Tiny houses: The next big thing, or too close for comfort?

[this is a reprint of a feature article I wrote for our local newspaper, published June 1, 2015.]

Tiny Houses are built on dual-axle trailer foundations both for mobility and exemption from zoning and building codes. In August of 2012 when work dried up in Arizona we simply hitched up and moved our house to Santa Fe, NM. I blogged about our tiny adventures at http://clotheslinetinyhomes.com.     photo by Carrie Caverly

by Carrie Caverly

In the land of “McMansions” where the average house size has swelled to 2,600sf, a petite countercultural version of home is rolling into the neighborhood: the Tiny House.

“Drawn by the prospect of financial freedom, a simpler lifestyle and limiting one’s environmental footprint, more buyers are opting to downsize—in some cases, to space no larger than 300 sq. ft.”—Tiny House Nation reality TV show.

Small living quarters are not entirely novel, or inherently hip, but they are enjoying wild popularity.  No longer the sole realm of online bloggers, tiny houses are all over the media, featured on Oprah, in Forbes magazine, CNN, the BBC, and a slew of local news stations.  There are two documentary films now: Tiny: The Movie, streamable on Netflix, and Small is Beautiful: A Tiny House Documentary, with select screenings starting in April 2015.  There are three reality TV shows: Tiny House Nation, Tiny House Hunters, and Tiny House Builders.  Fortune magazine lists micro dwellings in the top 5 home trends of 2015, saying “micro and tiny are huge.”

A Tiny Step in Our Journey Home (Tiny House Magazine Article)

By Carrie Caverly. October 30, 2014 (an article I wrote for Tiny House Magazine…) When we built our Tiny House in 2012 we wanted it to be temporary – a stepping stone toward owning our own self-sufficient home, mortgage free. And even though I struggled with living in 200 SF for a year and a half, I feel so much gratitude for our tiny house because (two years later) it actually did enable us to buy land and start building a modest home of our own, without borrowing money.     Our first rental lot in Prescott, AZ. Set up for an RV, this site was tucked into a residential neighborhood and I cropped them out of this photo, but there are neighbors 50 feet away on both sides.

TINY: The Movie

Have you seen this documentary TINY yet?

TINY: A Story About Living Small, the Movie by Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller.

NY Daily News Article about Clothesline Tiny Homes

The NY Daily News wrote a really nice article about us living in our tiny house.  Click the photo to read the article…

NY Daily News wrote a story about Clothesline Tiny Homes.

And… we’ve had over 200,000 hits on our website!  We created the website a little over a year ago, so I guess there is a lot of interest in living tiny.  We’ve been working on the Beehive tiny house and I’ll do an update soon.  Hope everyone is well!