'Tiny house movement....'
An interesting article popped up on the BBC News website recently about the 'new' phenomenon of Tiny Living. Now you may or may not have heard of this before, but it's all about 'downsizing'. Selling up your big sprawling house and building yourself a garden shed, with all mod cons, to live out your days in.
Needless to say, this is being hailed as a new American idea, but, forgive me for disagreeing, it's been going on in one form or another in the UK for about a hundred years or more, and how about all those pilgrims and prospectors in the american 'gold rush' days.
Anyway, I decided to research this one, thinking I might make a whole piece out of it. Surprised? Yes I was. My first Google query yielded over 200 million hits and even allowing for there being a goodly number of them being nothing to do with the actual query,as usually happens with Google searches, that's still an awful lot of hits. Narrow it down further to the first ten or so pages, and you've got a hundred or so dedicated sites about the construction of, or living in, a Tiny House or apartment. Fascinating reading mostly too.
Now, being in the construction/engineering/maintenance sector, I found the descriptions quite simplistic, but I have to step away from that background, no easy task after 40 odd years of doing, and look at it from a novice point of view.
Many houses have innovative, space saving designs making full use of mezzanine floors,and compact, modern kitchen and laundry equipment. Most that I've seen make full use of wood cladding on the inside and out, although personally I think this makes them look kind of temporary, rather than contemporary, and would give me the feel of living in a Swedish sauna, or in some cases a garden shed. But that's a matter of personal taste, and bearing in mind that the majority seem to be self design and build, that personal choice would be reflected in the final finished house.
When first thinking of design a look at some retro images of older caravans may be useful, as this kitchen from a 1960's caravan shows. Although modern cooking equipment can be more compact, and should electricity be available, cleaner in terms of design and use.
Many, if not all, early 'holiday' caravans made full and innovative use of folding panels, and multi use items, such as dining table/ bench units that doubled as beds at night, full height cupboard doors that would unfold out across the width to form a bedroom at one end and drop down doors on kitchen cabinets which formed worktops. Of course this changing around was time consuming at bedtime and in the morning, but the family all joined in, it was part of the holiday fun!
A typical 1960's holiday caravan. This would be on a large site with maybe 100 similar 'vans, arranged in rows around central shower, washing and toilet blocks. It was very unusual to find a caravan with toilet facilities, the best hoped for was to be close to the block, and that they were clean!
Now, of course, life is much easier for 'tiny livers' because build-ins and mezzanine floors have negated the need for these daily changes to the living space, except where folk have opted for a futon rather than a conventional bed, and the only drawback I can think of just now is the provision of fresh water and sewerage problems.
But, of course, if you are lucky enough to find a plot of land where a) You want to live and b) The land is already, or can be connected to at reasonable cost, the relevant services, then away you go, start building your 'tiny house.'
As far as I am aware they don't need planning permissions because of their size, but local zoning/building regulations and safety/sanitary rules will apply. Ask the local authorities before you commit. You don't want to end up with a plot in an ideal position that you can only picnic on a few times a year!
