Christopher & Merete

Size Matters: Tiny Houses are Heavy on Function and Light on the Environment

By Jules Marie

Imagine living in a home as wide as an eagle’s wingspan and twice as long. The thought of living in a house the size of a parking space is unimaginable to most people, but others are enchanted by Tiny Houses. These creatively designed and traditionally constructed homes average 120 sq. ft. and are for people desiring to live only with what’s essential, inspiring and sustainable. Tiny Houses are not easy to spot, but they are here, often in undisclosed locations. They’re built on a flatbed trailer as a way of bypassing local building codes and are considered temporary structures.

The beauty of these small houses can be credited to the creative visionaries behind them. Retired contractor Bill Young of Lafayette has built four Tiny Homes; most recently the aptly named Gypsy Wagon, only 240 sq. ft. Young’s authentically-styled, turn of the century coach is stunningly appointed with Brazilian hardwood floors, wainscoting, Victorian-style wallpaper, elaborate rosettes adorning the woodwork, a caboose-like sleeping loft, and a full kitchen and bath. He recently sold his Gypsy Wagon for $19,500 to a family planning to use it on a vacation property. Young’s dream is to create a gypsy wagon resort offering elaborately designed coaches.

[more…]Intricate design details frame the home of Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller who built their 125 sq. ft. home in Boulder before moving it to land Smith owns in southwestern Colorado. They’ve chronicled their building experience in a feature-length film, Tiny: A Story About Living Small, yet to be released.

“Most people will look at a Tiny House and dismiss it as something they’d never do. The real story is how to take these design innovations and scale them up to what a person really does need. We don’t believe that everyone should live in a house this small, but there’s something about these Tiny Houses that may spark the seed of an idea and impact their lives in other ways,” says Mueller.

Christopher Smith & Merete Mueller Tiny House

Henry Thoreau built his 10’ x 15’ English-style cottage on Walden Pond in 1845 for $28.12 with shanty boards, second hand windows, and old bricks, stone and sand. Boulderite Justin Davis took a page from Thoreau’s book and built his 120 sq. ft. tiny home for less than $2000 by dumpster diving and using reclaimed building materials from Craigslist and ReSource. The original structure was a friend’s playhouse and Davis enhanced it with his carpentry and masonry skills. His Tiny House has cedar wood flooring from a renovated church, energy efficient windows, a woodstove, solar panels, a propane stove and a quietly efficient gas-powered generator.

“I cruise down the road with the house. People giggle, and chuckle when they see it. I love living in it. It’s cozy and warm. In fact, it gets so warm I have to open the windows and door. So many friends have lost everything and I’m tired of seeing that happen. We just want to live simply,” says Davis.

The Tiny House movement was popularized in the early 2000s by Jay Shafer, whose scaled-down, efficient designs appealed to people wanting to live small. Today, Shafer owns Four Lights Tiny House Designs and is an internationally recognized expert on small living. “Some people cite me as the instigator of the entire thing, but I was inspired by the book Tiny Tiny Houses by Lester Walker,” says Shafer. Walker’s book, published in 1987, contains plans for 44 houses that are unimaginably small but so thoughtfully designed readers can imagine adapting their lifestyle to fit in a remarkably small space.

Two more tiny homes can be found in Longmont, thanks to artist Ann Holley and designer Darren Macca. Holley and Macca built and lived in “ProtoHaus”, a portable 125 sq. ft. timber frame house on wheels, for more than two years. It cost about $32K to build and was constructed in the summer of 2009 while the couple attended college in New York. Today, ProtoHaus is used as a guest cottage, vacation retreat, office and a getaway pod.

No stranger to small dwellings, Holley’s parents built a 12’ x 12’ cabin and lived in it for six years while building her childhood home. She believes that adventure may have inspired her to try living tiny and perhaps inspired them to build a second structure: ProtoStoga. Modeled after a Conestoga wagon, ProtoStoga is a 40 sq. ft. aerodynamic, ultra-light pod they use as an extra room, office or gathering spot.

Ann Holley’s brother Ben Holley is a building contractor who oversaw the construction of ProtoHaus. He offers a caveat: “A tiny house is built with the same specifications as a traditional house, but these houses don’t follow the same codes as full-size structures and therefore are not inspected. Work with a contractor to design a Tiny House. Contractors will get it as close to code as it can possibly be,” says Ben. Holley is assisting in the design of a tiny home in Nederland for a man desiring to move out of his space ship. Apparently, a 1000 sq. ft. space ship is too big.

Living simply in small homes isn’t for everyone; but, if you desire to be the doll in the dollhouse or the kid in the fort, consider living small.

 Jules Marie is a freelance writer in Boulder County. Take her spelling test at www.33words.us.

This article originally appeared  in Boulder Lifestyle Magazine May 2013.

original url: http://tinyurl.com/cs95mqp