Tumbleweed houses

[myrddinbach]

If you are currently renting or even looking to downsize your current
house/residence and had an opportunity to move into an inexpensive
tumbleweed house ( http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com ) would you do it?

Just show of hands (ie replies) how many of you would say yes?

[anders conbere]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 12:14 PM, myrddinbach <myrdd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If you are currently renting or even looking to downsize your current
> house/residence and had an opportunity to move into an inexpensive
> tumbleweed house ( http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com ) would you do it?

This is actually the kind of home I /want/ to live in. There are
actually a number of great resources for low impact, small scale homes
available.

A good link I found interesting was;

http://tinyhouseblog.com/links/

~ Anders

[Pierce Nichols]

If I suddenly decided I didn't want to be married anymore... although
I'd prefer that my Tumbleweed float. It looks about equivalent in
interior size to a ~30 ft sailboat.

-p

[ben wiseley]

If people are interested in this kind of lifestyle I'd strongly suggest checking out living on a sailboat.  Very off the grid, tons of fun, great community and more affordable than you might think (you can get a pretty good boat for $5-10K).  Unfortunately, long waiting lists for live-aboard slips.

-ben
Shilshole, K-18 on http://westsail28.com

[Jon Dugan]

Excerpts from Jason (MyrddinBach)'s message of Mon Apr 06 15:14:56 -0700 2009:

I'd definitely consider it. It would require downsizing my possessions
considerably, but that's probably a good thing. The idea of not having a
mortgage/rent is very, very attractive as that creates considerable freedom.

I've heard of a similar concept where they reclaim space on top of buildings
in cities by using a helicopter to bring in a similar sized home. I think
that one was based on something roughly the size of shipping container.

Fun stuff!

Jon

[Gregory Heller]

speaking of shipping containers, i'd have to imagine, with the economy being what it is right now, and the slowdown in trade, that there are probably some cheap shipping containers available in the region.  There have been some amazing homes made from containers (you can google for them).

I've always wanted to make a home out of one or more shipping containers.

The only thing you do need to be a little concerned about is what the container might have been used to ship (if it was chemicals for example).

there is a story on the cover of yes magazine last quarter about a woman in oregon who downsized into a tumbleweed house and has it parked in some guys back yard.

while i'd be interested in one, i could not currently imagine downizing that much (i work from home!) if i were going to, i think i'd prefer an airstream and really be mobile.

-- 
----
Gregory Heller
http://www.GregoryHeller.com
http://delicious.com/GregoryHeller
http://twitter.com/gregoryheller

[Ryan Kabir]

This thread made my day. The tumbleweed houses have me VERY excited. I could do a shipping container as well. How difficult do you think it would be to get my container loaded onto a ship *with me in it* ?

mwahahhahaha

[Jeffrey Melloy]

A friend knows this guy:
http://www.amazon.com/Put-Your-Life-Diet-Lessons/dp/1423603176/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239079795&sr=8-1,
who talks about his experience downsizing his life.

The book's a bit preachy, though.

-jeff

[Patrick Haller]

On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 09:39:05PM -0700, Ryan Kabir wrote:
> This thread made my day. The tumbleweed houses have me VERY excited. I could do
> a shipping container as well. How difficult do you think it would be to get my
> container loaded onto a ship *with me in it* ?
>
> mwahahhahaha

It'd be cool to use the social impetus to find cheep housing to build a
better community. i.e. if you think you'll be in one place for more than
5 years, getting a sub-5% mortgage on a condo with other like-minded
people in the near units could work out well.

Counter-cyclical investing = the goodness. ;)

Patrick

[anders conbere]

Or taking advantage of plummeting land prices in places like Detroit,
to buy up multiple plots and building small viable communities? When a
plot of land can cost you as little as 150 dollars, and you and your
friends can fill a couple city blocks, do you care if you're in the
slums?

But really that's all about what's possible with cheap land. There's
cheap land in western washington as well. And if your house itself is
a small price, there's a number of interesting things you can build.
But probably best to talk to folks who have successful cohousing
projects already :)

~ Anders



>
>
> Patrick
>
> >
>

[Robert Eickmann]

Tumbleweed houses aren't that cheap...

Looking at the website they are running about 36k-50k per house.

Back in the midwest that is about right for a small house in certain
parts of the country. (You know the kind with a bedroom or two and a
bathroom).

For example my family bought a 28 acre farm with a house and two out
buildings and a corn crib for $90k.

I almost bought a wonderful two bedroom lake cottage that was fully
winterized with 30' of lake front for $120k.

The problem is location, location, location. That was an twenty
minutes from a traffic signal, hour from a small city and and hour
and half from a bad airport that could at least get you a connecting
flight to civilization about twice a day.

And to address Anders thought that you can build a community in
detroit if you buy enough of the land.... it won't work. To actually
form a community and not just have a bunch of young people without
children (because the second you even suggest to a mother about
putting their young child into the Detroit public school system, they
will rip you to pieces). I could tell you some serious horror stories
about Michigan schools...

And if you were to actually build some nice houses and form a
community inside of the city of Detroit, the outside community will
tear you to pieces at every chance they can. Heck a local art
community (they had I think 120 people working on it) built a really
cool public art structure in a park last year with in three weeks it
was torched....

-Rob

[anders conbere]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Robert Eickmann <robe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Tumbleweed houses aren't that cheap...
>
> Looking at the website they are running about 36k-50k per house.
>
> Back in the midwest that is about right for a small house in certain
> parts of the country. (You know the kind with a bedroom or two and a
> bathroom).
>
> For example my family bought a 28 acre farm with a house and two out
> buildings and a corn crib for $90k.
>
> I almost bought a wonderful two bedroom lake cottage that was fully
> winterized with 30' of lake front for $120k.
>
> The problem is location, location, location. That was an twenty
> minutes from a traffic signal,  hour from a small city and and hour
> and half from a bad airport that could at least get you a connecting
> flight to civilization about twice a day.
>
> And to address Anders thought that you can build a community in
> detroit if you buy enough of the land.... it won't work. To actually
> form a community and not just have a bunch of young people without
> children (because the second you even suggest to a mother about
> putting their young child into the Detroit public school system, they
> will rip you to pieces). I could tell you some serious horror stories
> about Michigan schools...

If only I could have claimed to make it up

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090313/LIFESTYLE/903130306

~ Anders

[Sarah]

I was talking about this Detroit concept with a couple of people at sxsw.  As Robert said:

>The problem is location, location, location. That was an twenty
>minutes from a traffic signal,  hour from a small city and and hour
>and half from a bad airport that could at least get you a connecting
>flight to civilization about twice a day.

And that's the beauty of Detroit.  It already has airports and train stations.  It already has paved roads.  For what you would spend on five years of office rental in San Francisco, you could buy out ten square blocks of three-bedroom houses in Detroit and fill them all with hackers.  Imagine the startup possibilities.  And the beauty of hackers is that we can work from anywhere.  We seem to already be congregating into our own "tech" cities, why not just take that last step and all be a bike ride from one another?

Sarah

[Myk OLeary]

At $100-$1000 per house, the company could easily gift each hacker their very own house as a signing bonus if they stay on for at least x years.  I'd take a free house (even in Detroit) over fee soda any day.

Myk O'Leary

[Patrick Haller]

On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 02:46:53PM -0700, Sarah wrote:
> And that's the beauty of Detroit. It already has airports and train
> stations. It already has paved roads. For what you would spend on
> five years of office rental in San Francisco, you could buy out ten
> square blocks of three-bedroom houses in Detroit and fill them all
> with hackers. Imagine the startup possibilities. And the beauty of
> hackers is that we can work from anywhere. We seem to already be
> congregating into our own "tech" cities, why not just take that last
> step and all be a bike ride from one another?

Tax problems. Basically, Detroit can't support itself with its
collapsing tax base.

Maybe negotiate the creation of a separate tax and administration zone
in Detroit? Then set up a gated community secured by robots. ;)

Or maybe just move to an already-established, well-connected, safe,
cheep, fiscally-sound city-state that's just a short hop from some of
the greatest vacation spots on the planet. ;)

Patrick

[Justin Martenstein]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Robert Eickmann <robe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And to address Anders thought that you can build a community in
> detroit if you buy enough of the land.... it won't work. To actually
> form a community and not just have a bunch of young people without
> children (because the second you even suggest to a mother about
> putting their young child into the Detroit public school system, they
> will rip you to pieces). I could tell you some serious horror stories
> about Michigan schools...

Rob is generally right, but as someone who has lived in inner-city
Cleveland for a few years, I'd like to offer a slightly less "doom and
gloom" perspective.

The history of the neighborhood that I lived in (Tremont) went
something like this:

1) Infrastructure of inner-city Cleveland crumbled, land values plummeted
2) Artist types looking for cheap housing started moving into the area (1980's)
3) Art galleries began to open in the area, followed by restaurants
(late 80's / early 90's)
4) Tremont is labeled "the next hip neighborhood", and more urban
professionals start moving in and raising house values (though the
neighborhood still struggled with crime, poverty, poor schools, etc.)
(1990's)

What Anders is talking about is basically gentrification, and it does
happen, though it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and (to come
back to Rob's point), a *strong* community. Not just a bunch of
idealistic 20-something's moving into a neighborhood (which will meet
resistance no matter how pure their motives).

--
Justin Martenstein
jmarte...@gmail.com

http://www.twitter.com/jmartenstein
http://www.meetatthepig.com

[Robert Eickmann]

I tried Detroit, I lived in Michigan for seven years. There was a girl
that I was quite infatuated with who I almost moved their for...
Anyway.

Detroit might have a couple of baubles, like airports, but honestly
everyone that I have met at Saturday House and in the hacker community
would wind up utterly *HATING* the place.

I grew up in a town where the Klan marches and shuts down the
downtown, where people are still proud about hosting the last of the
60's political assassination, etc. Then I moved to the home base of
the Michigan militia, (i.e. Oklahoma City Bombing). With that as the
background, I will tell you I have never met more close minded racists
as I have in Detroit.

The people who are left are the dead enders, the ones who can't and
won't accept change no matter what. They are the frogs who have been
sitting in the bottom of the pot as the heat has been cranking higher
and higher.

And the idea of walking or riding a bike in a city where the entire
infrastructure is based around cars and has inches of snow on the
ground for five months of the year...

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Sarah <sarah...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Elizabeth_Grigg_Seattle]

It sounds like I'm not the only one who is SERIOUSLY RECONSIDERING
every single aspect of the house and home thing, given the current
state of things. When I line up the sacrifices we make for our own
private fiefdom at the center of the world, I would much rather live
out of a suitcase. We're actively getting rid of our posessions so
that we can be more nimble should a good enough choice come our way. I
doubt we'll trim down the baggage down to something Ghandi-esque, but
perhaps we'll reduce enough to (a) make co-housing possible, or (b)
fake like we're 55 and move into an assisted living facility, or (c)
use that really large insurance policy for something more practical?
(KIDDING!)

[myrddinbach]

Yes, you can get much more house in many parts of the country for less
but not where I currently live - in SEATTLE!!

Plus - I have NO desire to live in the middle of nowhere or on a farm
- I'm an URBANITE.

Plus even if you had this built in a different part of the country
where prices are cheaper and you paid for the plans and hired someone
to build it I'm sure you could get it for far cheaper then the quoted
$100-$200 per sq ft.


Also thanks for all your responses but as I said in my earlier post I
am really just looking for someone to say "Yes I would do this if I
can" not - oh look at this site or these things or go look at prices
in this city.... not that discussion about this isn't good but I
wasn't looking for that kind of thing in this thread.

[Brian Dorsey]

Yes. I would do this if I can. ;)

We've been thinking about how to move into our backyard and rent out
the house. ;)

--
Sent from my mobile device

[Calvin Freitas]

I would be interested, but I don't think I'd want to live in a space quite that small.

A big thing for me would be making sure I had enough space to do hospitality -- having people over for game night, pot lucks, lunch, dinner, whatever... if I didn't have any space for that, I wouldn't do it.

Cal

[Kyle Mulka]

I might consider doing this later in life if my partner wanted to. I
wouldn't do it by myself.

But, I AM seriously considering buying a really small car soon:
http://www.smartusa.com/smart-fortwo-passion.aspx

--
Kyle Mulka
http://www.kylemulka.com

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 4:29 PM, myrddinbach <myrdd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Patrick Haller]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 07:29:27PM -0700, Calvin Freitas wrote:
> I would be interested, but I don't think I'd want to live in a space
> quite that small.
>
> A big thing for me would be making sure I had enough space to do
> hospitality -- having people over for game night, pot lucks, lunch,
> dinner, whatever... if I didn't have any space for that, I wouldn't
> do it.

Save the rent differential and use it to rent out a party room someplace
instead? You'd just need to find a tiki hut to rent. ;)

Patrick

[Patrick Haller]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 06:07:42PM -0700, Kyle Mulka wrote:
> But, I AM seriously considering buying a really small car soon:
> http://www.smartusa.com/smart-fortwo-passion.aspx

For use back home? Won't it have problems in the winter? I figure those
cars work great for urban lite usage in places they don't have snow.

Patrick

[Patrick Haller]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 05:38:13PM -0700, Brian Dorsey wrote:
>
> Yes. I would do this if I can. ;)
>
> We've been thinking about how to move into our backyard and rent out
> the house. ;)

Build a bunker. ;)

http://www.tomorrowsthoughtstoday.com/fast/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/bunker.jpg

Patrick

[Kyle Mulka]

For use in Michigan, yes. It's much flatter there, but it does snow a
lot. Thanks to YouTube, you can see the Smart in snow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42sTlMDZbGo

Looks like a lot of fun to me!

You can also read about it. Found this via google:
http://www.mcuniverse.com/Smart-Car-in-Winter.776.0.html

And... they make snow chains!
http://www.smartmadness.com/servlet/the-69/Smart-Car-Snow-Chains/Detail

--
Kyle Mulka
http://www.kylemulka.com

[Patrick Haller]

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 03:53:58AM -0700, Kyle Mulka wrote:
> You can also read about it. Found this via google:
> http://www.mcuniverse.com/Smart-Car-in-Winter.776.0.html

Wow. Counter-intuitive, I'd think the lack of clearance would cause
problems.

Patrick