Early Retirement Extreme Forums

The greenhouse wouldn't need to be fancy although it could be if you wanted. I'd be happy with something simple like this with a couple of small folding chairs for the table. I might tuck a reading chair somewhere. And I'd always have flowers growing.

These are all delightful JennyPenny. Just passively taking them in. I think the connected greenhouse is a great idea. I interned on an organic vegetable farm a few years ago and being in the warm greenhouse during the cool and damp May that year was lovely.

Cottage housing or bungalow court is a possible way to concentrate small houses together. They are typically around 500 Sq ft each. All the similar set ups I've seen have six houses on one lot. https://goo.gl/images/2OgcK8

3D-printers building tiny houses:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realesta ... p#image=10

I like the style of this container house.

It looks like a pricey set-up, but I love the look of this house and greenhouse. I'd connect the two with a walkway, but otherwise it's perfect (for me) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRiIxe3GfCs

A real teaser this lady and her living set up. Perhaps an idea for you too? Somewhere to retreat now and then?

Thanks for sharing these, lots of inspiration. I sometimes daydream of a tiny house+greenhouse combi. Maybe even a tiny house within a not-so-tiny greenhouse.

*Love* this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxTdiFreIms

People seem more inclined to be creative in tiny houses than they do in traditional ones. Is it a sample issue, with creative people more likely to try a tiny house? Or is it that the lower cost and smaller size feels less constraining? There are things I'd do to my own 'normal' house if I didn't worry about resale/property value. In a tiny house, that wouldn't be an issue.

In my mind you answered your own question:

jennypenny wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:37 am

There are things I'd do to my own 'normal' house if I didn't worry about resale/property value.

It isn't that conformity is a plus, but rather that uniqueness is definitely a minus. Buyers want to see themselves in the house, blank-canvas style, rather than staring at a stranger's psychology in sculpture.

Looking at tiny house designs is depressing to me now due to learning how difficult it can be to deal with code-enforcers. The smallest footprint I can construct on one of my lots is 800 square ft. and the smallest division into rental unit is 400 square ft. However, it is possible that I could cheat a bit by including some greenhouse space in the design. Otherwise, most efficient design would be 1600 sq ft two story consisting of 4 400 square ft two bedroom units. I have a couple Aces in my hole when dealing with officials, since my BF is a PE and will likely sign off on my design in exchange for some unspeakable favor and/or promise to cook him a batch of salmon cakes every week for a year, and my Partner is co-president of community action group which has little office at city hall. I am also researching some little known federal program which supports job creation through small private for-profit construction projects. I loathe bureaucratic paperwork, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

One thing that bugs me about the tiny house movement is that they tend to be built new instead of converting RVs and mobile homes. Seems wasteful to me.

Here's a great before and after that shows the potential in a mobile/manufactured home ... https://youtu.be/jlKGinWzt3I .

Praxis Prepper did a video on how he built his small homestead ERE style (no debt, etc) this week ... https://youtu.be/tNgV586ASUI?t=1m51s

He built it mostly himself even though he had no experience.

I agree on the fact that building new seems to be wasteful and that that reusing current housing and upgrading (if possible) seems much more efficient use of current resources. Especially when those small areas have parts of land that could converted into small gardens or things useful like tha as shown in the mobile/manufactured home video you posted.

Cool videos, but I would once again note for the record that you usually can't pull a permit to build a shed, tiny house, garage, or any other auxiliary structure without first having a house on the property. My BF is building a shed, much like the one Praxis Prepper built, on his property, but he is only permitted to do it on a portion of his property which is way off the road and has never been designated residential. So, he is going to have to haul any materials he needs in piece by piece along a trail he cut this past summer. In the meanwhile, he could be ticketed for working out of the camper he bought from me, because it is parked on a previously cleared patch near the front road which is designated residential.

Also, even if you can buy a dilapidated manufactured home in a park for next to nothing, you will still have to pay lot rent, and manufactured housing parks have the right to tell you they no longer want your unit in the park at the point of sale. So, you might have to convince them that they should allow you time to bring it up to standards.

IOW, unless you are in one way or another skirting codes, there really is something like a minimum head cost for acquiring/maintaining permanent shelter in most of the U.S. no matter how much sweat equity you invest, because building or renovating shelter up to code at required minimum footprint will create a minimum property taxable value. Solving the problem in the manner my BF did will require buying enough rural acreage that you have a portion that is exempt from code, but you are then paying property tax on the value of an acreage that is quite large in proportion to your tiny structure.

What I don’t like about the tiny house thing is that it’s mostly middle class/upper class white people who pretend that what they are doing is different than living in a trailer park.

Why not just buy a trailer instead of building something like this? I haven’t looked but I would guess there are a lot of mobile homes/trailers for cheap that wouldn’t require the use of resources to make something new.

Also in many cities tiny homes are illegal, and in this case just getting a studio apartment is probably a better idea.

The whole thing seems more akin to a fad than functionality.

James_0011 wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:52 am

What I don’t like about the tiny house thing is that it’s mostly middle class/upper class white people who pretend that what they are doing is different than living in a trailer park.

Why not just buy a trailer instead of building something like this? I haven’t looked but I would guess there are a lot of mobile homes/trailers for cheap that wouldn’t require the use of resources to make something new.

Also in many cities tiny homes are illegal, and in this case just getting a studio apartment is probably a better idea.

The whole thing seems more akin to a fad than functionality.

This is also something I notice as well. It seems at first environmental more friendly, by using less land, however anyone who has seen different lifestyles, this does not seem all that impressive. Honestly, the only real niche that this market fills up is where you are in a rural homestead, which even then there is probably an old barn or house with a good base that is just waiting to be rebuilt to something better.

I mean the idea of the movement is alright, being more environmental friendly and countering the culture of McMansions, however I wonder if it has staying potential or just the pendulum swinging in the other direction.

ffj wrote:I thought houses up there were practically being given away. Why not just buy a house with a big yard for your permaculture projects? Would taxes be that bad?

Well, first answer would be that perma is short for permanent, and I designed my project to be completed in 7 years in order to give the trees some time to grow towards maturity, and I don't want to start again from scratch. The second answer would be that the houses that are practically being given away are in neighborhoods at least 2 quantum leaps more sketchy than the one where my project is currently located. Third answer would be that tax rate is pretty high, so once I built or renovated anything to minimum code or no longer condemned, the least I could possibly expect tax bill to be would be around 40 X $60=$2400/yr = SWR on $80,000. Given that $20,000 would be extremely low estimate of building materials to which I might apply sweat-equity, even with primary residence tax break, I'm thinking $100,000 one way or another is bottom price for long-term permanent shelter financial independence in my permaculture project realm. Of course, renting out some of the space could lower expense, but land-lording is a part-time job requiring something like 8 hours month @ maybe $20/hr rate, so it comes down to the same approximate $330/month for shelter no matter how you try to do the math with taxes/capital/sweat/permanent-part-time-job/maintenance/rent etc. IOW, since you can't live in a shanty made out of tin cans in the U.S., there is effectively a minimum head-tax for unsubsidized residency.

@ffj:

With homestead exemption etc./ the rate would only be about 3x what you pay OTOH, I did sell 1 of my 3 lots for 2.5X what I paid for it just a few years ago, so I am going to hold on to my city property whether or not I develop it further.

Anyways, I am seriously considering letting my partner be primary gardener on the city site, and buying/developing some property in northern rural area myself. The lake country air is better for my lungs, and it would be a fun place for theoretical grandchildren to visit me someday.

I like the concept of these: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar2fRiG_7ao

They're probably too small to live in full time unless you are rarely at home. They would probably be nice for lengthy trips on public lands or as a means to have some more privacy when visiting relatives. Although, I think the argument could be made that a van conversion would serve the same purpose and allow for more flexibility.