Some House Thoughts -- and Ruminations on What the Tiny House Movement Has Become

 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/

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: Travel Trailer vs Tiny House

Back in the day, Ms Ché and I bought a travel trailer on the premise that since we were moving around so much for work in theater, it would make sense to take our housing with us rather than have to rent apartments or houses for a few months before moving on. It didn't quite work out the way we thought, though, because almost as soon as we got the trailer I started working at a place where I stayed for several years, so we weren't traveling like we had been at all any more. The trailer was parked next to the house where Ms Ché's mother lived, and we used it for guests and whatnot. Then I sold it for essentially what I'd paid for it. So all in all, it worked out fine.

The trailer was a Kit Road Ranger, 8' X 20' or 22' feet, surprisingly complete, with a kitchen and full bathroom (tub and shower), and sleeping room for 5 or 6, depending on how big or small they were. We slept in it and had guests who slept in it, and we thought it was remarkably comfortable, and so did our guests, but it always seemed cramped to me, I think because the ceilings were low and everything was fit in so tightly. Travel trailers tend to have a lot of stuff fit into them, and I'm not sure all of it is necessary.

When we moved to our place in New Mexico, there were two outbuildings on the property, a garage and a shed.

The shed was probably built when the house was, or soon after, around 1900, and it seems to be falling apart, but actually it's holding up pretty well. It's about 12' X 12' and we store random stuff in it "temporarily." It was used as a horse stall for a while and feral cats have had a few litters in it, I'm sure. I've been periodically cleaning out stuff we can do without, so it's becoming a pretty decent storage space or workshop. It had electricity and a wood stove at one time, years ago, but the electric line was cut and the stove taken out before we moved here. I'm assuming they can be replaced eventually.

The garage, probably built in the 1920s -- it looks to be from scrap lumber --  is about 10' X 20'. The main door is broken and doesn't raise or lower. The side door is working but not very well. There is no window. The exterior is covered with stucco that is falling off the scraps of lumber that serve as sheathing, and the interior is mostly filled with stuff we hold onto because "we might need it sometime." Lots of tools and things, lawn mower, garden chipper, tiller, yadda yadda, but there are also some book boxes and miscellaneous household stuff that I was going to move to the attic of the house -- but never did. Well, that's a whole other story.

When we moved here, we got two other outbuildings from Weather King, an 8' X12' studio, very cute, and an 8' X 16' metal storage building that was supposed to be temporary, but has turned into something more permanent. Both the studio and the storage building are filled with stuff we brought from California. Too much stuff...

So we now have four outbuildings, and I'm thinking of turning them into tiny houses and making a village of them. What fun. The house we live in, this rambling old pioneer adobe, is actually just about the largest house we've ever had, close to it anyway. It's not really a big house as those things go, but it feels like it. If there are rooms we can close off and not even heat in the winter because we don't use them or use them so rarely, then the house seems pretty large.

The tiny house movement (so the advocates and enthusiasts call it) is quite a phenomenon. Much more so than the RV/trailering movement I recall from when I was much younger than I am now. I think it is because they appeal to different sorts of people.

Tiny houses, let's be blunt, cost a veritable fortune, even if you build it yourself, whereas a travel trailer can be bought complete for relatively little. $5,000 vs $50,000 or more for the same or a similar sized structure is quite a difference. Ours cost less than $4,000 back when; a similar model might cost $10,000 now, but still, it's much, much less than a tiny house.

A tiny house can easily cost you $50,000 or more (Tumbleweed tiny houses cost $60,000 or more, well more). Travel trailers -- new or used -- can cost dramatically less, and because they are complete when delivered, they generally provide shelter with little fuss or muss. And they're legal. You just move in. There you are. You are usually without your stuff, too, which can be a liberating thing it seems to me. Well, you have just enough stuff for necessities and nothing more.

A tiny house on the other hand is meant to be a very small version of a site-built house or a cabin, both inside and out. It's heavy and solid, whereas a travel trailer is light and flexible. A travel trailer has a lightweight metal skin whereas a tiny house is generally clad with wood siding. Solid wood, too. One could go on describing the differences, but the point is that a tiny house is usually a miniature imitation of a permanent structure whereas a travel trailer is what it is, a portable (temporary) shelter.

So when I look around our place here and see four outbuildings, mostly full of random stuff, I'm thinking, "What would happen if we got rid of (most of) the stuff, and turned each of these buildings into a (sort of) tiny house?"

Each could be adapted in its own way... And actually all of them are more than ample size for a tiny house experiment... I'm intrigued with the possibilities.

The shed, the original shed that came with the property, would probably not be turned into a tiny house. Instead, I think it would do nicely for storage and for a workshop. The garage, on the other hand, could be quite a nice little abode, and at 10' X 20' (or 22', I'm not sure), it's likely to be quite luxe. I'll have to think about how to plan it...

The studio, interestingly, could become a teeny little guest suite, or even what it was intended to be, a garden retreat for Ms Ché to write in. It could have a bathroom (of sorts) and a tiny-little kitchen. It has two lofts as it happens, and either of them (or both, I suppose) could be used for sleeping.

The metal storage building is actually big enough to become a tight but adequate guest suite with a kitchenette and bath, but it's not tall enough for lofts, so sleeping arrangements would be tight and would have to be on the main and only floor.

Of course we have a guest room in the house as well, and I've thought of finishing the attic one day. If that ever happened, we'd have two or three more rooms upstairs and another bathroom. Possibly even a balcony from which to watch the mountains and the sparkling night sky.

One of our neighbors has two Airstreams beside their house, and their house is a large 5th wheel travel trailer that has been expanded with a site-built room or rooms.  It's actually very nice. They've taken one of the Airstreams on trips. The other, they said, was intended for guests, but they've never used it because of some problems with it. There's a broken window, and the interior is kind of rough. They say they'll fix it up one day, though.

So far as I know, no one around here has a tiny house, though quite a few have travel trailers. One neighbor recently acquired a vintage model, probably from the 1950s. It's in fairly rough shape now but they intend to restore it.

Ah but sometimes the best laid plans...

Heh.