Architect’s big idea: Tiny, $11,000 house

YAHOO.COM ^ | 18 DECEMBER 2013 | CLAUDINE ZAP

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Architect Macy Miller had a big idea: Build a tiny house.

After dealing with a messy foreclosure, the 30-year-old sought a way to have a place of her own while avoiding the mortgage trap. Her solution: Build a micro home.

"I wanted a way to escape dependency on banks without being a 'renter,'" the Idaho resident told Yahoo in an email. "I like having my own space to make my own, which is difficult to do without taking out a large mortgage."

Miller began to build a 196-square-foot house in 2011, right on a flatbed truck. The cost: $11,400. The handy Miller did most of the work herself, with advice from her friends and father as needed.

Miller did need some extra help last August: While working on her roof, she fell and broke her foot and her back in two places. She says she has since recovered from her injuries.

[catnipman]

“Davy Crockett did it. So did Daniel Boone.”

So did George Washington.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Yawn. Nothing new.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I would settle for one of these!

[PUGACHEV]

It was just a kit, although they would hook you up with a local contractor. Sears sold kit houses since the beginning of the last century, and many of them in the ‘20s. I lived in one and it was roomy and very well designed. It had four large bedrooms, two stories, a front and back porch, and a basement with a coal bin. Oddly, it had both fittings for gas and electric lights. There were also all these niches in the rooms that were specially sized to fit furniture that Sears sold.

[GeronL]

Now they want us crouching in a tiny dog house.

[kitchen]

I know people with gun safes bigger than this thing.

[cunning_fish]

I don’t know what made this dog house that expensive. From it’s look it could cost under $4,000 to build yourself.
Probably there are some luxury interior items but using it doesn’t seems to be very smart in such an “economy” house.

[nascarnation]

Carlyle Group (very smart money and probably the best connected in DC) is buying trailer parks.

That tells you what the future of America is.

This structure looks to be in synch with that trend.

[cunning_fish]

>>>They’re called “Tumbleweed” homes, and they’re a hell of an idea for many people!

A quick search will show MANY innovative and useful designs, from full-time residences to luxury hunt cabins.<<<

In fact Japanese has some good ideas on how to live small. It makes perfect sense to look into their designs for singles and small families who are looking to downsize.

Anyway, you need a smart approach in building it. Small house might end up as expensive as McMansion.

[fso301]

Not bad but the septic will cost another $10K and the water well another $2.5K

[GeronL]

put it in my backyard and we can run hoses to the water and sewer and extension cord for electricity.

Then again I can get an old old camper for a couple of grand

[reed13k]

She could’ve gone to lowes or Home Depot and gotten two sheds with lofts installed for less than $3000 add electric, bath and kitchen fixtures for $2000 plus no injuries. Doubt if her $11k includes the broken bones cost.

[RetiredTexasVet]

If she were truly creative she would have acquired a discarded refrigerator or freezer carton and renovated it into an approximately 100 cubic foot house....now that would be impressive.

[freepertoo]

I own a house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, but my job is so far from home that during the week, I rent a little, tiny apartment above a garage and I go home on weekends. I LOVE the little tiny apartment...I tolerate the house! :-D Cozy is the right word.

[familyop]

People who would rather that she pay them rent or be their slave won’t like the idea at all. That’s why such people brought their commie planning offices and codes to counties in the middle of nowhere. More power to her, and may the leeching political/regulator class receive its haircuts soon. Search with the phrase, nonpolitical politics.

[Lakeshark]

Was this when she was grown up?

Somehow I never envisioned she lived in something quite that big when she was little.

[dangerdoc]

She invented the single wide trailer.

[1_Rain_Drop]

where’s the outhouse?

[KC Burke]

Oh, this was long after the time of the stories. Here daughter when grown and accomplished built this for her and it is here, about three miles from the Missouri farm, that she moved after age 60 and started writing the first books.

So this is fifty years after the time she writes about and long distance in time and space from the early years of the various farms and homesteads of her youth.

[jaydee770]

$11,000 for a tree house on the ground is a bit much

Compared to a park-model Camper (which this looks quite similar to), it might be a bargain.

But, I'd just rather have a camper. Fifth-wheel with all the bells and whistles.

Similar concept -- but with all the modern conveniences and tri-power capable (gas, battery or grid), plus a warranty and bug-out-able.