A well-designed small house makes life much simpler!

Someone mentioned that many people have lived in smaller spaces.
In the books by Ken Follett, "Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End", they talk about the fact that most houses were one room only and that in winter even the animals (if any were owned) were brought into the houses.

My personal experience of living for one year in a 8 ft. X 45 ft Airstream-type house trailer gave me a taste of 'tiny home' living enough for a lifetime. But, I have to admit that it really was a compact, well thought out, layout for very good utility of using the space. It did have a separate bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and living room.

IF you're thinking about building a tiny home though - go back through this listing of comments and calculate the space that people are actually talking about for their finished 'residence' and it looks like many of those are at least twice the room of the tiny house ans some 2 to 4 times the sq. ft. they wind up with. It is just that some of these items are separate, yet necessary, buildings, like an out-house, a sauna instead of a shower/tub, a pantry or root cellar.

It might be wiser to build something a bit larger than the 'tiny house' and have the convenience of indoor plumbing. Just step outside in the winter time when snow is on the ground and early morning temps are around 10-15 degrees F in thin clothing. NOW, think about going into a damned cold OUTHOUSE and sitting down on a cold wooden seat that all but freezes you to the seat just to do your morning ablutions. You might think twice about that indoor plumbing job you were NOT going to install before hand.     :-)

Here's an elegant solution to the chamber pot routine:

https://archive.org/details/compost_toilets_Humanure_Handbook


I have the redneck/trailer trash small house. Old 500 sq ft single wide mobile home that has zero worth as taxable.
The 500 sq feet is actually surplus space than required because I live outdoors and just need a place to get out of the weather, sleep and cook.
I lucked up and bought it from a couple that had only used it a couple weeks a year then moved it to my property.
I wouldn't suggest this with some of the ones older than mine (1985) because they're too cheaply made.
One way to be sure is to see if it passes current wind codes. There should be a sticker on the wall in the main bedroom about this...assuming no one painted over it.
I also made sure it was copper wiring and plywood, not particle board or chip board floors.
For my climate (north FL) it's a strangely ideal housing solution for more reasons than you'll probably want to hear about right now.

After finishing the food forest/ big gardens project I'll be working on going over to solar, wood heat and the like.

As it sits it's quite economical at under $100 a month for electric and taxes around $400 a year.

It took around 30K to buy land (1 1/3 acre) , mobile home,  and to move and set up the home.
It's close enough to town to walk or bike but still out in the woods.
Perfect!

Kaarina Kreus wrote:I ordered a house from a builder fully done (we call it "they give you the keys")
I made several alterations to make every square foot effective. Main point: it has to be small so that a wood-powered fireplace can heat it effectively.
    Now we have frost, temps outside freezing and snowing. I am so happy I have a compact home to heat!! It takes a quarter of an hour to heat this home up to a tropical temperature.

Your house reminds me of my brother's Log Cabin set far back off the roadway behind his house with a field and pond separating them. They just use the cabin for occasional overnight stays or if friends want to use it. The cabin is just a nice, tidy, one roomer with a loft.

Regarding the damn cold out house that freezes you to the seat!  I don't have to imagine sitting on that seat as we have one, we also have Minnesota winters that go to 40 below zero. Now for some, going outside and getting some fresh air whatever the time of day or night might be a problem.  We do it and it's kind of invigorating and we've never Frozen to the seat, it has shellac on it. It basically boils down to what you get used to.
And outhouses, no matter what their faults might be, are more ecologically friendly than a flush toilet, which flushes gallons of clean water away on a daily basis and also contribute to the overflowing waste treatment plants and sewage lagoons prevalent throughout the country. Even a composting toilet which I  have nothing against is better than your typical flush toilet,  in my opinion. I realize that various solutions to personal waste are not always available to each individual household.

For those of you wondering, my last post regarding outhouses was in response to previous post describing this method of waste disposal in an unfavorable light.

The trick to the cold seat is to simply keep it in the house and bring it with you! A couple holes on the underside and corresponding pins in the platform keep it from moving around. Still not fun below zero. My biggest dislike is there are times you’re sick, and going out in the cold is the last thing you want to do. Or, intestinal issues requiring repeated trips, hoping you arrive in time.
In our case the flush toilet does not waste clean water. Our septic tank and leach field eventually return that water to the ground in purified form and still 150 feet from the drilled well. The system is 35 years old and only pumped once, for a refinance inspection, so not much ever ended up in a lagoon. I realize that’s not typical, but the septic industry encourages pumping which contributes to the problem. A well maintained system rarely needs to be pumped out.

Hi Kaarina,

I really like your house!

A few years ago me and my wife bought an old stone house on the Alps, a house used for more than 100 years by sheperds and their flocks.
We are gradually moving to this house. This means that we are changing our lives little by little to be able to live there (we still have to work).
So we now spend 4 days at the stone house and three working at home, but we plan to do better.

The house is divided in three parts, we live in the smaller one, the other two were stables, for sheeps and cows.

This part we live in is 130sqft on first floor and around 90sqft on second floor. (I will add some photos)

Organizing the house layout is a challenge, I am lucky I have been a very small boat sailor for a couple of decades too. My biggest boat was a nordic Folkboat, I think you know what I mean.

The stone house sits on a woody mountain slope, at 3600ft above sea and we are 100% off grid. We have mountains well over 13000ft there around.



I am very interested in your sauna/bathroom, because this is the point we are planning right now. Can you please tell me something more about it?


Thank you,

Corrado

That's a real beauty!  I'm really interested in doing this exact thing here on my farm for folks who want to come to visit, stay a while, perhaps live and work here a while.

Love, lovely little house you have.  Thank you so much for the inspiration!

corrado de cesare wrote:Hi Kaarina,
Organizing the house layout is a challenge, I am lucky I have been a very small boat sailor for a couple of decades too. My biggest boat was a nordic Folkboat, I think you know what I mean

Dear Corrado, if you have sailed a folkbåt you are perfectly equipped to plan how to live in a small house ❤

I am envious, an old stone house! My advice:
- plan like a sailboat: cooking, reading, eating and relaxing can be done in one room.
- invest in a good bed. Woollen mattress, down blakets.
- storage can be created in every nook and cranny
- about every single thing you have, ask yourself: do I love it and do I need it?

About the sauna:
A separate building with
- a sauna with a wood-heated water barrel and a wood-heated stone barrel (see pics)
- wooden floor with slits so that all water drains under the building
When you heat the sauna, you also heat the hot water. You enjoy the heat and wash yourselves.
But after that, you wash the laundry in a bucket. Hang it to dry in the hot sauna. It will dry quickly.
Of course, you can heat the sauna and water for washing only, but I always combine it.

Really beautiful small house.

corrado de cesare wrote:

Corrado, your place is a dream. Could you please post pictures from the inside?
If I had more money, I would have built something like this ❤

Hello! Thanks for all good suggestions and nice comments.

First, quick answer to Kaarina. We have quite a few of these houses here in North of Italy and they are really unexpensive to buy. We paid less than 15k, with three acres of land more or less. You can find a small one (30-40 sqm) with an acre for 5-10k. A few people from Germany and Holland and a couple from Sweden bought stonehouses in the same valley. So if you are envious, think about it :-)

Second, an answer for Nissa. At the beginning we thought about using the whole house for ouselves. But after realizing that the small part is enough and really enjoyable, we have been thinking about creating small "low-tech bnb" on the same model of our space. I am wondering about creating a net of such small places. So if you decide to do something similar, shall we keep contact?

To Jodie, if you are talking about my house, thank you very much. We fell in love with this stone thing the first time we saw her.


Ok, now to Kaarina again

I am envious, an old stone house! My advice:
- plan like a sailboat: cooking, reading, eating and relaxing can be done in one room.
- invest in a good bed. Woollen mattress, down blakets.
- storage can be created in every nook and cranny
- about every single thing you have, ask yourself: do I love it and do I need it?  

I am envious of your wood house, so we are ok :-))

your first point is always on my mind. I am planning to change our actual dining table for a foldable one, buy foldable wooden "long chaise" instead of a couch, and so on. Our living room is 10x10ft. I want a "japanese" empty room, with a few  high quality pieces of furniture to be stored easily.

We have a wonderful bed, you will understand in the next lines why this was an hard decision, but a very good one.

About storage... at first I thought exactly like you suggest. But then I examined the house and the way it was used in the old days. Our first floor was a one room place when we bought it, but originally was divided in two. One cold area to store the cheeses that the sheperds sold to make a living, and a warm area where they actually lived.
So I divided the two areas again with a double layer of larch and some good insulation (6 inches of polyurethan). Now we have a good storage, warm the house faster and we like the layout. Nothing around, very easy to clean.

About the "do I love it and do I need it", I have another condition... Can I carry it??? Everything must be carried on my back, along a trail which is short but steep and narrow, 15min walk more or less. This is good, makes us smarter I like to say.


About the sauna, thank you very much for your explanation. The question can "I carry it" will be on my mind for a while :-)

I'm posting some photos of the inside, I am still working on it.  I know your stove, very good one. We have a ThermoNicoletta at home, but we love our Jotul 602 (easier on my back, along the trail)

We use the chimney to grill and for atmosphere, the Jotul to heat and cook. Above the stove there's an opening that lets the heat reach the bedroom.

Last two pics are our outdoor dining room and... our sauna/bathroom at the moment, ahahaha...

Here are the pics

Kaarina Kreus wrote:

Terresa Funderburk wrote:Do you have a “chamber pot” in the bedroom for nighttime use? My grandparents had a chair with a seat that lifted and inside was the pot. It was emptied in the morning but saved them from having to go out to the outhouse when it was dark and served as a chair in the day.

Actually I do, but it has been just outside the house. To protect my sensitive nose 😄

Now that the winter is really starting to bite, I might rethink. Mu butt freezes on these outings 😄

That cold bottom issue is why some people keep the seat itself next to the wood stove and take it out with them when they go out to go.  Just my $0.2.

Jj Grey wrote:

That cold bottom issue is why some people keep the seat itself next to the wood stove and take it out with them when they go out to go.  Just my $0.2.

Great idea!

Owning something comes with the responsibility of caring for it. That takes time. Someone's time. A home is just 4 walls to put your stuff in. I would like a home in which I can concentrate on what's important. Spartan Bedroom (1 per family member), Kitchen, shower-toilet (1 per member).  

An integral part of my home will be a "Possibility Room" - that's a room that can morph into a training room, a meeting room, a sewing room, a workshop, a place 10 people can dance in without knocking into each other, an exercise room, a quarantine room... so it has to be sufficiently devoid of "specialised" equipment and have generalised features instead. Plug outlets, bright natural light. Sunblock curtains, A large Mirror, A large design pin board. A few chairs and a rectangular strong table (preferably drop sides). Overhead storage (as in 6 feet overhead) , lots of hooks and overhead hooks (I may want to hang something).  So its a big room of nothing and everything.
Im thinking out loud here...

I have now lived here all winter and here are some updates.

Kerosine lamps smelled awful and spread smoke everywhere so I donated them. Now I have led lamps with rechargeable batteries.

I fixed a rod to the ceiling. As hot air rises up, and I am heating the house freqiently, everythind dries really quickly.

My windows were leaking heat, so I made wooden frames and stapled a thick padded curtain to it. Heat retention was greatly improved. During the day I just take them down and stack behind the couch.

The floors are chilly. I layered several rugs on the floor. Now I understand why Persian rugs are so famous. They did the same.

I found a baking tray.it keeps the flour inside, has a good wooden surface and can easily be stored behind the couch when not in use.

Some excellent ideas, Kaarina! I especially like the baking tray. I've never seen one like that before.

Kaarina Kreus wrote:The floors are chilly. I layered several rugs on the floor. Now I understand why Persian rugs are so famous. They did the same.

And the Brits hung tapestries on the walls! If there's a direction the cold wind tends to come from and hit your house, there are short term and long term approaches to help conserve heat. The first is hang pretty woolen blankets or rugs on the walls for the winter. The second is to plant evergreen shrubby trees in hedge like groups to divert the wind around the house and maybe even create a bit of a sun trap for the slightly less dark but still pretty cold part of the year. I do realize there's no real warmth in the sun that far north for a large part of your winter, but it can still make a difference. I'm only in the 48 degree latitude range, but if there's been a heavy frost and I'm in the field, I can tell exactly which areas the sun has hit or not, by weather the frost has melted or not.

Jay, thanks! I had forgotten about the heavy tapestries on all walls. Deciduals work best, a wintry wind can bote really badly. I was thinking about window shutters as well.

The plantings take so long to grow (or cost arm and leg if you buy big plants). There are some climbers who tolerate shade, they could help until the trees gain enough height. Hydrangea petiolaris comes to mind.

I have now lived here 100% all winter (my city apt is rented)
It has been a splendid experience. So many small adjustments I want To share with You

The house is not perfectly insulated. The solid Timber walls are great, but the floor was ICY when temps went below zero F. Windows were leaking as well. The kitchen was unpractical: I had to throw away used water from the Window...My ferments and sprout all failed because the night temperatures plunged almost to freezing.

So, solutions:

Made Window frames with padded cotton. They snap into place and are very effective In controlling heat leaks

Put wall to wall carpet on the floors except kitchen with the wood stove. Under the carpet there is an insulating foam. The house became so much warmer! I sometomes walk barefoot, because I got so acclimatised to the chill.

I got a kitchen sink,  a 7 gallon water holder and drilled a small hole to lead the water outside. It has been a godsend. Now I do not need three hands to wash dishes (one to hold the plate I'm washing, the second to use the brush and the third to pour water)

I made a "hot box". A styrofoam box where I put all my ferments and sprouts for the night. They stay warm and in the morning I can take them out and warm them up and return them to the warmth. Sprouts are actually sprouting and my ginger juice is bubbling!

I was not able to afford a super great house - limited budjet. In the beginning of the frosty Scandinavian winter the temperature fell to low 40's F and I was really sad. Have I spent so much money to build a house which is UNLIVEABLE in the winter??

But after these adjustments, the morning temps are 55-60 F which is quite OK. Sleeping In a bit chilly room under down blankets on a wool mattress is divine. Now I can crawl out without feeling I have made the mistake of my life.

Just wanted to give an update, no electricity, no plumbing but It is quite a splendid tiny house! It has not been sweet sailing, but I have made It work!

I'm so glad you found creative solutions to the problems, Kaarina! Only when we live in a house can we truly discover what does and doesn't work.

I love that clothes drier, is it timber or metal construction please?

John C Daley wrote:I love that clothes drier, is it timber or metal construction please?

Oh it it's just a wooden rod, hung from the ceiling 🙂

Just an update. Spring is coming, and time to start tender plants inside.

Even though the house is only 200 square feet, I have 480 seedlings sitting happily in front of the window! This is the first batch, those that should be started in April will probably go to the bedroom window.

Kaarina,

Your home is beautiful and it looks like you are continuing to make the necessary adjustments to make it comfortable in every season. My husband and I are talking of building something similar. I am wondering what (if anything) you are doing to keep frozen food? We too live in a climate where it is a refrigeration temperature outside for about 8 months of the year. However I haven’t felt comfortable with depending on that to keep things frozen long term. We hunt and often purchase whole animals from farmers for the freezer. A moose is a lot to store and a lot to loose if things warm up. I’m personally not a fan of canned meat, especially when storage space, time, expense, and nutrient value are considered. The freezer is the one electrical appliance I don’t have a solution for in our plan and building layout. We are not opposed to getting electricity- it will just depend on the land we are able to purchase (still looking). Anyway, I wondered if you keep stores of frozen food, and how? Thanks for your time!

Hi Eloise,
I do not have a viable system for freezing. It would have to stay around zero F and our winter temperatures are not always that low.  In my area, solar produces practically nothing in the winter. So I just do not have frozen food.

In your situation, a freezer or freeze-dryer souds like a good idea. It does not really need that much space. In the old times, meat was cured and then stored in cold, but not freezing temperatures.

Thanks for taking time to respond! Yes we are thinking a freezer is probably a must. Though I do want to learn more about curing meats to keep them in cold storage rather than keeping them frozen. That could open up some possibilities for us.

I have enjoyed seeing your home and getting updates!

That house is absolutely perfect.  Have you seen the love shack tiny cabin at Wheaton Labs?  What do you think?
https://youtu.be/lOAnGrN4Cno

Dear, sorry, I haven't. Been busy as a bee building vegetable and herb gardens and planting them.

I am making updates about progress on my tiny farm.  I am 55 and doing everything manually. So the speed is... well, leisurely.

Now I have prepared and planted the vegetable garden.
Making the paths was somewhat laborious, but worth it. Now I do not get muddy boots every tome I go to water, weed or just pick up something.

Dug the path, covered it with cardboard, topped with woodchips.

It looks like you are making great progress, and finding workarounds for the problems which inevitably crop up!

On keeping food cold in the warm months, anyone who lives in the far North with a long winter cold season has the option of building an ice house.  The walls need to be thick and extremely well insulated (sawdust was traditional, in a one-foot-thick wall).  Building down into the ground two or three feet (or more) will help, too.  During reliably cold weather, either harvest ice blocks and store them buried in a thick layer of sawdust in the ice house (you will want a couple of feet of sawdust on top of the ice before the weather warms up).  Or, during a good cold snap, fill the ice house a couple of feet deep with water.  Leave the door open until it freezes solid, then cover with the sawdust.  

An ice house won't keep things frozen solid all summer, but it will (in short-summer climates) act as a refrigerator all summer.  Burying packages of food in the sawdust next to the ice will help.  The ice will gradually melt and run off into the ground, but by the time it's all gone, the weather should be getting cold again and you can start over.  

In warmer climates, people used spring houses for the same purpose, usually with a trough for cold water to run through, where they could set containers of milk and other food in the water to keep it cold.  There would be shelves on the walls for food that needed to be cool but not quite as cold, like eggs.

As planned, I got my chickens.

But how pray tell do you have an online presence without electricity?

Kaarina,

I'm so impressed by the story of your house!

One thing I found very odd is that with all the EU regulations, there was no requirement for adequate insulation and draught-proof windows. I was shocked that it was even possible to be permitted to build a house
without  such energy-saving features in that climate.

I'm glad you were able to make it work.

Cara

Hi Kaarina, WOW! The wood hut is so beautiful. How are you able to wheel the wheelbarrow up inside? Do you use ramps?  Are the ramps the doors/flat pieces set to the right of one picture? Does the hut have any posts sunk into the ground for anchoring or support?  How does it hold the walls steady to stack diagonals one on top of another?  What anchors the bottom pieces?  So you can store 8 yrs of wood in there at 8 cords/yr gives 64 cords total?  That's awesome. What are the hut dimensions?  Maybe it's bigger than your cute little house!??  (just maybe??)  Kudos to all the talented people who designed and built both structures.   I would love to build a similar (smaller hut). What is the construction method called or are there any plans/instructions available online?

Kaarina, Is that your dad in the picture using the tin snips? He sure doesn't look 82! Isn't it a blessing to have a loving dad?! I miss mine every day. I like the trees growing on your land. They look like birch. How deep does the snow get in winter? How do you get to town on a bicycle in winter? You are a brave, hearty soul! We got over 40 inches of snow here in the mountains this past winter at 3200 ft and snowshoes were helpful for walking around.   Your winter insulation improvements will make a big difference in keeping your home cozy. I wonder if you would be able to make storm windows with wood frame and hinges for the outside so you could have light come in?  Where do you keep your fresh veggies in the summer to keep them from wilting?  Maybe it doesn't get too hot in Finland?  Are you planning to grow beans and if so, what type grow well in your climate?  

Denise, I have a mobile phone, which I use for calling, banking, internet, you name it. I charge it and my powerbanks at the libeary.

The wood hut has a 2-foot compacted gravel base. The pillars and the house stand on top of it. Gravel does not freeze because it lets moisture seep through.