Tiny Houses

I have been living in a dorm room for the past six months and have been surprised by how much I appreciate the simplicity of this lifestyle. I certainly wouldn't want to live in the dorms indefinitely, but I have found that I am incredibly efficient in this room.

And so I have a deep appreciation for what Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed is doing. He says, "My decision to inhabit just 89 square feet arose from some concerns I had about the impact a larger house would have on the environment, and because I do not want to maintain a lot of unused or unusable space."

Here is a tour of his house:


He teaches workshops all over the country, to empower people to build these houses themselves.

Here is a photo of a Tumbleweed house that he built here in Iowa, in Iowa City:





















The man who lives in this 10 ft by 7 ft dwelling, Gregory Johnson, has lost 50 pounds after living here for three years.

He says he is more active and has also begun to eat more healthfully and that scaling back has given him a new sense of freedom.

And there is now a Small House Movement with the Small House Society serving as its voice. This movement is the "result of concerns about what we are doing to the environment, and what the environment is doing to us (wild fires, flooding, hurricanes), as well as a shifting economy. Some people just desire to live simply so that others can simply live."

Wow, there are just so many aspects of sustainability, and I am inspired to see how many different and wonderful things people are doing to leave a smaller footprint on the Earth.