Average new home built in the 1950's was 1100 square feet.

Today's average is 2200.

Also- In the 50's, there was one family car. Compared to today, where multiple cars is normal, no wonder a family did just fine on Dad's income alone.
Double the size of the house, double the cars in the driveway, shouldn't be a surprise the family needs double incomes.

No thanks. I like my personal space, and can't get enough of it!

When I was a kid, we took a vacation in my grandpa's motorhome. It was one of the really big, really nice ones. I hated it. Felt totally cramped, uncomfortable, everyone right on top of each other...and that was when I was 10 and tiny. No way in hell I'd be caught dead living in a motor home or in a tiny house (or trailer home) unless I make some serious mistakes and lose everything.

Which lets be honest is how they would be developed in America. Much like driving a city car on the Interstate, it's a European concept that just doesn't translate well to the USA. We have plenty of space, why be cramped either in lot size or house?

Open (undeveloped) acreage with no utilities and 16' self-contained fiberglass RV trailer. Maybe a couple of spots around the country here and there.

the power of a tiny home is to have it in some tranquil, scenic, wide open space for me. we go packing them into a lot..all bets are off. i'm out.

i could honestly do it. when i'm old, hopefully..i get to live my dream of traveling a lot. like 6 months out of the year. then at home, a tiny home. again, single story. no loft. i'm not climbing a ladder at 70. i wont need tools, hunting gear, gun safes, stuff like that. just simple living. a bad ass working kitchen, a real bathroom.

outside, design a living space to take advantage of good weather. outside shower. outside kitchen. outside sitting area. maybe even a standalone bathroom with a shower. outside stand alone wine storage.

easy to heat, easy to cool, easy to clean.

i'm trying to buy a new house now. just the wife and i. i'm having a hard time finding a small home to buy. effen 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths..wtf? i like the 3 car garage, but the giant home i can live without. i would just fill it up with bullchit. no thanks.

Personal space and need for stuff is a very individual matter.
When I used to run small boat tours it was interesting to see the space that some folks ( usually guys ) occupied . One area that I worked for years called for really small boats so the trip could include going thru sea caves. So seating around the sides of 25' inflatables was the way it was. Some guys would sit down legs splayed, elbows out taking nearly the space for two, and clearly needing that space. It's just the way it is for some of us.

Don't get me started on stuff, I spent the last twenty years living a fairly large four bedroom house with room for four small cars and shop space downstairs. It's a challenge scaling down to what I can manage on my own.
The 40' x 60' pole barn mentioned earlier would make a nice sized structure for my needs. With perhaps a 20' container incorporated into it for tool storage , shop bench etc.
I'm convinced it can be built in a way that looks pretty nice at realistic cost.

Cheers Richard

The answer to that is commuter traffic. I was trying to show how much would fit in a Levitt-town style area. But now grab 50 acres of blighted urban area and put in 500 of these units. Maybe even make it a gated community. You now have a hipster place close to the city center. There is even space for off street parking, maybe an attached car port.

~2000 to 2500 square feet of land plus 400-500 sq. feet of house. Around here, that would be well under $100K. Instead of developing mini-condos, you have a Tiny House village.

Looking at the pricing of townhouses in area I'm looking, they go for $200-300K. Hmmmmm. This could be quite profitable.

You're not the only one to think this way... This could get quite interesting and exciting - and the houses needn't be ultra-tiny, just reasonable, efficient, trendy (good design features), etc. Kinda like loft conversions but everyone gets their own patch of dirt. All the upsides of a community without the pitfalls (you keep good buffers between neighbors, no HOAs, no shared utilities, etc.). Living well within one's means without feeling "house poor" shackled to a stupidly expensive mortgage or (worse still) rent payment...

There are people out there for whom this makes a helluva lot of sense.

Yep, repurpose the inner city, burned out areas rather than infringing on my countryside. leave me to my peace and quiet, and let the urban spawl go inwards.

Bob has a NICE arrangement, especially if his wife don't shoot his ass. :rolleyes:

Um, resources.

thats seasonal

My house is almost 30 years old and it's in great shape but I can't deny my house has tiny movements. The brick facade on the front elevation is cracking in certain areas. I've hired a geotechnical engineer and a masonry contractor to take care of the problem. By spring the facade should be perfect and all movement should be arrested.

When I retire I'll downsize to a 3000 sf waterfront condo in Florida for the winter and a lake house in Minnesota or northern Wisconsin for the summer. That's my tiny house movement story.

This thread just took a tiny movement :)


Sent via Jedi mind trick.

Sure. None of us grew up playing outdoors rain or shine.

I was not indoors from the minute school let out until I crashed exhausted, rain or shine, every season.

I have just under 400 sqft, but being in MN it has a basement too, so I have a small, but useable wood shop down there along with a single attached garage that is deep enough for two smaller cars, bumper to bumper, if I didn't have so much stuff in there.

Being single it is plenty big and of course many pluses: already paid for; cheap insurance; low property taxes; small utility bills and I can vacuum the whole place from one outlet.

Sure it might be nice to have a couple more rooms, but I really couldn't see wanting or needing several thousand sqft, unless I had a large family. I also don't think any smaller would be workable for someone who had hobbies like woodworking or auto repair.

Funny forum in which to debate consumerism and conspicuous consumption.

I lived in Chicago apartments for 35 years, going from studios to a 350 sq. ft. one bedroom for the final 15 years, so the small places on Tiny Houses or Small Spaces Big Style appeal to me. The killer for me was price - my olde Kentucky home was under forty grand, and it seems all the tiny houses are double that for half the space. When I was looking, there was a 9 acre plot of land going for about $20k nearby, forest and hills. Would have been perfect for a tiny house if I'd been willing to spend that kind of money to build something.

That idea box shown in the orchard is really nice looking!
Some of the units seen on the TV shows seem very ordinary is materials and finishes. Yet extraordinary in price? Fad pricing me thinks.
In looking back at my comment about the 40' x 60' pole shed, its clear that I'm not purely into the tiny concept. Maybe tiny +. 40' x 30 would work, And definitely in low density setting.

Cheers Richard