Doug built his own 8’x20′ Tumbleweed Cypress 20 Overlook tiny house on a trailer. He started building it almost 3 years ago and has been living in it while finishing it.
All while also keeping a job. But now he’s finished and has invited us to come to get the tour thanks to Deek. Doug used glass storm doors to create one of the world’s tiniest sunrooms at the entrance instead of the usual porch. With this design idea he’s been able to generate solar heat using the sunroom and what he does is simply open his front door to let some of the heat into the cabin for passive solar gain.
Doug doesn’t spend more than $104 per year to heat his tiny house and just $176 per year on energy total. That’s a total of just $14.66 per month on utilities!
It is funny for me to turn on HGTV and see a small house about the size of my own called an “Extreme Home.” For me, and I am sure for most tiny house dwellers, these little spaces are just “home,” not extreme at all. On Thursday, December 6th HGTV aired a segment on tiny house bloggers Tammy Strobel and Logan Smith along with their tiny home designer Dee Williams.
The segment, only a few minutes long, was a quick look into the way tiny house owners live their daily lives. The integration of their environment to their daily activities is most notable and I think is one of the most fascinating things I notice about people who chose to simplify their lives in this way. None of us just slog through life waiting for the next thing to happen to us. We are people who take control of our world and face it deliberately. They focus on Tammy leaving her corporate job to pursue writing. I believe that this drastic lifestyle overhaul is what allows many of us to live our dreams. Want more kind of like this? Join our FREE Small House Newsletter!
Photo Courtesy of RowdyKittens.com
I encourage you to read more about tiny houses featured on HGTV below:
This is a tour of a Seattle Tiny Home on Wheels with Derek “DEEK” Diedricksen of Relaxshacks.com.
You’ll even see Jay Shafer and Dee Williams appear sporadically in the video too since this tour was held at a Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshop. It’s a really unique design and the little home features a kitchen, bathroom, washer and dryer, and two sleeping lofts. I really enjoy the pop-out window in the bathroom, too. So glad that Deek was able to capture the house and share it with us. So without further ado…
They built it in Brooklyn, New York inside the old warehouse workshop you can see below. It was a prefab design done by Derek. It took him two days to create the prefab kit and 5 hours to put it together with 3 people. There are all sorts of cool designs inside and out include a pop up window, lantern and a voodoo owl.
A few days ago I received Derek Diedricksen’s latest edition of Humble Homes, Simple Shacks in the mail so I was pretty excited to be able to review it so you can see what it’s all about before you order it.
In this video I’ll give you a sneak peak of the book that way you can figure out whether it’s something you’d find useful or not.
It’s a really fun book with tons of ideas. Some very practical and others are straight up funky. Either way the book will certainly get you thinking.
Well, enough yapping on here. Click the “play” button below to watch the complete review.
If you decide you want to order your own copy, you can do so over at Amazon.com.
Click here to order your copy of Humble Homes, Simple Shacks through Amazon.com.
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Derek has built several micro houses in his backyard out of reclaimed materials. In this video interview, Merete Mueller and Christopher Smith give you a glimpse into Deek’s world.
Micro Houses & Backyard Forts
What I like the most about small structures is all of the different ways that people can benefit from them. Many of the micro homes that Deek creates cost less than $200 to build.
If you’re willing to look around with an open mind, you can find lots of your materials for free as long as you have the time and willingness to look around and talk to people.
9 Ways To Use a $200 Micro Shelter
Backyard office
Children’s playhouse
Micro storage unit
Chicken coop
Micro Cabin
$100 Homeless Hut
Occupy Wall Street Shelter
Tree house
Micro camper
What are some other cool ways that people can use these micro houses? Share your ideas in the comments after you watch the video.
