Really Small Houses
April 28th, 2007There are a lot of weird ways to avoid the mortgage/rent industrial complex…
Via: SF Gate:
Down a rambling residential road on the outskirts of Sebastopol, the dream house sits like a testament to discriminating taste.
This dream house is the love child of artist-builder Jay Shafer, who lovingly hand-crafted it. The stainless-steel kitchen, gleaming next to the natural wood interior, is outfitted with customized storage and built-ins. From his bed, Shafer can gaze into the Northern California sky through a cathedral window. In his immaculate office space, a laptop sits alongside rows of architectural books and magazines — many featuring his house on the cover. And from the old-fashioned front porch, he can look out on a breathtaking setting: an apple orchard in full bloom.
But in an era when bigger is taken as a synonym for better, calling Shafer’s home a dream house might strike some as an oxymoron. Why? The entire house, including sleeping loft, measures only 96 square feet — smaller than many people’s bathrooms. But Jay Shafer’s dream isn’t of a lifestyle writ large but of one carefully created and then writ tiny.
[…] Cryptogon, I was reminded of Jay Shafer, the Iowan behind the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. This guy not […]
I’ve loved Jay’s homes for a while now. The sizes vary, but they are all really, really small. It is amazing what you can do without. Even if we could all downsize to 1000 sq. ft. or under it would help. Just think of the savings for heating, electricity, AC, etc. Just think of all the crap we wouldn’t buy because we had nowhere to put it. Good stuff. The best thing is that no one would want to stay over at your house or ask you to host holiday parties (unless it was summer and you lived in an apple orchard like Jay).
Impressive, but perhaps not as crazy-impressive as this house in Brazil:
http://saim-baig.blogspot.com/2007/03/narrow-habitation.html
(Can’t actually remember where I got that link from. May be old news to some / all of yous).
But where will he entertain? And what about the servants’ quarters? And a stable for the ponies? Am I to believe that this man will be his own butler?
Also, what if a ninja strike force wants to attack him? They could kick down his house with one axe-kick. And let’s not forget about a big bad wolf. What about jack-booted storm-troopers?