Oh, I need to go ogle at some of these links! I've really enjoyed the book
Little house on a small planet https://www.amazon.com/Little-House-Sma ... 258&sr=8-1 It has a lot of stuff to read, not just pretty pictures. Which I also love.
I've been a tiny/small house fan for a long time. After the whole family of three got sick with mold in an apartment, we bought a huge piece of woodsy land and were in the process of building a small log house of just over 500 sqft (49 m2). The building company had severe financial troubles and it was better to cancel when we were able to get all the money back that we'd spent. We then found a healthy apartment to live in but I was too sick really to think about building, so I was glad the project got cancelled. We still own that land to this day, though have decided to sell it.
Now I just bought a small house, a 1,5 storey 1930's log house of 680 sqft (63 m2 plus a few square meters of lower than 1,6 m under the sides of the roof which don't count) on a half an acre land in the middle of a residential area. About half of the cost was for the lot and the other half for the house.
The house is in solid condition, a bathroom and sauna addition has been built in the early 90's. I may build another tiny /small house on the lot and rent it out. Or my husband could live there
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
( We are currently separated due to his shitty behavior, but trying to work things out..)
The lot actually has about 330 m2 (3500 sqft) of available building permit! So it would be possible to build a couple of houses, a separate sauna, greenhouse..
I will make some renovations to the house, but I'm not in a hurry. I want to do it using natural materials and nothing too modern that would not look right in the little ol' house. The original wood floors have been covered with boards and plastic mat so I'll rip those out and sand and treat the old floor. The wallpaper is not breathable, at least not all of it, so I want to take those out. I'm interested in treating the walls with clay (inside).
The kitchen looks like 60's or 70's and I think I will hire a local carpenter to build new kitchen cabinets. Iäm thinking of adding a small wood stove which it doesn't currently have. The sauna is in top condition, the bathroom could probably use renovation with modern water insulation at some point. The toilet is, well, interesting.. so I'll re-do that as well, possibly keeping the porcelain that is in there now.
The purchase price was 165K. I currently live in a city where you can't even buy the tiniest studio apartment with that amount!! Under 20 m2 apartments cost more than that.
The yearly tax won't be that much, about 400-450 a year. The lot is being split so that it's not known yet, but I guess it will be about half of what it's now. Electricity about 100 e/month or a little more, but I'll use the fireplace also for heat. I guess the lil' house will cost about 200 euros/month to live in, not counting possible repairs. I pay 1100 e now for rent and water, NOT including electricity, for a one bedroom apartment of 57 m2 (about 600 sqft). My husband pays a whopping 1900 e /month for the big apartment we used to live in. Plus electricity. I just realized that if he at some point moved to my little house, we'd then be saving about 3000 e /month compared to the current situation!!!! If we dumped all that into investments we'd be FI in no time. Or we could take that money and build another small house on the lot.
Alas, I will not move in with him for financial reasons. But I'm starting to digress
Anyway, I think I will start a blog with lots of photos for the house when we get it in the fall. The current owner wants to spend the last summer there.