Today I ran into a tiny house builder that I hadn’t seen before called Funky Dwellings. They offer sheds, modular cabins, furniture, and other small structures out of as much recycled and renewable materials as possible.
They mainly build in Oregon and Washington but they may travel for the right project. They are a group of 6 people who are dedicated to building small funky structures. I love what they are doing.
Funky Dwellings tries to focus on structures 200 square feet or lower (no permit needed in their area for that). Their price estimates seem very fair and can also help with projects like building a loft bed or composting toilet for $20/hr.
Furniture plays a key role in small spaces, especially when families are involved. In fact I think the right furniture can make or break many people’s decision to go small. These designs offer incredible convenience. Desks can turn into beds (without having to move everything off of your desk!!), shelves turn to tables, and more.
Small living spaces for today’s people need to have multi-functional furniture. Listen and watch as Ron Barth, president of Resource Furniture, shows you their designs. How about some of this furniture in a tiny house?
Dave over at Grain Edit posted some pictures of an old booklet called Second Homes for Leisure Living by Douglas Fir Plywood Association. The booklet contains a few modern prefab designs from various architects including including George Matsumoto, Frederick Liebhardt, David George, and Henrik Bull.
There are some really fascinating A-Frames, one of them with an upstairs deck which was a first for me to see. Here is a screenshot of the A Frames, for the rest of the scans please visit Grain Edit. You won’t regret jumping over to Dave’s post.
Kelly submitted a photo of her Vermont Garden Cottage. It’s a 6 x 8 garden studio that her husband Joe designed and built it himself. I thought it was pretty impressive for his first building project.
They spent just $200 on costs for it and it was made with mostly recycled materials.ÂÂ
Derek notified me that he and Peter King have been featured on NPR News this morning, great story and you can listen to it on audio.
The only thing tiny about the tiny house movement is the size of the houses themselves. There are a slew of websites devoted to the scene, and tiny house evangelists based in California and Vermont are busy traveling around North America helping people build these little homes.
“I’m just a freelance, insane guy working out of his backyard building stuff for people when the need arises,” says Derek Diedricksen, 33, a tiny house enthusiast who lives outside of Boston.
This was a contribution from one of our visitors. Thanks, Gary! He built his own mini camper. Here are the details that he sent me. It was a 4 x 8 Harbor Freight trailer that was extended to 5 x 8.
The walls are 2 x 2 with Styrofoam insulation. The roof is flat rubber. He added an RV door, windows, and a vent on the roof. Inside there are two bunks and a port-a-potty. It is a perfect simplified mini camper.
