Abandoned house located near Sequim, Washington. Similar houses are often found in rural areas and small communities with high unemployment. An abandoned house like this would require a large investment of time and energy, but might possibly be an option for someone with limited resources.
Derek “Deek” Diedricksen is a self-proclaimed lover of all things tiny home. The Massachusetts-based builder is the author of numerous tiny home books; organizer of tiny home building and design workshops around the country; and has been featured on more than one HGTV series and the DIY Network. His latest book, Microshelters, features 59 of the country’s most creative small structures — cabins, tree houses, stilted shelters, backyard huts, and tiny homes on wheels.
Over the years we’ve sent prison inmates any books they ask for. 20 years ago, we were sending out a lot of weight training books. These days, they’re asking for building books.*
Yesterday this package arrived and it was a delight. The spoon is really nice. Handcrafted, not made in China.
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Derek “Deek” Diedricksen is a tiny-house aficionado who has scoured the country for dozens of the coolest examples of the microliving trend. In his new book, Microshelters: 59 Creative Cabins, Tiny Houses, Tree Houses, and Other Small Structures*, he highlights his quirkiest finds.
They range from a 238-square-foot backyard cabin you can rent on Airbnb to a 135-square-foot trailer on wheels that one couple is driving across the country for a year.
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Brad Kittel from the Tiny Homes book (pages 44-49 and on the cover) has started a Kickstarter campaign for a book of plans for 30 houses built of 95% salvaged materials free of plastic, vinyl, sheetrock, or latex paints. Check it out.
Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/318443601/tiny-texas-houses-building-plans
Nine years ago I began pioneering the 95% Pure Salvage Building techniques that have been perfected over the years in the form of Tiny Texas Houses. They are now built using “Space Magic,” a term I coined for making spaces seem much bigger than they are through illusions of a sort few others in the tiny house industry seem to understand. Read More …
If you’re a Northern California builder, I highly recommend you stop in at Heritage Salvage in Petaluma. They have tons of used wood, hardwood slabs, and all manner of recycled and soulful building materials.
Shown here is a walnut slab that is 8′3″ long, and 60″ at one end and 43″ at the other. Think of the walnut tree that this came from.
If you’re a Northern California builder, I highly recommend you stop in at Heritage Salvage in Petaluma. They have tons of used wood, hardwood slabs, and all manner of recycled and soulful building materials.
Underhill is an incredible hobbit-home eco-cave house built into a hillside. The off-the-grid house is cleverly constructed to resemble a cave. With no electricity in the house, the stone, wood and rustic features truly make you feel like you’re stepping back in time.
For more information on this house, visit www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com.
Near the northern tip of Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest and only accessible by a private pedestrian bridge over the New Haven River, this energy efficient mini-cabin uses all green materials. Think natural pine, reclaimed wood floors, and locally-sourced antique furniture and bathroom fixtures. The 600-square-foot cabin doesn’t feel tiny thanks to high-lofted ceilings, light pine walls, and natural light galore. We especially like the twisting spiral staircase and cozy wood burning stove…
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Bobby Heffelfinger created this rolling art studio in West Marin county, California, on a 2013 Ford F-350 truck with mostly recycled materials (left over from various building projects). He started with the truck chassis and built a flatbed with 2 × 2 steel square stock.
It’s immaculately built. It’s framed with 2 × 2 fir studs. Siding is 1 × 4 tongue-and-groove cedar. Curved rafters were cut out of fir 2 × 12’s. Roof sheathing is 1 × 6 redwood tongue-and-groove.
It’s 8 feet wide by 14 feet long. Inside, it’s 7 feet to the top of the arch. The roof is 18-gauge copper with standing seams. Windows were built out of redwood from an old water tank.
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From Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter
“We live in Austin, Texas and blog about living a small-footprint life at our tiny urban homestead: thelittlehouseonahill.tumblr.com“
Art Rogers Family Album, November 6, 2014 | The Point Reyes Light
Lloyd Kahn and his greenhouse built from recycled windows and handmade bricks made from local clay. Photo by Art Rogers
Lloyd, who was born and raised in San Francisco, began building things in the late 1940s when, at age 12, he helped his father construct their family home in Colusa. After building a large timber home for himself from recycled materials in Big Sur in 1967, he became interested in domes and began his publishing career with a series of publications titled Dome Book 1 and Dome Book 2; he became the “Shelter” editor in 1969 for the Whole Earth Catalogue. He moved to Bolinas in 1971, built a dome, tore it down and replaced it with a stud-framed house and became a pioneer of owner-built simple structures using recycled materials. He has since published over 20 books on the subject, including Shelter, and The Septic System Owners Manual, Builders of the Pacific Coast, and Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter.
He will be giving a slide presentation and book signing this Friday, November 7, 2014, 7:30 p.m., at the Point Reyes Presbyterian Church for his latest book about living in small structures, titled Tiny Homes on the Move: Wheels and Water.
For more information, visit www.pointreyesbooks.com.
My ex-husband and I built our home in the ’70s on a 1956 White truck, which cost $250. We used many recycled materials. Shipping crates became siding, discarded oak pallets and tiles became the table, etc.
It had a circulating toilet, double-paned Plexiglas windows and skylights, and a 30-inch porch at the rear. It had a 125-gallon water tank and a 60-gallon propane tank — self-contained. It’s solidly built and runs great!
There were two full-size bunks for the four kids. The upper bunk had been removed when these photos were taken. The spinet piano can barely be seen.
Studs were linked at the bottom with ¼-inch steel angle. It prevented disaster when one time someone drove into the side of the house truck. The driver totaled his car; we only have to replace a bit of siding.
The window design was determined by the size of the discarded Plexiglas scraps, and inspired by bathroom windows in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
We bolted three metal baffles between the stove and walls, staggering the bolts so as not to transfer the heat. The stove could be fully fired up and the wall behind it would still be quite cool.
I learned all my carpentry and building skills working on this truck. One day while driving myself, the porch railing got caught in something, ripping it half off, and it was sitting on the ground. What to do? I pulled out some tools and reattached it on the spot before driving away.
–Alice
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