One of the challenges for tiny houses is feeling comfortable with the amount of space you have.

When I found this tiny house on a trailer for sale, I immediately noticed how neat it was that they had added a larger porch.

This way you can actually lounge outside and use the outdoor space as part of the home. You can read books, magazines, or just enjoy the scenery there.

Many people who live in a small space rave about how they have great outdoor space which they use a lot. In a house like this, it’s sort of a must, isn’t it?

This has led me to a few built in ideas that you can add to your own design so that you can expand your outdoor space (maybe I’ll share in another post)… But you can see a real example of it in action right here.

[continue reading…]

Have you ever thought of building your own tiny log cabin in the woods?

When I found this guy’s videos on Youtube I was pretty excited. He has built at least two really small log houses in the woods using materials within 100 feet of the construction sites all by himself. Imagine doing all the notching yourself along with shingling your own roof with materials you found. That’s what this guy did with the help of some power tools. He even made his own flooring which you’ll see in a minute (if you can stream videos). Both projects were done as a one man show, that’s part of the reason both houses are so tiny.

Don’t miss other awesome stories like this – join our FREE Tiny House Newsletter for more!

How to Build Your own Tiny Log Cabin

The first cabin project was more of an experiment which took a total of 100 hours of labor. This one used 5 fir trees, some saplings, a bag of screws, mortar, concrete blocks, thick poly, and a zinc strip for the roof.

It sits on 4 big rocks for a foundation and the floor is made out of dirt. He used a half notch for its simplicity using a hand saw, an axe, and a mallet. Here, check out the progress in the video below…

[continue reading…]

The architect Sergio Sanchez has rented a walk-in closet and converted it into his studio.

He created a loft to sleep up top while using the freed-up space underneath as a home office.

[continue reading…]

The company who makes this tiny house is called Habitaflex, and you might actually consider it a small house instead of a tiny one.

Because it folds out large enough for an entire family to live in. It uses a crank system to fold and unfold.

Plus keys to turn to lock and unlock for folding. No foundation is needed because the home can be built into a trailer that you can pull yourself.

It comes with cabinets, kitchen sink, oven, fan, toilet, and a full sized shower.

It would take you 2 to 3 hours for 2-3 people to set it up or put it away.

For rolling the walls together there is a rolling mechanism that is built in. The roof is also lowered by crank.

The width of the house is 8 feet when it’s folded up into a trailer, here watch the video so you can see it for yourself in action…

[continue reading…]

This is a tiny house video tour that I just ran into and you have likely not seen yet.

The house was built at Lake Michigan College and the video was also created by them.

Yes, it is a Tumbleweed Tiny House – the Weebee.  You used to be able to buy plans to build one just like it at Tumbleweed, but this is more of a classic/vintage design now that I’m not sure you can get the plans for any more.

This one is 102 square feet and is even equipped with a solar tube for light in the kitchen which is simple and requires no energy for light.

Aaron Closson is LMC’s green building instructor. Next, they are planning to install solar panels for the house plus a self-contained solar water heater.

Lake Michigan College’s Tiny House on Wheels!

Enjoy the video tour of the house right here…

Video tour of the Tiny House at LMC

The Green Building Academy at the college exists thanks to an energy grant courtesy of Michigan Community College Association.

If you enjoyed this tiny home you’ll love our free daily tiny house newsletter with complimentary plans, workshops and floor plans eBooks!

You can click through any of these tiny house links which will open up in a new tab or window.

1. Van Boat

I’ve never seen anything like this, have you?

This super unique “van-boat” was featured on my friend Deek’s site RelaxShax.

His theme last week was shantyboats so you’ll be able to explore more of those if you head there.

2. Don’s Tiny Log Cabin

You’ll see this at my friend Kent’s web site, the Tiny House Blog.

Don built the cabin with wood that was right on his land, not having to spend much at all on buying materials.

3. Designing Your Own Tiny House with Google SketchUp

Michael Janzen over at Tiny House Design is a Google SketchUp pro and he’s created a 7 part series (maybe there’s more coming – I’m not sure) that will help you draw your own tiny house with SketchUp.

Here are the links to each (they all point to Tiny House Design). So if you’ve been wanting to play around with designs, these videos will help you.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7

4. More Freedom through Less Stuff

This post and picture was by me on another web site called Tiny House Lover that’s more about simple living.

5. The 130 Square Foot Tumbleweed Fencl Tiny House

This is one of my favorite tiny house designs and it’s just a link to a post I did on it a while back in September – in case you haven’t seen it already.

It’s designed to be built on a trailer and has an upstairs sleeping loft. Go check it out.

6. What’s next for minimalist houses?

This article makes the idea of a more official tiny house community seem possible. It’s the story of Rich Daniels, who the article says has been building and selling dozens of minimalist homes over the last five years. Click here to learn more. Link opens up to the article on OregonLive.com.

7. How much do I really need?

This video goes as extreme as featuring a bicycle camper… But all for the purpose of getting you to ask yourself, “How much do I really need?” You can watch this video right here.

You are about to learn some things you didn’t know about me plus…

1) Some funny and interesting corrections from the News-Press article I was in

2) How I’m earning a living and

3) An awesome action shot I took of somebody doing a CRAZY kiteboard jump.

There were some comments on the News-Press article that I appreciate being brought up but wanted to correct real quick.

It says that Andrea (the awesome woman that I’ve been with for the last five years) is preparing to become a yoga instructor. I guess this statement understandably led a reader to make the assumption that she is unemployed and does nothing but “prepare to be a yoga teacher” when that is very far from the truth…

The reality is she works full time as a real estate paralegal and already is a yoga instructor – she teaches 2-3 classes of yoga per week and even finds the time to build and run her own web site. She works harder than 99% of people that I know.

And as for me, thankfully, nobody (including Andrea) has had to help me financially. You will find that out for yourself later as I share some of my online business adventures.

You should know that I am very grateful to be able to do what I’m doing, but I won’t let you believe that it was EASY for me to do it. It wasn’t, it still isn’t, and it has required for me to risk a lot while making some decisions that just seemed plain stupid at the time.

But I know that the long term pay off is worth it and I owe my last 15 months of being able to build my own small business full time to…

• Saving money while I was working full time because I knew I wanted to do this
• Getting rid of and being happy with way less stuff since 2007 (we haven’t been perfect, but hey)
• No more car payments since 2008 (yes we’ve been to the mechanic more than I wish, but it’s still made a huge difference… I think about going completely car-less a lot)
• Being able to read inspiring stories and interacting with people who are making a living online

It was September of 2009 when I left my job with $7,542 in the bank. I saved $314 per paycheck for a year. I was a man on a mission. The day I left my job was scary yet exciting because I knew what I wanted to do.

[continue reading…]

If you were to start building your own tiny house right now, which of Tumbleweed’s designs would you pick?

The reason I’m asking is that I just talked to Steve from Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and he graciously asked me if I’d like to be apart of the Orlando, Florida Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshop and of course I said yes!

I am even more excited than I was the other day when I found out that I was featured on the Sunday cover of the Real Estate section on the News-Press where Jay Shafer, Kent Griswold, and Gregory Johnson were mentioned. How cool is that?

That’s our awesome little dog, Louie, in our apartment that we just moved into. It’s a 600 square foot place (we went up from 500) and it was a relatively easy move because we just had to go downstairs (same apartment building). I’ll tell you all about it later if you care to know.

[continue reading…]