The Washington Post recently published a story about a new houseboat company that has run into problems with community resistance. To recap the article–Eric Smith and Douglass Dillard recently started a company to build houseboats intended for the Chesapeake Bay. Their prototype is a 55 foot model called the Annapolis and it isn’t exactly a minimalist shanty. The home includes clerestory windows, flat-screen TVs, a vaulted ceiling, wet bar, rooftop sun deck, and swimming platform.

Unfortunately, in many communities floating homes are perceived as “nothing more than trailer homes on the water”. In addition, Chesapeake had the unfortunate history of a millionaire with a 3-story house atop a barge having ongoing drunken parties on the bay.

When word got out that the couple hoped to establish a neighborhood of floating homes in Chesapeake Bay, the local government sprung into action and forbade any houseboat that: exceeded 46 feet in length, was intended to be used as a house/office, and is not self-propelling.

The builders are now expected to move their prototype within 30 days or they risk daily fines. The full story can be read here.

I am both sad and indignant on their behalf. I wish that mainstream America felt less threatened by innovative solutions to housing. But anything that doesn’t look like the next house they’d want to buy or that might have some remote chance of driving down the value of their property it is to be stopped at all costs.

Never mind that a segment of the U.S. population very well may need innovative housing solutions in the next few years.

I’m beginning to wonder if my ongoing posts of renovation angst are beginning to grow a bit stale. Since that’s where a great deal of my time and energy have been going, I’ve had trouble motivating to write about anything else. But one thing that continues to fascinate me without fail is reading about the creative solutions other small-housers have come up with.

So, while I continue to slog away at making my own place habitable, I plan to post brief write-ups every Friday morning on a variety of other small home examples.

Perhaps one of the most unusual solutions I’ve read about recently is a gentleman who’s decided to live in a seriously modified interior of a garbage truck. I love how he’s cleverly incorporated a sleeping loft, storage cabinets, a kitchen, and a work area into a limited amount of space. Plus, the concept of recycling a garage truck, of all things, makes me grin from ear to ear.

For additional photo and details, you can take a look at the story on ApartmentTherapy.

My contractor Kenny recently mentioned the fact that he could have built me a new home from scratch faster and cheaper than what my little place will require. There are several reasons why that wasn’t an appealing option to me…

To begin with, one of the things that initially drew me to floating homes is the diversity of quirky architecture you find in the Seattle, Portland, and Sausalito communities that sprung up in the 1960’s onward.

Many of the first floating housers were colorful, anti-mainstream characters and you saw this reflected in the homes they created for themselves. Unfortunately, many of these same people were working with extremely limited funds and cobbled together living spaces that were neither durable nor anywhere near land-based building codes. Forty years later, many of these early homes have been torn down for scrap or carted off to landfills.

While my little cottage isn’t likely to appear on a National Trust registry anytime soon, part of its appeal to me was that I could invest my housing dollars into resuscitating one of the increasingly scarce survivors from early American floating home history.

Purchasing my home also allowed me to give new life to existing resources. Not all of the materials that were in the home at the time I purchased it are salvageable, but I’m reusing whatever I can. For example, we were able to rotate most of the large logs in the float, buying another 20 years or so of use rather than chopping down more large trees. I’m trying to ensure that when I replace materials it’s with more energy-efficient and earth-friendly options. I’m also donating materials that might be reuseable by someone else such as the propane stove.

I also liked a lot of the space-saving ideas and lines that were in my little home. I doubt I would have been as creative if I’d had someone draft a place from scratch. Instead, I’m building upon a history of prior homeowners’ innovations and ideas. I like that my home comes with its own prior history. My relationship with my new home is sort of like a midlife marriage. We’re both having to figure out how to adapt to one another’s quirks.

Perhaps the most important factor in my decision to salvage this house, however, was the realization that if I decided to build a new place from scratch, very few of the marina owners or floating home communities with homeowner associations would allow me to build anything under around 2000 square feet. I’m serious about my desire to downsize and didn’t want anything even close to that.

Similar to what you see on land, charming, small floating homes are being torn down and replaced with floating McMansions everywhere you turn. These new houses use every last inch of their slip space and tower two, and even three, stories above the water. Some even go so far as to rent or buy two adjoining slip spaces so they can expand even further. I wouldn’t want anything that big as my regular home but many of these houses are vacation homes. (Who the hell needs a 3,000+ square foot vacation home they use only a few time a year??)

No doubt part of what is feeding in to this phenomenon is the fact that floating home communities are usually situated in highly desirable locations as far as real estate goes. (I mean, you can’t get anymore waterfront, can you?) In addition, because floating homes are viewed as a form of personal property rather than real estate, property taxes are considerably less per square foot than what it would be for the same house on dry land.

Also, floating home slip spaces are now a finite commodity with increasingly rising value. Most cities in the U.S. have passed laws restricting any further expansion on the water. And, as these communities become not only accepted but increasingly trendy with the mainstream (thank you Sleepless in Seattle), real estate developers have sniffed the potential of a profit and started to move into the picture.

A perfect example of this phenomena is the marina next to mine. A real estate developer (responsible for the Anthem community in AZ) and a real estate agent went in on buying the marina that was in need of some TLC. Over the course of a few years the small, older floating homes were all “relocated” (translation: evicted). They are now selling off the slip spaces for $130,000+ a pop—but only to people who have submitted blueprints for homes that are approved by the new owners of the marina. And, as one of the two owners made clear to me, nothing is going to pass that isn’t 3,000+ square feet in size and $300,000+ to build. Apartment Therapy and The Oregonian both recently did stories on this community, if you’re curious.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re beautiful homes with sweeping views of the Columbia River. They’re driving the value of any home within eyesight of their community, including mine, increasingly upwards, even in these rocky times for real estate. But the whole project just gives me the creepy crawlies. I would far rather see the eclectic mix of styles, colors, and sizes you find in historic floating home communities than these homogenized neighborhoods of floating McMansions. Moreover, I have to wonder if my developer neighbor next door looks over into my marina and views it as the next “decrepit shantytown” he’d like to take over. (As his marina was described in The Oregonian piece.) Milk jug planking on the ramps or not, I’m not thrilled at what they’re up to.

I had dreamed of escaping the housing nightmare you see on land but it has followed me to the water. It looks like I may have to settle for the hope that my little home, rebuilt and restored to last another 30+ years, can serve as one, small outpost against the rising tide American real estate rapacity.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures (and ways to avoid work) is browsing through the Apartment Therapy site. I’m a sucker for the gorgeous pictures and and wealth of decorating ideas for small spaces.

I’m especially enjoying their Fourth Annual Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest. If you’ve never seen it before and you’re interested in small-space living, definitely check it out.

In order to enter, your place must be 850 square feet or less. Each entrant is allowed to submit six images of their place, one of which must be a blueprint of the layout. I’m having fun checking out the entries as they come in. The creativity and design sense of the entrants just blows me away.

Maybe, someday I’ll have my place enough together to submit an entry.

Apparently, my little floating home is quirky enough to have drawn some attention from the small / tiny home community.

Kent Griswold is the creator of TinyHouseBlog.com which does a great job of covering various types of architecture that can be used for small housing. Along with your standard timber frame construction, he includes examples of all sorts of groovy things like domes, yurts, and straw bale.

I must confess that I’ve spent more than one afternoon poking through the pictures of different houses whining to myself, “Aww, how come I didn’t think of that?” So I think it’s more than a little neat that my “Floating Folly”, as I’m beginning to think of it, is the most recent TinyHouseBlog write-up.

A lot of the content came from here so don’t expect any shocking new revelations about my life but, if you’re curious, a copy of the story is here.