Live, From the Tiny House Blog
I'm excited today to have a guest blogger, Kent Griswold, who runs the website www.tinyhouseblog.com It's interesting to know how people became interested in small house living — and for Kent, this is now not only a passion, but also a business! If you're interested in different types of small houses, Kent's blog is great:
My name is Kent Griswold and I am the publisher of the Tiny House
Blog. Kerri asked me to tell you a bit about how I got involved in the
tiny house movement, so here I am!
In a way it started as a fluke because of a dream I've had for years
of owning a simple little cabin in the mountains by a lake. When I became
interested in the internet, I started bookmarking builders of small
cabins and tiny buildings. My favorite was the Montana Mobile Cabins
and they later became my first post.
A couple of years ago I discovered blogging and decided to put a
couple of my other internet projects into a blog format. I also
decided it might be a good way to use all these great bookmarks and
information I had on cabins and tiny houses. Along the way I had
discovered Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and through email got
to know Jay a little bit.
I realized there was some interest in tiny houses and chose for my
domain name tinyhouseblog.com. I initially only put a post up about
once a week until one day I discovered I had about 100 visitors. I
decided to get more serious and started posting more often.
About six months later I finally met Jay Shafer, who ended up moving
about 30 minutes away from me and we have ended up working together on
several projects and ideas since that time.
My blog is very visual and covers different types of construction,
people's stories, floating homes, unique homes and people building
homes. I have branched out into a couple smaller blogs like the Tiny
House Journal, tinyhousejournal.com that shows photos of people building
their tiny homes.This is to encourage the non-builder that they to can do this
also and shows them the steps involved via pictures.
My other project is the Sonoma Shanty sonomashanty.com, which is a small
basic structure that can be used many ways. You can get the plans for a very
cheap price and build it yourself. I have partnered with Stephen
Marshall of Little House on the Trailer, who will build you a kit to
assemble yourself or he will also sell you a completed home built to
your specifications.
I have learned along the way that most people interested in the tiny
house movement are dreamers who want to make this change in their
lives. There is also a growing number of doers who are making it
happen. In the last few months I have seen a half dozen do it
yourselfers building their homes, some with no experience at all.
With the economy like it is and life being uncertain many people are
wanting to simplify their lives and downsize, so I see this movement
as just getting started and it will most likely have a broader appeal
as time goes on.
The exciting thing is that through showing other peoples books, plans
and other resources, I have been able to build my blog into a small
business. With the help of advertisers like Google and others, I am
able to generate income. I have also joint ventured with others in the
tiny house business and now make my living blogging. When my job was
cut four months ago, instead of trying to find another job, I put that
effort into growing my blogging business. You just never know where life
will lead you.
TODAY'S POLL:
Have you ever turned a passion into a new living arrangement or a business? Do you think you could live in a tiny house?
Kent's Links:
http://www.tinyhouseblog.com
http://tinyhousejournal.com/
http://sonomashanty.com/
http://debtoutof.com/
–
.… .… .… .… .… .… .… .… .… .
Thanks for this website! We are figuring out how to do an accessible small house, and this really helps.
Thanks for stopping by, Deena. Hope to see you here again!
Hi — I found your blog through Kent's Tiny House Blog. I've been reading his blog for over a year and have been honoured to write a few posts about our float cabin in British Columbia. I really enjoyed reading Kent's post and will take some more time to read about your life in a little house.
Thanks, Margy, for stopping by. I'm glad you found me!
I imagine that part of this is learning to control your intake of 'stuff'. I try to live by the one in, one out rule, but sometimes it's hard. I imagine it would be even harder in a very small house.
The "one in, one out" rule is a good one, although I've never been able to adhere to it! I'll have a future posts pondering my stuff and how to keep de-cluttered. Hopefully, we'll all get some good ideas from readers!
Thanks for reading,
Kerri
Babette,
It certainly isn't for everyone, and I think the key is that we all have to create our own definition of "small." For us, moving from 1,100 square feet (which is still small by some people's definition), to 480 sq. ft. was the epitome of small — and that's just our actual living space. We're not counting the separate office, 2 garages, or the outside decks where we spread out with our 4 dogs and extra stuff. For another person, moving from 5,000 square feet to 2,500 might be their definition of small.
The thing I love about the "tiny house movement" is that no one is judgmental or says, "you're not a small house lover because you've got more than 1,000 square feet." What's good for a single guy like Greg Johnson (small house society), living in 140 square feet without running water, wouldn't work for my family — and what's good for mine in 480 sq ft of living space, may not work for yours. I read a recent story on Kent's blog about a family of 3 living in a very tiny space. They kept only what they needed, and sold or gave away the rest. The only thing she said they might need is extra space for her husband's suits (he's an attorney). I'm envious and say more power to them! But right now, it wouldn't work here for us. For me, it's about using the space we have as efficiently as possible and ridding our lives of the physical clutter, which has also purged me of some of my mental clutter (and that's always a good thing). Still, there's some things just too sentimental for me to probably ever part with. When we left our other home, we took 2 truckloads to charity and sold some other things. Last year, I donated 50 more boxes from one of our garages. This year, I'm ready to let go of more. As time goes on, I find I'm willing to let more of the stuff in our lives go.
Still, you're right, it makes it hard for big dinners — we changed venues just last night with our friends because it was just too hot for my friend to be out on our deck. Those times are a little inconvenient, but, 99.9% of the time, it does work for the 6 of us (2 humans/4 dogs).
I am fascinated by the idea…but wonder if this is for more than one person…EVER. I downloaded the brochure (from Tumbleweed?) and love browsing through it and could see myself in a tiny house in a big field…then the dog bounds up, the husband calls and my daughter wakes up. The boys call to say they are coming home for Thanksgiving after all…
Tents anyone?
What I love about it is the efficiency…so as I DO continue to downsize my life (maybe never so small as this), I know I can pay attention to making more things around me…tiny.