Posted on 06/03/2011 6:46:49 PM PDT by dynachrome
Having trouble qualifying for a home loan? Then consider what this inventive family of three did and buy yourself a Mississippi-style "shotgun shack."
Sick of working two jobs apiece to pay the mortgage on their 2,000-square-foot home, Debra and her husband Gary decided to give it all up and start over by purchasing a 320-square-foot shack for $15,000 cash.
The video below, first submitted to the blog faircompanies.com on an open call for videos of tiny homes, shows the couple and their teenage son living mortgage-free in their surprisingly spacious abode.
The home includes a walk-in closet, conventional-sized appliances and even a lofted bedroom for their son that, the family boasts, is big enough to host sleepovers. Watch the video below to see just how far a little ingenuity can take you, even in today's prohibitive mortgage market.
(Excerpt) Read more at realestate.aol.com ...
That is not a shack. I’ve lived in a couple of old WWII houses that were about 700 sq ft. One, hubby always laughed about he couldn’t turn around too fast in the tiny bathroom or he’d end up having se... well, you know. It was much easier to keep clean but I want a kitchen where I can at least get a good back swing on a skillet.
I wonder what type of college degrees Gary and Debra earned?
I live in a house roughly 2 1/2 times the one I was raised in with both my parents and 4 brothers and one sister. Do I need all this space? No. Could I live in much less space. Yes, if I had to.
I thought of this song right away. I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song, back in the eighties. It was by no means a new song but it happened to come on the radio when I was leaving work, and the traffic was all jammed up from a heavy March snow shower. One of those times with no wind and not very cold and it seems like it’s snowing flower petals. Left a mark on me.
For a while I lived in a full size, full feature, over the cab camper on the back of a pickup, people thought it was small living quarters and if course it was for a house, but like I told them, it is an utterly fantastic bedroom.
Me too, by myself, but only if it had a large wrap around porch with roof and a 3 car detached garage with a workshop. I would need the loft to have a full height ceiling since that would be my bedroom. Their master bedroom would be my TV/computer room. I would also need a basement with laundry room and closet space down there. And I would need 1/2 acre of land minimum.
I could make that work.
Snowing flower petals. A lovely image.
Why do people praise “tiny homes”, yet ridicule trailers?
I love this house!
Now an anecdote from Plutarch: Plato watched Diogenes the Cynic washing mere lentils to eat for his dinner while both were in a public square. Plato approached him and ostensibly said: "Diogenes, if only you'd learn to kowtow to kings, you wouldn't have to eat lentils." To which Diogenes immediately responded: "Plato, if only you'd learn to eat lentils, you wouldn't have to kowtow to kings."
I appreciate those who live simply, and refuse to kowtow to "kings."
My first apartment was about that size.
I’ve been thinking about living in a tent and a Suburban.
An Airstream and a Suburban would be better though.
Did I read it right? No plumbing? Ohhhhkay, I got some five gallon buckets I could send you. LOL.
There’s a company that sells these mini homes as kits. Quite innovative.
“No plumbing?”
building codes for permanent living, at least in colorado, say the house has to be 600 sq. ft. I figure one of those composting toilets might do the trick.
I'm sorry, if you need a storage shed that is bigger than your house....... you need a bigger house.
If I get a hotel room that small I ask for an upgrade.
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