Concept #1

Possible exterior finishes

Trailers

You can build a tiny house on just about any flatbed trailer. 

We started by looking at car haulers, which a lot of people have built on.  But, after having read "Tiny House Decisons" by Ethan Waldman, we decided to go with a trailer built for a tiny house.  Ethan had a trailer that was given to him and spent a lot of time and money refurbishing it.  So, the trailer was free, but the work it took sounded like a huge pain in the butt.  Darrin and I figure, this is our foundation... might as well start with something new and sound.

Next, we looked into getting a Tumbleweed Tiny House Trailer.  These are nice trailers with some extras especially for tiny houses. We came damned close to ordering one, but hadn't seen any tiny houses in person, so were holding off for that.

After visiting the Caravan Tiny House Hotel and talking to Ben (the builder) there we decided to look into Iron Eagle for a trailer.  The week after we came back from Portland, I called Iron Eagle and talked to Rob, their PAD Series salesman (PAD = Portland Alternative Dwellings).  Through Rob I found out that there is a distributor about 10 mins from us, (crazy!) who sells the PAD Series trailers and had 3 on order to be delivered the next Monday.  He suggested we go take a look at them.  We still planned to drive to Fairview Oregon to pick one up directly from Iron Eagle, because they were $1,000 bucks cheaper. 

When we visited Trailers NW on Maple Valley highway, we found the trailers hadn't been delivered yet, but they did have a couple of 20' trailers they could show us.  We also found that the $1,000 difference was because the trailers they sell are equipped with wheel flashing, attached leveling jacks and metal bed sheeting. Darrin definitely wanted the metal sheeting, and since that was a huge part of the price difference we decided to go for it!

Diggie inspected it for us and gave us the go ahead... next we need to lock down a design!

An Encounter with Tiny House Nation

So, an odd thing happened the last week or so.  Darrin works for Magellan Insulation and his company was contracted to insulate a tiny house in Kenmore with a special spray foam made by a company called Demilec.  This tiny house is going to be featured on Tiny House Nation, (Episode #209) a show about the growing tiny house movement. Darrin and I watch the show because they have some pretty nifty space saving ideas for downsizing, and it's fun to see what they do with these little houses.

Darrin and I drove up Kenmore on Sunday to take a look.  This house is being built on an 8' x 24' trailer (same as ours) and will have a double loft.  Unfortunately, when we saw it, they hadn't finished framing it so it's anyone's guess what the finished house will look like, but here are a couple pictures...

This house looks very narrow in person because it's so tall and there is no variation in roof pitch.  Zack Giffin, from the show, was on site when we got there, so we got to meet him and chat with him for a couple minutes.  Darrin has been to the site a couple of times to check on the insulation and got to meet John Weisbarth and even got to hang out and chat with Zack a while longer. Pretty neat! It's definitely more fun watching the show after you've met the guys.  I'll be interested to see the episode. =)

Choices

Before I go on to trailers, I want to say a few words about our choices. I have a lot of friends who think I might be a little nuts, thinking of moving into 200ish square foot living space.

Darrin and I both work in the construction industry, which can be incredibly stressful. We lived through the housing crash, hanging on by a thread. We live in a society that wants instant gratification, home owners and contractors want their construction schedules to be flawless and services NOW and hassle free.  At the end of an average day we are both tired, disheartened and frustrated. We have been average American workers/consumers all our lives.

Our main reason for building a tiny house is to break out of this vicious cycle.  We spend more money than we need to, give our employers the majority of our waking hours, don't really have much freedom, and aren't terribly happy. We been suckered into American consumerism and have tons of stuff that's unnecessary clutter. I won't get into the years I have spent contemplating this truly insane society we live in, that's not what this blog is about.

We are looking at spending somewhere between $25,000-35,000 to build the house. We estimate that it will take us 3-4 years to complete it, paying cash as we go. Utilities for a tiny house cost an average of $30 a month. We can have fun things like fancy light fixtures because we will only need one or two, as opposed to a whole house full. With a tiny house we could both take part time, low stress jobs and have the freedom to spend time with our families and each other. 

I should also add that I am, without a doubt, a devoted tree-hugger. If I can reduce my carbon footprint on this planet by moving into a tiny house, all the better.

Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel

Now that we had decided we were pretty sure we wanted to do this, the next logical step was to see some in person.

One of the easiest ways to see one is to visit the Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel in Portland Oregon.  Luckily for us, my oldest daughter Noel and her husband are living in Portland, just 15 mins. away from this neat little place.  So, in early March, we took a Sunday afternoon tour. (Note: Darrin and I had originally wanted to book one for a weekend, but this place is so popular is was booked out well into the summer.)

 

It was a beautiful sunny 70 degree day in Portland when we went, and the place is very charming.  We got to walk all of the tiny houses except the Tandem which was closed. More importantly we got to talk to one of the builders.  We had originally decided to go with a Tumbleweed Tiny House Trailer, but after talking to Ben the Builder (not Bob) we learned that a company Iron Eagle had trailers just east of Portland that might be a better option.  What sold us on Iron Eagle was that the trailers are designed for building over the wheel wells, where the Tumbleweed construction plans are meant for between the wheel well construction. Building over the wheel well gives you an extra 6-8 inches of living space, and while that doesn't sound like much, it makes an enormous difference in  how confined the house feels. 

Of all the houses in the Caravan, the Kangablue (above) was my favorite, it has a more spacious feel than the others.  They were all truly wonderful, but this one felt like something I could live in.

We were sold!  Now on to finding a trailer! Hooray!

How it all started

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I love "little" things.  Darrin and the kids tease me about it, but... it's definitely true.

So it stands to reason that while browsing Netflix one day, when I found a documentary called "Tiny, A Story About Living Small", Darrin said something to the affect of "You just want to watch it because it's little". True again, but it was more than that, I was intrigued.

The documentary is about a a young couple, Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller, who attempt to build a tiny house with no construction experience and a limited budget.  The documentary also addresses the shifting American values.  A very interesting documentary, I would recommend it to anyone.

The very first time I saw a tiny house was in a magazine in a doctors waiting room, and that was a good 10-15 years ago. I remember thinking "That's crazy! Who could live like that?" But, I was also charmed by the idea.

Back to the video.  One of Darrin's first comments was something like "Why not just buy an RV?", but as we watched, he became more interested and we started to talk about it being a great idea for us.  We live in a house that's roughly 650 square feet now and we both agree, a good 60% of the house we don't really use or need, it's just room to store junk.  We have been kicking around the idea of buying a house for years, we neither one of us wants to be locked into 30 year mortgage at our age.  So, here was a potential to build a house with cash, no loans, that would be 100% ours and that we could move when necessary.  No loans, no mortgage, and the opportunity to possibly live completely off the grid. As for the RV idea... RV's are fun, but they have a very temporary, plasticy feel to me.

We kicked the idea around for a long time and finally concluded that this was a a very practical way to go. 

And so began our Adventures with Our Wee House on Wheels!