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Small World: The Tiny House Trend

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Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#231

Post by fouc »

Kaivo wrote: post #193
fouc wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I find it strange for some people to have TVs in their bedroom. I think it's nice to have some separation of concerns. I think sleep quality is better when the bedroom is mainly for sleep. Have you thought about moving the TV out of the bedroom?

Actually it's a debate my wife and I had for a while but our situation became more strange than that. We now have the bed in the living room and we just turn off every power bars when we go to sleep to not have any lights disturb our sleep. Some of the reason behind is separation of concerns strangely enough. I work from home, we live in a 1 bedroom apartment, and I felt really stressed whenever I would play video ga…

That sounds like a pretty workable arrangement in a small 1 bedroom apartment. Bedroom for the office and living room for the bed/everything else works too. I probably would prioritize that work/play separation more than the sleep/tv separation.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#232

Post by rtkwe »

crooked-v wrote: post #221
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upscale trailer homes are branded as "manufactured homes" and come in modules that piece together in more appealing ways than a double-wide.

I really wish a company would make modular homes that are actually modular, in that you could start with a 'tiny home' module, then a few years down the line add a 'bedroom and master bath' module and turn the original bedroom into a child's space, and so on. The end result might be at a premium over getting a big house all at once, but in the meantime you'd get the benefit of being able to invest most of your money…

There'd be a lot of waste with that with pipes and electrical connections leading no where and at best lots of extra framing around the non existing doors that would be cut out to install the new section. There's also the issue of how to deal with the roof and cladding that would have to be sealed completely between the two sections against water and pests. It's doable but there's a lot of unavoidable work that'd have to be done to connect the two bits properly on top of whatever additional site preparation to extend the footprint of the foundation.

That work would be a big portion of the cost of adding on to a house much like additions are made now.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#233

Post by chillacy »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #142

I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs. I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're t…

Not quite a trailer but living in a decked out Sprinter van makes you a climber or a hipster, but definitely not poor.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#234

Post by 2019ideas »

jniedrauer wrote: post #66
tjr225 wrote: post #12

The Tiny Home trend and the "Van Life" trend are slightly unsettling to me - I wonder which forces are at play who intend to convince us that lowering our standards of living is cool? No judgement from me if you do choose to do these things, though. I do see the appeal. Maybe there is no conspiracy, maybe it is a coping mechanism. Edited "deeply" to "slightly" upon further reflection.

I actually really resent the McMansion obsession in housing design for the last 40 years. Houses are not built to be functional or comfortable. They're built to be a status symbol. A shoddily built, poorly insulated, overpriced status symbol. I would already own a house if there were reasonably sized houses on the market that were well built. But there aren't. There are acres of McMansions springing up everywhere, bu…

> A shoddily built, poorly insulated, overpriced status symbol.

Got a new, half million dollar house. (not sure if this counts)

Got the upgrade on insulation(got it in the attic/garage area). Got the upgrade on the triple pane glass. Nothing, has broken in 2 years.

Since, I've used it to rent out AirBnB, rent for friends, and soon house many children.

It would have been nice to save 100k and get a smaller home, but builders make nice new homes, not smaller lower cost homes.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#235

Post by H1Supreme »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #230
Bjorkbat wrote: post #142

I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs. I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're t…

On one end of the spectrum is Blu Homes ( https://www.bluhomes.com/ ) which builds pre-fabricated homes that aren't quite so boxy as mobile homes. We looked at investing in them when they started up and perhaps getting one of their smaller units for a piece of land up in the Sierra foothills[1]. Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment. Realistically though it isn't the walls that cost th…

> Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment.

I spent a lot of time researching these homes. Outside of situations where they're being used as glorified sheds, it's not really cheaper to construct a home with them. Which is a bit disappointing, because there is a certain "green" aspect to them that I find appealing.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#236

Post by ams6110 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #230
Bjorkbat wrote: post #142

I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs. I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're t…

On one end of the spectrum is Blu Homes ( https://www.bluhomes.com/ ) which builds pre-fabricated homes that aren't quite so boxy as mobile homes. We looked at investing in them when they started up and perhaps getting one of their smaller units for a piece of land up in the Sierra foothills[1]. Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment. Realistically though it isn't the walls that cost th…

Blu Homes (from their website) are from $200K - $550K. That might sound cheap in some areas but if you're comparing to a traditional "manufactured home" it's close to an order of magnitude higher.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#237

Post by flycaliguy »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #142

I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs. I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're t…

Don't forget the tax savings involved in laying some cement down on your vacation property for a trailer instead of building a tiny home there.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#238

Post by war1025 »

ip26 wrote: post #219
war1025 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reserve passing judgement until your three kids are in middle school. Your relatives may know something you don't. (Or maybe they don't)

I agree there may come a time when we need to upgrade to something different.

A lot of it comes off similarly to the dentist I had once who told me I needed to get my wisdom teeth removed immediately because getting them removed when I'm 70 would be much more of an issue.

There is a lot of time between now and then, and I think it makes more sense to prioritize my current needs and keep my options open than to prematurely decide what I will want in ten or fifteen years.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#239

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jniedrauer wrote: post #66
tjr225 wrote: post #12

The Tiny Home trend and the "Van Life" trend are slightly unsettling to me - I wonder which forces are at play who intend to convince us that lowering our standards of living is cool? No judgement from me if you do choose to do these things, though. I do see the appeal. Maybe there is no conspiracy, maybe it is a coping mechanism. Edited "deeply" to "slightly" upon further reflection.

I actually really resent the McMansion obsession in housing design for the last 40 years. Houses are not built to be functional or comfortable. They're built to be a status symbol. A shoddily built, poorly insulated, overpriced status symbol. I would already own a house if there were reasonably sized houses on the market that were well built. But there aren't. There are acres of McMansions springing up everywhere, bu…

You can actually build the house you want. There are empty lots on the market most places. That's what we did. Our house is so well insulated and passive-solar heated that here in Iowa, even with the -20+ temperatures we've just had, the furnace doesn't run all day.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#240

Post by avgDev »

CydeWeys wrote: post #194
avgDev wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is awesome, I also had a similar experience with a inspector. My parents house kept getting water in the basement because of soil being sloped towards their house. Neighbor was too high and their house was too low. I ended up designing a solution, which was a retaining wall and french drain system. The last inspection, two inspectors came out and asked if I do that professionally because they have been impressed…

I had a similar problem (land sloping towards the house) with a much simpler solution. I got a free dump truck load of fill dirt from Craigslist and then graded the foundation correctly. Took an incredible amount of work by hand as I didn't rent a bobcat. Fortunately the land was overall flat, other than the problem with it sloping in towards the house, so that was sufficient to solve the problem. It sounds like you…

Yeah. There was no way to slope away from the house because the house was built too low. We actually ended up draining the system into the city sewers under the street. So, I had to work with their contractors to connect it.

We removed a few tons of dirt by hand lol.....I regret not renting a bobcat.

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