Tammy and Logan will soon have a tiny home of their own. It’s being custom crafted for them by Katy Anderson and Dee Williams at Portland Alternative Dwellings (PAD). The total cost including labor will be about $35,000.

For several years Tammy and Login have been working to downsize their lives, go car free, and build the life of their dreams free from the trappings of consumer society. Now they’re spending some of the money they saved by building a mortgage-free home. They estimate that the home will pay for itself in just three years with the rent they’ll save.

Below is an early floor plan that captures many of the features they wanted to include, but you may notice the design evolved somewhere between the the plan below and the photos above.

It has some cool features including a 50-degree roof (instead of the more common 45-degree, 12/12 roof) which will provide more head and shoulder room in the sleeping loft. The loft also features a skylight, inspired by Dee’s tiny home. The house also has french doors on the side as well as a front door and porch on the end. This should really help to open the space up. On the trailer tongue-end of the house a small bump-out adds a little extra space too. I’m not sure what will fit into that space – my guess is the kitchen or a table.

I’m looking forward to seeing this home finished and learning how everything fits together. The team at PAD worked carefully with Tammy and Logan to fit everything they wanted in the small space so I bet they come up with some clever interior design solutions in the process.

You can follow the construction progress at RowdyKittens.com and learn more about the builders at PortlandAlternativeDwellings.com.

Phil Collins sent me a link to his wonderful little camping trailer – made from a retired Piper Comanche. He bought the fuselage from a fellow who was parting out his plane after deciding it was just too expensive to keep.

Phil says an airplane makes an ideal camper. It’s study, lightweight, aerodynamic and comes with many small-scale parts & features ideally suited for living in a tiny space. He’s also nicknamed the trailer Gladys based on the plane’s original registration, G-LADI.

His tow vehicle is also a bit of an eye-catcher, a six wheeled Citreon CX Loadrunner that he had custom built in Germany. These customized cars were a common midnight sight as high-speed newspaper deliver vehicles in Europe during the 1980s.

Thanks for sending this to me today Phil – what a wonderful treat! It’s also a nice reminder that there are probably a lot of things around us that could be reclaimed into useful things – all we need to do is use our imaginations.

Visit Phil’s website for more info on the car and plane.

Keith shared some early photos of his tiny house project with me today. He’s building  house from one of my free tiny house plans, the 12′ x 24′ Homesteader’s Cabin.

Today is day 6 of his project and the shingles are going on the roof today as well as the window and doors. He’s still on the lookout for some spiral stairs to help him get up to the second level.

You might have noticed that most tiny houses use ladders instead of stairs. This is because stairs take up a lot of square footage when they are built to code. Spiral stairs are an ideal choice for saving space with the main drawback being that they can be tough to use.

If you study the plans and photos you’ll notice that Keith has made some minor changes to the design to meet his needs. I try to keep all my plans simple and clear enough to help folks imagine their own modifications. This is also the reason you’ll find few adornments or complex roof treatments on my designs – like gable dormers. I like the way these enhancements look as much as most folks but they are tough to build for the average do-it-yourselfer – but can be added with the help of a professional if you’ve got friends with those skills.

I’ll pass more details along as they come in. It’s looking great Keith… thanks for sharing!

In the documentary below, Ben Law, a woodsman at Prickly Nut Woods in West Sussex, plans and builds his roundwood timber home. It’s built from lumber he’s grown and cared for himself and the entire home was carefully handcrafted from the natural building materials lands around him.

The home is not tiny but the building method and natural materials caught my eye. When we look around at most tiny house projects we see folks using mostly store-bought materials. This seems to make practical sense in today’s world which is probably why this project seems so radically different from the current norm. The project is recorded in a book by Ben called The Woodland House.

Ben seems like a very busy guy, in addition to writing and his work in the woods he also trains apprentices and offers courses on sustainable woodland management, eco-building, and permaculture design. Learn more about Ben Law and Roundwood Timber Framing.

Julian and Jessica are building a tiny house in California based on one of my free tiny house plans, the 8×16 Tiny Solar House. They made a few changes to the design to suit their needs. To begin with it’s built on top of a 24-foot trailer, has a 6-foot deep porch, and 18-feet long. They’ve made it wheelchair accessible which makes it more comfortable for their good friend and host.

You see a year ago Julian and Jessica owned a business in Florida and were living a normal life when they decided to make a change. To make a long story short it was one of those wake-up calls they makes one rethink their values and goals. Ironically part of their wake-up moment included seeing a television segment about tiny houses with Jay Shafer and Dee Williams.

So in the last half of 2010 they sold their stuff, closed down their business, and took their good friend in California up on an offer to live on his land. Their friend is living with progressive multiple sclerosis so designing the home to be accessible was important to them. This tiny house may also be the first (partially) ADA-compliant tiny house.

The house is also 100% off-grid and currently DC only – with no AC inverter. One of Julian’s degrees is in electrical engineering so he’s been having fun building-out the power and telecommunications systems. Their friends jokingly call their house the “space station” because it’s equipped with a ton of electronics and electrical equipment for supporting their off-grid living lifestyle. The metal siding might have something to do with that too.

Their water comes from a well, which they use (via a generator) to fill a 550-gallon water tank higher up on the hill. Gravity provides their water pressure at the house.

You might also notice that the house is filled with all sorts of different kinds of wood including pine, cedar, beech, birch, doug fir, redwood (deck), teak, cherry, bamboo (floors) and spruce. Early in the planning stages they decided that to build their home with as many different types of beautiful wood as they could find.

I’m really looking forward to watching this project’s progress and learning more about what they did to make it wheelchair accesible. I’ll be sure to post what I learn here on Tiny House Design.

You can also follow their progress on Twitter and via their blog.

Julian and Jessica, thanks for sharing your home and story with us!

Shelley and her husband are building a tiny house based on one of my free plans, the 8×16 Tiny Solar House. They made some modifications like building it on the ground instead of a trailer – and adding a deck. You might also notice they’ve replaced the large south-side windows with a sliding door.

Here’s what Shelley says about the project:

“After a weekend in the tent with temps dipping below 20 degrees, my husband and I decided we needed something a little more substantial to enjoy our new Catskill woods in the winter. Our vacant five acres didn’t come with a driveway or utilities; we liked the idea of preserving everything we could by only developing foot trails. That meant to get any privacy for our tiny cabin, we would need to hand carry everything 400 ft down into to the heart of the woods. Our friends thought we were crazy.

A friend referred my to TinyHouseDesign.com and I fell in love. We’ve lived in a 350 sq ft apt in Greenwich Village for 8 years so we weren’t afraid of a 128 ft getaway. What I like most about the 8 x 16 on wheels is the high wall of windows and the simple division of space. After checking in with the local bldg inspector, I modified the plan for a simpler entry and drew it on blocks instead of wheels. Sheds in our area can be built up to 144 sq ft without a bldg permit. Someone on small cabin forum drew up a little plan that placed a 6′ slider on the tall wall going out onto a deck. Perfect! I get a lot of good information from the friendly folks at small cabin forum.

For frigid temps I wanted to insulate everything and install a direct-vent, wall-mounted LP heater. The research said 18k BTUs would do it – we’ll see! I changed the framing to 2 x 6 everywhere. I scoured craigslist all of March and April for lumber, doors and windows – found a complete set of beautiful thermal windows with screens for dirt cheap and stored them in my brother-in-law’s basement. We also rented a truck one weekend and picked up a craigslist generator and recycled framing lumber.

My lovely brother in Florida agreed to take on our construction project, provided all the materials were at the site when he arrived. With one load of new materials from the local lumber yard delivered and some help, we carried everything down in two weekends. My brother solicited his friend in Ohio, they loaded their tools into the Honda SUV and drove over. They worked like crazy in a window of six perfect days of weather. My brother cartwheeled his way down to the creek to cool down a case of beer and then couldn’t remember where he put it!

Team two is coming tomorrow to tie up loose ends and build a 8 x 16 floating deck. I’m excited about putting up the interior shelves that divide the space. There will be a small but complete toilet and closet area on the end, true to Michael’s original plan.”

Thanks for sharing the project with us Shelley! It’s always exciting to see people make good use of the free plans available here.

Kai and Sheila are building a tiny house they plan to live in when they back from a little bike trip – around the world!

To lighten their load they are selling and giving away most of their possessions. A long time reader of Tiny House Design, Eva, tipped me off to this story and book giveaway. One of the items they are giving away is a copy of Little House on a Small Planet: Simple Homes, Cozy Retreats, and Energy Efficient Possibilities by Shay Solomon (Photographs by Nigel Valdez). Enter for a chance to win on their website 2 cycle 2 gether.

Below is a short video showing the progress they’ve made on their tiny house. When complete it will be about 180 square feet and will include a kitchen, bathroom, living room, sleeping loft, and a small porch.

Kai and Sheila, Can’t wait to follow your world bike tour online! Good luck!

Thanks for the tip Eva! Great story.

Building Our Tiny House : Week 2 from 2cycle 2gether on Vimeo.

Owner-builder Aaron posted a progress update on his small earthbag home. One of the aspects we don’t usually see online is the hard work involved in building one’s own small home.

While this video shows just a few minutes of what turned out to be a 19-hour marathon building session – you can get a good idea of how exhausting pouring a concrete bond beam on top of an earthen wall would be. Most folks will use wood but Aaron went with concrete. In the end his home should be much stronger for the extra effort but I wonder if he’d make the same choice next time?

By day Aaron is a web developer and works from home, which is currently a small trailer he shares with his wife and baby girl. Their property is located somewhere in rural west Texas (I think), has a pond, garden, and lots of blackberry brambles. They’ve made a few improvements like having a well drilled but otherwise the property is rustic and without an amenities – sounds like they are carving out an idyllic life.

Great work Aaron! Rock on! Looking forward to more house updates.

Update: Adding this new video of Aaron setting up a beehive on his little homestead.

I had hoped to build something larger on a trailer so that this tiny house could also serve as a camping cabin – but after much deliberation my wife and I decided to just build something small for my home office.

It will measure 5×8-feet and stay under the local 9-foot height requirement for sheds. Technically it will be a shed, so no permit will be required to build, but I’ll finish it out with insulation to make it comfortable during hot Sacramento summers.

I could build something with more square feet, but I don’t need the extra space and I want this thing to go up fast and cost very little money. The floor framing will also be designed with built-in skids so I can eventually pull it up onto a trailer in case I want to move it.

I had hoped to get started last weekend but other priorities pushed it out of the way. I did however cut down a small scrubby tree, dig out a stump, and level the space where the office will sit.

My next step will be to buy the materials and get started – hopefully this weekend. Here are a couple of drawings of the rough design and a photo of the leveled space. The four stakes in the ground mark the future corners of the shed; sorry about the shadowed photo.

Aaron is an amateur owner-builder putting together an earthbag home on his land in Texas. In the video below he gives us a tour of the home in it’s current unfinished state. The house is small (not tiny) and appears to have a couple of small bedrooms, one bath, and a combination kitchen & living room. The house also includes a small root cellar accessed just outside the home.

Aaron is one of a growing number of people hedging their bets in case the powers-that-be fail in their attempts to stabilize the economy. He’s put his money and time into his land and preparations in case our civilization buckles under the strain of an oil collapse or other traumatic events.

Rock on Aaron! Looking forward to seeing more of your homestead!

Update: After a long internal debate Aaron and his wife chose to sell the land and leave America.