Stacy “…felt like it was time to draw a line in the sand and make some important decisions about her future and her security. She went on Craigslist, found a room available in an apartment close to her work where she could walk, and split living expenses with her roommates. She sold her car, bought a bicycle and cut her expenses down as much as possible. She paid down her remaining student loans and credit card bills. Once those were paid off she began looking at her long-term housing options that would allow her to live life without being married to a job. A friend told her about a really cool website called Tiny House Blog that features lots of cool, inexpensive homes and ideas about living simple. She decided this was the approach she wanted to take. Now that her debt was eliminated from cutting her lifestyle back, she could throw more money at her savings to purchase a tiny house. Sure enough, faster forward a couple years and she was fired from her job. Her company was feeling the cutbacks from the recession and was forced to let her go. Stacy felt she had saved enough money to look for a tiny house to purchase. She went online and found one exactly right for her. She purchased it, parked it in a friend’s back yard, found a part-time job at a local market and was good to go. Even though her job was only part-time, she still managed to set money aside each month because of her extremely low monthly expenses. Now she worked less and saved more. She did this by realizing that her housing was her biggest expense, creating a plan, taking action and sticking with it.…
From the Tiny House Blog, worth checking often for anyone interested in the subjext:
“Zol Fox emailed me an interesting article showing some of the logging history of the Northwest and included in the email a couple of pictures of tiny houses built from hollowed out logs.
“M&M Timber Framing is a building and design company located in Northwestern Pennsylvania. We specialize in heavy timber beam construction. We design and construct a variety of unique buildings. Whether you are interested in residential homes, or needing barn building and repairs, or looking for a cozy cottage or cabin. We are a company that prides itself in innovative design concepts and constructing structurally sound buildings. Our approach in the building process actually reduces construction time and labor costs, which translates into cost savings for home owners.
We are seeking home owners that are looking for a building and design company that thinks outside the box. Our buildings are rustic and whimsical in design, we encourage home owners to partner with us in the design process. Many agree that the residential home market lacks creative and innovative designed homes. We ask why settle for an ordinary home, when you have an option to build a one of a kind home with us. Contact us.”
I ran across Kirsten Dirksen and Nicolás Boullosa (from Barcelona) via Jenine Alexander, one of the builders in our new book. They had done a great video of Jenine talking about the 2 tiny houses she’d built in Healdsburg, California. We ended up using some of the stills from the video on the 4 pages we did on Jenine.
So when Kirsten and Nicolás came to California a few months ago, they came to visit. They’ve made almost 500 videos, many of them on tiny homes, and Kirsten is a journalist after my own heart. Within 2 minutes of arriving, she was asking questions, filming, and getting the essence of our work and lives. Immediate rapport. Here, several months later, is her take on our work, the homestead, the background of west coast publishing a la the ’60s and ’70s, the Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand and the influence that the WEC and Stewart had on Steve Jobs when he was in high school. Yes, it’s all tied together in a wonderful way.
Saw the post with the tiny house in Illinois and was inspired to send you a snow shot of my small home in North Carolina ( 350 sq. ft- 450 counting loft) .
Mike Moore (Michael J.- the micro car enthusiast).
Eco-cottages are small manufactured homes from Nationwide Homes. Sent us by John Grissim, author of The Grissim Ratings Guide to Manufactured Homes:: https://grissimguides.com/
