Tiny Homes discussion

[SongStar101]

Tiny homes are becoming more popular than ever!  Your thoughts/ideas? Discuss building ideas, your own step-by-step progress, things to keep in mind, advantages and disadvantages and more.   

Why a tiny home?  Because they are the quickest way to own a new home.  They are also the safest way to relocate and still live in your own home!  Advantages:

• Totally mobile
• Affordable to build
• Come in all shapes and sizes
• Can be made mobile on wheels/hitch
• Made to sit on any plot of land
• Are not limited to one location
• Can be built within a short time: ten days to several months 
• Can be totally self contained off-the-grid!

Pic Source

Grow gardens easily near the home

pic source 

Interiors can be made like regular larger homes

Pics Sources

Ease of access

Migrate as needed to your chosen safe location on a dime!  If the area you arrive at is not ideal,  no problem just keep driving to another better place! 

Live with your whole family quickly in your safe location.

Find your safe location: http://zetatalk.com/7steps.htm

Tiny Home Movement

This subject is also gaining popularity on television.  To name a few: HGTV, DIY, FYI and Youtube channels galore! 

Cost is Minimal

The price of some Tiny homes can be as little as $5000 on up when built yourself.  A Tiny Home can be owned 100% in a shorter time than a conventional home or RV.  

Tiny Homes are Custom vs Standard RV's

Tiny homes are custom built by their owners,  though nice RV's make great homes too!  RV's are not usually insulated for all kinds of weather though! 

Can be part of community development and meeting up

Building communities can be a matter of building tiny homes and relocating all at once to safer areas of choice.  Migrate easily to a property where crops and food is readily available.  Family members and friends can offer a helping hand in building Tiny Homes,  growing the cops, and more.

Tons of Info on the Web!

Go to any Search Engine and type 'Tiny Home' and dozens of ideas show up.  Using Google searches  buttons allow you to find your own styles!

Pic source

* When posting comments please remember to give all credits/sources! Thank you!

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Heating a tiny home with wood is easier now. Lots of options for the off grid set-up. 

This little Marine woodstove is perfect for cooking a meal.

http://www.livinlightly.com/off-grid-heat-small-wood-stoves/

Here's a video on a new company, Dwarf woodstoves, They were built with tiny homes/boats in mind. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKYURuo8ag4

Another great little stove. It works best with a 6' flu straight up/no bends. I've seen many lately in tiny homes , either on the wall or on top of a counter. Here's the wood/coal version: http://dickinsonmarine.com/product_cat/solid-fuel-heater/

Width: 7.88″
Height: 14.7″
Depth: 10″
Weight: 15 lbs

Heat Output (aprox):
Low: 3000 BTU
High: 8000 BTU

[Starr DiGiacomo]

There will come a time when all septic systems will back up.................What a mess but there's a better way.

A lesson in the benefits of composting toilets plus this guy made  a really cool system He now sells several shnazzy models but you can make your own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efTfdB3FHM

Here's his website: http://www.c-head.com/

This guy made his own and it looks like a comfortable throne. It's just a matter of keeping your waste separate with a urine diverter but there are some challenges.  The toilet needs to be used correctly which means even men need to sit to pee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpyvX0HCB0s

 

[SongStar101]

Need a portable garden for easy transport with the tiny home? How about a tube garden? 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/313703930266260205/?from_navigate=true

[SongStar101]

Using a solar panel/battery one can hook up a fan for air conditioning in a tiny space.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3116063/Man-saves-hundred...

No sweat! Man saves hundreds by building his own homemade air conditioner for only EIGHT DOLLARS - and offers a step-by-step guide so you can copy his thrifty creation

• He created the makeshift AC in just ten minutes
• The supplies he used included a Styrofoam cooler, two dryer vents, a small house fan, and water bottles filled with ice

If you can't take the heat - build your own air conditioner!

One man found a way to cool off without spending big bucks, constructing his own makeshift AC from cheap, simple supplies.

'If you don't have AC and want to save some money to cool down a room in your house, don't spend $300 on a portable air conditioner,' he said in a new how-to video from Household Hacker. 'Just build your own for $8 and 10 minutes of your time.'

[SongStar101]

Millennials Go Minimal: The Decluttering Lifestyle Trend That Is Taking Over

http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahweinswig/2016/09/07/millennials-...

Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, brought minimalism to the mainstream. Although it is not a new concept, the minimalist lifestyle is trending across the United States. The movement has inspired people to move into tiny homes, cut their wardrobes and donate their possessions. Countless bloggers document their forays into minimalism and even the television channel, HGTV, has taken to highlighting the benefits and has three shows on tiny houses in its current lineup. Many entrepreneurs have picked up on this and are figuring out how they can capitalize on the minimalism and decluttering trends.

Millennials in particular are seeking out this minimalist lifestyle. Millennials– the 18-34 demographic make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population and the majority.... Millennials have a unique set of values around how they choose to spend their money. They grew up during the recession, entered a struggling job market and must now pay off record amounts of student debt. Retail expert, Robin Lewis, of The Robin Report, explained the consequences of millennial factors, “This is a generation that is bigger than the boomers in population, but their wallets are smaller, and they are more into the style of life than the stuff of life. This is a big threat to retail. They’re not into a lot of shopping.”

Millennials are highly adept at using technology and social media influences many of their purchases. They prefer to spend on experiences rather than on stuff. Seventy-eight percent of millennials—compared to 59% of baby boomers—“would rather pay for an experience than material goods,” according to a survey from Harris Poll and Eventbrite cited on Bloomberg. They favor products marketed as ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly. By 2017, Retail Leader expects millennials to spend more than $200 billion each year and about $10 trillion in their lifetimes.

Americans have accumulated more clutter over the last hundred years. In 1930, the average woman only had 36 pieces of clothes in her closet. Today, the average consumer has 120 items of clothing, but 80% go unworn, according to Cladwell, a startup that helps consumers create capsule wardrobes. We spoke with Cladwell CEO and Co-Founder, Blake Smith, about how his company helps consumers free up their lives by owning less stuff. He explained a capsule wardrobe is, “a small number of items chosen to be interchangeable, comprised of things that match [your] coloring, [your] personality and [your] lifestyle.” Cladwell was born when Smith was frustrated by his wardrobe after he moved to Hollywood for a job. He reached out to Christopher Merchich—Cladwell’s other Co-Founder and Head of Fashion and Customer Success—to ask him what he should wear. Merchich responded with a list of 30 items that Smith needed in his wardrobe. Smith loved the experience so much that he decided to make it a business.

Recommended by Forbes

Today, the service consists of two parts: a closet cleanout and creating your capsule. “You have to go through your closet. You have to take every single item out, lay it on your bed, look at it and say, ‘Do I love this? And do I wear it often?’ If those two things are true, you should keep that item; if they’re not, then it is taking up space that it doesn’t deserve in your closet,” explained Smith. Cladwell provides helpful instructions, tips and videos to walk the user through this process. Next, Cladwell’s algorithms generate the ideal wardrobe for the individual user. After they check off what they already own, users shop for missing items. “We actually link to brands that we recommend—we are not paid by those brand—but we linked to them because we’re your friend, to help make sure you buy quality as opposed to quantity,” Smith elaborated. The company said a capsule wardrobe saves users $600 per year.

The company currently has tens of thousands of users who use the platform every day. “It seems like it has really struck a chord with our generation right now,” Smith said. Cladwell is also testing an outfit generator service that will help users get dressed every day. The enhancement will help increase brand loyalty and customer engagement among users who pay a quarterly $15-subscription fee. The staying power of Cladwell, however, goes beyond branding and customer engagement. “A lot of people think that this is a trend and they’re wrong. This is a generational shift based on values, and so, it’s going to take a generation for it to shift again. Aesthetic trends come and go, but value-based trends, they have staying power. I think we’ve got another 20 years of growth,” Smith said.

The minimalist trend extends beyond stuff and into areas such as housing. Getaway, the first project out of the Millennial Housing Lab, allows people to test out tiny living for $99 per night. Although the company’s tiny cabins are meant for weekend getaways, Getaway is, “Proud to be helping build the Tiny House Movement,” which involves, “a simpler life, being friendlier to the environment, financial security, self-sufficiency, and lots of adventure,” according to the company’s website. These are all values that fit into the millennial lifestyle.

At Fung Global Retail & Technology, we believe the minimalism and decluttering movements will stick around for some time. Even as millennials pay off their debt and garner more disposable income, we believe they will choose to spend their money on experiences—such as traveling, concerts and eating out—rather than things. Other industry trends support this idea. The sharing economy, in which consumers choose to use the new set of services available through Uber and Airbnb rather than buy cars or time shares, and the caring economy, comprised of consumers who spend on ethical and sustainable brands, are two examples. We predict companies that provide consumers, particularly millennials, with services that fit into this minimalist and socially conscious lifestyle will see success.

[SongStar101]

Fixing up the interior of an existing RV is also a great mobil idea!  Flexible to travel anywhere and it is a real home!

Why the American Dream of owning a big home is way overrated, in one chart

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-american-dream-of-owning-...

From 1978 through 2015, the median size of the single-family home increased every year until it peaked at 2,467 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Then, in 2016, that number began to shrink, albeit ever so slightly.

So, are we finally coming to our senses about McMansions?

Of course, owning a big house has long been a key component of the American Dream — you know you’ve arrived when you have columns, an indoor pool and a theater room — but, in reality, it’s all usually a huge waste of space, according to a study cited by Steve Adcock on the Get Rich Slowly blog.

A research team affiliated with UCLA studied American families and where they spend most of their time while inside their homes. The results were fascinating, but really not all that surprising. Here’s one representative example:

As you can see, most square footage is wasted as people tend to gather around the kitchen and the television, while avoiding the dining room and porch.

“The findings were not pretty. In fact, they helped prove how little we use our big homes for things other than clutter,” Adcock said. “Most families don’t use large areas of their homes — which means they’ve essentially wasted money on space they don’t need.”

Read: The financial magic of living like a minimalist

And Adcock knows a thing or two about utilizing space.

Like the family in the illustration above, he used to spend all of his time hanging out in the kitchen and family room in his 1,600-square-foot home. Now, after managing to retire from his full-time gig at the age of 35, he lives his version of the American Dream in an Airstream trailer with his wife.

Check out a tour of his “home”:

“The full-time RV life isn’t for everyone, and it’s not my intent to convince you otherwise,” Adcock explained. “Instead, use my story as a testament to the fact that large homes are very much a choice. Few of us need the space we buy.”

Read: This man lives with his 5 kids in 1,050-square-foot apartment

His takeaway: Forget the standard realtor advice that you should “buy as big of a house as you can afford.”

Instead, buy as much house as you need. “More does not automatically equal better,” he said. “More simply means more.”