.ic.org/directory/listings/?cmty-country=United%20... California certainly has some ecovillages, but most have buildings sized like typical houses.
  • declan 11y ago
    <stickfigure>: I like that idea! What areas have you tried? You can get pretty rural pretty quickly west of I-280 in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and of course Santa Cruz County further south. Head 10 minutes west of I-280 via Sand Hill Road, and you're at Skyline at Alice's restaurant, which marks the limit of the town of Woodside's boundary. Anything north, west, or southwest of that point is unincorporated. As a practical matter if you're in a rural unincorporated area you're going to have to deal with septic tanks, and finding a place in the bay area where you can dig seven (and counting) different leach fields with possible space for expansion, not on >35% slopes, not near streams, etc. is going to be tricky. Further out you may have problems getting water; are you going to dig a well? How many GPM? Check out the problems that mutual water companies in the hills have had during previous droughts. On the other side of the ridge things are even worse; there's La Honda's rationing and talk of trucking in water: http://www.hmbreview.com/news/cuesta-la-honda-guild-keeps-rationing/article_761670b8-975e-11e4-b1bd-ff7446fa2aa2.html http://www.hmbreview.com/news/cuesta-la-honda-guild-keeps-ra... On a more positive note, if you can get the structure and finance down, why not build a ~3000 ft^2 conventional house with external power/water/septic hookups? Those hookups are where you'd place your friends' tiny-homes-on-trailers. They wouldn't be permanent structures, so perhaps that would pass legal muster. Or buy 7 acres and subdivide? Again, I like your idea and wish you the best.
• makeitsuckless 11y ago
  "Tiny house" A vacation house bigger than most people I know can afford for their actual home. And than the author speaks of "making sacrifices". Makes me want to throw up.
  • quanticle 11y ago
    How can you say that? I don't actually see the square footage of the house mentioned anywhere, but it doesn't appear to be overly large (once you account for the optical tricks the author used to make the space appear larger than it is). My estimate would be somewhere around 800 sq. ft., which isn't unreasonable for a vacation home.
    • zwischenzug 11y ago
      We're a family of four living in 550sq foot. Maybe I should write an article.
      • wander_homer 11y ago
        And guess what, there are areas in the world where families of 3 or more generations share a tiny single room and call that their home. How dare you to imply that you are living in a tiny home when those people would be more than happy with a single room of yours. Well, or maybe we can simply agree on the fact that different people have a different understanding of what a tiny house should look like? I'd too call that house tiny because the part in the world where I come from we tend to have much bigger houses. And btw. the article isn't so much about the fact that this house is tiny by all means, it's more about using what you have or can afford and make the most out of it.
      • brightsize 11y ago
        House? You're lucky to have a house. We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, half the floor was missing, and we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
        • 11y ago
• nandemo 11y ago
  This is my idea of tiny house: http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/products/cypress http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/products/cypress
• olalonde 11y ago
  And here's how to live large in an actual tiny house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQM7a5Yjp9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQM7a5Yjp9g
  • enrmarc 11y ago
    Anyone knows what kind of window-glass is he using? As he says "it looks always sunny".
  • stickfigure 11y ago
    I thought you were going to post this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6pj3jVgeh8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6pj3jVgeh8
• unimportant 11y ago
  ITT bay area people that can barely afford to buy a studio apartment cause prices be cray and they can only dream about having a tiny house. This is how it's done in Europe: http://humble-homes.com/heijmans-one-affordable-tiny-house-amsterdam/ http://humble-homes.com/heijmans-one-affordable-tiny-house-a...
  • raverbashing 11y ago
    To be fair, Europe is packed with barely liveable spaces being rented/sold at exorbitant prices Yes, I'm talking about the UK (and Ireland)
    • bosie 11y ago
      is the uk really that bad though? i feel like most flats outside of london are reasonably priced. london z1/2 on the other hand... ;)
      • bigohk 11y ago
        This could be an entire discussion on it's own :) , if you are in the U.K. then see what Crossrail is doing to property development and prices. Wherever a building/construction company find's permission to build, they are building blocks of flats. That should have an expected outcome of price dilution due to availability BUT doesn't seem like that's happening. The worse thing I fear that may happen is that areas which have houses at the moment may start converting into areas with flats. There already are more than one examples of that happening in the area I live. Decent areas of London are out anybody's price range. Too many straight out cash buyers wanting to park their monies :-/
• hueving 11y ago
  If I were to buy something like one of these tiny houses on a trailer[1], is there a place to set it up in the bay area for a reasonable cost? 1. http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/
• design-of-homes 11y ago
  I live in the UK, and the tiny house movement appears to be a uniquely American phenomenon. The US is lucky to have so much open space which lets people build their own homes. The reason these tiny homes don't feel cramped is because they're surrounded by nature, with beautiful long uninterrupted views out of the windows. No noisy neighbours or traffic nearby either. But take away the countryside location of these homes and could the tiny house work in an urban environment? I'm doubtful. The future for housing for most people on the planet (including the US) is in cities and urban environments. Can you live in a tiny home where you don't have long, uninterrupted views out of your windows? Or where you only have windows along one side of your dwelling (e.g. single-aspect apartments). Do you feel you have enough privacy when your apartment or house is joined with your neighbours' home? Millions of people already live in homes like this and have to contend with these issues. The challenge for homebuilders and architects is to design housing to address these issues: homes that give us light, space, privacy, quiet and comfort in a noisy urban setting. Sadly, if I look at the new build housing going up in the UK I'd say architects and house builders are doing a pretty poor job of it. Are things better in the US in this regard? Also, space can be 'modest' in size rather than micro or miniature and still be sustainable or amenable to high density. For example, London has it's own housing design guide that recommends new one bedroom apartments for two people to be a minimum of 50 square metres (538 square feet). That's still less than space standards in continental Europe but it's enough space to live comfortably even if it doesn't count as tiny by Western standards.
  • lostit2xx 11y ago
    I agree, and many home designs do that big window thing as if they have no neighbors, but the core idea is to think grand about one room and not just to have large windows.
  • noir_lord 11y ago
    Given the view out of my flat is more flats like mine and cars I'd happily not have so many (possibly even any) windows if I could replace them with equivalent sized high DPI screens (a constant trope in sci-fi) and had adequate ventilation. I nearly picked one flat when I moved because it had a bedroom without a window which would have made a perfect office. I accept I'm not the norm though.
• jacquesm 11y ago
  This is one of my favorite tiny houses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSzgh3D7-Q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSzgh3D7-Q0
• alexun 11y ago
  This is a good manual for hackers. I live on tight budget and it's preety tought to have a room by myself with a lot of space