Small House Style

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company Bodega Plan On Sale!

SHS — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:17:55 +0000

We are excited about a new plan from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, the Bodega, for several reasons:

1. An architect turned Jay’s sketches into a CAD drawing. This plan is ready to go to the builder.
2. They added a roof plan.
3. It will be available as a pdf download – instant gratification!
4. It is available in two sizes – a 261 square foot version and a 356 square feet version with a bedroom addition.
5. Due to popular demand the plans will feature an option for a cathedral ceiling or a full loft.

Click here to view more details about the 261 square foot Bodega

Click here to view more details about the 356 square foot Bodega with bedroom addition

The sale price is over 70% off – normally $695.
Now $199. Sale ends March 31.

The Bodega

The Bodega has a fireplace, a full bath and kitchen (261 sq ft), and also has the option for an add on bedroom (356 sq ft). Designed with cost savings in mind, the house is proportioned just right. Charming and bright, the simple use of space and building materials keeps construction costs low without sacrificing design. The plans come with an option for a full loft over the great room, kitchen and bathroom, or a 1/2 loft with a cathedral ceiling over the great room.

Estimated Material Costs: $22,000

This house is not designed to be portable. They sell the plans to build it on location.

Loft

We don’t count the loft as square footage in this house because with so much sloped ceiling, it doesn’t officially qualify as a habitable room. That said, with seven feet of ceiling height over more than 50 square feet, the loft provides a lot of usable space. The loft is accessed by a ladder in the kitchen.

Q: Can I put in stairs instead of a ladder?
A: No, stairs wont fit, but “ladder stairs” will.

Foundation

We sell our plans with a post and pier foundation. However, it is possible to put this house on a slab foundation or even over a basement. However, you may need to work with an architect or engineer licensed in your state to get approval from the building department.

Q: Can this house be built on wheels?
A: No. This house is designed to be built on a permanent foundation.

Utilities and appliances

The kitchen maximizes spaces and includes a dishwasher, full size range with oven, and built in microwave. The tankless on demand water heater ensures that you never run out of hot water, and tucks away completely out of view. A small fireplace is tucked nicely in the corner of the great room.

Q: Can I install a washer and dryer?
A: This house isn’t designed for a washer and dryer inside the house. You can put one in the garage or under an awning.

Q: Can I install air conditioning?
A: Yes, you can. Our plans don’t include an air conditioning unit, but you can install one in the loft or outside the house.

Q: What type of fireplace does the house have?
A: We don’t specify a specific fire place or heater because codes vary so much based on climate. We recommend discussing your options with a building contractor licensed in your state.

Download Plans
On sale until March 31, just $199

Normally $695!

Plans include 12 total pages:

- Front, back, side elevations
- Floor plans for downstairs and loft
- Electric plans for downstairs and loft
- Transverse section (a diagram cutting house in half) showing roof pitch, ceiling heights, insulation and more.
- Foundation plan
- Roof plan
- Material list including windows, doors, water heater, bath tub/shower and more

Small House for Sale: A Minneapolis Skyway

SHS — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:00:13 +0000

Looking for a unique small house? Well look no further. CITYDESKSTUDIO Inc. of Minneapolis, home to a unique system of glass “tunnels” located one story above ground, is selling a Minneapolis Skyway Designed by architect Ed Baker, the “father of the skyways,” and built in 1978, previously connected JC Penny’s to Powers department stores above 5th Street in downtown Minneapolis. An architectural icon of the Twin Cities, the skyway was a place of movement, a place of connection, and most importantly, a place of transition.

This Minneapolis Skyway can span 80 feet and is almost 20 feet wide. It could go over a road, a river, a creek, a ravine. It can be lifted off the ground and offer ample parking and storage beneath. As a small house it can have 2 bedrooms a reading room, full bath, kitchen, dining, and still leave space enough for a 40 foot living room.

You are not going to believe this: the asking price is only $49,500. The gents at CITYDESKSTUDIO Inc. must be crazy because if you wanted to build a new Skyway you’ll be looking at upwards of $1,000,000. The steel structure in this Skyway alone has been estimated at @ $250,000. Believe us, an opportunity like this will not pass your way again. Email Ben Awes at CITYDESKSTUDIO Inc. and mention that you found out about the Skyway on Small House Style.

The uses for your new Skyway are only limited by your imagination:

Cabin or Private Retreat
Pop Up Store
Wine Bar
Restaurant
Office or Studio
Yoga Studio
Small Conference Center
Public Park Building
Pedestrian Bridge
Skyway
Gallery
Skating Warming House
Interpretive Center
Sculpture
Inhabitable Billboard
Observation Platform
Hunting Lodge
Retail Store

Details:

Size:
1380 sq. ft.

Dimensions:
19’8” x 83’ x 14’ Tall

Materials:
Steel, Glass, Concrete

Terms:
Buyer responsible for all moving costs. Must be moved from current location near the University of Minnesota Minneapolis. Sold as is. Cash only. Payment terms negotiable. Must be paid in full prior to moving.

Inquiries:
Send Ben Awes at CITYDESKSTUDIO Inc. an email and mention that you found out about the Skyway on Small House Style.

all images are artist renderings expect the one on wheels.

If you know anyone who might be interested in the Skyway, please forward this post to them!

Small House Movement in the News

SHS — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:00:21 +0000

The Small House Movement is in the news again. KXAN recently featured a story about “Tiny houses (that) stress reuse and energy efficiency.” Will recession and foreclosures in the news, even the mainstream media is starting to ask: “what if the homeowners had bought small houses instead?”

Granted, they would have had to make do with less space, but their mortgage payments would have been only a fraction of the owners’ current obligations and they would have saved big on energy costs and taxes, as well. If that realization spreads throughout the marketplace, America could be in for a “small revolution.” So say proponents of the something called the “Small House Movement.”

Check out the video (it will start after the ad):

Is it time to go down to the basics? Time to have a house that you can live in until the day you die, instead of having to get kicked out because you can’t pay the taxes, can’t afford the energy bill? Brad Kittel, the King of Texas Tiny Houses still says so. And small is definitely beautiful in his world.

If you are living in a Tiny Texas House, please drop us a line. We’d love to feature it in our new Small House Real Life column.

Russell Lea Small Studio by Ben Giles Architect

SHS — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:31:11 +0000

Small House Real Life #1

What and How Big? This is a small self-contained studio dwelling of approximately 60m2 (645 sq. ft.) located in inner-west Sydney designed by Ben Giles. It is a new separate residential dwelling and a single car garage built to the rear of the existing home. It contains a ground floor living / kitchen / dining area. Behind this is a combined bathroom and laundry. Upstairs is a bedroom sleeping loft that is connected to the main living space which provides a sense of spaciousness and volume to this small house. The existing garage and studio on the lot were demolished. A portion of the garden was reclaimed to increase landscaping.

Where? This is located at the rear of an existing residential lot in an inner-west suburb of Sydney, Australia. It fronts on to a rear lane.

Why? There is new ‘Granny flat’ planning legislation introduced by the New South Wales Department of Planning in 2009 that allows the provision of small, separate, secondary dwellings on suburban residential lots. This has been introduced to increase the range of housing types and address housing affordability. The owner will be able to rent this house out to generate income as well as to house extended family.

When? Completed in January 2010.

Other details? Ben Giles is an architect with more than 20 years of experience in “residential projects from individual houses to apartment buildings; mixed-use projects; community facilities; retail centres; medical buildings; commercial office and hospitality fit outs” in Australia and the UK.

Links? www.bengilesarchitect.com.au

Calling small house dwellers, builders and designers

SHS — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:17:05 +0000

Do you remember our recent post about what you want on Small House Style? Well the results are in.

We all enjoy the dream houses that get featured here on Small House Style and other sites around the web but we hear you loud and clear: you want more posts about ‘real life’ small house experiences – small, modern, affordable residential housing like Pedro de la Montaña’s.

Got plans, book reviews, small house space saving ideas (small apartments, small cabins, yurts and others work too)? Are you using gadgets and hacks that can make small space living practical and fun? Are you a designer with a real world small house application? We are looking for submissions on anything small house and design.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Copy the questions below and send the answers (with any other pertinent info) back to editor (at) smallhousestyle.com with some high resolution images and if it is a fit, we’ll feature your small house experience on Small House Style. Let’s shoot for 1,200 sq. ft. and smaller but if you feel like you have something you must share send it anyway!

Questions:

Who?
What, How Big and How Much?
Where?
Why?
When?
Links?

We look forward to seeing your small house experience here.

A (smaller) Modern Farmhouse in Vermont

SHS — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:45:52 +0000

A couple builds a smaller, affordable, “green” house

for Small House Style by guest writer Katie Hutchison

When I called Susan Hayes to talk to her about her new, affordable, “green” house in Williston, Vermont, one of the first things she said was, “We really wanted to respect the local vernacular…” She and her husband Ryan created what they call a “Modern Farmhouse”. The exterior was inspired by the farmhouse Ryan’s dairy-farming great grandparents’ owned, and “the inside is really sparse which is more of a Modern feel,” explains Susan. Their hybrid aesthetic is unusual for a “green” home. The fact that it’s smaller is a “green” hallmark.

Smaller and greener

I found Susan and Ryan through their blog Building Green in Vermont in which they have documented their home’s “green” evolution. “We really weren’t that enlightened when we started,” admits Susan. But thanks, in part, to a lengthy local permitting process, they had time to research and educate themselves in efficient and sustainable design. Susan discovered that “size is absolutely critical.” After estimates for an initial design proved too expensive, she and Ryan realized they would need to downsize to keep the construction of their first house on budget and “green”. They scrapped plans for a 2200 sq. ft house (not including a finished, walk-out basement) for a 1568 sq. ft house (not including a finished, walk-out basement).

The initial larger scheme had been created by a drafting service under Susan and Ryan’s direction. The smaller scheme, which they built, was based on an architectural design they found online by an architect in South Carolina. “I’m a big fan of Sarah Susanka. When you’re designing small, I think you really need an architect,” notes Susan. “What the architecturally designed plan did for us was create a more thoughtful house,” she concludes. Reducing approximately 630 sq. ft. from the first and second floors ultimately brought the house’s construction costs down to around $235,000. That figure doesn’t include the land, which had been in Ryan’s family, or the site work and consultants’ fees. Also, Susan and Ryan may have saved money by handling the bulk of the general contracting themselves prior to breaking ground. Once construction began, they happily handed much of the general contracting responsibility over to Bill Litchfield of Specialty Design.

Investment in building envelope and systems

“The stuff we spent the most money on is the stuff you’ll never see…and the exterior piece,” says Susan. She and Ryan invested in ICFs (Insulated Concrete Forms) for the basement, SIPs (Structurally Insulated Panels) for the exterior walls, closed-cell blown-in insulation for the truss roof, fiberglass windows, fiber cement lap siding, a propane-fired radiant heating system, an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator), and standing-seam metal roofing. They have future plans to install solar panels on the property to incorporate into the heating and/or domestic hot water systems. Susan continues, “…We definitely were willing to make compromises on interior finishes that we were not willing to make on the building envelope.”

Interior simplicity

The interior, however, did not suffer as a result. The primary living spaces are clean, mostly white with sustainably harvested maple floors from a nearby Canadian supplier. Susan and Ryan splurged on zero V.O.C. paint, custom kitchen cabinetry, solid-surface counters made with 100% post-consumer recycled paper, and stainless steel Energy Star-qualified kitchen appliances. When funds allow, they may swap out the porcelain ceramic tile at the entry with large slate tiles. Other features, like the black-board paint on the dining area wall, hexagonal floor tile and subway wall tile in the bathrooms, as well as reclaimed bathroom sinks add character relatively inexpensively. Over time, they expect to add punches of interior color in keeping with their taste for Scandinavian design.

Green research

Susan and Ryan learned about “green” building with the aid of consultants and resources like Efficiency Vermont (a nonprofit provider of energy efficiency services in Vermont) and by taking it upon themselves to explore “green” design in magazines, museums, at conferences, and online, especially through blogs. They found two blogs particularly influential, the 100K House and From the Ground Up. “Reading blogs was absolutely ideal. That’s why we started ours because I learned so much from other people that were going through the process,” says Susan. “The blog became my virtual binder…It was a really nice way for me to catalog the research…” she continues.

Advice for other homeowners

For those about to embark on the affordable “green” house design process, Susan summarizes, “Go small. I don’t think we could have achieved the efficiencies that we did had it been a larger house. Prioritize the building envelope…Put the things that effect efficiency first and foremost.” She’s also aware of the temptation toward the end of a construction project to wander off course. “I feel like if you’re gong to pull off going ‘green’ on a budget, you kind of have to identify the non-negotiables and really hold fast to them,” she says. Susan and Ryan kept reminding themselves of their project goals and, she explains, “We really stuck to our guns.”

Future projects

With their home’s construction mostly behind them, Susan and Ryan have a new adventure on the horizon. They’re expecting their first child in February. Though their attention is likely to stray from “green” building for a time, come spring they hope to cultivate an edible landscape which they intend to water with rain collected in barrels from the roof. They started last fall by planting an orchard of Macintosh, Liberty, and Sweet Sixteen apple trees, and they plan to add raspberry and blueberry bushes elsewhere. According to Susan, “I really like long-term projects.” If you’re building “green”, a long-term mindset certainly helps.

Katie Hutchison is an architect, design writer, and fine-art photographer in Salem, Massachusetts. She owns Katie Hutchison Studio and produces House Enthusiast, an on-line magazine exploring house, garden, and related creative arts in New England. Katie is developing some predesigned houses that will accommodate today’s full lives in smaller, high-performance homes inspired by vernacular simplicity.

Photos and drawings provided by Susan and Ryan Hayes.

An Invitation to Visit Gaviotas

SHS — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:08:46 +0000

Gaviotas, a village of about 200 people in Colombia, South America, is not necessarily about small houses but there are some there. It is about living with a small impact on the earth yet has a big impact as a model of sustainable living.

So far, few outsiders have managed to visit this special place. But public order is making a comeback in the region, making it possible for the village to invite 30 people for a fully hosted day visit. In addition, Gaviotas founder Paolo Lugari is inviting visitors to a second day of events in and around the Gaviotas office in Bogotá. As of 25 Jan there are 14 people signed up and 16 spots remaining. You can learn more about Gaviotas and the trip from the Friends of Gaviotas, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed in 2002 to facilitate North-South research exchanges and get-togethers with Gaviotans.

Gaviotas is a village of about 200 people in Colombia, South America. For three decades, Gaviotans – peasants, scientists, artists, and former street kids – have struggled to build an oasis of imagination and sustainability in the remote, barren savannas of eastern Colombia, an area ravaged by political terror. They have planted millions of trees, thus regenerating an indigenous rainforest. They farm organically and use wind and solar power. Every family enjoys free housing, community meals, and schooling. There are no weapons, no police, no jail. There is no mayor.

The United Nations named the village a model of sustainable development. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called founder Paolo Lugari the “inventor of the world.”

Watch this video about Paolo Lugari.

Read or listen to an interview with Alan Weisman, author of “Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World.” If you are not familiar with this book, it is a must read:

more reading:
Las Gaviotas Journal – An Isolated Village Finds the Energy to Keep Going – NYTimes.com

Sense & Sustainability: A utopia made real in Colombia

Learn more about Gaviotas and the trip from the Friends of Gaviotas.

New Video from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company

SHS — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:46:39 +0000

The Tumbleweed Tiny House Company is up to it again. They just released a new video about the making of one of their most popular small houses, the Fencl (which you can see 7 days a week if you are passing through Ohio at the Harley Davidson Bike Town if you missed the coast to coast tour.)

The Fencl plans are on sale now for a short time.

The Fencl is a rather large house on wheels. At 130 square feet (not including sleeping loft) it includes a kitchen, bathroom, fireplace and more. You can build it for approximately $23,000.

The main room has a vaulted ceiling. The interior is completely finished in pine with stainless steel counters. The bathroom includes a full shower.

The building plans are on sale now for $795. They will increase to $859 on March 1 so act soon so get the Fencl plans now.

If you are interested in their Tiny House Building Workshops or Small Space Design Workshops click here to view more details.

Images courtesy of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company..

Mudgee Permanent Camping, NSW Australia

SHS — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:35:20 +0000

At approximately 10 feet square Mudgee Permanent Camping designed by Casey Brown Architecture takes up a very small footprint. Located at the edge of a ridge on a sheep station in central western NSW, Australia, the tower is surrounded by large granite boulders and ancient dead trees.

The two story copper clad tower has panoramic views for hundreds of miles to the horizon. In order to protect it from the elements and particularly brush fires the architect designed veranda roofs that open and close to enclose the wood and glass interior. Due to the remote location, water is collected from the rooftop. Other green touches are the passive heating and cooling technologies built into the design and recycled ironbark interior. The adornments are simple and casual. There is a kitchen, living and dining room with a Rais wood fired slow combustion stove and a sleeping loft on the second floor. The “water closet” is a short walk away from the camp. The building was completely prefabricated by the builder Jeffrey Broadfield in Sydney and then transported to site.

More information about Casey Brown Architecture: www.caseybrown.com.au

Images courtesy of Casey Brown Architecture

Via World Architecture News

Two ways to help Haiti.

SHS — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:23:24 +0000

We’ve all heard the devastating news – Haiti was struck by one of its worst natural disasters in the last 200 years.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake shocked Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas on Tuesday just before 5 p.m., collapsing buildings and cutting water and electricity services. Literally millions of people have been affected.

Today, we’re asking that you contribute to relief efforts. A donation to Partners in Health and/or Concern Worldwide will provide emergency medical care, food, shelter, medicine, blankets and clean drinking water to those suffering from the destruction.

Learn more and contribute to Concern Worldwide here.

Learn more and contribute to Partners in Health here.

thanks to charity: water for the suggestion.

UPDATE

Google has published a comprehensive page crisis response/relief page (http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/) where you can find even more information about how you can help including donations to UNICEF, CARE, Direct Relief, Yele Haiti, Partners in Health, Red Cross, World Food Program, Mercy Corps (1-888-256-1900), Save the Children, Lambi Fund, and The International Rescue Committee.

More resources from the LA Times.

If you are aware of other ways to help, please post them to the comments.

No related posts.