Though the size of my family prevents me from going full-on tiny house, I have toyed with the idea of shrinking my square footage.
My first home in Hollywood, Florida was just over 1000 square foot and I loved it. It was built in the early 50’s and had a raised foundation with wood floors, much like the house I later bought in Tennessee.
I really liked that little house but the location was terrible. Our backyard flooded and destroyed six years of hard work thanks to a poorly designed run-off ditch that sent water crashing through our yard.
And the town of Smyrna… stinks. Corrupt and controlling government officials, bad infrastructure, ugly architecture (except for the old houses), strip malls, rising crime.
I truly hate Smyrna.
Yes, I have some built-up resentment. Must… let… it… go…
(deep breath)
Back to the topic.
My current home is a spacious 1800 or so square feet. It’s also a nice, modern house with clean lines and great insulation.
However, I just want something simpler. I want to be able to climb underneath the house and run my graywater out into a banana circle without sawing through a slab. I’m a sucker for shotgun houses, Cracker houses, frame homes, prairie log cabins and little tropical shacks.
Rachel and I took the children to St. Augustine this last week for a homeschool field trip and, as I often do, I drove around some of the neighborhoods just to look at houses.
This one caught my eye:
I know, it doesn’t look like much – but I was thinking about how very easy it would be to repair, paint, roof and care for a house that size. Plus, I love the little cottage style.
As an example of the benefits of a tiny house – or just a smaller house – here’s a story:
Tiny House Savings
A friend of mine gained success and was making great money so he bought a great-looking house at a good price. It was a big house, too. I’d guess it was around 5,000 square feet. It was also three stories tall.
His roof and my roof both had issues at the same time. Re-shingling his place cost over $20,000, whereas my 1250 square foot single-story home cost me $3500 to have re-shingled.
Our air conditioner consisted of a few $250 wall units. When one died, I could buy a new one in cash. He had two AC units, both of which failed the same year. They were commercial-sized air conditioners and ended up costing him $10,000 EACH to replace.
At first I was happy for his success and ability to get a big home… but later, I wondered if perhaps his jump into the upper middle class was less wonderful than it seemed at first glance.
A big house is big bucks. I’m way too cheap to buy a big home. I’d rather have something simple and have more money to spend on plant experiments and maybe some traveling.
In some ways, we’re forced into blowing money here in the United States on things we’d rather not have to buy.
Try buying land and building your own home like the Florida Crackers used to do. Good luck! Codes and requirements will kill you – and if you get caught building on the sly and moving in, you’re toast. Also, once you improve the land they’ll jack up your taxes.
I got this book recently and found it inspiring:
I would totally love to put together a house like one of the ones in that book.
But it’s not easy.
Want to build a house without AC? Good luck.
Without power? Nope.
With a composting toilet system instead of a wasteful septic system? Ha!
No matter how you try, you’re basically forced to leave a big footprint and to compromise with your building plans.
It’s not all hopeless, though. One of the best ways to get around these restrictions is to build a tiny house on wheels and roll it around. We’ve considered doing that, though I don’t think we’d be able to fit the whole family into that kind of a place.
The best bet, I think, is for us to get a small, simple old home when we buy again and then work with what’s there.
At least we won’t have anything too complicated for me to fix.
21 responses to “Tiny Houses and Simple Living”
A woman in our county is/was trying to live off grid. There really wasn’t much of a problem with zoning because she had the house wired for electricity and plumbed and connected to the water/sewer system. The problem was she had to pay the minimum water/sewer bill which I believe was about $50 per month for no use at all. Don’t remember about the electricity but probably a charge there too. She did have other problems with code enforcement I think about ‘lawn’ maintenance and care of her dogs and cats. Building out in unincorporated areas of any county you may be able to live & build more in the way you want. Try some of the less populated counties, maybe around Arcadia? I think anywhere on either coast would be heavy on code/zoning. Good luck, waiting to see what you end up with.
Yes. I’m just amazed sometimes at how local governments will parrot “green” talking points then relentlessly persecute anyone trying to live a simple, environmentally friendly life.
Thanks for the tips on locations. I’ve gone fossil hunting in the Arcadia area before.
One Florida city tried to pass a law to make it illegal to park your car facing the road in your driveway like EMT/Firefighters do. Even worse are home owners associations. I think I would like to live just outside a HOA in a castle law state so I can shoot people trying to measure my grass.
My understanding of that situation is a little different. My understanding was that she was still using her flush toilet but refusing to pay the minimum water charges.
Went back and checked – you’re right – sorry. She should be paying the minimum.
Hey, just a minor note since it may be useful for some people – not sure about other counties but in Pasco and Hernando building without AC is perfectly OK. I’m less sure about septic (additional research needed) but it seems that building without septic is also OK if you’re willing to jump through some hoops (composting toilet of approved design, etc.)
Otherwise, I think your line of reasoning is spot on. If a system is too complex for me or the neighborhood handyman to fix or rebuild – it has to be REALLY useful to be allowed in my house. And of course big house = a lot of work to clean and maintain and they end up being packed with mostly useless garbage anyway.
Thank you – I always appreciate it when you stop by and share info. Wish I could get a chance to buy you lunch one day and pick your brain.
If it’s too complicated, I feel the same way. Of course, I’m typing from a Macbook… but yeah, that is helpful enough to justify.
I’d be happy to buy you a lunch myself and I think you’re wrong about who will be doing the brain picking :)
Ben invited me to your last tour and I was almost sure I can make it but I got pretty sick last week and now a lot of stuff needs to shuffled around, so probably not :( Do you know for sure where are you relocating? Bunch of areas that may be to your liking around here – I’d be happy to give you a tour if you’re interested. And since we’re 100+ feet above the sea level here, you won’t have to move again in 15 years like you will have to from South Florida :)
Otherwise, may be you can stop by on one of your journeys south – plenty of crush space and even some made in Cuba items you might enjoy :)
Thank you very much.
Whereabouts are you located? I would like to visit if possible.
I actually think the coastlines will be fine for a long time to come. My bet is that we’re on the cusp of a new ice age.
I don’t have an exact location for our destination yet.
I sent you an e-mail.
I don’t buy a lot of global warming agenda either but I’ve been in Miami during the high tide a couple of years ago and saw seawater coming out of storm drains myself. And the whole area South of Okeechobee is what – 2″ above the sea level? :)
NYC was supposed to be underwater this year.
Think about it David, a macbook is the simplest computer I have ever owned. You pull it out of the box and plug it in, ready to go! a few clicks of a button and you are on wi-fi, it sees your printers, it sees most of your peripherals, connects and you are ready to rock. The last PC I bought was much more complex than that, buying and installing the software you have to have loading all the drivers you need, So much more painful than a MAC. Hope You, Rachel and the kids had a great Thanksgiving, have a great christmas too! Keep writing, really enjoy your articles and books!!
Very true. The only way I’d go back to a PC at this point is if I had one running Linux. Unfortunately, my favorite programs (Final Cut, Photoshop & ProTools) are only available on Mac or Windows – so Mac it is. Much nicer to use than Windows and a lot simpler to work with.
Happy Thanksgiving and I’ll say hi to the family for you.
We had a very small house in Tennessee- a 970 sq ft, 2 bedroom, 1 bath house for two adults, three kids and a Great Dane. I loved that house and I swear my kids are so close still as teenagers and young adults partly because they shared a room when they were little. Good luck finding or building your dream house.
In 1975 our. Tiny house was burned on the day we were to move in by the kkk. All of our belongings were in this tiny house and we did not have room to set up the beds. We went to a motel for the night and returned to glowing ashes in the morning. There was a 200 year old cabin on the property and after cleaning and repairing it a bit, we moved in. It was 16 by 25, with an upstairs that had a 3 ft knee wall to give it a bit of head space. We lived in the cabin with 3 kids. All together we lived there for 23 years. We were fortunate to have a cold spring that supplied us witH water. There was an established outhouse on the property. The burned house had no water toilet so we were spared the problems with the health department. The co op electric company helped us to reconnect. We heated the old place with a wood stove Dave made from a barrel kit. All our gray water was used for the garden.
Yes it was tight. Yes it was hard. Yes people gave us a hard time for living differently. Yes it was a wonderful adventure. We decided to leave when an old woman’s family home was condemned for not meeting the new codes. It was a more progressive urban county, but close enough to show us the hand writing on the wall. We left in 1998 and sailed away to the DR. We now live in a similar size house with an outhouse and a compost toilet for nights and rainy weather.
Living small is an experience for the disciplined. You need outbuildings fow working on many things. That makes less house mess. You learn to think differently and I think more practly.
We recently built our house.Small by today’s standards 1700 sq.ft. 3/2 plus 1 car garage.It’s concrete but incorporates many of the passive designs featured in that book.We used the Mitsubishi split systems for efficiency and micro-management of power.Also solar water heating,and gas stove and dryer.We have yet to brake a $100.00 on electric and use about $200.00 a year on propane.If you build new then some of the features like grey water can be put in w/o knowledge of county with proper planning.I believe if you check with dept. of health there are acceptable alternatives to septic systems but you have be outside sewer service area because they want the money for sewer infrastructure.
Sounds like you have made some intelligent choices and still remain in the system. I am happy to hear there are ways to work out the problems of dealing with current codes. Apparently location is still the most important consideration.
Byron, I’m building a house along the same lines in Dade City and would love to learn more about yours. If you don’t mind sharing the info drop me a line please – leon@bigsmallfarm.org
When I was 6 our old cracker house got struck by lightning an burned. I don’t remember much about it but my folks bought a small mobile home an slowly, as my brother an I grew, we renovated old out buildings that became our bedrooms. It was great! Mine was an old chicken house. As I’ve lived over 50 years now I’ve lived in a few cracker houses an loved them! Would not ever want to live in a new modern trac house. My folks rebuilt after us kids left home an it took jumping thru lots of hoops to build a cracker type house out of timber harvested from the property and without heat an ac….
What great experiences to have lived through. I am tired of the modern homes, for sure. I like the idea of different outbuildings for the children. Maybe even some tree fort living…
That is a great story. I really love living in unusual distinctive places. They have their own kind of beauty. Having activities located in out buildings made a big difference for us. We never thought of putting the kids in one because of the need to heat in the NC foothills. You were fortunate to grow up in such a place.