Friday, April 4, 2014

couple built their own tiny home for $10000

  This is very unconventional. However, where there's a will often there is a way.

 

This couple built their own tiny home for $10000

Yahoo Finance (blog)
5 hours ago

Written by
Mandi Woodruff

"It's hard to meet other people who are making that same [lifestyle] choice," Rostcheck told Yahoo Finance. But is it really possible to thrive as a couple in such a, well, tiny space?






This couple built their own tiny home for $10,000


Yahoo Finance





Photo: Jess Belhumeur
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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
McMansions may be making a comeback in the U.S., but it's nice to see the tiny-house movement is still going strong.
Tiny-home singles even have their own dating site, Tinyhousedating.com. The site launched two weeks ago and already has more than 400 members, according to founder Kai Rostcheck.
"It's hard to meet other people who are making that same [lifestyle] choice," Rostcheck told Yahoo Finance.
But is it really possible to thrive as a couple in such a, well, tiny space? What do you do when the inevitable argument heats up and you've only got 100 square feet of breathing room? How do you pare down not only your life but your partner's life to fit in a home no bigger than a tool shed?
We caught up with Rhode Island couple Jess Belhumeur, 28, and Dan Sullivan, 26, who chronicle their tiny-home lifestyle on their blog, Living In A Tiny House. In January they completed their 128-square-foot abode, which they built and furnished for a mere $10,000.
"I had already owned a home before this and I realized that I only used two rooms the kitchen and the living room," Jess says. "I felt ridiculous. I was in a stressful financial situation and I wasn't even making use of the house I had."
Here's how they built their pint-sized dream home:
With $45,000 worth of student loan debt to contend with, Jess knew buying a pre-constructed home was out of the question (even tiny homes can cost up to $40,000).  Just hiring someone to design their layout would have cost them $3,000 alone. So they took the DIY approach, designing their home themselves with free software from Sketchup.com.
"For people like me and Dan, having our own space was not as important as having freedom from debt and feeling like we could breathe," Jess says.



Photo: Jess Belhumeur
Any home needs a good foundation. They started with a $1,500 trailer bed, which they found on Craigslist for $4,500 less than it would have cost new.
Building on a trailer bed allowed them to sidestep building codes that would have made the process  difficult and costly. Basically, tiny homes on wheels are treated with the same flexibility as mobile homes.



Photo: Jess Belhumeur

The rest of their materials were either purchased secondhand from Craigslist or donated by family members. Sometimes they lucked out and were able to scavenge building materials from abandoned lots, like these cement blocks they picked up outside a train yard.



Photo: Jess Belhumeur



Photo: Jess Belhumeur
Rather than purchasing a plot of land, the couple decided to build their home in Jess' parents' backyard. Not only was the land free but all they had to do was hook up to her parents' electricity. Their $120/month electric bill is all they pay in rent.



Photo: Jess Belhumeur
You'd be surprised how much you can find on Craigslist. All their wood and insulation came secondhand.



Photo: Jess Belhumeur

"We decided not to have any traditional plumbing," Jess says. "We wanted to make [our design] as simple impossible so we wouldn't have to get professionals involved."
To prepare themselves, they practiced using only seven containers of water a week at their apartment.



Photo: Jess Belhumeur
Planning their bathroom strategy was trickier. Jess turned to the "Humanure Handbook" for ideas. They installed what looks like a normal toilet but is actually just a bucket with a toilet seat covering it. No water needed — chemistry does all the work.
In a nutshell, they cover their waste with wood shavings (the kind you'd find in a hamster cage), which actually creates a reaction that eliminates any odor and turns the waste into "black gold," Jess says. "Once the bucket is full we bring it out to an outdoor composting bin and after a year it becomes one of the richest soil additives you can use."
The best part: thanks to naturally occuring bacteria in human waste, one-ply toilet paper disintegrates naturally as well.
"I like to refer to it as a litter box for humans," Jess says. "But you're obviously not stepping in it."






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
"I’m a very environmentally conscious person," she says. "I was driven to live in a way that reduces my impact on the planet."







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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
They maximized their space by building a lofted bed, accessible by tiny ladder. The wood used for the ceiling was reclaimed from a New Hampshire barn built in 1776.






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
One of their biggest challenges was figuring out how to endure Rhode Island's brutally cold winters in such a small structure.






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
They use a small 400-watt electric heater for above-freezing temperatures and switch to a mini propane heater when it's lower than 25 degrees out.






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
For cooking, they use a gas stove-top (no oven), which they purchased at an RV supply store.
"We eat a lot of stir-fry," Jess says.






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
Organization is a constant struggle, but they've gotten pretty good at squeezing their belongings into every nook and cranny.






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
Apart from their camping gear, which they stash in Dan's parents' basement, they pared down all their belongings to match their lighter lifestyle.
"For a few months, every two weeks I'd go through most of my belongings to pick out different items to donate," Jess says. " I had this weird sense of feeling like I needed them. After two to three rounds, it became a lot less painful to let go."






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
By October 2013, the interior was complete, less than a year after they began construction. Now that winter is over, Jess says their last step is to finish installing siding on the exterior. They've been collecting siding to finish the exterior for free all winter, thanks to a contact they made at a shipping yard.
Their total construction costs: $10,139. In all, they saved more than $7,000 on supplies by sourcing them from Craigslist and building them by hand.






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
Now that the home is 99% finished, their long-term goal is to pay off Jess' student loans and start saving money to buy their own plot of land.
"We want to continue living in a tiny house and slowly start creating a home that is actually on the ground," she says. "Tiny houses can work for families but I can't imagine trying to handle little babies in that amount of space."






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Photo: Jess Belhumeur
In the meantime, they're happy with their decision to downsize.
"We did talk about the possibility of getting into fights while we were building, but it's been a really good bonding experience for us," she says. "Our relationship is 10 times stronger than it was when we started."





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View Comments (125)
end quote from:

This couple built their own tiny home for $10000

This actually is a pretty good idea for a young couple if they have $10,000 or if they can borrow it from parents or friends or relatives if they want to live together inside their own space that they own in their parents back yard or driveway. My only thought is that the toilet set up might not be legal in some counties or states. However, by putting their home on a trailer this solves a lot of problems regarding building codes. In other words this becomes what is called as a temporary structure like  yurt or something like a Teepee or tent in that it is not considered by building codes a permanent structure. So, because it can theoretically (whether it is ever done or not) hitched to a truck or car and pulled to another location it is considered to be a temporary structure.

Also, when they might be able to afford a bigger structure they could also tow it to that structure to use as a guest room or as a bedroom for their kids when they are old enough not to fall off the loft by accident.

So, doing this Might be practical for a lot of people as long as they built it not too tall or too wide to be towed by a vehicle someplace else.

Another idea a lot of people have used is to buy or rent land and to buy a yurt (often with a see through dome in the center because it is built to be insulated either with a dead air space between canvas layers or by putting actual insulation between the layers. Often people will install a wood stove for heating as well. First, (depending upon the climate) one often builds a deck about 3 feet to 4 feet high. Since a deck by itself is often considered a temporary structure (if it stands alone not next to a permanent home) then the (temporary deck) houses the (temporary) yurt which is capable of being assembled or disassembled.

However, what the young people did here in this article could be done literally in any suburban or country setting successfully. However, be sure you can get enough air to breathe with whatever heating form you use. I personally likely would choose a small wood stove for something like this, but that's just me. But, often if you choose a wood stove you need a national forest nearby and the capacity to get a permit to take and cut fallen dead wood which when I did this was about 11 dollars a winter. But times likely have changed by now. Also, then you would need either a small shed to house the wood in or a tarp to put over it to keep it dry so it dried out enough to be able to eventually burn it 6 months (or at least a few months after you cut it). If you get a big enough tarp just take about 4 pieces of wood to weight the edges of the tarp down so it can't blow away. 

The nice thing about something like this is you never will be evicted. You might be asked to move your home to another location but you own it and you can move it to a piece of land you own or rent or to a friend's house or wherever you want it to be that it will be allowed to be ongoing.

 

 

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