When it comes to mortgage freedom, tiny houses tread along the same path as Small Houses. Just with a tinier footprint!

As our world and the people in it hit maximum overload on material "stuff" while simultaneously paying out enormous sums of money every month on mortgages, credit card and other personal debt, very small house plans are a great opportunity to return to the frugal living mentality of yesteryear.

Do it yourself home-building has never made so much sense as it does now!

View Tiny House Plans

In keeping with their name, tiny house plans mean dwellings are, more or less, between 65 to 800 square feet. Some are portable, movable homes similar to a gypsy caravan. Others are secured to the ground permanently or made from the ground on which they stand.

Tiny Pioneers

Long before tiny living moved into the commercial market, Jay Shafer had designed and built his tiny home. 

A closer look inside Jay's Tumbleweed Tiny House

In a successful attempt at being mortgage-free, debt-free and reducing his cost of living, Jay's "Tumbleweed house" has caught the attention of many who yearn for that same tiny, frugal lifestyle. I tend to thing of Jay as the original Tiny House builder.

Jay offers his tiny house plans for others to use for building their own teeny home. Many clients have been so impressed that they have come back to his site to write about their experience.

 

Peter King's solution to the "Stuff Nation" that America (and the rest of the world) has become is a very real alternative the standard home. If you're keen to learn and are nearby Vermont, USA, Peter will teach you how to build your own little home!

In the short video below he gets down to brass tacks, explaining the small house purpose simply and perfectly.  So many sound, practical reasons to live in a small space! 

Little houses seem to attract a particular type of person as compared to standard house dwellers.

Being that a tiny home is the smallest kind of living space, the occupiers tend to be those that are:

• independent of spirit and lifestyle;
• a solo male or female and occasionally a couple;
• lean towards sustainable home design, DIY and frugal living habits.

If you're not one a Tiny house dweller yet, but you want to be, it's only a choice away!

Build it yourself with FREE plans!

The community of people that have grown with this small house movement is a giving and helpful bunch. There are two sites that I'd recommend for FREE house plans.

Essentially, you can build a very simple little home with no experience, lots of resourcefulness and a bit of forward planning.

Aiming for a completely free house where a mortgage doesn't even get a look in? With tiny free house plans (find them at FreeGreen.com and at TinyHouseDesign.com) and a recycled house method and you have an almost free tiny living space, complete with directions.  

It's easy for anyone to have a house of their own.  Compared to the house-building of the past - where the banks and the builders have control - you now have all the say and none of the crippling interest charges of a mortgage.

Not a DIYer?  Have some Tiny do-it-for-me solutions

Mini Shearing Sheds in Australia are one of my all-time favourites yet. With walls made from technosteel in a corrugated design, these are typical Aussie "home among the gum trees" tiny houses and are spacious and unique.


Taking advantage of opening up the front of the house to the elements with large glass sliding front walls, it lends itself nicely to making a tiny house seem bigger.

Sleeping two to four people and with a very special bathroom design, the little shearing shed small house is an exceptional Australian idea incorporating a bit of the country's history.

This is such a great design.  I'm really surprised that I've never seen one quite like it in the whole five years I've been researching tiny houses.  Kudos to the builders, Technosteel Australia, and the architect, Simone Koch.

In keeping with our small house spirit, their winning price tag of less than AUD$30,000 only adds to the already appealing package.


9 Tsubo (or Tubo) House

Designers of Japanese houses have this small house type down to a fine art.  Practical and modern, simple to build and using space in a very economic way, the 9 Tsubo (or Tubo) House has caused quite a stir among  the small house community. A startling fact: it is designed to accommodate 5 people.  Five!

9 Tsubo - a unit of area measurement in Japan - is approximately 30 square meters/350 square feet).

Right now they're only selling this small inexpensive house domestically in Japan.  However, there's no reason why you can't have your local Architect create the design for you (or something similar).  It's simple, small and easy!  

You can see the video of the house, including great shots of the internal space, here (you'll need Apple Quicktime installed to view it).



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