Since I've been feeling better lately, I've got to thinking again about doing a full renovation of our house one more time. It's been fifteen years (!) since the last one, and it's showing its age. Things have deteriorated partly because when I was ill, I could not take care of things properly even with help. It was all "too much."
Now I see how much needs to be done, starting with a new roof, and I've been calculating how much we can afford. Given the jump in the cost of lumber and the unavailability of other equipment and supplies, let alone finding an honest contractor, maybe not much. We'll see, we'll see. In a sense, we might be lucky because the house is largely adobe, but it will still need a lot of lumber, and I'll get to why in a bit.
Meanwhile, I've thought quite a lot about what's become of the tiny house movement in the 20-some odd years since Jay Shafer began it with his Tumbleweed Tiny Homes. And what's become of Jay Shafer?
The first models I recall were "cute Victorian" and very small, all wood, and perhaps deliberately uncomfortable. They were made on trailers because they were supposed to be alternatives to travel trailers, meant to be towed behind a sturdy pickup, to take you anywhere and provide you with cool and unusual temporary housing unlike anything else then on the road.
They were uncomfortable because sleeping was always in a loft, often under eaves that sloped sharply guaranteeing bumped heads, accessible by ladder only, and in early models with little or no ventilation ensuring that heat would collect in the loft making sleeping there impossible during the warm months. Later, ventilation and even air conditioning were integrated, but for many people, the loft sleeping areas were still uncomfortable.
Jay's ideas were considered brilliant and radical back in the day and they triggered many. many imitations and evolutions. One of Jay's ideas was that the tiny house was meant to be self-built (probably with friends, and only by necessity with professional help.) The result was limited in size because of regulations governing what could be towed on the highways without a permit. One was supposed to travel with one's tiny house to destinations of beauty, peace, and contemplation. There was something sort of Buddhist about the idea, meditative, liberating. Jay himself often came across as a Zen sprite. Meant to inspire.
Self-built tinys (Tiny Homes On Wheels-- THOWS) are still a thing, but not to the extent they once were, partly because it's difficult or impossible to get ready-made trailers to build on, and custom trailers are very expensive. The planning and work itself is difficult, well beyond the skill level of most do-it-yourselfers, and in most cases, the whole project is going to cost a LOT more than anticipated -- or than a decent used travel trailer that can be reno-ed into a tiny home on wheels.
The typical tiny home today is not cute, is not "Victorian," is nothing like Jay's original plans and ideas, is much large than the early tiny homes, is built by specialists, and costs a veritable fortune in order to create a slice of a contemporary high end house to haul with you when you go for a jaunt. And it seems most never move after their first giant journey from the factory, partly because they are too heavy and awkward to be taken on the road. Most cost in the $100,000+ - $200,000+ range and are permanently confined to "villages" and as accessory dwellings on private property. The whole idea Jay started with proved to be impractical for most of those who took up the idea and propagated the Movement.
Defenders like to say that though the cost is high per square foot, it's about the same as an Airstream, and the result is far sturdier and home-like. It is honestly not as transportable, however. A tiny home is meant to resemble a slice of an expensive contemporary suburban home, not an aluminum sausage, after all. And if you can get one built for about the cost of a new deluxe Airstream travel trailer, why not?
Many of those who have taken over the tiny home market are high-end builders who sell exclusively to well-off clients who, let's face it, are looking to show off and often to profit from the gullible followers of the Movement through AirBNB rentals.
They can pay $100,000 or more for their THOWs that never move because they can rent them for a couple of hundred or more per night to those who want to "experience" the Movement. It's a profitable business for some, not so much for others.
The point of building on a trailer was so the little houses could be towed around, but they were found to be so heavy and awkward in movement that after the first flush of enthusiasm, they largely stopped being towed, even though many were still built on trailers and these days RV certification is considered sine qua non for tiny homes.
Jenna Spesard went on a "Tiny House Giant Journey" in her Tumbleweed tiny for years and ultimately gave it up. It was uncomfortable, impractical, expensive, and far more limiting than she had imagined. The Dream was one thing. The Reality was something else again. Nevertheless, she is still very active in documenting alternative lifestyles, including tiny home living, and has a reputation as a survivor.
As is, for he record, Kirsten Dirksen.
Bryce Langston likewise with his "Living Big in a Tiny House" series on YouTube is a long-time tiny house documentarian and advocate. He's documented an enormous number of tiny homes in Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia and the United States, always with enormous enthusiasm and interest, and he's documented some of his own builds including a couple of failed ones (a tiny he commissioned in the US that was apparently never finished and was abandoned when he and the builder disagreed over something, and an ambulance build that was never finished because -- apparently -- the vehicle kept breaking down.) Most of the tinys he documents are not moved once they are emplaced, and they are usually placed on land owned by a relative or the owners of the tiny, generally out in the country somewhere. Very few are found in urban or suburban contexts. That's partly because of zoning and other regulations that disallow them for long-term location on private property or for long-term (sometimes even for temporary) residential use.
An exception to the common prohibition on tinys in an urban/suburban context is the relatively recent use of tinys to house the homeless. This is always difficult, always expensive, but it is showing up more and more in urban areas beset with a growing homeless population. It has been modestly successful in some places, in others, it's little more than a horror-show.
Some of the worst examples I think are in Los Angeles where acres of concrete or asphalt paved parking lots are dotted with grim pre-fab mostly metal sheds that resemble nothing other than individual prison cells not meant to "house" anybody but just to store them away for a while -- out of sight, out of mind.
They're horrible, and they should be shameful, but it's LA, and LA, as always, plays itself.
So what to make of Jay Shafer's impulse to build tiny houses back in the day and what it's become? I've always felt there was something ridiculous about it. It's re-inventing the wheel, self-indulgence too. On the other hand, initially it was charming, even for a time delightful, as this sprite, Jay Shafer, came up with sweet little houses that could be towed from place to place and could provide a slice of old-fashioned simple living (a key concept almost absent from the field today) for those on the road to adventure. It wasn't camping or RV-ing. It was compact cabining or even pioneering.
Jay ran into problems with regulations almost immediately because his tinys didn't fit any known building concept or code at the time. There was no proper way to categorize what he was designing and building, so there was no proper way to permit them. Without proper permits, they couldn't be placed on land, and legally they couldn't be towed. They were in limbo.
So ultimately Tumbleweed, the tiny home company he co-founded, settled on providing plans for self-builders and building a few tinys themselves and getting them certified as RVs, meeting RV standards and codes, but with understanding that once they are delivered, they are probably not going to be towed again.
Some builders and owners have ditched the THOW concept altogether because they never had any intention of traveling with their tiny. Instead they simply want to build and live in a small house or have a small house (casita in New Mexico) on their property for occasional guests or to rent out. Well, good luck!
In many parts of the country, it's not possible. A "dwelling unit" is required to be of minimum size (generally 600sq ft, but often more) and only one is permitted per property; accessory dwelling units smaller than the minimum are often not permitted at all. And tinys are almost never more than 350 sq ft, often much smaller.
Where they are permitted (and more places are allowing them due to a critical housing shortage) it's typically out in the country somewhere. And out in the country, it's kind of absurd to spend $100,000 or more for a tiny that may be no more than 300 sq ft, when an entire 1,200 sq ft or large mobile home can be purchased and emplaced for about the same cost.
What would most people rather live in and why?
Of course Jay Shafer never envisioned the $100,000+ tiny home (or at least I hope he didn't.) And his point with tiny homes (simplicity!) has been largely lost.
And what's happened to Jay Shafer? From what I've read, he's essentially disappeared. Gone into hibernation mode. Not active on social media, disabled email, silent companies. And not for the first time.
From what I saw of him prior, he struck me as possibly bi-polar, and if that's the case, I can understand why he might go into a slow-down, quiet-down phase of life. But I also think what the tiny house Movement has become (a plaything for the rich; storage bins for the homeless) must be very disturbing to him. That's not what he intended.
Much of the initial idealism has disappeared replaced by... showing off.
Our house is not tiny -- for us, it's big, one of the biggest houses we've ever lived in, so big a couple of rooms are closed off more or less permanently; it's old and creaky and needs renovation; hard to heat in winter, hard to cool in summer; leaky roof, leaky pipes, ancient electric (knob and tube in some places!) flooring needs replacing, and realistically, the whole kitchen, laundry room, and entrance hall (once an open porch) needs rebuilding, sewer lines need replacing, be nice to have a new bathroom. We have a couple of small buildings on the property that could be renovated into tinys, but I don't think we'll do that. At one time, I thought we might, but not now.
What comes after the Tiny House Movement? Can it continue to evolve? I don't know. Right now, I don't know whether we'll be able to once again renovate our home, either.
Right now, it's not at all clear what the future may -- or may not -- hold for us or anyone else.
Here's an interesting discussion that went on over a number of years regarding Jay Shafer and his work, including his $5000 tiny created in 2018:
https://tinyhousetalk.com/jay-shafers-designs-and-builds-a-5000-tiny-house/
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