Tiny homes are fun until a pandemic hits

[MillCreek]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/realestate/tiny-house-pandemic.html

Where are you going to put the extra toilet paper and food?

[bedlamite]

Links are fun until the paywall hits.

[Ben]

Hitting that link started an Onion session for me in Brave. I was able to read the article though.

[MillCreek]

Links are fun until the paywall hits.

If you use Brave by itself, or Chrome with the Forget Me extension and clear your cookies, you can generally laugh at most paywalls.  At least those that allow a limited number of free articles.

[WLJ]

No paywall popped up for me. Using Brave

While they're gushing about how nice it is and it's how it's what they want but at the same time you're suppose to feel sorry for them because there's not enough room for multiple cases of TP. The woman with the bus thinks she could park that thing in a state park and that would be her forever home rent free, and I guess with free water and electric hookups*, but mean old Texas Gov Abbott kicked her out.

*Never having dealt with park hookups is it free or is there a fee?

[Perd Hapley]

I predicted months ago the tiny house movement would die from covid. Where is my prize?

[record scratch]

Tiny Home builders and sellers agreed that sales have been above average during the pandemic. The report estimates that this market could increase by $5.8 billion between 2020 and 2024.

Fifty six percent of Americans said they would live in a tiny home, according to a survey conducted in late 2020 by IPX 1031.

What?

[WLJ]

Meanwhile 90+% of the world is looking at this and saying "Look at all that space! And those luxuries!"

They used to refer to these kind of homes as cozy.

[Ben]

A two bedroom modular home is like half the price of a tiny home, from what I see. Sure you can't move it, but you can use the savings to buy yourself some land to put it on.

Or if it's about being mobile, there are simply way better options.

I was quite interested in the concept when these were first introduced, but besides the exorbitant prices, it's like the entire movement is about "how can we make the smallest, most uncomfortable space in which we can sit sipping our herbal tea and feel superior?"

[MillCreek]

Or if it's about being mobile, there are simply way better options.

Ben, what would those be?  I have seen some YouTube of tiny homes being built by professional builders, and they seem to be better made than the typical RV/trailer.

[Grandpa Shooter]

My wife was diagnosed with cancer in Nov. 2019.  We have spent most of the Covid dealing with her cancer.  In December 2020 she was declared free of cancer, for now.  Her type has a 20% recurrence rate.  In that time she has become obsessed with the nomad life and do it yourself live-in conveyances.  She bought an old ambulance last fall and has partially converted it with my help and a friend who fixed multiple wiring issues.  She is determined to take off and travel and see the country she never cared to see when I retired back in 2009.  We gave up 20 acres and a single wide in Az to move to Ky and help out with the granddaughters. (Help out means housing and raising them for nearly 6 years, which was not the plan.)  Now we have 4 1/2 acres, 2 horses, 3 dogs, and a cat and a 100 year old farmhouse to boot.  I don't seem to be able to get her to understand that at 71 I don't care to sell everything and hit the road for a fairy tale life living in campgrounds, Walmart parking lots and dirt roads that go nowhere.  I get that cancer scared the bejebus out of her and she now wants to live, rather than exist like she was doing, but really?

[charby]

*Never having dealt with park hookups is it free or is there a fee?

No, you pay per night, usually a maximum of 14 days before you have to vacate the campground.

[Ben]

Ben, what would those be?  I have seen some YouTube of tiny homes being built by professional builders, and they seem to be better made than the typical RV/trailer.

I suppose opinions vary, and certainly I have seen the youtube videos of the tiny homes built to luxury standards at least for their size. I have looked at many of these options becaus  I still have hopes of bringing my dad up here and letting have his own domicile next to the house so he can go back and forth and "have his own place". I eliminated tiny homes early on because you simply get way more bang for the buck with something like a 5th wheel* or trailer, which is in fact what many of the neighbors here use to house their parents or kids who have returned to the nest.

*I think BobR might debate you on tiny homes being better than a 5th wheel. He and his wife gave me the tour of theirs when he passed through my AO. You wanna talk about luxurious and well-made, I will take their 5th wheel over a tiny house every day of the week. That thing was awesome.

[Ron]

Grandpa Shooter,

Doesn't she know that she actually really lived?

The rootless cosmopolitans and rootless wanderers aren't the ones really living.

Two long road trips a year ought to placate her wanderlust.

It's good to have a home and family. 

[WLJ]

No, you pay per night, usually a maximum of 14 days be you have to vacate the campground.

Okay, I may have misread (I blame lack of coffee) the part on the Bus Lady, she was moving around from park to park.

[MillCreek]

I suppose opinions vary, and certainly I have seen the youtube videos of the tiny homes built to luxury standards at least for their size. I have looked at many of these options becaus  I still have hopes of bringing my dad up here and letting have his own domicile next to the house so he can go back and forth and "have his own place". I eliminated tiny homes early on because you simply get way more bang for the buck with something like a 5th wheel* or trailer, which is in fact what many of the neighbors here use to house their parents or kids who have returned to the nest.

*I think BobR might debate you on tiny homes being better than a 5th wheel. He and his wife gave me the tour of theirs when he passed through my AO. You wanna talk about luxurious and well-made, I will take their 5th wheel over a tiny house every day of the week. That thing was awesome.

I bet this is one of those situations in which you get what you pay for.  I have a friend who used to be an auto adjuster regional manager for Safeco.  His specialty when he was younger was trailer and RVs.  He had a low opinion of the typical inexpensive Winnebago type of RV or trailer.  He said the materials were cheap, the wood framing was stapled together, fit and finish was a problem and even a low speed impact would typically total the vehicle.  He felt that most of those vehicles were designed to be parked a lot and driven relatively infrequently. I have also seen on the Travel Channel these $ 500,000 plus RV coaches built on a bus chassis, and those things look to be very well put together with steel framing and the like.

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Where does one put their lathe, milling machine, welder, drill press, work bench, table saw, band saw, tool boxes, smelting supplies, gun safe, reloading stuff, ammo, and computer with all its accessories - - - and still have room for a bed, stove,microwave, and fridge --- in one of those tiny homes? (I think I'll need two. Jumbo size.)

Woody

[Grandpa Shooter]

Grandpa Shooter,

Doesn't she know that she actually really lived?

The rootless cosmopolitans and rootless wanderers aren't the ones really living.

Two long road trips a year ought to placate her wanderlust.

It's good to have a home and family.

Her life for many years now has been alternating between the bed and her recliner.  She detests actual physical activity and either lays in bed sleeping, or with her tablet, and then gets up to sit in her recliner the rest of the day.  She watches youtube videos all day portraying the idyllic life on the road, with the wonderful technology making life worth living.  You and I know it's a fantasy world they live in, but to her it is the answer to all that's wrong with life.  I guess for her it's a pre golden years crisis.  The only answer I can come up with is to give her a budget off the monthly net income and let her go traveling.  Someone has to feed the animals and keep up the homestead.

[MillCreek]

Buy her the book/let her see the movie: Nomadland.  The movie just came out.

[Nick1911]

Where does one put their lathe, milling machine, welder, drill press, work bench, table saw, band saw, tool boxes, smelting supplies, gun safe, reloading stuff, ammo, and computer with all its accessories - - - and still have room for a bed, stove,microwave, and fridge --- in one of those tiny homes? (I think I'll need two. Jumbo size.)

Woody

Right?

A tiny home would be okay if I also had an 80x120 pole barn workshop as well.  Then I'd just build an apartment in the workshop, and live there.  So I guess I wouldn't need a tiny home.   

[Ben]

Right?

A tiny home would be okay if I also had an 80x120 pole barn workshop as well.  Then I'd just build an apartment in the workshop, and live there.  So I guess I wouldn't need a tiny home.   

I've always said the way to go is a medium sized home and a ginormous shop with some "breathing room" sized land. Before I found my place, I was actually looking into Morton Buildings to do a shop/home combo. Some of the examples of those (like a ginormous aircraft hanger and home together) are pretty awesome looking.

[Grandpa Shooter]

Buy her the book/let her see the movie: Nomadland.  The movie just came out.

She adores the videos of all the women living large in their tiny conveyances free of all encumbrances like a spouse, bills, responsibility, etc.  I am afraid the cancer treatments impacted her mind as well as her body.

[Hawkmoon]

From the article:

Jenny Jacques is sticking with her tiny home, which is based in Orland, Maine — despite her pandemic woes. It’s a former one-car garage on two acres of land she acquired. Ms. Jacques converted the garage into a 660-square foot tiny home which she now shares with her three children, a dog and three cats.

Orland, Maine, isn't far from where my grandparents lived when I was a kid, and we spent my father's summer vacation with the grandparents every year. (Best times of my life, but that's another story.) That "tiny" house looks like typical mid-coast Maine. But seriously -- a one-car garage at 660 square feet? A one car garage is typically 10x20, or maybe 12x20. I have a two-car garage that's 20x20 -- 400 square feet (and that's the outer dimension, not the dimensions inside the stud walls). That article is typical of the NY Times -- written by some city dweller who has no idea how things are in the real world. Not only did that "tiny" house not start out as a one-car garage (it was probably a barn or -- more likely for Orland -- a shop), at 660 square feet it's also not really a "tiny" house. It's a small house. There are lots of conventional Cape Cod houses that aren't any bigger than 660 square feet, and they aren't claimed to be tiny houses.

[charby]

She adores the videos of all the women living large in their tiny conveyances free of all encumbrances like a spouse, bills, responsibility, etc.  I am afraid the cancer treatments impacted her mind as well as her body.

Build or acquire her a she shed.

[Boomhauer]

No, you pay per night, usually a maximum of 14 days before you have to vacate the campground.

And the cost of even a cheap campground per night is usually quite high if it’s the type that has power and water. Remote, rustic Army COE or Forest Service sites can be a lot cheaper but very limited facilities.


If you want a “tiny house” buy one of the well made RVs, not one of the “cramming 10 pounds of *expletive deleted*it into a cheap 1 pound sack” cheap RVs. It’s a lot of work to RV too...getting onsite, set up, get to the stores and get your supplies, effect maintenance. Most of the campgrounds I worked at you couldn’t walk in and expect a site for a week or two either without a reservation made well ahead of time. We had a few RV life people come through that I got to talk to. And another factor is access to doctors and getting prescriptions.

[Grandpa Shooter]

Build or acquire her a she shed.

She has one I bought, but that has never gotten finished.  That's her M/O.  Dream, want, acquire, never follow through.  I am expected to make her dreams come true.