Simple Things -- Tiny House Thoughts

Tiny house marketing on the teevee and in books and magazines likes to present relatively large, relatively expensive models over and over, models that are anything but "simple." They are often far more elaborate technologically and in every other way than they need to be to function. And of course when the price approaches or exceeds $100,000 one is understandably suspicious of the concept. Just what is going on here?

As I've suggested previously much of the "movement" is about a certain kind of almost entirely Anglo American individualism and showing off; much of the rest of it is pure marketing, hype and salesmanship. We're dealing with what amounts to an aging, formerly disruptive start up "industry". With a product that at best has a limited appeal. At worst, it's simply vanity.

And yet the tiny house idea began as an alternative to traditional urban/suburban American housing, the consumption society, an alternative that has Hippie roots, and one that was intended to become a feature of alternative lifestyles. You can still see early tiny houses, before there was a "movement," in some of the remaining communes from back in the day. Newly formed intentional communities also have unostentatious tiny houses. They tend to be self-built or community built and relatively simple, more like frontier-pioneer cabins than the current phase of the tiny house you find on television or on the proliferation of tiny house websites and in books and magazines.

Our home here in New Mexico began as a frontier "cabin." It is largely self built of adobe dug on the site, and it appears to have started with two rooms around 1900, each about 15x15. Not exactly tiny house standard, but not very big either. Additions followed much the same standard. Rooms continued to be added until the 1950s when the current ground plan was finalized (at least we haven't enlarged it. Yet.)

To me, that represents organic growth over decades, and living in this house now, with all its many quirks, seems quite natural. Sure, there are things we think about doing, improvements and even enlargements, but if they don't happen, the house is fine for us as it is. We don't think we need granite countertops and recessed lighting in every room.

Finishing The Studio presents certain challenges, the first of which is finding someplace else for the things stored in there. Some of it is reusable in The Studio -- things like the Deco tables mentioned in the previous post, a bookcase saved from my childhood, a chair or two, an old electric heater that works well, some cushions, etc. -- but much of the rest, including a wheelchair, walkers, paintings and frames and other things need other homes. We'll find some other place for them, but for now strategizing what to keep and what not to is taking some doing.

What it boils down to is "what do we really need?"

Up the road from us lives a Navajo family. They live on a ranch in a fairly large double wide as many Navajo families do, but they built a hogan too. If you've ever been in a family hogan, you know they're not very large, consist of one multi-sided room with a heat source (usually a wood stove) in the center and enough space around the heater to accommodate four or five people. The door faces east. There may or may not be windows.

The wood stove in the center can be used for cooking; there is usually no indoor plumbing-- but a washing-up area is provided for. If there is no bathroom, there is probably a chamber pot or other receptacle for human waste. There are beds that double for seating along the walls, sometimes bunks, and various storage shelves and containers. There's not much else. But not much else is needed.

Tiny houses, on the other hand, more and more tend to do their uttermost to resemble high end urban apartments or suburban houses or fantasy cabins in the woods and feature the most expensive appliances, finishes, and design ideas imaginable. There are certain "must haves" in tiny-house kitchens these days. Kitchens are generally the center of the newer model tiny house. They must have: granite or marble countertops, expensive faucets and sinks and a dishwasher, top of the line cooking stoves; a full-sized or nearly full-sized refrigerator  -- stainless steel of course. A combo washer-dryer, the more costly the better to fit under the stairs. Stairs instead of a ladder, stairs with clever storage compartments under the treads. Copper or stainless steel surfaces are required. Clever low voltage lighting. Custom made cabinets. On and on. The more complex the furnishings and storage, the cleverer the design of the house, the more there is to satisfy the need for spectacle, the better. The flooring should be exotic hardwood or a reasonable imitation; again, the more expensive it is the more the senses are satisfied. A mini-split heat/AC system has become de rigueur for many tiny houses, along with the most expensive "composting" toilet. Mini-splits are to be supplemented with marine-style propane heating stoves. There must be two lofts, one at each end, both with ceilings nearly high enough to stand up under. The thought of reusing or repurposing materials (which was fundamental to the early tiny houses and still is on the margins) is considered gross. Everything must be new, shiny bright and as costly as possible.

Fit and finish must be precise. No gaps anywhere, no irregular areas, nothing make-do, no improvisations. Why is this? Well, obviously, people with a lot of money are paying a lot of money for... a folly, in the traditional sense of a "folly" -- something you have that is not necessary, but is intended to be possessed and to show off, preferably against a bucolic setting on your own estate or on someone else's where you've taken it or had it built for display. These tiny houses are not meant to live in. They are meant to look at and wonder.

And of course, the traditional folly was in some ways the precursor to the contemporary high-end tiny house anyway, wasn't it? That and the pleasure yacht.

The Nugget micro house mentioned in the previous post looks like a very modest Sears or other catalogue house, shed or garage from the early 20th century -- actually, more like a shed from the era than a house. The wheels, of course, show that it is transportable. But otherwise, its exterior is about as plain and nondescript as can be. Nothing ostentatious about the Nugget!

Yet at $36,000 it is obviously a high-end folly. Something you'll need a trust fund inheritance to purchase.

The interior is as modest appearing as the exterior, but the kitchen has custom cabinets, a butcher block countertop, silestone undermount sink, copper finished faucet. There is an undercounter refrigerator -- but it's a high end three-fuel one. There is said to be a two burner portable cooktop and a convection/microwave oven hidden away, but who knows.

The extraordinary cost of this portable tiny house is said to be due to its off-grid capability including solar electric system (not visible in the photos) and extensive provisions for water. Neither solar nor water systems are visible in any of the many photos of the Nugget I've seen.

A contrast is provided by the Salsa Box (plans only). Essentially the same floor plan as the Nugget, the Salsa Box is considerably less expensive: perhaps $8,000 for all new materials, $15,000 to build complete, minus solar electric system. (Actually, I suspect all new materials would run closer to $10,000 and the completed build would be in the neighborhood of $20,000).

Costs might be reduced with reclaimed, recycled, and repurposed  materials and equipment, but -- and it is a big but -- actual costs to purchase and reuse reclaimed materials can be as much as double new materials and equipment, and even when you can pick up materials and equipment free or nearly so, reuse can require so much extra work that the economic benefit of using reclaimed materials and equipment is lost.

This article goes into some of the costs associated with tiny house building and living. As does this one.

One of the major dilemmas of tiny house living is that in many jurisdictions, tiny houses are not legal dwellings and cannot be made legal. This is why many are built on trailers and have certain electrical and plumbing features of RVs. Still, in many areas, they are not considered legal dwellings, and are only allowed in RV/mobile home parks -- which often forbid the placement of any "tiny house."

Even on one's own land, a tiny house, whether or not on wheels, may face permitting obstacles, just as an RV used for living quarters on private land may not be permitted by zoning and building codes.

In many ways, the Tiny House (writ large) makes no logical sense at all, but it can be emotionally fulfilling, a deeply personal statement, or a necessary project for an individual in need of something to do.

That last would be me, I guess.

In our county, the authorities are not terribly particular about RVs and accessory buildings on one's own land as long as residents don't make a spectacle of themselves or their alternative living spaces  -- and as long as accessory buildings are no larger than 160 square feet (*until this year, the limit was 400 sq ft without a permit*). So I'm not terribly worried about the conversion of The Studio into a tiny house... of sorts. More than likely no one would care. Those who did care might find it charming or at least entertaining.

On the other hand -- apart from needing a project -- I have to ask myself why. The point, of course, has always been to give Ms. Ché a place to write where she can be unbothered by the animals, the phone, or other interruptions, and where she can have a view of the garden. (Potential garden, still have a lot to do on that project!)

As I say, she has a space of her own in the house, a small room we call The Library, currently filled with books, but it has a phone that rings far too much, and the cats love to find her in there and demand her attention. There's a window which faces west -- heat build up in the daytime, wind whistling in the winter. She has a desk and chair and a casual chair the cats tend to sleep in, but no place to stretch out. The Library is at one end of the house, the bathroom is at the other. If she wants coffee, she has to go to the kitchen, another hike though not as far. Same if she wants to go outside for some air.

It would be nice to have everything in one convenient place -- though it's by no means a necessity.

The Studio was intended to be that place.

And so maybe the time has come.

Simple Things -- Tiny House Time ?

We call one of the outbuildings at our place 'The Studio". I bought it from Weather King just before we moved here from California so that Ms. Ché to use as a writing retreat. It's not as if there is no space in the house; there's plenty, and surprisingly (or not) the room she uses now is about the same size as "The Studio" -- 8 X 11 (room) vs 8 X 12 (studio).

Of course "The Studio" has never been used as such. My intent was to finish the interior over a year or so, but that never happened for one reason or another, and the building quickly filled up with items we had no room for or need for in the house. Extra chairs, the many, many stuffed animals Ms. Ché has collected over the years, a couple of French Art Deco tables we'd used as for desks in California, picture frames and paintings, etc., some of her mother's things. Lots of stuff -- some of which still is useful, a good deal of which probably needs to find a new home.

I've been thinking about finishing the structure lately, though -- now that I'm able to get around better and do things once again -- finishing it as more of a Tiny House than strictly as a studio/retreat. Thus, multi-use rather than singular.

I've been intrigued by tiny houses for a long time, but I didn't really think of an 8 X 12 structure as large enough. We had a travel trailer that was 8 X 21, and it seemed cramped as heck. A building that was barely more than half that length surely couldn't serve as a "house" could it?

Some friends from the Navajo Nation came to visit one day. One had been to Standing Rock where any number of tiny houses had been built to house the demonstrators. She saw "The Studio" and said, "Oh look, a tiny house!"

And I thought, "Why not?"

Why not indeed?

I've looked into some of the 8X12 tiny house designs at Tiny House Talk, and most of them are unsatisfactory for one reason or another. If they have a bathroom, too much space is dedicated to it, sometimes almost half the floor space. Ridiculous. Kitchens tend to be either inadequate or overproduced and too large. Lounge areas tend to be poorly thought out. Sleeping is almost always in a loft, and a lot of people don't like lofts, they can't climb ladders, they're claustrophobic, and they dread the heat trap so many tiny house lofts become.

But here's one 8x12 tiny house without a loft, with a bathroom and kitchen, that has inspired more than a little interest and controversy:

http://tinyhousetalk.com/the-nugget-micro-house-on-wheels/#more-67953

"The Studio" is quite different. It has two 4X8 lofts with 4' ceilings that could accommodate mattresses though I'm not convinced that would be the best solution to the question of where to sleep.

The Studio

No, properly designed, there's plenty of room on the ground floor of The Studio for a sofa type seating area that can double as a single bed, one of the French Deco tables can be used as a desk, there's room for a chair -- even two -- and  a bookcase (for example the one I've had since I was a child would fit at the end of the sofa-bed.) The other Deco table could serve in a kitchenette as a countertop on which a few appliances -- coffee maker, toaster oven, maybe even a tiny refrigerator -- perch. A tiny bathroom can be put in a corner. A ladder and bridge can make the lofts accessible and usable for something if only for storage.

Cost was a major issue with the Nugget 8x12 tiny house referenced above. As delivered, the Nugget was priced at $36,000 which seems absurd, but it was what the client was willing to pay for a transportable off-grid capable tiny house. So long as people are willing to pay so much -- and some will eagerly pay even more -- for their tiny house, so long will such places be built and sold.

As I said, I've been intrigued with the concept of tiny housing for years, and when the movement started up in earnest more than a decade ago, the idea seemed to be finding ways to provide alternative affordable temporary and/or permanent housing for those who can or want to "downsize" from the ever-larger suburban house that has become standard in the US.

Prices for custom built tiny houses have increased exponentially as buyers desire and will pay for ever more costly features and architects become ever more skilled at designing extraordinarily clever contemporary "small spaces."

It's not uncommon to see custom built tiny houses priced at $70,000 to well over $100,000. Somewhere along the line, the point of the movement was apparently lost in pursuit of profit.

Class issues enter into it as well. The more you pay for your tiny house, the higher your status, no? The more it resembles a high concept contemporary suburban house or a Victorian cottage, the better, yes? There's more than a little element of showing off among some of the adherents of the tiny house movement. "Look what I've got -- and you don't!!" Oh well, if that's what's important to you, go for it. Please.

I paid a little over $2,000 for The Studio in 2012. That included delivery and set up on our property. Of course it's not on a trailer. In fact, it's placed on pressure treated 8X8s placed directly on the ground and shimmed to level. To get it from the delivery truck to its current location, a set of temporary wheels was placed on one end and a motorized mover on the other and it was easily transported to its set up location. It didn't even take half an hour to get it from the truck to set up, leveled and ready at the opposite end of the property.

The Studio isn't insulated -- it's just a shell -- nor are there any windows in the lofts or anywhere other than the front. There are ventilators in the lofts, but they're so small they don't really ventilate all that well. When the windows are open, though, the lower part of The Studio remains comfortable except in the hottest weather. We haven't checked it out when the weather is cold, however.

There's much to think about, much to do.

[to be continued]

OT: Been Kinda Busy

Jerzy Grotowski's "Akropolis" c. 1968 -- a sample of the kind of theater that kept me spellbound back in the day...


What with Spring trying to spring and all... Working on several outdoor projects and some delayed household things. Plus getting one of us doctored -- which has turned into quite a project in itself. Not a bad thing, though.

I'm [also] working on a somewhat lengthy blog-post that ties up a whole bunch of loose ends pivoting on the concept of "Towards A Poor..." (Something), that weaves together New Mexico, the Church, the several pilgrimages going on for Holy Week (eg: Chimayo up north, Tomé to the south), Jerzy Grotowski's theories of "a poor theater" and the influence his ideas and practices had on my own theatrical impulses and career, Meyerhold, the Becks and The Living Theatre; veering off into the spreading enforced poverty due to economic policies, and so on and so on and so on... it all runs together, but I'm finding that writing it down in any sort of coherent fashion is elusive (to say the least!)

A pause is likely to sort these things out... spring cleaning?

Teatr Project

I've been working on a project dealing with Socialist Revolutionary Theater in the first couple of decades of the Soviet Union and its ultimate influence on theater in the West and the research is fascinating and daunting. Over the years, I have collected quite a lot of material on Russian and Soviet theater, but unfortunately it's not cataloged and currently it's all boxed up, so I've relied more on internet resources and what faulty memories I have of projects I was involved in long ago. There is so much. So much of it is in Russian!

Well, I studied Russian briefly on my own when I was in college, never took a course, but I did become more or less familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet and could muddle through a few halting phrases. Now I have to read it, and that's proving to be something of a challenge, though not a hopeless one, and I need to understand spoken Russian much better than I ever did before in order to fathom out some of the un-subtitled film clips I've been looking at. Not too long ago, I picked up some of the language again while interviewing immigrants from the former Soviet Union and I learned a great deal about their experiences -- though of course I had a translator with me, so it wasn't like I was carrying on a conversation in their own language. I couldn't possibly.

With this project, though, I don't have a translator, so it's taking some time, but, Oh My, what I've been learning.

Although I was a theater professional for many years, my interest was always in the art form itself and the practical means of realizing the artistic vision, whatever it might be. I spent far more time analyzing the Greeks and Shakespeare trying to absorb how -- and to some extent why -- they did what they did and how to translate that analysis to the stage today, especially when the play being done wasn't ancient Greek or Shakespeare. The Greeks and Shakespeare are the foundations for contemporary English-speaking theater, even though the work itself may be based in or derived from a very different tradition. What those plays were like to the audience originally is still what we are trying to accomplish today, and part of the problem I've found with productions of the Greeks and Shakespeare is that the approach is all but backwards. All to often, the approach is to try to impose something on the work rather than draw out the depth of what's already there.

One of the most profound works I ever encountered was the "Prometheus Bound" of Aeschylus, very short, extraordinarily powerful, soaring and painful and wonder-struck in every imaginable way, and I pondered it for what seemed like half a year or more trying to fathom what it must have been like for audiences in Athens 2,500 years ago and how any of that spirit could be found or recovered today.

There is no way to deal with a play like the "Prometheus Bound" in realistic terms. It is not a realistic drama. It is a tragedy, one of the purest that's been handed down to us. It is towering mythology, both horrifying and uplifting at the same time. There is no method nor any psychological analysis you can do that will make "sense" of the play, because it isn't a play to be made sense of. It is a play to feel, to touch and experience the deepest emotions you may have -- and to survive it.

Over time, I could draw on a lot of complementary performing arts experience, not merely (oh, well!) the Theater in the conventional sense, but all kinds of street performance, circus, spectacle and pageant, movies, and so forth. And still I pondered the Greeks.

I would ponder the Greeks even when the production was Chekhov or Brecht or O'Neill or (god save me... ) Irving Berlin.

All this is a round about way of getting into the question of Socialist Revolutionary Theater in the newly hatched Soviet Union.

The forms utilized in the early Soviet attempts to create a truly Proletarian Theater weren't entirely new, nor in many cases were the creative people involved, but the way they were combined and recombined and utilized, and the frankly social and political purposes for which they were used was something new, and often the visualizations were entirely new. (On the other hand, sometimes they were recycled.)

But what is striking to me right now is that so much energy and effort was put into reaching as deeply as possible into the emotional core of the People, drawing them in and holding them "bound" if you will, bringing them into the performance, and in many cases having them create -- and live -- the performance themselves from beginning to end. The point is to create a true People's Theater, not impose an idea of Theatre upon them.

Somehow this seems very Greek -- or very Shakespearean -- to me, for at least in part, it is how they did it. The production, the performance was an organic whole from within the community, not something imposed upon it from without.

While there were trusted regulars, there were no "professionals." And so it would be -- or at least it would try to be -- in the Soviet Union.

Outside of an academic context, there's little of what they were doing -- such as their plays and their pageants -- that we are exposed to these days, but in the 1920's and 1930's the influence of Soviet experimental theater was profound in the West, and the deeper nature of what they were trying to get at is to be found in all sorts of places and performances. The Soviet experiments in Revolutionary Theater haven't gone away. They've burrowed deep.

So. This project is taking time because I'm once again trying to burrow deep into an art form I haven't practiced for fifteen years, and I'm trying to do it in a language I can barely comprehend -- sometimes. The strangest thing is that I've got this silly grin on my face so much of the time while I'm working on it.

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An animated version of "Prometheus Bound":

Prometheus Bound from Manatee Idol on Vimeo.