Small is beautiful

[txlibdem]

Tiny houses use tiny amounts of raw materials during construction. Tiny houses use tiny amounts of energy to heat and cool them (if they're built correctly, well insulated). They can be constructed on site or made on a trailer for ultimate portability (some folks seem to think that's a great idea but I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone who wants to keep their budget predictably low would want to be mobile). Mobile means renting the space to put your home. Renting means that you are not in control of what it will cost each year (in fact, it's almost guaranteed to become more and more expensive year after year). I would never rent unless I absolutely had no other choice. It's better in my view to buy even a postage stamp size if that's all you can afford. If you can afford a multi-acre spread, so much the better. But that's beside the point.

Would you want to live in a house that is between 200 and 800 square feet?

Pros:

(in no special order)

• You save money on utility bills.
  
• If you don’t like where you’re living, you can hook up to your home and leave.
  
• Not as much (if any) yard to take care of.
  
• Since you don’t have a lot of utility bills you can save money for things you always wanted to do in life.
  
• You can have a new front yard anytime you like.
  
• You don’t have a lot in property tax to pay.
  
• You can clean your home in no time flat.
  
• You have a lot less house to maintain. (again, saving you lots of money)
  
• You don’t have a lot of useless stuff tying you down.
  
• You can build it yourself and pay cash, you you own it, not the bank.

Cons:

• You don’t have a lot of room to get away from one another if you’re married.
  
• If you’re a guy who likes to putt around fixing and making stuff, you don’t really have enough room in a Tiny home.
  
• Not much storage space or closet space.
  
• It’s very hard to find a place to park your tiny home and live in it. (that’s a big one!)

http://tinyhouseblog.com/tiny-house/pros-and-cons-of-tiny-homes-and-regular-homes/

Here are some other sites about the benefits of small houses:
http://www.tinygreencabins.com/
http://thistinyhouse.com/
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

The question is, who exactly would want to live in a house where you can nearly reach your arms from one side to the other?
For Shafer, it's pretty clear: it's people who are interested in a simple, green lifestyle. These days, the term "green" is thrown about left and right and often means little, but in the case of Tiny Houses, green living is a direct reflection of a choice to live very efficiently, with the minimum amount of unused space, materials, and energy. "I think that's the greenest green thing you can do," Shafer says, "buy less."
And that's an attractive proposition for the hundreds of people who have chosen to adopt Shafer's way of living: mainly, he says, single and creative types. It's "folks who want to be doing something else besides paying a mortgage," he says.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20022287-52.html#ixzz15PL4NCSl

[txlibdem]

1. Living large in Tiny Houses (photos)

Living large in Tiny Houses (photos)
http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10005492.html?tag=mncol