I posted when this came up that I've actually lived in a tiny house. Well done, well built, it can be a joy. In fact, the basic NYC studio apartment can range from 87 - 400 s.f., and that's living that, for me, would be a breeze.
My tiny house--a rental after I sold my three story, 90 year old victorian rehab in the city-- was ~ 440 s.f., stick built on a slab. Pictures taken from the front made it look kind of like those stick built wooden garden sheds--but taken from the side, it looked like a typical 2 bedroom ranch house. It was three
rooms, with a vestibule, kind of in a T-shape--shotgun style, but the doors were offset instead of all in a straight line. No hallways. You had to pass through the kitchen to get from back room to front room, or vice versa.
The entry/vestibule was 4 feet wide and 4 feet deep, placed offset to the right of a 16 foot long by 12 foot deep front room that had a modified 12' vaulted ceiling with two skylights. The middle room (the kitchen/laundry/broom closet/bathroom complex) was 12 feet wide and 8 feet long with an eight foot ceiling and a two foot crawl space above. The back room was originally 12 feet wide and 8 feet deep, but at some point when they remodeled, they added a closet that went the entire length of the room. So from entry door to far back wall of the closet, it was about 38 ft long.
I tried to type in an ascii floorplan but that didn't work. I'll have to draw it and upload it as an image. I did a little reseach; it is in an area that had a lot of factory worker housing constructed for the steel plant and chemical process plant a couple miles away. There are at least 15 other tiny houses (500 s.f. or less) in the same neighborhood. Most are single floor but some have basements or peaked roofs that would allow an attic/loft expansion.
It was probably originally a kit house from Sears, and it was about 50 years old. Mine had been completely redone inside to be allergy free (hardwood parquet, vinyl or ceramic tile floors, ceramic tile bath, mold resistant drywall throughout.) It did have a crawlspace, which had anti-mold/anti-fungus coating blown in to seal it before insulating. It was all electric, and every room had its own thermostat. My electric bills, for two months in the dead of winter, were about $100...and in the four months of summer, electric bill dropped to about $15. My monthly average electric bill was about $40.
Just under 500 s.f. is just perfect for me. I also loved that it was all on one floor, that I could reach just about any part of the house with a basic 12' step ladder, and that I could *really* clean the whole thing in under an hour.
It was set on a double lot that was fully fenced, so my 'yard' was comparatively enormous (dogs loved that!) I had enough room in the yard to have four large pine trees, a 12 x 8 foot garden, and an 8 x 10 foot shed...and had the guy accepted my offer to buy it, I was going to put in a back patio from the L-shaped nook behind where the front room met the exterior wall of the second room along the side of the house to the far back wall. I would have liked more storage, but the shed took care of most of what I needed to store off-season, and extra dog crates, etc. It also taught me to *really* pare down. I don't have a 300-possession limit, but living in small spaces does force you to edit periodically and regularly.
Now I have a two story townhouse condo that's about 900 s.f. I mainly live downstairs and use the upstairs for storage and projects that I don't want to clean up from day to day (the upstairs is a dog-free zone...) So essentially I'm still living in about 450 s.f., with a 400 s.f workroom/storage area. And sometimes, I feel like I'm back to accumulating too much stuff.
I keep my eye on the tiny houses in the area. Although my condo is almost paid off (just nine more months of mortgage!), I could sell it, buy a tiny house free and clear with the proceeds and still not have a mortgage if I played my cards right. I do like having my condo...but I miss the freedom of my own fenced in yard, and the ability to have a storage or workshed during CNY winters.
The problem with an 87 s.f. house in this part of the country is that in most local towns, dwellings have to be a minimum size. 300 s.f. (a 30 x 10 work trailer) is about the minimum acceptable dwelling size to get a building permit for a piece of land--and you have to go pretty far away from the metro area (and the jobs) to find a town that doesn't care how *small* your house is. Even the local lakes in one of the least regulated local towns insist on minimum dwelling sizes for camps, or the dwelling won't be approved for year-round use.
by Larry Messaros » Sat Jul 14, 2007 2:57 am 
