This is a 800 sq. ft. off grid beach cottage located on Keewaydin Island, Florida that is only accessible by boat. The home was originally built in 1948 as a fishing cottage. When Sherry Irvin (Realtor in Naples, Florida), her husband at the time, and their two daughters (ages three and six at the time), moved into the small cottage, they updated the interior but kept the original wood floors. They also incorporated features in the home that we normally see in houseboats.
When you go inside you’ll find a kitchen, open living room with views of the ocean, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. To save space they removed all the doors in the home except in the bathroom where there was already a privacy curtain. They also added a large deck that is nearly the size of the home itself. They lived here for six years. And the children were best friends since they were the only kids on the island. They also got to go to school by boat rather than school bus. How cool is that? Sherry says she would live here again in a heart beat! So how would you like to live in a small home like this on an island? Let us know why or why not in the comments below.
Don’t miss other tiny homes like this – join our FREE Small House Newsletter for more!
Family of Four Live in 800 Sq. Ft. Off-Grid Island Cottage
Images © Sherry Irvin
[continue reading…]
{ }
This Girlfriend’s Perspective on Off-Grid Tiny House Living is a guest post by Cheryl Davies and Rob Greenfield – share your story and tiny home here too!
A few months ago we shared with you a story about Rob Greenfield’s off grid micro cabin life in California. Since then, Rob’s girlfriend, Cheryl, has shared her perspective on his lifestyle. So here is what they both have to say, starting with Rob…
I often see comments like, “This guy obviously doesn’t have a girlfriend,” and they’re talking about me when they say that! Well let me tell you, I DO have girlfriend and she is AMAZING, GORGEOUS, and we are SO IN LOVE! She loves to spend time at my off the grid tiny house with me and she’s coming over right now. Here she shares her perspective on my off the grid, tiny house lifestyle…
Please enjoy, learn more and re-share below. Thank you!
Girlfriend’s Perspective on Off-Grid Tiny House Living
Images © Rob Greenfield
[continue reading…]
{ }
This off grid tiny cabins retirement story is a guest post by Michael Scheer – share your tiny house story here too!
My name is Michael and about 5 years ago I wanted an off-grid place for vacation and retirement. Like many others, I am tired of bills, bills, bills and knew I would never have enough money to retire on unless I became debt-free and my home was paid off.
A couple of years passed and as things happened I had a friend who went through a divorce (I recently moved out of my ex-girlfriends home 8 months prior) and he needed help monetarily in order to buy a home and asked me to move in. The move cut my rent in half and enabled me along with my bonus check to purchase some land I found in northern AZ at about 6500 ft elevation. Summers are mild with highs in the low 90’s high 80’s and winters are in the 40’s and 50’s with light snow. I picked up 6 acres for less than $4k.
He Built Two Off Grid Tiny Cabins for his Retirement
Images © Michael Scheer
Months later I decided to put in my first cabin, I bought a 10×18 from weatherking (apx. $4200.00), it was just a shell.
[continue reading…]
{ }
This 176 sq. ft. sustainable tiny house is a guest post by Kristen Edge – share yours!
This is the tiny house my husband, and somewhat myself, built. We used a 32′ trailer we bought from someone who was tearing down a mobile home park and put our house on it. The house is about 22′ x 8′, the deck is 9′ (still on the trailer), and the rest of the length is the tongue and our little shed in the back.
We used primarily reused materials including redwood from an old deck (which we sanded and refinished to become our deck) that we got off Craigslist. Some free old barn wood from Craigslist, the engineered, maple hardwood floor was project leftovers that we got on Craigslist, an old cedar fence from Phoenix as our siding, and most of our fixtures and other odds and ends from Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
Please enjoy, learn more and re-share below. Thank you!
Couple Build 176 Sq. Ft. Sustainable Tiny House
Images © Kristen Edge
[continue reading…]
{ }
This earthbag tiny house story is a guest post by Atulya K. Bingham – share yours!
My name is Atulya K. Bingham. I never thought I’d build my own house. I hadn’t so much as considered it. As far as I knew, I didn’t particularly even like building. I’d never so much as banged in a nail.
Then one night it became clear. As a rain-laden gust of wind lifted the back of my tent clean off the platform, I realized I was going to have to make a home. If I didn’t, either I’d be washed off the Turkish mountain I was camped on, or dragged back to the dreaded day job.
As pools of water collected at the bottom of my sleeping bag, the decision was forged. A friend of mine a few hours along the Turkish coast had built some earthbag bungalows. He’d said the process was straight forward.
There were only two problems: I had just $6000 left in my account, and a month before deep winter set in. After a couple of days of online research, I took a deep breath and embarked on what became the earthbag adventure. It was an endeavor that by its completion had taken me to places I had no idea I could go, and brought in all kinds of on-lookers, doubters, helpers, and life-savers.
Today I’m sitting inside that beautiful handcrafted home. It’s small, 6 meters diameter, but it feels like a palace to me. Not one drop of cement was used and it is 100 percent solar powered. A house isn’t simply a shelter. It’s a life. My home has enabled me to leave behind a world of mind-numbing work and unhealthy lifestyle choices and has given me the chance to live my dream of becoming an author. Please enjoy, learn more and re-share below. Thank you!
One Woman’s Path to Freedom with an Earthbag Tiny House
Images © The Mud Home
[continue reading…]
{ }
What does “living simply” really mean? That was one of the questions on Aldo Lavaggi’s mind when he set out to design and build his own tiny house on wheels. He purposefully chose a very simple design with no running water and no shower, curious about how it would feel to carry in his own water, and how difficult it would be to shower at friends’ houses instead.
But a simple design doesn’t necessarily mean a spartan one. He also designed a space for a collapsible hammock chair to provide “squishy comfort”, which can be rare in tiny houses with lots of built-in wood seating. He installed solar panels as his primary energy source, and used several large and interesting windows so the house could be heated by the sun as much as possible, a technique called “passive solar” heating, even in the cold winters of New York State. He also rigged a retractable stepladder to his sleeping loft, and added an external storage area over his trailer hitch as a small shed for tools.
Young Man Explains Simple Living in a Tiny House on Wheels
[continue reading…]
{ }
Perched up on a hill on San Juan Island, Washington, this rustic cabin has two towers. The entire cabin is a total of 672 sq. ft. The towers are connected by a lower level open living and dining area along with the kitchen.
The upper part of the towers are sleeping lofts that can be accessed by ladder. This cabin is completely off grid so there is no indoor bathroom and heat is provided by wood stove. Enjoy below and check out the views you could get from here. The views from the sleeping lofts must be amazing.
To explore more super-cool small homes like this, join our Small House Newsletter. Enjoy!
Rustic, Double-Tower Cabin on San Juan Island
Images © David Vandervort
[continue reading…]
{ }
Are you interested in living off the grid? It can be challenging to provide for your own needs for energy, water and other resources, but for John Wells, it’s preferable to the challenge of working a traditional job so he can buy those resources from someone else.
John has received plenty of press, from Lloyd Kahn’s “Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter” to a 2011 New York Times Profile, for moving from upstate New York to the Texas desert to build an off-grid, 128-square foot home, and then blogging about it daily for years. I visited him personally to understand more about how he made that transition, and what makes an off-grid life work.
John felt the land he bought in Southwest Texas was so cheap that his off-grid experiment didn’t agree with him, he could quit without losing much. Living in a little house works for him partially because most of his life takes place outside. When his bills and mortgage were more than he could handle in New York, he rented his house to summer vacationers and moved into a travel trailer in his backyard. That experience helped him see home as a small place to relax after a day of activity.
Images © Billy Ulmer
[continue reading…]
{ }
This Prefab ZeroHouse is a guest post by Pamela Putnam
Introducing zeroHouse, a small, prefabricated building that can easily be shipped and quickly erected. It is completely self-sufficient and incredibly comfortable. Most notably you can live here without having any external utilities connected or even waste disposal connections! It’s fully self sufficient. Let’s go on a tour…
Enter zeroHouse through the front entry, which is a Kevlar reinforced door shell with vacuum-sealed aerogel insulating core. You will see the living room to your right, furnished with a modular wraparound couch, 42″ LCD TV, and ample built-in storage. To your left is the kitchen, equipped with a full array of high-efficiency appliances, including an induction cooktop, microwave oven, and full-size refrigerator. The dining area includes a restaurant-style booth, and comfortably seats four adults.
Climb the stairs located in the entry to the second floor, where you will find two bedrooms, each furnished with a king-size bed, window seat, and large closet. The full bathroom, which features a large shower, full vanity, and a porcelain low-flush toilet, opens onto its own private sun-deck with outdoor shower and lounge chairs. A covered deck off the upstairs entry provides the perfect rooftop area for outdoor living.
Prefab ZeroHouse is Off-Grid and Fully Sustainable
Images © Specht Harpman
[continue reading…]
{ }
