living-large-tiny-space / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Under bed storage
Interior design and furnishing

Storage ideas for small spaces

From underneath a bed, under a subfloor or the underside of the staircase, there are many underutilized areas in a home that can make life in a small home a lot less cluttered. Here are some ideas on how to transform dead space into storage space. Use the bottom of the bed as a storage with drawers on wheels. There...

Tiny House living in cold climates - one of the best tiny homes on wheels
Tiny house

Tiny Houses - Living in Cold Climates

Are tiny houses a good investment? That depends on how you want to live and how well they are built. Small homes are more affordable and eco-friendly that large homes, but are tiny homes on wheels for sale locally green? Read here to find out if Tiny Houses are good for the environment. It seems somewhat contradictory ...

The Otis mobile tiny house
Tiny house

The Tiny House Movement may have gotten tinier with the arrival of Otis

Three years ago, professor Lucas Brown’s students in Green Mountain College’s Renewable Energy and Ecological Design (REED) class built a custom-designed tiny house, a 96-square-foot structure with a sleeping loft “upstairs” and a 300-watt solar powered electrical system. This semester, his class went one better, con...

Can I legally put a Tiny House on my Property?
Tiny house

How can I put a Tiny House on my property legally in the USA ?

Getting Tiny houses approved as habitatable dwelling units on your property Getting a Tiny House installed legally on a property is often possible, once you know how. The Tiny Home Industry Association (THIA) works with states and communities to help them realize there is a new trend towards smaller homes, and to find ...

Installing Siding Correctly
Exterior cladding

How to install siding

Siding installation The walls of your home are an environmental separator. Their job is to keep the inside in and the outside out. Exterior cladding or siding is your first line of defense against weather elements, and its job is to allow interior control layers (ie. the building envelope) to do their jobs without bei...

Mobile tiny house
Tiny house

Is Tiny House living in a cold climate good or bad for the planet?

Are Tiny Houses Worth it? Are Tiny houses a good investment? That depends on your lifestyle and how well you build them. Here are some things to think about before you join the Tiny House Movement and commit to life in an extremely small space.  We have featured a number of tiny houses on our pages over the past few ye...

Snowboarder, Mike, Basich's, off-grid cabin in the woods with hot tub
Tiny house

Off-grid tiny house in the heart of the Sierras.

Snowboarding pioneer and photographer Mike Basich built himself an epic Tiny off-grid cabin. Without a bedroom or bathroom per se, but equipped with a hot tub and chairlift, this gorgeous Tiny House is most perfectly situated in the heart of the Sierras.  © Mike Basich Basich began his career as one of the p...

Siding Choices - Board and batten siding
Exterior cladding

Choosing the right exterior siding for fitting, cost comparisons & appearance

Siding is important! There is no stage of home construction that you should rush through, but if there were, it shouldn't be siding. Whatever type of siding product you choose, purchase and installation is not cheap, so you don't want to do it again anytime soon. Your siding needs to protect your home from the weather,...

The village of Baie-Saint-Paul in Charlevoix
Choosing where to live

Moving to the country - living a rural lifestyle

  For those that aren't made for the bustling lifestlyle of cities, small towns can be a dream come true. The nature of small towns is one of community and accessible downtown cores. Essential services like grocery stores, banks and post offices are usually grouped closely together, as are schools, so children can ofte...

A Tiny House for sale locally set me thinking, should I buy a Tiny Home?
Tiny house

ARE TINY HOUSES FOR SALE LOCALLY A GOOD CHOICE FOR A FIRST HOME?

To buy, or not to buy, a tiny house on wheels? That is the question... I’ve recently been looking at Tiny Homes for sale, mostly THOW's, but first, the background. As a single woman approaching the “big 3-0”, and especially with current events forcing changes in everyday life, I realize how lucky I’ve been to spend the...

The Fiction Factory Wikkelhouse tiny house made of carboard
Tiny house

Wikkelhouse: A tiny house made of cardboard

Seriously, no pun intended - it's just hard not to describe the cardboard Wikkelhouse as anything other than an extreme case of thinking outside of the box. It's like there is some kind of one-upmanship going on in the tiny house movement that has builders forever taking design and material use to new levels. Don't mis...