Tiny Homes: The Next Little Thing

tiny homes image

Steven Kurutz of The New York Times gives good exposure to the small house movement, "whose adherents believe in minimizing one’s footprint — structural as well as carbon — by living in spaces that are smaller than 1,000 square feet and, in some cases, smaller than 100. Tiny houses have been a fringe curiosity for a decade or more, but devotees believe the concept’s time has finally arrived.

“It’s a very exciting moment,” said Shay Salomon, a green builder in Tucson, Ariz., and the author of “Little House on a Small Planet” (Lyons Press, 2006), “because it feels like a chapter of American history might be ending, the chapter called ‘Bigger is Better.’

tumbleweed house on tour photo
Photo: John Friedman, from the excellent slide show

It has good coverage of Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, and talks to Dee Williams, who lives in a Tumbleweed house which we covered here. The Times notes that Ms. Williams saw a huge increase in her energy bill last year-$4 to $8. ::New York Times and be sure to see the lovely slide show

More on Tumbleweed Tiny Houses in TreeHugger:
Woman happy living in 84 Square Foot Home
Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
It's a Small House After All

Instead of Trading Up, Adding a High-Style Shed

Michael Cannell writes a related article in the Times about the growth in the market for upscale garden sheds:

“In terms of popularity, these sheds are roaring ahead, in part because of their innate simplicity,” said Michael Sylvester, publisher of fabprefab.com, a clearinghouse of information about contemporary prefab homes. “They’re mobbed whenever they’re exhibited at design shows.”

In fact, the shed threatens to upstage full-scale modernist prefab homes, which have begun to lose their bargain appeal after years of hype. ::New York Times

TreeHugger on Garden Sheds:
Friggebod by Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
Summerhouse by Ullmayer Sylvester Architects
Energyspace Sustainable Garden Buildings
Friggebod - The Traditional Garden Shed Made Green