You’ve probably heard of the All Terrain Vehicle, but have you heard of the All Terrain Cabin?  The All Terrain Cabin or ATC is a concept first conceived by Canadian designers for the express purpose of being a small home.  They cleverly used the standard ISO shipping container as the starting point, and began working to create an impressive looking and functional home that takes up only 480 square feet.

The ATC is very versatile.  It can be transported in a variety of ways ranging from train, truck, ship or even helicopter.  The helicopter option, in particular, means that the All Terrain Cabin is quite literally a cabin that could be placed almost anywhere.  This means that the ATC could be placed in locations that are simply unreachable to its larger, traditional cousins.  Part of the brilliance of the concept is that the ATC can be transported in major ways that parallel how our modern society currently moves goods in this global economy.

Since this is a tiny home that is easily moved and placed, the ATC’s versatility extends beyond the just concept an ISO shipping container.  The longest sidewalls of the ATC actually expand out to give extra living space.  Having one wall drop down, much like a serving tray on an airplane,  accomplishes this clever little feat.  This dropping wall effectively becomes a deck, considerably increasing the space available for users.  The other long wall can expand out much like a camper trailer, which provides even more space.

The ATC concept is dedicated to allowing its owners to take it anywhere.  This means, of course, that they can take it off the grid.  The ATC has a bio-diesel engine that users an inverter to change DC into AC current.  Further, the ATC has taken a very environmentally friendly approach to the treatment of its water usage. and includes a composting toilet and a mechanism for catching and using rain.

So who is behind this slick concept?  The ATC was designed by built by BARK, which is a non-profit out of Vancouver, British Columbia.  The team has already toured their concept around to numerous cities, and if you’re lucky, you might be able to buy one soon.  For more information on this intriguing tiny, modular and easily movable home, just go to www.barkbark.ca.

You may have noticed that in the last few weeks I’m having increasing difficulty trying to keep people advised of new free tiny home plans as they become available.  That’s because a growing number of people have begun to develop their own designs and make them available to the public free of charge.

Not everyone seems to have the aptitude for developing their own construction designs.  (Including yours truly.)  Because of this, the purchase of plans has been one of the more costly points to entry living in a tiny home.  (With possibly only the cost of a trailer, if purchased new, the only thing being higher.)

The growing availability of free plans are a big step toward making small homes accessible to the majority, which makes me very excited.  But it still leaves me with a challenge on how to best communicate this information.  If things continue at the same rate they are currently, Coming Unmoored may start offering a weekly roundup of links to new plans.

Here are a few of the latest to appear:

• 8′ x 16′ Tiny House Plan
• Earthbag House Plans
• New designs added by Joseph Kenyon

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.

Each Friday Coming Unmoored runs a weekly roundup of tiny homes featured on the web and recent news stories that may be of interest to small home enthusiasts.  (Please note: if you would like to submit a link to the weekly roundup, please email it to: Stephanie.Reiley@gmail.com)

Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Tiny Houses Featured in the Past Week:

• Read-Nest
• Will’s Tarleton
• 8 x 16 Free Tiny House Plans
• Earthbag Tiny House Plan
• Caregiver Cottage
• Tiny House Inspiration
• Tiny Garage Conversion
• Little House on a Trailer
• Vivid Green Pavilion
• Coming Unmoored Floating Home (Okay.  I may be a little biased on this one.)
• Sheep Wagons

Recent News Stories on Tiny Homes and the Small Home Movement:

• What’s So Bad About a Cottage? (The Boston Globe)
• Living in a DollHouse (GoLightWeight.com)
• Driving the Tiny Home Movement (Iddictive.com)
• To Save a Venturi House, It is Moved (New York Times)

Would you really like to have a different small home experience?  Are you looking for something that wouldn’t just look different, but would feel different?  You might be interested in a Yurt.

A yurt is an adapted version of a shelter from Central Asia used by nomadic tribes for thousands of years.  The circular, tent-like shape is held into place by tension and compression.  This may sound simple, and on one level it is very simple.  However, this simple and elegant design has a myriad of benefits.  The aerodynamic shape flows around the curved sides of the yurt, and over its domed roof.  The structure of the yurt gives it a great deal of natural strength and thus safety.

The simple yurt has a lot going for it.  The structures are lightweight and inexpensive, yet durable.  The Pacific Yurt Company (out of Oregon) has taken this design to a new level.  Pacific Yurt began setting their yurts up on wood platforms that are supported by a post and beam system.

An additional major design change over the traditional yurt, is that The Pacific Yurt Company has added a lattice wall that runs the circumference of the outer fabric wall.  This lattice system is attached to the rafters and center ring overhead, giving the structure considerable strength.  Part of what makes the yurt such an attractive concept is its extremely minimal impact on its environment.

The pricing on yurt’s from Pacific Yurt is extremely competitive and is a true contender for those on a budget.  A 115 sq. ft. 12 foot diameter model cost about $4,500, and the largest 700 sq. ft. model cost about $9,800 dollars.  There are six different sizes in all.

This is definitely a different approach in small homes, and there is no denying it has an impressive price point.  The yurt has some additional benefits that one may not find in other inexpensive small homes, such as lots of headroom.  Some of the larger yurts have ceilings as high as 13 feet. Additionally,  all units have skylights.  The Pacific Yurt website www.yurts.com has a nice photo gallery that even shows several yurts linked together to form a very unique looking “yurt collective.” 

The small home movement is all about re-imagining what is possible concerning how we live.  The ancient yurt may fit in very well in our modern world.

In researching possible options for remodeling the kitchen in my small house, I came across Fagor’s CX-5 Cooking Center.

This integrated kitchen unit is only 50 inches wide and is designed to be integated with either a 27″ radiant or gas cooktop.  In addition, it features a stainless steel exterior, two large-capacity side drawers, and a central drawer for storage.  While this is probably a little too industrial-looking for my tastes, I can easily see this working well in a home with limited kitchen space.

I especially liked the design of Fagor’s matching stacked, stainless steel dishwasher which has modules to store tableware, flatware, and cutlery.  I wish more appliance manufacturers offered designs like this.

There is also a 24″ wide, 24″ deep, stainless steel refrigerator with freezer on the bottom to complete the look and efficient use of kitchen space.

Hopefully these designs might provide food for thought for those of you out there designing your own small kitchens.

Some ideas just immediately strike you as being great ones.  This is the case with GreenPods modular homes.  These homes just have a “cool factor” that is missing in many small homes.  GreenPods are very similar to what their name indicates.  They are small homes (the “pod” in the name) that are very focused on being green (the “green” in the GreenPod name).

The GreenPod vision is to build energy effective homes that have an eye on indoor air quality as well.  Considering indoor air quality as a major factor in determining design is a very refreshing development.  Medical science is discovering that indoor air quality, while always deemed important, is actually vital to our health.  The degassing from all sorts of building materials, such as carpet, is toxic to humans.  The GreenPod concept treats this seriously, and should be commended for doing so.

Not surprisingly the GreenPod concept also factors in sustainability and strives to keep the homes environmental footprint low.  The GreenPod team is working with designer Suzanne DeVail, who has produced numerous organic, anti-microbial fabrics specifically for use in GreenPod homes.

The Washington state based GreenPod company has small homes that range from as small as 300 feet to as large as 800 square feet.  GreenPod notes that it is possible to combine more than one POD into a larger home.  There SoloPODS come in eleven different designs, each with their own character.  The smallest is the Lopez at 372 square feet and a cost of around $60,000. The largest models is called the Orcas, and has a distinctive barrel roof.  The Orcas is 744 square feet and costs about a $175,000.

Another interesting model, the Ludlow, is $95,000 and is about 731 square feet.  The Ludlow is a really interesting option for those looking for a green small home that it has a great looking design. This model has lots of light exposure and a very competitive price.  If you really want light exposure, check out their Mercer Pod, which has a very grand look that comes across well beyond its 650 square feet.

Perhaps most interesting of all of GreenPods offerings is the Floating Pods.  These Pods are constructed in conjunction with P & T Fabrications and definitely have that cool factor.  The Floating Pods incorporate the design characteristics of the SoloPODS but, well, they float!

GreenPod is creating some impressive homes with some truly impressive interiors.  Their combination of design and focus being green, make them a true contender for anyone thing about buying a tiny or modular home.  There website is loaded with great photos and more information.  www.greenpoddevelopment.com

Much to my delight, my copy of Jay Shafer’s new release, The Small House Book, showed up in my mailbox two days after I ordered my copy from TinyHouseBlog.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering the aethetics of the author, but The Small House Book is diminutive in size and stunning visually.  It is packed full of glossy, full-color pictures of Shafer’s designs and examples of small architecture.

For anyone who’s familiar with Shafer’s earlier three-volume release of The Small House book, some of the original material is included in the new release but there is also a bunch of new information, much of which is the same information Shafer covers in his two weekend workshops.  This is especially true of his design workshop.  If you are thinking of building your own tiny house and you’re not going to be able to attend one of his workshops, I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of the book and also the construction DVD I hear Tumbleweed is currently developing.
What I appreciate the most in Shafer’s new edition is the expanded section on his thinking about where we are currently as a society in terms of housing and neighborhood design, and what more modest architecture might be able to offer as solutions.  I also appreciate now having a collection of Shafer’s work in one, concise volume (rather than the three prior volumes, a separate portfolio of his homes, handouts from his workshops, and a bunch of print-outs from his website).

While I didn’t mind paying the $37 price tag for a 196 page book, I could see this being an issue for some purchasers.  Especially considering the book is only 7 x 7 inches and 197 pages. No doubt, the many color pictures in the book drove production costs up quite a bit.  One thing I think the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company might want to consider is offering a second, lower-cost black-and-white edition of the book which any pictures that aren’t needed to support the text.  (Or possibly even a PDF or E-book version that could be downloaded from their website.)  Considering many of the readers may already be familiar with Shafer’s work, I suspect many would be willing to forgo the photographs for a lower cover price.  However, with Shafer’s unrelenting standards toward beauty, I have no idea if he’d be willing to consider such a thing.

I also found myself wishing there had been several more chapters on Shafer’s thoughts and experiences with tiny architecture.  I can pretty much guarantee that should he ever publish a longer book on tiny homes, I’ll be the first one in line when it’s released.

All in all, though, The Small House book is a lovely volume and a great addition to the small home literature.

In the interest of time, I’ll go ahead and freely admit that, no, I do not have any children, and, yes, I tend to treat my 1 1/2-year-old Balinses cat, Rumi, like the spoiled only-child I never had.  The one time he was in any kind of jeopardy, I pretty much lost my mind.  I fully embrace my status as a Crazy Cat Lady and have already been given the appropriate action figure by friends, so let’s just move past these points and continue on to the subject at hand…

Rumi has been raised entirely indoors and has less survival instincts than an developmentally-delayed lemming.  Moreover, when they were handing out the feline attributes of agility and grace, I think he was busy going back through the line for a second helping of caterwauling, because he’s the most clumsy cat I’ve ever met.  My cat has been witnessed by more than one friend tripping over a line in a tile floor.  He also thinks that his monthly “bath”–in which I wipe him down with a washcloth moistened with a spray-on cat dry bath solution–is the worst conceivable thing that could ever possibly happen to him.  There’s wailing and mock fainting fits for hours afterward.

All of these factors combined makes me more than a little nervous that I’m about to move Rumi into a tiny floating home which is surrounded by the Colombia River on all sides.  I was very careful that when I had new windows installed in the place to order ones with built in screens.  But there’s still the possibility that he might one day try to sneak out either the front or back door when they’re open.  And when that happens, I worry about him ending up in the water.

In preparation for moving him up to Portland, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about how liveaboard sailers manage the safety of their pets.  Many sailboat owners with cats will leave a towel or rope ladder draped over the side of their ship.  That way, if a cat falls overboard, they have something to help pull themselves back on board.  Unfortunately, my cat has no front claws and I’m not sure he has the agility to manage a rope ladder.  (Although, I’ll may put them out front and back just the same if they don’t present the risk of trapping detritus from the river.  I need to do more research on that point.)

I’ve been hunting for some sort of sensor that could be attached to Rumi’s collar that would emit an alarm should it ever come in contact with water.  If anyone knows of a device like this for pets, please let me know because, so far, I haven’t had much luck finding one.  The closest thing I’ve found so far are wristbands intended for children that are listed as weighing a pound.  That seems like it might be overkill for my seven pound cat even for an over-protective cat mother like me.  (Admittedly, wearing something that heavy would certainly slow him down a bit in a mad dash for freedom.  But once the little bugger hit water, I could just see him drowning from the damn thing.)

I’ve also thought about trying to set up some sort of sonic fence over the two doors to try to encourage Rumi to stay inside.  I’m not thrilled at the idea of zapping my cat anytime he gets too close.  Especially as slow as he is when it comes to learning what he’s not supposed to do.  But I may end up setting one up.

So far, the thing I find that comes the closest to addressing my concerns of trying to prevent my precious baby from drowning pet life preservers.  Yes, they do in fact make them for both dogs and cats.  I’m not the only over-protective pet parent out there.  I’m just not sure it’s practical to have my cat spend the rest of his life wearing one as a safety precaution in case me might someday get out and fall in. I could however, see making him wear one if I ever let him come outside on a leash.

In case this information might be useful for someone else, I’ve listed several suppliers of pet life preservers below:

• Safe Lifejackets
• Critters Inflatable Pet Preservers
• VKR Pets
• Pet Street Mall

Long story short, I’m still researching and considering my options on keeping my baby safe.  If you have any ideas on how to keep Rumi safe on the water, I’d love to hear them!

(And yes, for the gang in Tucson, if I get a life vest for Rumi, I’ll make sure to post pictures.)

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.