Issue 3 of the Small Living Journal was just released.  The theme of the issue is “Where We Live” and it consists of a series home tours of where the regular writers in the journal currently live.

What I particularly like about this issue is the range of different solutions you see amongst the writers.  Our houses range from 110 square feet on the low end (Greg Johnson) to 1,800 on the high (Michael Janzen).  We also have everything from a Tumbleweed Tiny house, to a floating home, to an apartment in the city, to a regular house in the suburbs.  I think that what you take away from this issue is what consistutes “small” and what is the appropriate solution for one’s own needs is highly individualistic, but that each of the writers has given quite a bit of thought to their choice.  And, at the heart of things, I think that is what the small home movement is all about.

Check out the latest issue!

I just had to share this lovely little drawing that Rima Staines posted over on The Hermitage this morning.  While I’m not sure I’d like a tiny home that small, I find the drawing utterly charming, like a lot of Rima’s work.

The artist also happens to be a tiny home dweller herself.  She and her partner, Tui, live and travel around the U.K. countryside in an old wooden van they’ve remodeled to look remarkably like a hobbit hole and dubbed The Hermitage.  We have featured their little home previously on Coming Unmoored.

You can follow Rima’s adventures and work over on her wonderful blog, The Hermitage.

Drawing by artist Rima Staines

We launched the next issue of the Small Living Journal a day early since I am the editor of this issue and was heading to Taos today.

This issue is on downsizing and we have included articles from three new participants: Heather from The GreenestDollar; Christina from DeclutterLife, and Jonathan, an educator who’s passionate about what he refers to as “mainstream small”.

Check it out!

Justin Peer lives in London and his dream is to build his own tiny home on wheels for £5,000, using as much recycled, second-hand and found items as possible.  He just wrote me last week to mention his new blog for the project.

“My dream,” Justin writes on his site, “is to own my own house, somewhere in the mountains and to live a life the way I wish to, unencumbered by debt or mortgage, doing a job I enjoy and with the time and money to travel and do other things, such as voluntary work, when I choose to do so.”

“None of us really want to work 48 weeks a year, we’d all ,I’m sure, prefer to work half the year and enjoy the rest of it rather than doing a 9-5. However, putting a roof over our heads is the thing that takes more money than pretty much anything we’ll ever do. A house is, for most people, the single biggest thing they’ll ever buy. Taking a mortgage out means paying many, many times the actual cost of the house to be able to borrow the money over 30 years or so. House prices have gone up to a crazy extent, particularly here in London. If you could take away that mortgage and own your home outright, what else do you have to pay for each month? Bills, food, transport, plus whatever fun things you like to do. Think about how much you earn, and how much you pay in rent/mortgage. Now, imagine what you could do with the extra money not having to make that big payment each month. Imagine what you could do with your life.”

So far Justin has collected a trailer, several reclaimed doors and windows, and some solar panels and batteries for the project.

You can follow the ongoing story of his tiny home being built here.

I am delighted to announce the launch of a new bi-weekly webzine, Small Living Journal, which focuses on the Small Home Movement!

Small Living Journal is the joint project of several writers in the small home movement: Greg Johnson, Kent Griswold, Michael Janzen, Tammy from RowdyKittens, Hillary from ThisTinyHouse, Amanda from Constructing a Simpler Life, and myself. Hopefully we may pick up a few more as we go along.

The initial issue provides an introduction to each of the members of the project and how they arrived at their fascination with tiny homes. The next upcoming issue, on April 8th will focus on downsizing.

Granted, I may be a little biased, but I think it’s worth checking out!   SLJ can also be followed via RSS Feed or Twitter.

Michael Janzen has just published a more detailed version of his free tiny home plan over on his blog, Tiny House Design.  The current version of the plan can be downloaded here.  It also looks like future plans are in the works!

In other news, GreenGigs website listed Coming Unmoored as “One of 10 Green Blogs You Should Be Reading” this week.  The write-up describes this blog as: “A divorcee, a cat, a very small floating house, and some eco-awesome architecture.”

In speaking to the writer, she admitted that the initial description read “a strange-looking cat” but she didn’t want to be offensive.  Either way, I thought her summary was pretty spot-on.

The most common email I receive from readers of Coming Unmoored are questions on where they can find free tiny home plans.  Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there’s not much out there in the way of free plans beyond what you can find in the way of designs for backyard sheds.  And even those seem to be limited.

In a prior article we featured the plans made available to the public by the artist Joseph Kenyon.

While I’m fascinated by the tiny home movement, I have no deep, burning design to draw my own designs beyond figuring out how to best configure the space in my own little place. However, I’ve been following Michael Janzen’s experiments in design over at his blog Tiny House Design. Recently Michael has become an absolute mad scientist when it comes to designing things in Google SketchUp.

Since he seems to have a real passion for design (while I do not), I suggested to Michael awhile back that he’d probably be contributing something of great value to the small home movement if he started making some of his designs publicly available to other small home enthusiasts.

I’m excited to say, Michael posted his first free 8 x 8 foot tiny home blueprint last week.  I encourage you to check it out and keep an eye out for additional plans in the future.

Additionall, f you have any suggestions of other sources for small home plans, we’d love it if you shared them!

Those of you who are interested in earthships might enjoy following Jessica Reeder’s experiences as an intern at Earthship Biotecture.

In August 2008, Jessica sold or gave away most of her possessions and began traveling to learn “about sustainability, organic farming, green building, and ecological innovation.”

Jessica is an engaging writer who’s life seems to be a series of never-ending adventures.  Recently she’s written about her experiences visiting 611 Ecovillage, learning about Phenology (the study of reoccurring natural phenomena), and trying Rideshare as a means to get to Los Angeles.

Jessica has just began completing a month-long internship on earthships in Taos, New Mexico.

You can read her first few posts on earthships and follow her continuing adventure at Uprooted: An Eco-Travel Blog.

Amanda over at Constructing a Simpler Life is one of my favorite writers on the small home movement.  She is currently working on her masters in photojournalism and she was able to talk her thesis advisors into allowing her to focus on people in the small home community.

One of the things I love about Amanda’s interviews is her ability to capture people’s personalities on film, which is something I think a lot of the news stories lack. (The photo in this entry is one of hers.)

A lot of journalists seem so focused on the structures that they miss the personalities behind them.

Amanda also has a talent for getting people to really open up during her interviews.  For example, here’s a quote from Jay Shafer:  “I feel like confessing that I threw a Styrofoam cup away once.”

I strongly encourage you to go check out her interview on Jay along with many others.  (Make sure you also read her post on painstakingly rescuing a mouse she first caught in a glue trap.  That was when I knew without a doubt that she was a kindred spirit.)

Photo by Amanda Abel

Up until now, there hasn’t been much in the way of free home plans for people who are interested in a tiny home on wheels similar to the Tumbleweed Tiny Houses. Due to the generosity of one member of the Small House Movement, it looks like that’s about to change.

Joseph Kenyon has just started the Free House Project and is making available exploded, 3D, and sideview drawings of tiny homes. Several are already available and he intends to continue to significantly expand this site.

Joseph writes: “I don’t get anything at all from designing them and giving them away except the knowledge that I may be helping at least one person out there. I hope you like them and can make use of them.”

Please help get the word out there about Joseph’s site, and if you’re excited about what he’s doing, I suggest sending him a quick note of thanks.

(Drawing from JosephKenyon.com)