Small Living Journal

It was late spring of 2003 when I began assisting Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company with the construction of my tiny house, The Mobile Hermitage. It amazed me that just two people, over a few months, could build a house.

At that time, I’d not heard of such a thing being done before. I’d had no prior building or carpentry experience (other than a wood shop class in high school), but found the process quite easy and fun.

The basic stages of constructing the house were actually quite simple. The smallness the house helped to constrain us a bit with the design. Being a basic 10′ x 7′ floor plan, and wanting the home to be road ready, there wasn’t much wiggle room for bay windows, overhangs, or outcroppings.

The simplicity of the house actually made the construction process much easier, less time consuming, and less costly. By necessity, we would build a simple structure of four walls and a roof.

The construction process from start to finish involved the following stages:

1. Foundation. We purchased a high quality strong flat-bed trailer to build the home on. The trailer needed to be rated to handle the weight of the home. On top of the metal trailer frame, we constructed the basic foundation of the home out of wood framing and insulation. A wood foundation offers many benefits. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of having a home on a slab of cement to take advantage of geothermal benefits (gaining coolness or storing heat from the sun). However, it’s also nice having a home suspended a few feet off the ground (up on jacks). One benefit is a reduction in bugs. Another benefit is a reduction in wood or structural damage from water. The foundation layers were metal (to protect from water), plywood, 2×4 framing, foam board insulation, plywood, and then very nice interlocking wood flooring strips. Everything was screwed and glued for rigidity and an airtight seal. Expanding foam insulation (from a can) was used in any gaps and cracks.
2. Walls. The walls went up fairly quickly and easily. You can see a little of the framing in the photo above. The tricky part, which required Jay’s expertise and experience, was to make sure the walls were straight and also structurally sound enough to support the loft and roofing. Jay installed numerous reinforcing mechanisms including metal bracing. As with the floor, solid foam board insulation was cut to fit into all spaces and any gaps were sealed with expanding foam insulation from a can. The layers of the walls from outside to inside were solid Cedar wood siding, plywood, foam board insulation, and then solid pine interlocking paneling inside. Everything was screwed, glued, and sealed up with expanding foam.
3. Loft. Building the loft on top of the basic 10×7 foot cube structure was like putting a flat roof on the house. Because the ceiling for the downstairs would also be the floor of the upstairs, the same high quality wood interlocking floor boards were used as had been used in the floor downstairs. This made for a very attractive ceiling downstairs and floor upstairs with very little expenditure on materials. Jay constructed storage area on either side of the passageway between the downstairs and the loft. Instead of having stairs, a collapsible ladder was ultimately used as the way to access the loft.
4. Roof. Because the loft area would serve as a bedroom, the roof would not have any interior support beams. So, the roof would be supported structurally at the ends. This was more than sufficient because of the short distance (10 feet) that the roof would span. Like the walls and floor, the roof had framing and solid foam board insulation along with expanding foam to fill all cracks and gaps.
5. Furniture and Cabinets. To minimize wasted space, all furniture (other than folding chairs) was built-in, including bookshelves, tables, and clothes storage.

In the photo to the right, the basic structure of the home is complete with a space for the door and windows. This photo was taken at the beginning of stage #3 explained above.

Initially the home seemed a bit small, before having the finishing touches put on the outside and inside.

Surprisingly, after Jay added more to the inside of the house, it seemed more spacious!

The trick to designing small livable spaces seems to be in making them feel cozy and making the inside of the home to scale so that visually it has the look and feel of a normal home. Jay seems to have mastered the complexities of this challenge.

Something I really appreciate about the house is that it has a very tight building envelope. So, any airflow through the house is completely controlled and efficient. In this way, fresh air can be efficiently brought in as needed. Because of this, the heating and cooling are very efficient.

I’ve been living in my tiny home now for over five years and have really enjoyed it. The home is currently for sale, because my Fiancée and I plan to move into a slightly larger space.

Below is a photo of the home as it is today. The angle of the home in this photo is similar to how it is shown during the construction process in the photo above.

2 Bedrooms, 2-stories, 677 square feet

When Michael and I moved into this historic home several months ago I wrote that it is remarkably similar to a Tumbleweed Enesti design. That has been a largely unsubstantiated claim until now.

In the process of drawing up the floorplans to share with you today, I realized this is the largest place I’ve ever lived in since leaving the nest. The same is true for Michael. We’re no spring chickens either, which is why I think it’s amusing that this is where I’m living now, in the midst of writing This Tiny House blog and organizing a Tiny House Village.

Irony aside, without further ado, here are the floorplans:

Our current house

And for comparison, here’s the Tumbleweed Enesti floorplan:


Since we’re renting, I’m allowed to complain, right? But because the home was built somewhere around 1913, I give it a lot of credit for still standing. They didn’t have power tools back then.

The Stairwell
My biggest problem with the design of this house revolves around the stairwell. I’m jealous of Jay’s super-compact stairwell in the Enesti. Ours takes up valuable space. I can’t help but think that if our steps were steeper we could’ve had room for an upstairs bathroom. (However, since our only bathroom is downstairs and the bedroom is upstairs, I’m thankful that the stairway isn’t any steeper.)

The Big Kitchen
Michael and I were surprised by how huge the remodeled kitchen is in comparison to the rest of the house. It dominates the entire first floor. We were used to having about 1/5th the amount of space! The cabinets go all the way up to the ceiling and there’s no way we could fill them with our minimal amount of kitchen accessories. So we started putting our books there in lieu of a bookshelf.

The Weird Room Under the Stairs
Not too long ago we discovered a room under the stairs. (*Cue the creepy music*) It’s basically dead space because the refrigerator completely fills up the doorway to this emptiness. I imagine back in the old days when there weren’t such things as behemoth refrigerators, the space was a cellar to keep food cool.

Tumbleweed Envy
If I could wave a magic wand and all of a sudden our house were transformed into Jay’s Enesti design, I would be one happy woman. His kitchen is much more compact, and in using compact appliances he successfully made room for a very cute dining nook. But I suppose our big kitchen is a blessing in disguise as we are buying more food, cooking more and spending less money. We even got inspired to compost our food waste and start a garden in our tiny bit of green space outside.

The Utility Bill
We replaced every light fixture with either compact flourescent or LED lightbulbs. We keep the gas furnace set at 60 at night and 65 during the day. Our California utillity bill was $20 this month, which is about $5 electric and $15 gas.

The Homey Feel
Our guests often remark on how peaceful and uncluttered the space feels. I think that’s largely due to the fact that we don’t have a lot of stuff and we don’t have a big ugly TV. We furnished the living area entirely from Craigslist finds. As it is now, it’s pretty comfortable for 4 people (and our feline neighbor) hanging out together. More than that and it’s a party!

Hillary lives in a 677 sq. ft. historic home with her partner while renovating a 50 sq. ft. tiny trailer. Her blog is located at thistinyhouse.com. She is a freelance writer and consultant.