Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Tiny House, thats insanity?!?! Maybe not, here me out



Its been way to long since I've posted a blog I'm definitely overdue and I hope after reading this you think it was worth the wait (That is if you follow my Blog)

I recently came across the website:

www.tinyhouseblog.com

I am absolutely fascinated by the concept of this. But only parts of the concept I will go furter into that in a bit. I found this website while checking out some random small cabin build that some guy build which was way to small, but then I found the tinyhouse site and well maybe I'm crazy but something about the whole concept of living in a pretty small place made lots of sense to me. This could very easily be because I'm unfortunately still living at home and never envisioned myself there at this age in my life, I honestly cannot help but feel kind of stuck. This concept might also interest me because Ive always wanted to build my own house and doing in in this type of manner is completely possible even on my "Nothing" salary. Dont get me wrong for a SECOND there is some INSANELY small houses on that site that I would NEVER EVER consider living in full time. But after lots of searching and browsing tons of ideas and concepts online I wholly feel that it is absolutely possible and not crazy at all. If you are a close minded person that thinks you need a 3,000 sq ft house and a 5 car garage stop reading this right now! Please proceed with an open mind before you continue reading.

Why a small house, there are some very solid reasons and I will go into more detail:

-COST
-Enviormental concerns
-Less waste
-Our country's economic State
-My current situation
-Design possibities
-Dream of building my own house
-The "Property Value" argument

The cost of building a small house is of course exceptionally affordable by anyone really. Just think of building the shell how many of the materials you could get on Craigslist for VERY cheap or even free. When I say materials I mean 2 x 4's, plywood, windows, doors,tile, toilets, insulation etc. (Last week I saw and entire kitchen for free cabinets, counters, and sink and it was all really nice) You could honestly build a "Cabin" like small house for less than $5,000 I do completely feel that when you build a dwelling that you have to follow construction guidelines and build and wire it to code. I do not for one second condone any "Shady" construction or wiring for that matter. I also feel that you'd need to build one of these small houses in the properly zoned area. Which in lots of places could get tricky, but it def can be done. The main thing you'd have to be concerned about is your septic, well etc. If your really wanting to save water they have very expensive nice looking composting toilets that are really well designed check out sites like envirolet.com Its amazing what they have out there.


Waste is something that I truly feel that we as a country need to produce less of, I don't think there is many people that will argue with this fact. If you live in a small house and you have fridge is lets say half the size of a normal fridge you are going to obviously have less waste and also become a smarter shopper. I find it hard to believe that when you have leftovers from dinner that you eat all of them all the time, I think its silly how most peoples refrigerators are 80% filled with old food that's bad and needs to be thrown out, over a course of a year that's a lot of money! Also, there is a very good chance that you'd use less water and energy to heat and cool the home.


The job situation is well for lack of better words completely awful right now. I truly feel that its never going to be the way that it was. The other sad thing about the state of our country is that average household incomes are never going to be what they were. Salaries were truly in someways absolutely inflated to pay for these homes, credit cards etc. I might be wrong but I just don't see incomes rising to what they once were. Lots of the views that Ive expressed in this blog could very easily be being shaped by my current situation which is working 2 not so great paying jobs and still living at home, but the concept of a much smaller house does make sense. Its important that you know that if you build a smaller house you must be able to add on if you one day have a family etc. and I don't feel that living in much smaller house is feasible at all for a married couple with lets say 4 children, but a family with one child it could be absolutely possible with some modification to an existing small house.

What absolutely intrigues me about this building a small house is mostly my dream to build my own house someday. The past few years I have became very interested in building and home improvement etc. After coming across this "Small house" concept its absolutely possible for me to build my own house even on a small income. That for some reason empowers me to research this further and really dig deep into this concept locally and see what my real options are. I have to touch on the topic of property value in this blog because its so exceptionally important when your talking about homes etc. Lots of people argue that a small house would hurt property values. My argument back to them is how could a small house that is affordable and immaculately kept because finances allow impeccable upkeep of a home bad for property values? Is it the size? Okay if so then I argue that I guess that person would rather have a 2,500sq ft house next door with shingles falling off and broken windows, and a rotting porch because their neighbor lost their job or were laid off and cant make the appropriate home repairs makes sense for your property values.


I leave you with this to think about

What is wrong with having a home thats along these lines:



Link
That is designed functionally, has room for a few friends to come over and have dinner and its kept up exceptionally well. Has high end hardwood and tiles etc. because it is sized smaller ie cheaper to construct and keep up. What is wrong with calling a place like that home?? I say NOTHING

*Like always please negate and punctual and grammer mistakes, that is totally not a strong suite of mine! I was a geography major!

No comments:

Post a Comment