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Small World: The Tiny House Trend

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Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#161

Post by maxxxxx »

marktangotango wrote: post #40
jerf wrote: post #27

Tiny house retention seems to be fairly poor. Search a bit for "give up tiny house" or something and you'll get a lot of people giving up the lifestyle, and it seems hard to come by people who have been doing it for a long time. Not impossible, because nothing is impossible, but not easy. It makes journalists swoon, but I don't see it as something that has a lot of future to it. Seems like something that sounds a lot…

Ask anyone who grew up in a decrepit mobile home park or a rotting old farmhouse in rural poverty or tiny crumbling 60+ year old housing in impoverished urban areas about the appeal of “tiny house”. I did and I find the entire concept confounding.

There is a big difference between decrepit, crumbling or rotting versus a clean tiny house with quality interior.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#162

Post by reidjs »

ModFightsCron wrote: post #152
boxcardavin wrote: post #122

I've lived in a ~250sqft 1940's era wood train car for the past 9 years, with my wife and now a newborn. It is doable if you enjoy the constraints and how it affects your decision making. I live about 5 miles from Seattle in a very rich neighborhood (a few blocks from the Paul Allen estate) on a large piece of land that is set aside as a reserve, while most of my neighbors have 5000sqft houses. As long as you have am…

Oh, they can tell you're weird. In a way where you take the bad things in life, and convince yourself they're good. Likely because growing up you were a little weird, so to hide it you made weird your thing and became a lot weird. Here are some things you can't do, which I am sure you have replaced with other things, and convinced yourself you don't want to do them: 1. doing laundry while you're sleeping or your baby…

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but this sounds like a miserable lifestyle to me.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#163

Post by katbyte »

rthomas6 wrote: post #146
bluGill wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That northern tools trailer is rated for 1000lbs - you won't be able to have 2 humans inside without breaking something.

Excuse me if this is a stupid question, but why is 1000 lbs not enough? I weigh 150 lbs. My wife weighs about 130. What in the world is going to weigh 700 more pounds?

I’d assume 200 per person (a lot lot of people weight more)

Basic possession is 25-50 a person, and if you want to have anything beyond an empty unfurnished trailer bed/batteries/activity gear/food/water is going to start to add up fast.

For me I could easily add 75lb of climbing gear, 50lb of snowboarding. Basic Solar panel is 20, batter another 15 and so on.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#164

Post by CalRobert »

war1025 wrote: post #70
jerf wrote: post #27

Tiny house retention seems to be fairly poor. Search a bit for "give up tiny house" or something and you'll get a lot of people giving up the lifestyle, and it seems hard to come by people who have been doing it for a long time. Not impossible, because nothing is impossible, but not easy. It makes journalists swoon, but I don't see it as something that has a lot of future to it. Seems like something that sounds a lot…

I lived in a 600sqft studio apartment for ~5 years with my wife. For the last year of it with our oldest daughter. I found that size of house to be pretty great. Then we found out we were having twins. Now we live in a 1200sqft townhouse, which is also pretty nice. It seems plenty big for what we need. The thing that always amuses me is that all our relatives are wondering when we'll move into a "real" house. Apparen…

Currently live in a 62 sqm (667 sqft) 2 bed flat with my wife and 18 mo. old daughter. Friends think of the place as huge.

We just bought a 52 square meter house, but we did it cash - no mortgage (just took the deposit we'd saved for a city home and looked outside the city instead). That's worth more to me than a lot of space. Though I might be cheating because there are some outbuildings which can hold washer/dryer and tools, etc.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#165

Post by michaelt »

driverdan wrote: post #89

I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for about 20 months. I built it to be like a high end RV, with everything you'd expect in an RV but with lithium batteries and a solar array. I did it for two reasons, so I could own a home with minimal expenses and so I could take my home and dog when I travel. My cost of living is significantly lower than living in conventional housing. I estimate I've spent around $50k…

What happened to the tools and workshop you needed to convert the bus?

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#166

Post by justjash »

driverdan wrote: post #113
yingw787 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Pictures? 2. Did you use any guides on how to build your shuttle bus? 3. What do you do about external services (e.g. showering/toiletries)? I've heard at campsites there's valves to drain sewage into underground septic tanks, but I don't know how common that is in suburban or urban areas. 4. What do you do about insurance (break-ins, fires, etc.)? 5. Do you use public parking and move around or do you buy a parki…

> Pictures? https://www.instagram.com/driverdan/ > Did you use any guides on how to build your shuttle bus? Nothing specific but I did about six months of research before I started, reading blogs, forums, reddit, and watching videos. > What do you do about external services (e.g. showering/toiletries)? I have a shower and a toilet. I also go to the gym at least once a week. Most campgrounds have a waste dump station.…

Looked through your IG, very cool. Who/what are you using for internet access while on the road? I'm interested in trying to travel more when working remote but trying to make sure I end up with a decent connection each day seems like it could be challenging.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#167

Post by driverdan »

ddeokbokki wrote: post #160
driverdan wrote: post #89

I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for about 20 months. I built it to be like a high end RV, with everything you'd expect in an RV but with lithium batteries and a solar array. I did it for two reasons, so I could own a home with minimal expenses and so I could take my home and dog when I travel. My cost of living is significantly lower than living in conventional housing. I estimate I've spent around $50k…

This is a dream of mine - you must hear that often, but what did you wish you knew before building your superior place of living? Anything you'd do differently or not do at all?

I wish I had planned everything better. Other than a loose floor plan and some components I knew I'd have (eg lithium batteries) I didn't plan much. It slowed the build and resulted in some areas that are suboptimal.

The main thing I'd change is using spray insulation instead of polyiso. Spray insulation would have taken a day, polyiso took me a month to cut out all the pieces and glue them up.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#168

Post by benj111 »

jerf wrote: post #27

Tiny house retention seems to be fairly poor. Search a bit for "give up tiny house" or something and you'll get a lot of people giving up the lifestyle, and it seems hard to come by people who have been doing it for a long time. Not impossible, because nothing is impossible, but not easy. It makes journalists swoon, but I don't see it as something that has a lot of future to it. Seems like something that sounds a lot…

I get the impression that most tiny are in rural locations (certainly judging by the photos), in that kind of area there isn't the density to support the things you might want to offload, ie coffee shops for meeting people, laundrettes, restaurants etc. In a city to you could cope much more easily with less space.

I also suspect tiny homes probably are a bit too tiny. I'm not sure if the extreme tinyness in a political statement, or just social signalling that its a choice, not that they can't afford a bigger house. I would predict though that if the movement has legs, tiny houses will get much less tiny.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#169

Post by megaman8 »

bluGill wrote: post #137
megaman8 wrote: post #106

I don't mind living in a small house (maybe not that small). But, the problem with most houses I see today, is that they're designed incredibly Ugly. I'm talking about the classic 2 car garage in front with an enormous concrete slab in-front (3 or 4 cars wide!!), and a little L shape next to it on a lot that's too small to accomodate such a layout and as a result, the neighbors house is 2 feet on each side. Why can't…

They can build what you propose, but there is a downside: cost. A 2 story house costs more to build. Towers cost a lot of money for what you get, and are hard to insulate well. The driveway your propose actually takes up more of the lot than the one you hate (it is cheaper, but there are downsides to stone that makes most people willing to pay a lot more for something hard). You can get the nice house you propose if…

personally, I'd rather have something that's smaller and better looking than large and ugly.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#170

Post by driverdan »

michaelt wrote: post #165
driverdan wrote: post #89

I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for about 20 months. I built it to be like a high end RV, with everything you'd expect in an RV but with lithium batteries and a solar array. I did it for two reasons, so I could own a home with minimal expenses and so I could take my home and dog when I travel. My cost of living is significantly lower than living in conventional housing. I estimate I've spent around $50k…

What happened to the tools and workshop you needed to convert the bus?

I did it all at ATX Hackerspace, a makerspace with most of the tools I used. The only tools I bought myself were a good drill / driver set, a jigsaw, and some smaller specialty tools. I carry all of my tools on the bus.
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