Tiny House Design

I’ve written about this Simple Solar Homestead before but LaMar has made some improvements to his website including the addition of videos and photos of cabins built from the plans in his book. His book is called Simple Solar Homesteading and its 196 pages and costs $19.95. He also sells a $5 ebook called Off-Grid Solar Power.

The  structure of the 14′ by 14′ cabin below can be built for about $2,000 in materials. His book is packed with all sorts of ways to live off-the-grid on a low budget. Back in 2008 I bought an earlier version of this book (as an ebook) and was amazed with all the information inside. It’s exciting to see LaMar expanding his online content and offering and update to his already amazing book.

Visit Simple Solar Homesteading

Photo credit to LaMar Alexander.

Update: The day after I posted this LaMar posted this great little video slide show of how this little cabin was built.

The Field Lab, also known as the Southwest Texas Alternative Energy And Sustainable Living Field Laboratory, is the 40-acre desert homestead of John Wells. John had been living in upstate New York for years but had a bit of awakening, like many of us, and decided to make his sustainable homestead dreams a reality. After purchasing his land in October 2007 he built this little house in 8 days for $1,600. It was habitable but needed a little detail work which he completed in about 5 months and for another $800.

John has created what many of us imagine, albeit in a remote and rugged territory. His energy needs are very low and all his electricity comes from a small photovoltaic solar array. His water rains down from the sky and is collected from his tiny roof and stored in a water tank. The desert gets hot and he’s designed a small swamp cooler that keeps his tiny house at 80-degrees fahrenheit even on the hottest days. His toilet is a sawdust toilet. Continue reading for more photos and a link to his website. Continue Reading »

This is a quick, almost-off-topic post, but I thought important enough to share. In my online wanderings for more information about sustainable living I ran across a blog about a place called Firesign Farm. It’s the one-acre homestead of Sadge & Aries located near Carson City, Nevada.

I looked high and low for photos and information about their home to post here but mostly all I found were chickens, gardens, and loads and loads of information about sustainable living. If you stretch the words tiny, house, and design just a little I think you’ll find that the things that surround the architecture are often more important for designing a life that is sustainable and free. Be sure to check out their blog, there’s a bunch of great information. Photo credit Firesign Farm.

For five bucks Lamar’s ebook Simple Solar Homesteading is a bargain. You can also order a print copy for $15 plus shipping but buying the ebook pdf version will give you quicker access to the information. I ordered the book yesterday through the paypal link on LaMar’s website and he emailed me the book this morning. I haven’t read through each section yet but scanned through the whole thing reading the parts that interested me most. It’s like a little encyclopedia of great information on homesteading on the cheap.

Update: I’m not sure this version of this ebook is still available since I first posted this review in August 2008. Lamar now has a bigger and better version of the ebook content available (but now in print) and offers a $5 ebook on off-grid solar.

LaMar’s writing style is very direct and clear which helps the book deliver the information you’re looking for quickly. In other words, no fluff to read past. In fact I think LaMar would make a great blogger… (hint hint… LaMar get a free blog at wordpress.org… then hook up Google Adsense) But I digress…

Each chapter covers a specific topic starting with designing and building a tiny house for $2000. The text is accompanied by a lot of photos and a few sketches. If you have some carpentry skills it would be easy to build this little cabin from LaMar’s description. There are no detailed architectural plans but the photos and sketches are ample to show what’s needed to build this tiny house.

The tiny house in hos book is 14′ by 14′ and has a full loft making the total interior space 400 square feet. He built the cabin in two weeks from start to finish working about 4 hours a day during the week and 8 hours a day on the weekends. Two people could built it even cheaper. The structure cost less than $2000 in lumber and hardware but windows, doors, and desk would add to the cost. LaMar also highly recommends buying from local mom and pop stores instead of the big box hardware stores. (I have to agree with him completely. If you’re going to spend money in your community spend it so it stays local.)

The book also contains a lot of things you’d want to know if you were really going to live off the grid and homestead like how to set-up a small photovoltaic system for less than $1000. You can always add onto a solar systems but it’s nice what you’d need to get started cheap.

He also covers how to build a bunch of stuff for less than $50 like composting toilets, food dehydrators, solar ovens, garden composters, portable chicken coop/tractors, and solar water heaters. The book also subjects like how to handle rain water collection and gray water recycling and there’s even a section on drilling water wells by hand.

My favorite section is on how to buy land suitable cheap for homesteading. LaMar has bought a few pieces of land himself on eBay and describes those experiences. I think the best feature of the book is that LaMar has is really writing directly from experience. It makes for a more interesting read and gave me a lot of confidence in the information. Simple Solar Homesteading is a bargain at $5.00.