Green Group discussion

I've been interested in tiny homes since they first got some media attention. Since I've become an environmentalist, I have tried to practice simple living, but always have felt that even having a smaller home that I could live "smaller."

While I couldn't live in one of the tiny homes with no bathroom or shower - some have them, some don't - I lived in apartments when I lived in Atlanta and NYC, so the smaller space overall wouldn't bother me a bit.

Here is a slideshow from the Sierra Club of what they call "nano" homes. There's a picture on Facebook from a site called "Hippie Peace Freaks" that I wanted to share, but you have to be a member of FB to see it. I'll try to figure out a way around that.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2012...

Do you have any pictures you would like to share? Any thoughts on tiny homes? Simple living? Not only home, but anything else simple living?

Also, we can talk about Transition Towns. It is not my expertise at all, but here is a link from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transiti...

Anyone who knows more about Transition Towns, please share!

Last, but not least, are there other ways that we can downsize with/in our homes and in our yards?

A couple of summers ago, my husband and I took a road trip from Texas to California. Driving across Texas is half the trip, and it feels like an accomplishment worth noting. One of the interesting things we saw along I-10 was a cluster of adorably tiny houses. When we got home, I did a little research and discovered that the houses had been built from salvaged materials by a company called Tiny Texas Houses (http://tinytexashouses.com/).

Whenever I see little bitty houses, I think of Virgnia Lee Burton's picture book, The Little House, which won the 1943 Caldecott Medal. As a school librarian, I love this book, because it's an approachable story about change over time. It shows night and day, different seasons, and community development as years go by. I also secretly love this book, because it introduces readers to the problems with urban sprawl.

Amber wrote: "A couple of summers ago, my husband and I took a road trip from Texas to California. Driving across Texas is half the trip, and it feels like an accomplishment worth noting. One of the interestin..."

Thanks for the link! I had read about the Texas tiny houses made of strap materials before - such a great idea.

I've never heard of The Little House. I'll have to look for it at my locak library.

(And lucky you, being a librarian...if I wasn't a teacher, I would have been a librarian.)

We built our own tiny house, while camping with our kids, in our shed, in the middle of winter. We were delighted when we completed the roof and walls, and slept in there for the first night. The floor was only partially completed, and the children fell asleep to the sound of us, continuing with laying the floorboards. :)

We had no bathroom, or running water for another month or so, although we had our lovely wood fired stove, so I could put big buckets of hot water out for the kids to bathe in. (We bought and installed a water tank, for our shed, before we'd even settled the property purchase). It's amazing how much you appreciate the little things when you don't have them: roof, walls, floor, heat, then running water and electricity.

It is tiny. We built a mezzanine a few months later for the kids, until that time it was all in the same room. One wood fired stove heats the whole space. We use it for our cooking and it has a water jacket to heat our hot water (we also have solar hot water--a great Tasmanian design). Our electricity bill is tiny, we'd like to get to the stage of no electricity at all--expensive--working on it.

Our house is built from wood and zincalume. It has two massive tree trunks inside, to help support the roof. On the first night, I dreamt that my husband had built me a castle with trees growing in the parapets. I woke briefly, looked around, and fell asleep again, smiling, sure that was the case. We love our tiny house, and ignore comments from visiting relatives about the size of it (although we are planning an extra room (we're poor but happy, it will have to wait until we can afford it)).

Georgina, that's so great that you built a tiny house!

And that is so cool having tree trunks inside the house. I love trees...my dream is to live near the redwoods.

And I can imagine that you appreciate the basics when you don't have them. Last October, we had an early snow storm that knocked out power for a little over 7 days. I don't like generators, so no stove, no refrigator, no lights, no heat, no showers. After about 3 days, I sat down and wept. lol! Near the end, I really thought I was losing it.

I did the same thing while building. :) The local caravan park owner wouldn't let us pay to use their showers, as he said it would just encourage others to do the same. My husband said, yes, it's called revenue, but the guy didn't get it. Finally, a lovely neighbour felt sorry for us and let us all shower at his place (he could probably could smell us from way up the road too!)

No electricity during snow storms would be a shock. No heat! Our part of Tassie gets cold in winter, but nothing like that. I always feel for those of you in cold climates when the power goes down. I can see why there are deaths among the elderly then too. Here it's during heat waves, especially in the cities.

Redwoods are magnificent! We have a few enormous trees on our property and plenty of areas that are now growing back. The huge trees are only still there because the original farmer who owned the property couldn't access them to cut them down!

Good topic! And thanks for the tiny house stories.

While I am a simple living practitioner, my single-family dwelling (for 2 of us) "kills" our eco-footprint scores--devastating! I notice that we probably use only half the house regularly so we could easily live with much less. Downsizing is probably in our future, but in the meantime, we are focusing on home energy efficiency.

What I love about tiny homes (including RVs/caravans) is the incredible efficiency of living and storage. Truly elegant sometimes!

Georgina wrote: "We built our own tiny house, while camping with our kids, in our shed, in the middle of winter. We were delighted when we completed the roof and walls, and slept in there for the first night. The f..."

Georgina, Your house sounds amazing! I've always wished I could live in a tree-house.

It was either "Hippie Peace Freaks" or "Green Renaissance" on FB who posted a picture yesterday of a smaller house with a tree growing through it. We all agreed that it would be a very cool place to live in.

Reenbean wrote: "Good topic! And thanks for the tiny house stories.

While I am a simple living practitioner, my single-family dwelling (for 2 of us) "kills" our eco-footprint scores--devastating! I notice that w..."

Even when we try to reduce our carbon footprint drastically, just the American/West lifestyle keeps it high.

When I lived in NYC, I didn't have a car so therefore didn't drive. Ate local produce as much as possible from the awesome farmers market at Union Square. Lived in a teeny tiny apartment. Only traveled 1-2 times a year.

Took the carbon footprint test thinking, whoo hoo!, it will be small now. Nope! Not as high as living in the suburbs, but still high.

Ya, it's a little depressing. But at least we know that we are doing the best we can within the standards of our location. Living your consciousness rocks!

Love the house with a tree growing out of it. I'll look for that.

In literature, the classic house with a tree growing out of it is in The Odyssey by Homer. The bedroom of Odysseus and Penelope has an olive tree growing out of it, and their bed uses the tree for a bedpost.

Check this out!

Mike Auderer built a ecofriendly houseboat. I would love this. :-)

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2012...

Jimmy wrote: "In literature, the classic house with a tree growing out of it is in The Odyssey by Homer. The bedroom of Odysseus and Penelope has an olive tree growing out of it, and their bed uses the tree for ..."

I'm a bit embarrassed. I have a Master's in literature, and don't remember this. ;) I'll have to go back and reread.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/homer...

I reckon if we try to reduce our footprint, that's great. It's incredibly hard sometimes, so much of the world isn't in that head space at all. We've been blitzing plastic lately (already reduced, but felt it was not enough). It is AMAZING how plastic is used in EVERYTHING. It's all wrapped, packaged, in plastic. We homebrew our own beer, homegrow our vegetables, but somethings we can't produce. It's driving me batty looking for alternatives!

Thanks Amber, we love our tiny house. Mid-winter we tend to get cabin fever though, living in each others pockets. We also have two, large dogs, who are part of the family pack, so that's six 'people' living in it. We have a valley farm though (twenty four acres) so that keeps claustrophobia at bay.

Semi-tiny home, but most importantly, made with all reclaimed materials. I would love to live in a home like this!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/green-...

I added a couple of tiny home photos in our photo album on the bottom of the Green Group's main page.

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to add them to individual threads, but at least we have them here on the group page.

The Smallest House in Italy:

http://finance.yahoo.com/photos/the-s...

I would love to retire into a very small house, but the vertical part would bother me. In my younger years, that would be fine. But not even now, let alone when I retire, would I would to have to climb such steep stairs!

Still, very cool.

Ever since I saw this thread, I've been looking at Tiny Houses--but I'm with you, Lynn, in terms of not being able to handle the vertical ones.

I found one here that included one of my dreams--a front porch :-) And it also has solar panels. http://www.houseplans.com/plan/704-sq...

The company sells plans for all sizes of homes, but nice to know the tiny ones are being included on commercial sites.

Julia wrote: "Ever since I saw this thread, I've been looking at Tiny Houses--but I'm with you, Lynn, in terms of not being able to handle the vertical ones.

I found one here that included one of my dreams--a ..."

I love front porches...my dream as well!

I'm not sure if I would want a very small tiny house - somewhere in between a tiny house and a Cape.

And also would like to have a shared green area. I read a couple years ago about a developer who turned the houses around...in other words, the back of the house faced the street, and the front of the house faced a green, a area where the entire community could meet, rather than having individual yards. Sadly, I lost the article, and can't remember the name of the developer.

And thanks for the link.