
Small World: The Tiny House Trend - magda_wang
https://believermag.com/small-world/
======
Bjorkbat
I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to
manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs.

I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by
unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous
if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house

Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're the
closest we've come yet to building houses on an assembly line in a factory.
The entire thing ships in one piece. Just plunk it down on the property, hook
up the utilities, and there you go.

And the kicker is, they're competitive with tiny homes in terms of cost, but
they're not tiny. They're small, certainly, but not tiny. This is because
trailer home manufacturers have got it all figured out, whereas most tiny
houses are these bespoke, custom numbers.

Alas, if you live in a trailer home then you're considered "trailer trash".

I wish some brave soul would undertake the task of creating, I don't know, the
VW bug of trailer homes. Doesn't have to be a luxury thing, just something
with character and identity. Something you can be proud of because it has a
personality, just like the millions of others like it.

Until then, if you want a break from the norm of homeownership, then it's
either a condo, a tiny house, or a refurbished bus.

~~~
ChuckMcM
On one end of the spectrum is Blu Homes
([https://www.bluhomes.com/](https://www.bluhomes.com/)) which builds pre-
fabricated homes that aren't quite so boxy as mobile homes. We looked at
investing in them when they started up and perhaps getting one of their
smaller units for a piece of land up in the Sierra foothills[1].

Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment.
Realistically though it isn't the walls that cost the money on a house, its
all the stuff that goes in the walls :-) (wiring, pipes, insulation, Etc.)

From an extreme perspective you have the Broad Group in China who was building
pre-fab skyscrapers
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_(Changsha)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_\(Changsha\)))
that would house a thousand families.

[1] I ended up doing neither for different reasons but I know a couple who
bought one and they really enjoy it.

~~~
H1Supreme
> Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment.

I spent a lot of time researching these homes. Outside of situations where
they're being used as glorified sheds, it's not really cheaper to construct a
home with them. Which is a bit disappointing, because there is a certain
"green" aspect to them that I find appealing.

~~~
protomyth
You want to be real careful with the paint they use, it’s very far from green
or healthy.

------
boxcardavin
I've lived in a ~250sqft 1940's era wood train car for the past 9 years, with
my wife and now a newborn. It is doable if you enjoy the constraints and how
it affects your decision making. I live about 5 miles from Seattle in a very
rich neighborhood (a few blocks from the Paul Allen estate) on a large piece
of land that is set aside as a reserve, while most of my neighbors have
5000sqft houses. As long as you have amenities (washer, dryer, full kitchen,
shower, dishwasher) like I do then it's not some sort of struggle, it's more a
set of limits to optimize against.

My neighbors can't tell if I'm eclectic and rich or weird and poor. It's a
good thing.

~~~
existencebox
I'm fascinated by this. I live near seattle as well, but quite a distance due
to finding something affordable with any amount of land, but your setup seems
ideal.

Small house to maintain, separation from neighbor, better commute. I'm curious
how you came into this situation, and if you observe opportunities like this
to have vanished since the 08 era? (You seem to have bought at the perfect
time...)

~~~
ip26
Smaller doesn't always mean less overhead. Small enough (250sqft w/ 3 people
probably hits that bar) and you're constantly moving things around and
cleaning things to make space for something else.

If you've ever cooked in a tiny tiny kitchen, imagine that feeling spread
throughout your entire home life.

------
systemtest
The problem in the Netherlands is that land is expensive. A 40 square meter
tiny house in Almere was for sale at €200.000, while a nearby 3 bedroom family
house was for sale at €220.000. They both had a garden but the family house
was a row home. They both used about the same amount of land.

Houses are cheap enough that the price difference between a tiny house and a
regular house is negligible when you add the price of land onto it. And the
fact that a tiny house sometimes needs more land because it's detached.

Also, if you really care about the environment and population, live in an
apartment building. It is better for the environment, because you share each
others heating. You can have scale advantages when you do solar on the shared
roof. You don't use as much land because you can go up in the air, which means
more people can live in a popular area.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
American apartments often don’t share heat very well, each unit is heavily
insulated from each other and it’s not using piped hot water from a central
heating plant like in Europe and Asia. Still probably a bit more efficient
overall.

~~~
metildaa
Despite heavy insulation, quite a bit of heat still migrates upward in new
apartments and condos. Your neighbors are also nearly perfect insulation
compared to your exterior walls too :P

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I’m currently in a top floor apartment actually and we quickly hit outside
temperatures in the winter if we don’t run the heater. This is Seattle where
heat is mostly electric, radiators would probably be very different.

~~~
metildaa
How new is the building? Are the exterior walls properly insulated and sealed?

My friends in a 3 year old building in Ballard have had to open their windows
through the last few weeks, and they're only near the top floor. Another
friend of mine had a similar experience in Mill Creek when on the top floor.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
2000 something in downtown Bellevue. We also have a very high ceiling, the
sealing seems to be good enough that heat from adjacent apartments doesn’t
seep into ours.

~~~
metildaa
This sounds like the air sealing in your unit isn't very good, as your unit
shouldn't fall back to exterior temperature very quickly unless the insulation
is insufficent or the air sealing is poor. Nevermind that insulation between
you and othet units won't stop heat migration, just slows it down.

FYI electric heat is common in older apartments and condos, but many of the
newer buildings I've seen go up in Seattle are using natural gas.

------
driverdan
I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for about 20 months. I built it
to be like a high end RV, with everything you'd expect in an RV but with
lithium batteries and a solar array. I did it for two reasons, so I could own
a home with minimal expenses and so I could take my home and dog when I
travel.

My cost of living is significantly lower than living in conventional housing.
I estimate I've spent around $50k on it. I don't understand spending $100k on
a tiny home trailer. You can buy a regular house for that much and the trailer
will depreciate.

I don't have plans on moving into something else in the near future. With all
the money I'm saving I'm paying off debts and growing my savings. I wouldn't
mind owning some land and building a workshop but it's hard to find land at a
reasonable price in a place I'd like to live.

I do this entirely by choice. I'm fortunate enough to have a well paying,
remote job. I constantly see and think about people who are forced into being
houseless. One project I'd like to do is a sub-$1000 trailer home anyone could
build with basic tools and a few weekends. Design and build one then put full
instructions with videos online for free. Unfortunately I don't have the time
right now.

Feel free to ask me anything.

~~~
meritt
Unless it was for the sheer joy of doing the work yourself, is there any
particular reason you didn't buy a gently used motorhome for $15-20k and
upgrade as necessary (e.g. the solar array and lithium batteries)? You cite
the $50k cost but that sounds excessive to me with considerably less work.

~~~
driverdan
You cannot buy a good 25' motorhome for $15-20k. You might be able to find a
20+ year old one with an under powered gas engine. In that case everything
will be outdated and need upgrading.

Most RVs are made out of low grade materials like particleboard and MDF. I
used neither. They are not made to be lived in and fall apart quickly.

None of them have a work area either. You end up using a laptop on the dinette
or turn it into a desk and lose an eating area. I built a dedicated standing
desk with a large monitor.

~~~
black6
I’d like to add that passenger buses are rollover-rated, as well. The
“residential” area of a typical RV is balsa wood and paper* and a lot less
safe.

* I kid, but they’re not much stronger than that.

------
jerf
Tiny house retention seems to be fairly poor. Search a bit for "give up tiny
house" or something and you'll get a lot of people giving up the lifestyle,
and it seems hard to come by people who have been doing it for a long time.
Not impossible, because nothing is impossible, but not easy.

It makes journalists swoon, but I don't see it as something that has a lot of
future to it. Seems like something that sounds a lot better in people's heads
than in reality.

Edit: FWIW, I don't disagree that a lot of people have more house than they
may "need" and may benefit from downsizing. (Certainly we've got more "stuff"
than we need; my wife and I all but wage a constant war on the "stuff" that
seems at times to spontaneously generate from the ether.) But I rather suspect
the optimum is not in the 150sqft range for very many people, and indeed, not
even particularly near it.

~~~
war1025
I lived in a 600sqft studio apartment for ~5 years with my wife. For the last
year of it with our oldest daughter.

I found that size of house to be pretty great.

Then we found out we were having twins. Now we live in a 1200sqft townhouse,
which is also pretty nice.

It seems plenty big for what we need. The thing that always amuses me is that
all our relatives are wondering when we'll move into a "real" house.
Apparently this one is just a "starter" and too small for longer term living
in their eyes.

~~~
CalRobert
Currently live in a 62 sqm (667 sqft) 2 bed flat with my wife and 18 mo. old
daughter. Friends think of the place as huge.

We just bought a 52 square meter house, but we did it cash - no mortgage (just
took the deposit we'd saved for a city home and looked outside the city
instead). That's worth more to me than a lot of space. Though I might be
cheating because there are some outbuildings which can hold washer/dryer and
tools, etc.

~~~
war1025
We also paid all cash for our place. Looking at what our bills are currently,
and adding a mortgage to it, I think we'd be living much closer to paycheck-
to-paycheck if we had that over our heads. Very happy that we lived frugally
for several years and were able to build up enough savings to pay for our
place outright.

The key in our situation is we went for a townhouse, which for whatever reason
seems to knock 30-50% off the asking price. I guess people really don't like
stairs and living immediately next to people.

~~~
CalRobert
Hah, in our case the key was going for an old but very small farmhouse, about
a 15-20 minute bike ride from a train station so if needed car-free commuting
could be doable (albeit not ideal). Most homes here are semi-detached, meaning
you have party walls.

I love living next to good neighbours. It's tough to know what you're going to
get before moving in, though.

------
CydeWeys
There's definitely an appeal to engineers in building your own house from
scratch. As an example, I built an 8x12' shed (details here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/2kof5x/i_built_an_8x12...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/2kof5x/i_built_an_8x12_shed_from_scratch_the_right_way/)
) several years back. All it took was a few months' worth of weekends and a
few trips with a borrowed full-size pickup and I had it together. Obviously
you'd put more effort than that into making a house (you need insulation,
utilities, and more interior construction and layout), but the point is, it's
all within your grasp. And it was nice working with my hands for a change
given that during the work week all I'm engineering is software.

And at 96 sqft, that's well within the range of the homes being discussed in
the article. If I were doing it to live in rather than as a shed, I'd build a
12x16 or a 16x16, for 192 or 256 sqft. 16' is the maximum length of
dimensional lumber you can typically find at a hardware store, so the
advantage there is that the house has structural members extending the entire
length of the house, which means it's super sturdy. 8' and 12' are also common
lengths of dimensional lumber, hence the size of my shed. Also no surprise
that the height is simply 8' (uncut lumber) minus the height of the floor.

~~~
dwater
You probably know that you can find longer dimensional lumber at a lumber yard
instead of a big box store. I am building my own 2-story 2-car garage, and was
surprised at how many independent lumber yards there are tucked away around
town. I needed long 2x8s for my rafters, no problem finding them up to 20'.
And engineered lumber comes even longer.

I'm making the upstairs into a finished living space with kitchen and bath.
Everyone who sees it asks how I learned to do it, and it's the same as
anything else. It's all out there on the internet if you want to take the time
to read and watch. I've done everything except pour the concrete for the slab,
and install the roofing. I'm currently finishing out the bathroom, then I'll
lay the hardwood flooring and it'll be done. It's been very satisfying.

~~~
CydeWeys
True. The nice thing about 16' lumber is that you can still just barely haul
it in a full-size pickup by weighing it down, strapping it in, and putting a
flag on the ends sticking out. Once you're talking about 20' plus you probably
need to pay them to deliver it -- which realistically is the better option
anyway if you're talking about doing a whole garage, as that would be a lot of
trips in a pickup truck. A shed is small enough it's easily manageable with
just a pickup truck.

The one thing the big box store had, that I wish I had gone to a lumber yard
for, is PT 4x8' 3/4" plywood for the floor. I ended up using non-PT and
painting it to seal it, but it still probably won't last as long. At least
it's a couple feet off a bed of gravel, which should help.

~~~
bluGill
Real lumber yards have free delivery.

~~~
CydeWeys
On some minimum order size, surely. Like I wouldn't expect I could order a
handful of 2x4"x20' and have those delivered for free.

~~~
bluGill
Generally not - contractors (their main business) order enough for a house but
then on the last day call in 2 sheets of plywood because they didn't estimate
something right.

~~~
CydeWeys
I'm guessing the first order (a whole house!) was more than large enough to
cover the cost of an extra free delivery though. This is about relationship
management at that point, which won't be the same for a hobbyist only doing
one smaller project.

~~~
bluGill
The point is hobbyiests don't visit often enough to be worth figuring out how
to charge for shipping.

Note, at a real lumber yard you need an account. They can accept cash sales
but they would rather not. They won't talk to you if someone else with an
account is there. Once you have an account (which is free) you have passed the
initiation and they love to help.

------
tjr225
The Tiny Home trend and the "Van Life" trend are slightly unsettling to me - I
wonder which forces are at play who intend to convince us that lowering our
standards of living is cool?

No judgement from me if you do choose to do these things, though. I do see the
appeal. Maybe there is no conspiracy, maybe it is a coping mechanism.

Edited "deeply" to "slightly" upon further reflection.

~~~
ryandrake
I have the same unsettling feeling as you. The conspiracy theorist in me is
definitely on high alert and sees it as an attempt at conditioning this
generation towards accepting a lower quality of life than their parents had.
If we can be made to actually believe we want to live in tiny cramped homes
and apartments, then when it comes to pass we won’t get out the pitchforks and
torches and riot.

Eating bread and plain water is healthy, and good for the soul!

Bicycling instead of driving is good for the environment and keeps you fit!

Living in a van is freedom and ultra mobile!

Note that none of these statements is wrong, but they are arguably propaganda
aiming to get people accustomed to living with less.

~~~
icebraining
Curious, I'd say many of us younger folks see it in reverse: our parents got
roped in the propaganda of "consume now and pay later, you'll certainly be
earning more", and then the lie was exposed, and they're left unemployable and
with a crippling mortgage. Under this perspective, by giving up on superfluous
crap, we're just keeping our eyes wide open, because we're fully aware that
we'll get fucked sooner or later.

Then again, that may be fully the intention of the current propaganda: it's
harder to fight when everyone is just trying to protect themselves.

Yet mobilization, like tiny houses, is itself rather fashionable nowadays. Are
we sure _that 's_ not propaganda?

~~~
ryandrake
Yea, there are pros and cons to bigger and smaller homes. It’s just that the
marketing of the Tiny House “Movement” and the constant pushing for us to be
happy with small apartments instead of houses reminds me of Huxley. “Alpha
children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so
frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so
hard.”

~~~
chillacy
I don't see that kind of sentiment in people I know who like tiny houses. If
anything it's the opposite: they work a lot harder to save up to buy a tiny
house (it's like 200k) vs continuing to rent. It's also harder to go against
the grain than it is to flow with what society tells you to do.

------
organsnyder
I can understand the benefits of building tiny houses in spaces that wouldn't
accommodate larger buildings (such as as accessory dwelling units [ADUs] in
traditional single-family neighborhoods). But I don't understand the benefits
of building clusters of them: why not build a standard apartment building
instead? Construction costs will be cheaper, and shared walls reduce
heating/cooling costs.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Shared walls often mean you know when your neighbours are in, when they're
watching TV, when they argue and what they're arguing about, when the dog is
barking or the toddler having a tantrum, and even when they're walking to the
other room.

Even insulation benefits can't be relied on as shared walls are often
uninsulated and overall insulation in apartment blocks often bare minimum to
code rather than adequate.

Last, but not least, I would take a small garden over an apartment without
that's twice or three times the size. You're even likely to see neighbours a
lot more if you have a garden to potter in, and the dog has somewhere. :)

~~~
vertex-four
I live in an apartment in the U.K. and this is just not the case - I have
absolutely no idea what anyone else is doing. Proper construction goes a long
way. There’s something about America that makes proper construction of
apartment buildings impossible, apparently - whether that’s building codes or
cost-saving exercises I don’t know.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I'm also in the UK. It was the case in those I've rented. That included one
fancy river front expensive one that work rented while I was working in
Docklands. In short, never again.

Maybe newer ones are better as that was back in the 90s.

~~~
arethuza
I suspect its actually older properties that are more robustly constructed -
the flats we had in central Edinburgh had 1m+ thick sandstone walls and we
never heard anything from neighbours.

I'm currently in a 10 year old house based on old farm buildings and the walls
here are even thicker (still sandstone).

~~~
organsnyder
Plaster vs. drywall probably has a lot to do with it. The plaster+lathe in my
103yo house (in the US) blocks sound exceptionally well.

~~~
arethuza
The fairly large amounts of horsehair I used to find in old plaster probably
helped with sound deadening as well!

------
michaelbuckbee
The article doesn't really get into it, but there are some weird pressures in
the US that really work against tiny houses, namely: our crumbling
infrastructure nationwide and our system of paying for that infrasture and
other civic responsibilities with property taxes.

If a municipality is looking at two competing development plans for a couple
acres of town:

1\. 10 new $500k - 3,000sq ft McMansions = 5 million dollar base and 48 people
(estimating 4 people / family)

2\. 30 much smaller houses at $100k each = 3 million dollar base and 100ish
new people (estimating fewer / house)

In the small house scenario (if they were built on foundations and tied into
city water/sewer) you also end up with 3x as many connections to install and
support, significantly more kids that need educated at the local overcrowded
school system, etc.

~~~
sborra
Surely more people are an asset for the local government, not a liability?
You'd have 3x the tax revenue, 3x the purchasing power, plus the logistic
efficiency that allows for local business to spring up and mass transportation
to be viable.

~~~
athenot
That's the point the GP is trying to make: those services rely on property
taxes, not income tax. So more people in the same area means either lower
revenue per capita for the local government, or much higher taxes for the
existing residents. Usually, proposing the second option is political suicide.

------
vidanay
I'd be more impressed by "tiny" houses (~20% of normal size by my own
definition) if they didn't cost 50%-60% of a full size house.

~~~
ilovetux
I agree with this. The main reason is that there are a number of fixed costs
mostly relating to building codes which are a good thing (IMO). Building
materials are not the main cost (though they are considerable) of building a
home.

~~~
jandrese
Also the land. The price of the home is often a fairly small part of the price
of the property.

That's why you see a lot of these tiny homes built in the parents backyard.

------
ahallock
My friend spent 10 years, off and on, building a tiny house. While he learned
a great deal about construction, he sold the house before ever using it and in
retrospect thought it was a huge waste of time and money. I think people have
fantasies that don't match reality. I think he saw himself living a nomadic,
environmentally-friendly lifestyle, but you can't have your house within city
limits and you end up living far away from the action in a cramped space.

I thought the idea was ridiculous myself and wish I'd talked my friend out of
it.

------
galfarragem
A tiny house doesn't mean only a small space:

    
    
        tiny house = tiny house + large yard - maintenance - mortgage - noise
    

I'm actually planning to build one, 36m2/400sf in a 2 acres property.
Regardless, I will have plenty of space: outdoors.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Do you have a family? And you must have a shed the size of your house to hold
the lawnmower you'll need for all that.

~~~
galfarragem
This house will have only a small bedroom, a wc and a living/kitchen/dining
room. However I'll assure the possibility of easily extending 1 or 2 small
bedrooms and a garage if/when I get kids. For now I just plan to use it on
weekends and holydays.

And no lawns. Maybe a vegetable garden.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Is the expansion a matter of tearing the connecting walls down to the studs
and building back up? The idea of a truly modular home, where you can expand
or shrink it with relatively little effort (I'm thinking requiring no
contractors - hookups are all plug and play) really intrigues me.

Of course, that's a nightmare when considering any sort of centralized heat
source or utility, but that's a really fun idea.

~~~
galfarragem
_Is the expansion a matter of tearing the connecting walls down to the studs
and building back up?_

Making it as a 'lego' would require a lot of research. That would only pay if
I would open a business based on that. So, for now, I'm only making the main
entrance near a corner. This door will connect with the second module (if I
ever build it). The heat source will be near this corner also.

I'm slowly making the project and planning to build it myself as much as
possible. It helps that I'm originally an architect (buildings not IT) and
used to help my father on trades.

------
stu2010
I don't understand why these are so chic, but manufactured housing isn't.

For these quoted build costs, you could do a pretty highly upgraded
singlewide, and it would age better than any of these and can actually be
permanently installed onto a foundation.

~~~
war1025
I would guess it's because most people's experience with manufactured housing
is the base model kind, where everything is super shoddy.

Also lack of exposure to some extent. People can only dream about what they
know.

------
rb808
"Tiny house" AKA a normal house in the rest of the world.

~~~
alistairSH
Is that really true?

Most of the trendy tiny homes are 200-300sqft with a loft bedroom.

My townhouse is modest by US standards at 1500sqft and 3 bedrooms. I believe
this was about average in the early-70s (when the home was constructed).

The average new home in the US is now about 2600sqft and 4-5 bedrooms.

~~~
rb808
OK UK is perhaps smaller than average but:

> The average house dimensions in UK is 91 sq m. which is a bit under 1000 sq
> ft.

[http://www.dimensionsinfo.com/average-house-dimensions-in-
uk...](http://www.dimensionsinfo.com/average-house-dimensions-in-uk/)

> The average UK one-bedroom home is 46 sq m (495 sq ft),

[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22152622](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22152622)

~~~
pxndx
You're forgetting the square part. One square meter is roughly 10 square feet,
your home is closer to 910 sq ft.

~~~
rb808
yeah as soon as I submitted it looked wrong, corrected.

------
megaman8
I don't mind living in a small house (maybe not that small). But, the problem
with most houses I see today, is that they're designed incredibly Ugly. I'm
talking about the classic 2 car garage in front with an enormous concrete slab
in-front (3 or 4 cars wide!!), and a little L shape next to it on a lot that's
too small to accomodate such a layout and as a result, the neighbors house is
2 feet on each side.

Why can't they simply build a smaller footprint at the bottom, say half the
size. make it two stories that way the neighbors house is further away and
place the garage in the back somewhere and put a nice stone paved driveway
(not too wide) leading to the back where the garage is.

The key to making these houses look nice whether it's small or large, is the
ratio of height to width and length, as wells the features: such as a small
tower, the slope of the roof, etc.

~~~
bluGill
They can build what you propose, but there is a downside: cost. A 2 story
house costs more to build. Towers cost a lot of money for what you get, and
are hard to insulate well. The driveway your propose actually takes up more of
the lot than the one you hate (it is cheaper, but there are downsides to stone
that makes most people willing to pay a lot more for something hard).

You can get the nice house you propose if you are willing to pay. However most
people who build decide that pretty isn't worth paying that much extra for
when a cheaper house gives them the space they want/need. When they realize
that a square box with the garage out front is cheap to build but too ugly
they ask was can be done and the builder offers a few features that don't cost
that much extra to break things up. Which is why you see a lot of bay windows
and dormers, but fewer two stories.

~~~
megaman8
personally, I'd rather have something that's smaller and better looking than
large and ugly.

~~~
pessimizer
Choosing a house based on external appearance makes about as much sense to me
as choosing a surgeon based on how handsome they are. Especially when that
appearance ranking has nothing to do with cleanliness, or neatness, but, I
don't know how to interpret this, culture or era of origin? Aesthetic, but not
based on color or comfort or neatness or cleanness?

I'll never get conspicuous consumption.

------
Quequau
I've been planing a major move myself and one of things that is important to
me is downsizing the heated living area, so that I can maximize my workshop
space. (e.g. something sized like a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with a 2 car garage,
only with the area devoted to living space and garage space flipped).

As far as I can tell these tiny homes are more expensive per square foot than
small single-wide mobile homes and offer few advantages: you can pull them
with a truck the size that most people can drive and as most have lofts
there's more usable space per square foot.

In any event finding places put either a tiny or mobile home that winds up
costing less than renting an apartment in a major corporate owned complex is
not easy.

------
marttt
An archetypal Soviet-era garage box recently got converted to a Tiny House in
Tartu, Estonia: [https://g1.nh.ee/images/pix/iseloomuga-maja-muidu-paksude-
ka...](https://g1.nh.ee/images/pix/iseloomuga-maja-muidu-paksude-kardinate-
taha-varjuvate-eestlaste-argio-84785975.jpg)

Blocks of garages like these are a common part of Soviet heritage in Estonia,
so they're essentially everywhere. Not quite sure, but due to its tiny size
(probably ~215 sqft or ~20 m2) one may not need an extra building permit for
doing something like ths.

------
jdlyga
Most people living in Manhattan are already doing this. It's really not that
bad. You just treat the outside as part of your living room. I go on walks all
the time, and hang out in coffee shops a lot.

------
danans
"Living Big in a Tiny House" is a great Youtube channel produced by Bryce
Langston which takes viewers on tours of tiny houses around the world. I watch
it weekly with the kids, to normalize, and even romanticize the idea of small
space living in them, so that in case is the reality of their future, they
look at it in a positive, productive way.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/livingbigtinyhouse](https://www.youtube.com/user/livingbigtinyhouse)

------
vram22
Since it's sort of related and likely of interest (although this is not a tiny
house), I'll share again my HN comment about an earthship I saw:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18487704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18487704)

See downthread from that comment for links to the place, the guy who built it,
photos, etc.

------
ArtDev
Apparently, they are not allowed in Bend Oregon even though there is a housing
shortage: [https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2019/02/family-
of-4-evic...](https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2019/02/family-of-4-evicted-
from-272-square-foot-tiny-home-in-bend.html)

Absurd!

------
seedie
Today I stumbled over another tiny house article and there I learned about
Paulownia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia)
Despite being very light its a very stable hard-wood used in mobile tiny
houses as wood for the interior

------
f_allwein
I like the idea of making do with less, but I don't get how tiny houses can be
the solution. What if your whole city/ the whole world was living in tiny
houses? Would be impractical and use a lot of space. Seems that apartment
blocks (with good quality, small/ flexible apartments) would make much more
sense.

------
test1235
As eloquently as they describe the houses, I feel a photo or two would've been
worth a few thousand words here.

------
devy
Strangely relevant, I found Alexander Payne's 2017 movie "Downsizing"
(starring Matt Damon) [1] interesting. Too bad, critics' reviews are mixed.

[1]:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1389072/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1389072/)

------
JustSomeNobody
> Tiny homes usually sell for $40,000 to $90,000 without land, and buyers
> typically pay cash or finance them with a property loan.

Home Depot sells a 12X18 "shed" with a loft area for $10K. If you're handy, I
can image you'd be able to fit this out and make a nice tiny home for much
less than $40K.

------
captainbland
I'm not sure smaller accommodation can be considered a trend so much as a sign
of reduced access (or higher costs) to more desirable accommodation.

This more or less sums it up for me: 'Though he doesn’t opt for tiny-home
living himself, LaBarre is enthusiastic about the trend'

------
rsync
I highly recommend Believer Magazine and encourage you to subscribe to the
print version. It changed hands about two years ago and is now published out
of UNLV (or something ?) but the content is still the same old Believer
content and has not suffered at all.

------
fipple
Tiny houses work if you substitute the lack of space with close access to
friends and family. That’s how nomadic people live and it works. But if you
live the modern isolated American life, 250 sq ft isn’t going to cut it except
for a certain personality type.

------
dbancajas
Personally, I think at 1k-1.5K sqft is where it starts to get attractive.
Price for tiny house is also around 200$/sqft so it's like a big house w/c I
don't understand. I'd rather build my own house at that pricepoint.

------
aooeeu
Photos and more info at [https://www.peak-view-park.com/](https://www.peak-
view-park.com/).

My impression is most of these houses are small not tiny (not that there's
anything wrong with that).

------
dawhizkid
The cheapest market rate condo in SF (at least, that I could find) today is a
~270 sq ft "microstudio" in SoMa for $445k.

------
jeffdavis
What problem is this really solving?

In dense areas, large buildings with small apartments make sense. Otherwise,
just build normal-sized homes.

What am I missing?

------
arosier
My experience, living in 375 SF in the middle of downtown SF with my wife and
1 year old is pretty awesome!

------
voltagex_
Wonder if anyone's tried to build a tiny home that's wheelchair accessible.

~~~
stevenicr
couple years ago I spoke with the gentleman behind these:
[https://www.countryliving.com/home-design/a37788/granny-
pods...](https://www.countryliving.com/home-design/a37788/granny-pods/)

and I think I remember correctly that they were designed to be ADA compliant
and such.

------
car
In Sweden these are named Attefallshus, legally permitted up to 25 square
meters.

------
useful
Some of the most fun I've had was company team building at habitat for
humanity. I basically learned how to frame, insulate, and finish a home in 2
days. I think most engineers love this stuff.

------
thisisweirdok
I think the tiny house trend is the symptom of growing wealth gaps in many
places (especially the US).

People are finding themselves unable to afford traditional housing, and
therefore want something that doesn't require a large amount of debt (on top
of an already likely student debt).

My grandparents for example, could afford a traditional ranch style house on a
single apprentice plumber salary back in the 60s. Good luck finding that
today.

~~~
bellerose
I'm a millennial and I don't see a house in my future. I wouldn't want one of
these tiny homes. The market for them is trying to sell the environmental
friendly niche and it's just nonsense to me. The person who lives in the homes
are the ones that make the impact or not. Similar, I haven't heard of other
millennials desiring these tiny places to call one's own. The few persons I
know who like to watch youtube videos about them, are my parents generation
and who own what I consider a mansion with a lot of land. Life is filled with
irony.

------
justboxing
Tiny House = Millenial Trailer Park Home.

------
pxndx
Tiny houses are just gentrified trailers.

~~~
Flavius
Not necessarily. Look at this house for example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUZcHeszQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUZcHeszQU)

It's amazing what you can do with 20sqm.

~~~
nickbauman
This house looks amazing! But it doesn't seem like a "tiny house". I thought
tiny houses were by definition on wheels with a more flexible way to hook up
and out of utilities?

~~~
0xffff2
I don't think so. Rather, typical zoning codes in the US don't really allow
for permanent tiny homes, so they usually have to be built on trailers in
order to be legal.

~~~
jandrese
I've seen plenty of "tiny home" projects built out of old shipping containers
for example.

