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So the wife and i have decided that in 4-5 years, when all the kids are out of school and gone, that we are goinig to build a tiny house on a couple of acres out in the country. The house we are looking to build is shown here http://www.tinyhousebuild.com. We will be doing our own style to the interior and exterior, but the layout will basically be the same. Right now we live in a 1008 sq ft house (we do have a full basement with garage) with 3 kids (all are teens) and we have rooms and areas in our house that we dont even use now. The house we are looking at building is 207 sq ft + 110 sq ft in the 2 lofts. I have been emailing the guy whose house we will model ours after (really awesome dude) and have bought the plans that he sells. We will not be building it on a trailer, but rather on a foundation, or if the landscape fits, on a wood deck on a hillside. It will run off of solar and a rainfall catch system for the water (the roof size of the house with 3in average rainfall a month will equal roughly 500 gallons and if we ever run out the local fire department will come fill up our tank with their tanker for a small fee, less than $200 to fill the tank). I am amazed at how easy and inexspensive the rainwater catch system is to set up and use. The main reason we will be doing that is that we have rural country water options where we live but, to hook up to them it costs at least $2800 and thats if the piping runs right under the area we want to live (if its not close it becomes ALOT more exspensive). The rainwater catch system (including tank and fitlers and pumps) will cost less than $2000 to setup and have running. The same way with the electricity (although it will be a little more expensive to set up and get started). Buddy of mine wanted to build a house out in the country and was told it would be $100,000 just to get the electricity and water to the land he wanted to use!

Good news for us is that i can build it myself and do all the elctrical and plumbing. Plus i have access to all the tools needed, including back hoes and skidloaders. The wife and i have basically lived our lives til now spending all our time and money on the kids and their activities, so when they move out, we wont need that much space and the extra income saved will afford us the chance to travel the country and the world. Hell at this point she is more excited to do this than i am. We literally will be saving over 3/4 of our incomes living in this house. The house will be bought and paid for with the equity from selling our current house in 4-5 years, including all the setup of the solar and water systems. We own both of our vehicle, so no car payments either. Kinda crazy to think that in 5 years i wont have any monthly bills other than phone and internet (which are less than $100 combined). Plus, i have grown to hate being around people and living in a city.


What do you guys think?

And before anyone asks, no we are not turning into hippies We just dont have alot of stuff, and most of the stuff we have, we dont use or need.

Well..... Its certainly a good way to handle "boomerang" kids. Are you planning on
a pet?.... Hmmmm... a nice Labrador retriever would occupy about
4.68 cubic feet of space....

John

I've seen those pictures before plus many other unique house plans. I've thought about something similar but having always living in the suburbs, and being raised a certain way, it is hard to make a change like that. I've even contemplated living in a van but it just seems so far out there to me. I also like the idea of shipping container houses but I don't know that you can build them in many areas. I would still like to find a unique house myself.

Living in a van would be far out Bill.

Sounds cool Keith! Id love it but would need a full sized garage still...

Yeah, if you have much stuff you will have to get rid of it or find a place to store it. I have more outdoor stuff than indoor stuff.

Well if you lived in the small house you could have as big of garage as you want to build. Instead of a big house and tiny garage, you could have a tiny house and a gigantic garage

soopernaut wrote:Yeah, if you have much stuff you will have to get rid of it or find a place to store it.

I honestly have been getting rid of alot of stuff already and comes to find out that i dont have all that much stuff anymore

Decisions Decisions. Been nearly 7 years since my wife passed away and honestly the house is too much for me. 2060 sq ft and just my son living with me. Hes not a child any more(29) ,But if it wasn't for him living with me I would not be able to afford to live in the house on disability. Contemplated selling and downsizing, Just not sure what I want to do. Thought of doing full time RV,ing, Just have to dispose of way too much crap at the time. Been at my current home for 26 years with carryover from previous home. Biggest thing to get rid of will be my 66 W100. 40 plus years I have had it. May just have to sell it.

Hobcobble wrote:Well..... Its certainly a good way to handle "boomerang" kids. Are you planning on
a pet?.... Hmmmm... a nice Labrador retriever would occupy about
4.68 cubic feet of space....

John

The only pet we have is a cat and she dont take up that much room

Sounds like a great plan. I'd want a giant shop though.

Bucky

Souns like a cool idea, I say go for it!
I'm not sure how it is in the states but here in Norway there is no way one would ever be able to do such a thing and come away with it and save a lot of money. Here, the government always find a way to take most of your money

Atmobil wrote:Here, the government always find a way to take most of your money

I live in New York state so I know just where you're coming from....
John

I've thought about building a 40x40 shop on a plot of land, but with the upper deck as living space. It would be very similar to our pre-tornado home, which had a 38x40 shop, and a 990 sq. ft. two-story, two bedroom house attached. The 40x40 would be the entire footprint, with the living area ALL above the shop area.My current shop is on the 38x63 footprint of the old house/shop. I'm kinda claustrophobic, so a tiny home is really out of the question for me. After seeing that "Tiny Home Nation" show and seeing people pay $40K - $50K for an 8x20 roller with loft (over $225/sq.ft.!!!), THAT is crazy money for that space. Plus, no cover, patio, garage, carport...that is too drastic, for my tastes.

If I really wanted to try and skirt the taxes and whatnot, I would build it on a trailer and it would be considered a camper tax wise, but with the acre or 2 I am gonna have it on, the taxes won't be much so I would rather have it on a foundation or deck. Plus being here in kansas where I live its almost the center of the usa. The actually center isn't far from me. It would make travel to either coast easier cuz we like to road trip. Plus she is not one to want to leave al her family that lives around the area, so a permanent home seems to be the way to go

Patrick, I am not gonna be over $30k for everything, including the land that I build it on. I am friendly with the local lumber yards and hardware stores so I get realy good discounts.

go by the rule of 2 hundreds;

200 sq ft house, 200x200 "shed", 200 acres.........

200 acres around here goes for $10k an acre......$2,000,000 won't leave me much for the shed

So you can get all you water, and properly filter it, from rain/snow runoff?

What about heat? Will you have any cooling?

Heat will be a propane furnace, as will the on-demand hot water heater and the stove. Yes, you can get all the water you need from rain and snow. The system I am going to use has a 1000 gallon tank, and several filters, including a sediment catch, leaf filters and what not. I have even debated using a UV light filter system after all the filtering. The system can actually filter that water just as/if not better than the rural water sytem. From what i have read you can suck the water right out of a creek if you wanted to, but creeks around here are all field runoffs. There is some maintenance to the system that will need to be done like changing/cleaning filters every couple of months and cleaning and treating the holding tank once a year. In the event of a drought the local fire department will come out and fill my tank with their water truck for a small fee ($200 roughly) Allowing me to be completely off grid

Not sure about the cooling, with that small of space i may be able to get away with having the windows open and a stand fan or two