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Community Project
INDES 145
By Cammy Davis
Sustainable Design

Why Tiny Homes?
• I ﬁrst became interested in Eny homes when my 
parents decided to sell our middle class stucco 
home and buy an Airstream travel trailer and “live 
oﬀ the land”.
• My childhood goal was to have a “real house” like 
all my friends.  APer years and years of chasing the 
American dream, the economy and reality 
interceded.  Now the idea of going back in Eme, 
simplifying my living situaEon and having Eme to 
actually live life has become very appealing.

History of �վ��Բ� H�ǳܲ�� B��ǲ�
• Developed by Kent Griswold in 2007
• MoEvaEon: love of small spaces
• Goal: to discover the diﬀerent opEons available for a 
person looking to down size into a Eny house or cabin
• Looking at diﬀerent type of construcEon, book reviews, 
alternate energy for heat and electricity.
• Encourages: 
•  feedback and ideas  
•  Stories of people who are living this dream.
•  Pictures of Eny houses and cabins, etc.

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• 1. Tiny Homes Save Huge Money
• The smaller the house, the lower 
Have House, Will Travel. the cost.
•  2. Freedom from Debt
• Big houses come with big 
mortgages. Smaller houses can 
result in no mortgage at all.
•  3. Freedom from Stuﬀ
• Living in a Eny home forces you to 
decluZer and only keep things that 
you use frequently
•  4. Freedom to Take your Home 
with you
• A large number of Eny homes are 
being built upon truck beds,

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• 5. More Time
• Homes are very Eme consuming. But what if you 
could vacuum your floor in 1 minute and just be 
done with it? The size of your home is inversely 
proporEonal to the free Eme that you have. With 
liZle home to take care of, you have plenty of Eme 
to do the things you really want to do. And that’s 
liberaEng.
• 6. Great Minds Think Alike
• You’ll also become a local celebrity of sorts and 
random interesEng people from around the country 
will strike up conversaEon wherever you take your 
home.  (This is also true of riding a Vespa in 
Issaquah.) 
• 7. BeLer Quality Home
• You should, in theory, be able to upgrade the quality 
of the home around you because you’ve been able 
to cut down on the materials and cost of the home 
so significantly. Pubng in that marble counter‐top 
shouldn’t cost that much when it is only 5 square 
feet. Hardwood floors? You can install hardwoods in 
your whole house for the price that most people pay 
for one bedroom!

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Environmental Impact
• The average American home consumes about 75% of an acre of 
forest and produces about 7 tons of construcEon waste! And ... it 
emits 18 tons of greenhouse gases every year!
• One style of Eny home is made of 4,800 pounds of building 
materials each, and less than 100 pounds go to the landﬁll. Plus 
they produce less than 900 pounds of greenhouse gases during a 
typical Iowa winter!

The American Dream
• Today in America, 1 in 5 homeowners owe 
more money than what their home is worth! 
Many people are literally walking away from 
their homes because of this tragedy. But 
that's only part of the story!
• According to RealtyTrac, over 2.8 million 
homes were foreclosed in 2009.
• Just think, all those months of making the 
house note, paying steep uElity bills, 
property taxes, and maintenance ‐ up in 
smoke. Don't you deserve beZer than this?
• People were sold a bill of goods that they 
need more home than they can aﬀord and 
now their ﬁnances, relaEonships and lives 
are in chaos.
• Being shackled with debt Ell the grave 
doesn't sound like the American dream to 
me.

“I don’t want this life.”
• IN his 20s, Michael Janzen at 40 has all the trappings 
of a successful homeowner: in‐ground pool, maid 
service, a yard landscaped with Japanese black pine 
bonsai trees. He owns an 1,800‐square‐foot home in 
Fair Oaks, Calif.
• So why has Mr. Janzen spent the summer building an 
80‐square‐foot “Eny house” out of free stuff he 
found on Craigslist?
• There he is on nights and weekends, designing a 
floor plan whose dimensions are measured not in 
feet but inches, nailing scavenged wood pallets 
together for the frame, or fixing up an old trailer to 
serve as the foundaEon. The iniEal reacEon from his 
wife, Julia: “Is this a Unabomber building?”
• According to Mr. Janzen, he came to the realizaEon 
that “I don’t want this life — the life of someone 
who’s working too hard to pay a large mortgage to 
live in this house.” The catalyst, he said, was 
watching the value of his home plummet with the 
rest of the real estate market, while the Eme and 
money required to maintain the property only 
increased. “The energy cost is enormous,” he said, 
“and the bigger your property gets, the more there 
is to do.”

Simple Living
• “Half of knowing what it is to live simply is 
knowing how to live happily.“  From YouTube, 
Thoreau’s cabin redux: Eny homes and 
happiness video

cammysEnyhome.blogspot.com
• As I search for simplifying my own life, the idea 
of living in a small home without a huge 
mortgage appeals to me.  However, the 
logisEcs seem overwhelming.  More so, the 
reacEon from family and friends can be a bit 
daunEng as well.  I decided to take it one step 
at a Eme and started a blog about my path 
towards simple living.  You can follow me at: 
cammysEnyhome.blogspot.com

Tiny House Directory
The �վ��Բ� H�ǳܲ�� B��ǲ� has a website directory 
by  category  and  state.    These  are  just  the 
companies located in Washington state:

• Modern Shed ‐ WA
• Rainier Yurts – WA
• Old Western Wagons – WA
• LiZle Green Buildings – WA
• Shed Boy – WA
• Penny Pincher Barn Company – WA
• Rough Cut Sheds – WA
• Green Pod Development – WA
• Gypsy Wagon Workshop – WA
• FloaEng Pods – WA

Relevant Websites
• hZp://weehouse.com/pdfs/weeGreen.pdf
•

• hZp://www.blueskymod.com/info.html
•

• hZp://www.cusatocoZages.com/selectaplan.php#
•

• hZp://www.livingoﬀgrid.org/the‐pros‐and‐cons‐of‐Eny‐
homes/

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