Building a Mortgage-free Tiny House by the Seat of My Pants – Part 2 – by Shirley Loomis
Arriving at my tiny house daily was so much more pleasant once the outside was complete. It looked like I was working on something real, no longer just a picture in my mind’s eye. An added benefit of having the exterior complete was that I could work inside with an added degree of warmth and protection from the elements.
Prior to tackling the inside I looked at a lot of layouts I had seen published in books and online, examined my own existing furniture, considering how I might be able to repurpose it for use inside my tiny house. Being a book hound my bookcases were definitely something that would be put to use. As you look at your space, always keep in mind how you live, the kinds of things you like to do, how you make your living, and what you readily have on hand that you can tailor to meet your needs.
Building a Mortgage-free Tiny House by the Seat of My Pants – Part 1Â – by Shirley Loomis
Years ago virtually every home in this country was built by the men and women who lived in them. They were homes, barns, outbuildings of one form or another, silos; homes for people, crops, and livestock. These were places of shelter and it was envisioned by the builders that they would serve as such for years on into the future, long after they were built, and perhaps long after the builders themselves were gone.
When I started building my tiny house I went back to that premise of building; the owner-builder, the homesteader in need of shelter, because in many ways that’s exactly where I found myself.
I looked at simple building books, books on sheds and small outbuildings, the books on the market (before Kindle and Amazon) that dealt with cottages and tiny homes that were built with the intention owners would add on to them at a later date, books on writer’s cottages and fishermen’s cottages, treehouses, huts and forts; anything that was built from scratch, and constructed without intricate detail or complexity.
Over time, as my search continued, I came across plans that were specifically designed to be built on top of trailer frames or flatbeds. They were portable and they were called tiny houses. Some looked like gypsy caravans, others like the cottages I’d been reviewing with the only exception being that these were on wheels. They were portable and ideal for someone like me whose future seemed continually subject to revision.
