Charlie Wing - The Tiny House Handbook

My “best” room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood behind my house. Thither in summer days, when distinguished guests came, I took them, and a priceless domestic swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in order.

Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters? These forms are more agreeable to the fancy and imagination than… the most expensive furniture…My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all…

I sometimes dream of a larger…house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one’s head…such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments.

From Thoreau’s Walden , published in 1854, we find the idea of living in smaller spaces is not new. Search online book stores today and you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of titles referencing small homes, modest mansions, and not-so-big homes. The first title to contain the term tiny house , however, was Tiny Houses: or How to Get Away From It All by architect Lester Walker (1987).

But the most credit for promoting tiny houses as serious solutions to a growing housing problem should be given to Jay Shafer. Shafer wrote his first tiny house article in 1997. That same year he founded the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, building tiny houses on wheels. The tiny trailered homes (maximum width 8’-6”) created interest from multiple perspectives:

Most people, when hearing the term tiny house , picture a conventional but narrow house built on a trailer. The appeal is not only in its less-is-more statement, but the suggestion of total independence.

While the freedom to goanywhere is true, the freedom to stayis more complex. Most zoning considers tiny homes on wheels akin to recreational vehicles and campers which are not subject to real estate taxes. They are thus considered squatters and are generally limited to stays of several months maximum.

And like RVs, tiny homes on wheels have to provide for—at least temporarily—their own electricity, water, and sewage. Like perpetual motion, totalshelter freedom is still an elusive dream.

• Like mobile homes and RVs, they were on wheels, but they were constructed of wood and actually looked like houses.

• Being on wheels they also fed our desire for freedom. “Hasta la vista, I’m out of here!”

• Having your home, like a turtle, “on your back” meant changing jobs would no longer require selling the old and buying new.

In 2007 Jay and his tiny home appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show .

Finally, in 2017, the International Residential Code officially recognized tiny homes as “houses that are 400 square feet in area or less.” In consultation with Jay and others the IRC added Appendix Q , allowing space-saving exceptions for stairs and sleeping lofts and egress (in case of fire) from roof windows.

One solution to the where-to-stay dilemma is the built-to-be-moved tiny house on skids. Small structures sheathed in structural plywood are rigid enough without supporting beams, so the skids serve primarily as runners allowing the structure to be moved across the ground.

And while tiny homes on wheels are limited to widths of 8’6” and height above ground of 13’6”, structures up to 12’ wide may be transported on a truck or trailer (loaded height limit 14’) with a routine permit.

Inexpensive and widely available “Amish sheds” in widths to 12’ and lengths to 32’ provide examples. An Amish shed with upgraded doors, windows, sheathing, and siding could provide the starting point for a tiny home on a foundation.

Why not build a tiny home the conventional way on a permanent foundation? In the past half century, with the emphasis on bigger is better, most communities imposed minimum size requirements in their zoning. This had little to do with health or safety but everything to do with maintaining property values and the real estate tax base.

Well over ninety percent of US communities base their building standards on the International Residential Code (IRC) . With the formal adoption in 2018 of IRC Appendix Q , dealing with homes 400 square feet in area or less, there are now few if any logical reasons to outlaw tiny homes. Imposing a size limit may not be against the law, but it is increasingly difficult to defend.

The average size of houses in the US remained at a near constant 200 sq.ft. per occupant until the end of WWII when millions of young GIs returned looking for homes in which to start their families. The response of the building industry was tract housing: thousands of 800 sq.ft. homes in developments such as the “Levittowns.” But as incomes increased, the size of one’s home became a status symbol. From a single bathroom and no garage, the norm grew to 4 bedrooms, 2½ baths, and a 2-car garage. Family room, media room, play-room, and a bedroom for every child added up to over 1,000 sq.ft. per occupant.

Although homeowners in Australia, Canada, and the US apparently think bigger is better, the 2009 map below shows the feeling is not universal. Homeowners in Hong Kong, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, get by with (almost) tiny homes of 484 sq.ft. and a thoroughly Thoreauvian space per occupant of just 150 sq.ft.

An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a compact independent dwelling sharing a single-family lot with a larger primary dwelling. While tiny, it contains its own bathroom, kitchen, living, and sleeping areas.