Tiny Houses . . . Really Tiny

The Winter 2008 issue of Terrain Magazine (from Berkeley Ecology Center) has a piece by Casey Miner -- an interview with Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.

Shafer is at the helm of a company that couldn't be more suitably named. He lives in a tiny house, and produces plans for other humans' tiny houses -- anywhere from 65 to 837 square feet. You can see one of Jay's videos below and at his website. It shows a tiny tour of his living space and how he manages to make a comfortable life within the confines of 89 square feet. Jay Shafer is also the guy who, along with Greg Johnson, drove their tiny house from Seattle to San Diego -- to expose the West Coast public to a life lived within a smaller footprint.

Seeing Jay's living quarters is a humbling experience if it causes you to question your own square footage requirements, as it did mine. I've lived in apartments and flats most of my life, and 400 square feet (for two people) is about the smallest in which I've thrived with any semblance of sanity. Jay mentions his disdain for vacuuming as an incentive to go smaller. To this I can relate. It's like making the bed -- the task never ends. But it will take an open house at a tiny house for me to truly embrace those parameters and see if my own eco-footprint could shrink to accommodate Jay's simplicity ethic.

Tumbleweed periodically holds those open houses around the country -- with the next set at Jay's Sebastopol location in December, and then again in January. You can also attend tiny house building workshops taking place in various cities.

Terrain's 2008 Winter issue has additional and interesting discussion on the future of our energy systems, as well as an interview with Tom Philpott about the Slow Food movement and how it relates to economic class.

Links:

• Tumbleweed Tiny House Company Website
• Tiny House Open House Information
• Tiny House Examples and Photos