Tiny House Dreams (KISS topic #1 for The Minimalist community)

phoenixwren (72)in The MINIMALIST • 3 years ago

This week's KISS (Keep It Simple and Smart) topic is about off grid living, and topic one is your dreams of doing so, if you haven't managed to get there yet.

Oh yes, I have dreams. LOL

I've dreamed of a tiny house for probably 20 years now. But finances, for the most part, have prevented me from doing so yet (ironically, since you can save money once you're in one). Back in the day you couldn't finance a tiny, and by the time that was a thing, my credit was in the toilet (it used to be really good), so I would either never get approved or be paying extortionist interest rates. I think my credit score is "average" now, but my income is not steady so I still wouldn't be approved (the magic of "I can pay rent that is more than the mortgage would be but can't be approved for the mortgage," ahh, capitalism).

But ya know what, that's okay, because it has given me time to learn to purge stuff (#ReformedHoarder), and to learn a lot.

A few years back I was SUPER BLESSED to get to go to a tiny house building workshop put on by Tumbleweed Tiny Homes! I literally won the ticket - it normally costs hundreds - so I was SO EXCITED!!!

They had a tiny there on the second day we got to check out:

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I really loved this house

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It had a loft and also a second bedroom in the back; if this were my house I would make the downstairs bedroom my workspace instead and put a desk and my bookshelves in there. That's a washer-dryer-in-one under the counter, and a medium-size mini fridge under the stairs on the right of the hallway.

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The loft was really big; that's a queen size bed and there was a good four or five feet at the foot of it where you could put clothing trunks or shelves or a dog bed or whatever you wanted

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Manifesting!

I love the plain wood walls in tiny homes like this. I would make some modifications of course to make it my own, but generally I really like the style.

One of the things I'd like to do is to make a bottlecap floor for part of it - maybe the kitchen or the bathroom. I have been saving all my bottlecaps for years. Yeeaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrsssssss, lol. I have a shoebox full after all those years. A few years ago I decided to see how far that got me (I have more than this now, but not by a lot) and just made a pattern on the kitchen floor to see:

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Yuan helps by modeling the floor

The vast majority of those caps are from ginger ale because I drink a lot of that, lol. But there are some other sodas there, too. I don't drink alcohol, so it's only soda caps.

I would also of course make cat shelves for Yuan in the house, maybe circling around the living/kitchen area and connecting the bed loft with the storage loft (assuming I did a similar design to the house I toured, which had a big bed loft but then a smaller storage loft on the other end of the house).

I have learned from other people's experiences as well, as I belong to a tiny house group on fb. The little wood-burning fireplace I originally wanted (that was very expensive, but supposedly it was The Best), apparently is NOT the best, and gets pretty terrible reviews now that it's been out a while. So I would probably get a different one now. I would get a mini-split too, but I am an extra-cold person so I figure on cold nights the mini-split might not be enough and I would want the fireplace. Plus also, I just like having a wood burning fireplace for when electric is out - and heating with electric is expensive to boot, though I think mini-splits are fairly efficient. Solar panels of course are something I would like, and if I was able, maybe a mini wind turbine so that I could get all my electricity clean and off-grid. I have also heard enough horror stories about composting toilets having problems and replacement parts taking months to arrive (even before the current supply chain issues), that I think I would rather do a simple bucket compost system if I wasn't hooked up to plumbing; though I would rather be hooked up to plumbing. I just do not have the physical oomph to carry all that water; my chronic illness would be flaring.

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I embroidered this pillow several years ago, too. :)

I think I would just do a small washer and not a washer-dryer-in-one; those who have them say the drying cycle takes HOURS and frankly, I hang up my clothes to dry half the time anyway even with a dryer in my apartment. Also, I think a good size fridge for me is a medium size one - bigger than a mini fridge, but smaller than your typical US fridge (which tend to be pretty large, if you've never encountered one; people from other countries often come to the US and comment on the size of our fridges, so I think the size I want is probably the more common size in other countries. Here I think it might be called an "apartment fridge," though the fridge in my current apartment is a regular large US fridge).

I would also love to fit a sitting tub in there - sitting tubs a) would take up less floor space and b) can fit your whole body, lol. Most US tubs are long and small, so either you can have your legs and butt under water but the water doesn't get any higher than your waist, or you can lay down but then most of your legs are out of the water if you want to get your torso all the way wet. It's a thing that we all complain about and why we envy rich people with large houses who have giant tubs. LOL. And I'm short! Sitting tubs are almost nonexistent here but you can order one from a specialty catalog. I call those catalogs "bathtub porn." 😂

I also love cob houses and earthships, but I know I don't have the physicality to build one, even with help. Again, chronic illness strikes. But with a tiny on wheels, I could get a builder to do most of the hard/big/heavy building, and then take my time doing my little personalizing projects like the bottlecap floor (though if I DID have a cob house, I would totally make it round!).

I think also, I like the idea that this other builder I follow on social media but whose name is escaping me right now - has. They put a regular size door on the side of the house, rather than a skinny door on the narrow end (as the Tumbleweed house in the photos has). I like that, because then moving furniture or hauling groceries or if a friend is in a wheelchair, etc. becomes doable, whereas a wheelchair and certain furniture would never fit through a skinny door, and eventually you have to replace appliances and stuff. And since I don't drive, I haul groceries on a wheelie cart and I'm not sure if that could fit through a skinny door either. Plus you can put a ramp if it's on the long end and not just stairs - good for my wheelie cart and my friends in wheelchairs!

So there are my tiny house dreams. :) One day maybe I will get one!

#kiss #minimalist #palnet #archon #proofofbrain #tiny #house #dreams #thow #offgrid

3 years ago in The MINIMALIST by phoenixwren (72)

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shanibeer (72) 3 years ago

Lovely to see your tiny house dreams again, I remember when I first read your posts about them 😍. I went to see a friend in a marina a few weeks ago and there was a boat sitting on the bank with what looked a tiny house sitting on top of it 😂. I thought about taking a photo (you were in my mind), but there were so many other things going on, I got distracted and forgot about it.

Where would be your ideal place for your tiny house? Do you have parks for them, like we have caravan and mobile home parks? We have regulations here about where you can park campers and caravans, I guess it would be the same for tiny houses.

I had a look at tiny houses that are available here. They're being promoted as additional to conventional housing, like if you needed extra space or a guest room. I like the one that you show, especially with the extra room, whether a bedroom or study. Did it have a staircase or a ladder to the bedroom? The models I looked at had quite elaborate bathrooms, compared to the rest of the accommodation 😂.

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phoenixwren (72) 3 years ago

The "where to park it" is indeed a problem here. Some places are slowly becoming more tiny-friendly, but usually as an ADU like you mention (Accessory Dwelling Unit, like a mother-in-law house or a Airbnb type thing in a backyard of a regular house). There are trailer parks but a) often they don't allow tinys!! b) they are hellaciously exploitative and not a good place to be and c) they usually only exist in the worst neighborhoods and/or in tornado alley.
In other parts of the state, even in the boonies, there are minimum size restrictions (of 675 sq ft I think), or rules that would count a tiny on wheels as "camping" and you are only allowed to "camp," even on your own property, in one place for six months out of the year. Really.
So, that's the other hurdle besides finances. Some people are setting up tiny communities, but they are few and far between - far more demand than supply.
Because ya know, how DARE you not want to live in a giant McMansion with 2000 sq ft+!!! It's just un-American! ;)

The one here had a staircase, but I actually would choose a different design. They made the steps normal height vertically, but only half as wide horizontally toe-to-heel, so that your heels didn't touch the stair. That's just asking for an accident, imo. I would rather they be twice as tall but normal width, or something. I understand they were trying to conserve space, and some tiny stairs get reeeeeally creative, but this one I would change.