Tiny House: Live Small, Dream Big

by Brent Heavener

From the founder of the Instagram feed @TinyHouse, comes a small, chunky inspiration book filled with photographs of the smallest abodes—from vans and boats to tree houses and cabins. A die-cut cover acts as a window onto a simpler world of lighter living and sustainability that never sacrifices function or design.

Imagine living debt-free in an environmentally-friendly home. No mortgage, no clutter, and boundless freedom. This is the reality and dream of people all over the world thanks to the widespread momentum of the tiny house movement in recent years. Designed to fit on the tiniest of coffee tables, this book features 250 full-color photographs of the smallest, most efficient homes around the world, with interviews, features, and smart tips straight from the homeowners. From tiny mobile homes in California, Nashville, and Minnesota to a surfer-built tree house in Washington to a school bus that has been converted to a camper in Oregon, this lookbook is packed with big inspiration.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Photography, Coffee Table Books, Art, Interior Design, Design

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 10, 2019

Reviews

[Erica]

If you have a burning hatred for millennial hipsters, you will have a burning hatred for this book.
However, if you, like me, tolerate millennials and hipsters because you tolerate pretty much all the annoying people you know and if you are fascinated by the tiny home movement, then you'll do just fine with this book.
If you ARE a millennial hipster, get this book, do something crafty with it and display it in an awkward yet charming place. You will be so pleased with yourself.

This is a book of pictures. They are pictures from around the world of tiny homes on big plots of land with no one around. Some of the pictures have descriptions, many do not. There's a list of credits in back so you can find out more on your own if you feel like it.

The introduction says, "Imagine living free of the prescribed norms and daring to do it differently. No debt or mortgage to pay, no clutter and stuff to worry about and an environmentally friendly space to call your own that gives you boundless freedom."
Also imagine having the ability to buy the land and create the tiny home and the luxury of living there from time to time when you feel like it because you don't have to go to work at a job that requires your presence. Imagine the revenue from being a digital entrepreneur and owning land by being a rancher. Imagine the privilege! And from the looks of these photos, the whiteness!
Owning a small house on a large parcel of land and being all ecologically sound isn't exactly an achievable dream for a lot of people.

Still. I love the idea of tiny homes and the ones in these pictures are rustic, charming, quaint, adorable, fanciful, and all the other things that should be used to described impossibly small, cramped living spaces.

[Brian]

I flipped through this at the library but didn't bother borrowing it since I had seen almost every page before leaving. What I liked the most were the ones built like a tree house. All of the photos were really nice, fun, and comfy looking. There were a few sections of the book with different tiny house themes. There were not many descriptions or words in general, but I didn't care at the moment since I've read other books in the past that are more on the information side.
You could potentially read this on the toilet, or a physical copy of this could be something to keep your eyes and hands busy while listening to a podcast. I think it's meant to be a quick and casual page turner that's picked up and put down for a few minutes at a time.
I realized years ago that the tiny house life is not a realistic lifestyle for me personally but it's still fun to dream.

[Sarah]

"Tiny House - live small, dream big", zeigt aufgeteilt in mehrere Kategorien wundervolle Tiny Häuser. Von Baumhäusern, zu nachhaltigen Waldhütten und Familienwohnsitzen ist alles dabei. Der Traum der Eigenversorgung und eines abgeschiedenen Hauses scheint in der Gesellschaft immer mehr zuzunehmen, auch mich lässt die Vorstellung von einem einsamen Häuschen in der Natur träumen. Und genau dafür ist das Buch wundervoll. Man blättert durch die fantastischen Bilder und malt sich eine mögliche Zukunft aus. Wenn ein Buch einen zum tagträumen bewegt, dann hat es doch alles richtig gemacht!

[Tara Greene]

I loved this cozy little book of tiny homes. My only comment would be on the text blurbs—it would be nice to know more details of the builds or some of the stories behind why the owners chose the locations/designs they did.

[Valerie]

I got some inspiration but not that much that I was seeking for. Many stories about vans instead of actual houses. Would love a story with each page instead of just a couple. Overall it was nice

[Jenn]

Pretty pictures. That's it. No real advice or anything. Use this for your "vision board."

[Georgia]

this is such a beautiful book full of amazing photographs. the pictures are stunning, i love interior decor books and being nosey into how people have their homes and this was very different to see people with such tiny spaces make something so beautiful!

this book now has pride of place on my coffee table!


copy sent by ebury press for a honest review.

[Alena Srostlikova]

What a waste of money this book is! It does not bring any value. No information on what materials were used fort those tiny homes, no information on how much time it took to build them - nothing. If you want to see great pictures of tiny houses, use Pinterest and if you want to see even more and learn, go see prohects on YouTube.

[Mind the Book]

När instagramkonto-content ska bli en bok äntrar man lite farlig mark, men den här är mycket lyckad. Den har blivit intelligent och kompakt (så klart!) coffee table-litt för alla oss som dagdrömmer om ett off grid-liv i ett tiny house.

Författaren kallar sig digital entreprenör och verkar duktig på att skriva copy och captions, för utan bildtexterna hade det inte blivit samma läsupplevelse. Texterna innehåller på ett ödmjukt sätt uppmuntrande och eskapistiska mysmeningar som dessa:

"imagine living free of the prescribed norms"
"daring to do it differently"
"restore a sense of calm"
"unique dwellings"
"basking in the beauty around the lakes"
"the ideal place to relax and escape into a classic book"
"a quintessential escape"
"the environment that enabled the owner to dwell in complete freedom"
"tranquillity and wonder like no other"
"it's stress-proof, Walden-approved and everything you'd ever wanted"
"the art of simple living"
"for those escaping a fast-paced city life or looking for some time away"
"simple living at its best"
"a mobile safe haven of shelter providing a den of hibernation from the November snowfall"


En fin bok att läsa några sidor i varje kväll, innan man sprejar lavendel och sandelträ på sin urbana kudde och somnar.

Och följande morgon drar vi alla till Byggmax/Homebase för att förverkliga alltihop?!

[Pug]

I just adore tiny houses! (I have a thing for miniatures.) Not that I would personally want to live in one of these puny houses, but I find them fascinating nonetheless. How do you squeeze everything in there?? How do you get all your rooms and utilities and stuff to fit into such a small space, like Tetris??

However, this cute, fat little book full of beautiful color photographs was missing half of the equation. Most of the pictures were of the OUTSIDE of the house. Just one picture. And then the next page was the next tiny house. Another single picture of the outside. And rarely any information (no captions) about the house itself. What I really prefer to see is the inside... also, I'd like to know how big it is, too.

It's a book of chaos!

[Wilhelmiina]

It's an alright book for inspiration but nothing more in-depth than that. Many of the pictures were kind of Instagram-like, so they didn't show the houses in the most descriptive way. It also could've been clearer which pictures were of the same place. I ended up flipping back to the credits and directory all the time, which worked alright I suppose.

Lastly, having "Europe", a continent, as the location in the directory is really silly. I found the locations for those quite easily, so these two are in Finland:

p. 178–179 Red cabin on the water, Finland, ©Joonas Linkola

p. 180–181 Red Lake House: Island house by the water, Finland, ©Joonas Linkola

[Jaimee P.]

I thought this book was fantastic, from the point of view of someone interested in eventually owning a tiny home. My copy now has tabs littering the edges to show how this book inspired me to consider some different spa albums and design aspects I had never seen before. Overall, I really enjoyed this book my only negative would I be not enough information concerning the costs and materials used in each design, but despite that the quality of the images and the stunning look of the book is definitely worth it.

[Claire]

There are some lovely homes in here. And some stunning photos! I have down-sized quite a bit over the last few years but I am not sure I could do this, but I live in hope. There is proof you can have a lot of books and still have a tiny house. And I love that a lot of these people have animals (dogs and cats), that their animal companions have not been forgotten. The biggest issue I have here is that I want to see the bathroom/toilet. That's kinda important, the exception here is the place with the big bath tub.

[Blake]

There's some nice photography of tiny homes here and not much else. I really hated this and how disjointed it was. Often times you would have no idea what tiny home interiors you were looking at in relation to the exterior. Even more times you would be presented with just a picture of the exterior of the home and a description of the inside. There's next to no value in this book. Incredibly disappointing.

[jedioffsidetrap]

Lovely small format book rich with photos but frustrating. Captions are random, most homes not identified at all. Most repped by one photo, interior or exterior but rarely both. Hard to tell from page to page if you’re looking at the same home. So art book or catalog—decide! Don’t tease so much. Pissed me off but plenty of lovely inspiring spaces.

[Ms. Kat]

A gorgeous collection of inspiring #tinyhouse descriptions and features, accompanied by photos that will give tiny house lovers something to dream about. Tree-houses, eco-friendly abodes, waterside retreats and homes for families. A great read for dreamers of all kinds, and my current coffee-table book. A conversation starter for the modern era: what do we REALLY need?

[Joakim Ax]

Thr layout could have been better when it comed to what pictures goes along with previously shown exterior. Sometimes it was interior pics first, then exterior and then text. So you kind of had to look at the Windows relations so figure out if the interior belonged to the previous or last exterior picture.

[Rebecca]

Cute aesthetic. But I’d have liked more interviews - so many tiny house owners had no construction etc experience, so how did they do it? How was it financed? The blurb hints at carefree, minimalist experience, yet the pictures look like the homes contain a *lot* of stuff. And that the books could have been sponsored by Ikea…

[Scott]

all these people who just bought a van and remodeled it and now "have adventures" and "travel" 24/7/365

how do they, you know, live. how do they eat. how do they pay for gasoline.

or is this lifestyle clearly only for the independently wealthy like so much else

[Julie]

Quick read featuring different types of houses all over the country. This really inspires me to take on a different lifestyle. The pictures and settings were beautiful! My favorite were the treehouses. I couldn’t believe house may spaces can be used to build a tiny house including a bus!

[Olivia Behjat]

A pleasing book of innovative tiny houses. The pictures were very soothing. It would have been nice to have a chapter on how one might go about having a tiny house themselves in practical terms, rather than the less helpful "if you can dream it you can do it" narrative.

[Tiff Wasley]

Lovely photography but rather lacking on the details of the houses pictured. Would have loved to know more about what made a house fall into say the sustainable category ect. A good coffee table book but dissapointing as a read.

[Melissa]

Some of the tiny houses were a little too fancy for me while others were perfect!

[Paulius]

Inspiring, but longer stories would be nicier :)

[Christie]

Beautiful pictures of unique tiny homes in a variety of settings. This book makes small living super appealing.

[sophia !]

So cool! Makes me want to design my own tiny house...

[Mary]

Not exactly what I was looking for, but absolutely gorgeous photos of small houses in spectacular locations. More outdoor than inside.

[Angeline Lee]

Love this Instagram account, was hoping more from the book than just a mid quality photo album.

[CharityJ]

A beautiful book with Instagram worthy photos of tiny homes.

[Shania Brown]

Beautiful photography, but I would've loved to see more text in the book.