The Tiny House Movement

Editor’s note: This article appears in the latest magazine edition of Talk Business & Politics, which you can access online here.

Deep muddy channels, remnants from a recent heavy snowfall, didn’t stop the crew at the construction site at Slabtown Customs in Mountain View. Three custom tiny houses sat on trailers in various stages of completion.

Ever wonder why someone would deliberately sell most of their possessions and move into a home the size of an average bedroom? There are a number of reasons, and it’s creating a movement and a new niche in the construction industry. Tiny houses are even the subject of two television shows.

It’s not uncommon to occasionally hear of someone living in a recreational vehicle or a small cottage, but today’s tiny houses are miniature homes on wheels totaling less than 200 square feet.

Scott Stewart, owner of Slabtown Customs, said he began building something similar to today’s tiny houses about 15 years ago. But in the past five years, he has devoted his construction business mostly to these small homes on wheels.

“Typically we build for people who use them as their primary residences,” Stewart said about the homes his company delivers all over the United States. “Some people choose this because of a financial crisis. But for others, it’s having only what they need and spending their money on enjoying life.”

LIVING MINIMALLY
Ross Beck, operating manager at Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. in Sonoma, Calif., said the average American home is 2,350 square feet, and young people who have never owned a home are looking at the housing market with a different perspective. To many homebuyers, larger houses are no longer affordable.

“Most people under 30, who have gone to college, were around during the housing collapse and no longer see it as a ‘castle,’ and they don’t believe Social Security will be around when they need it, and most are underemployed,” Beck said. “It’s another cycle in our society where we are meeting the need, and tiny houses are the solution to multiple issues in our society.”

Conway residents Blake and Lauren Lensing made the choice to live minimally in their 192-square-foot home in September 2013.

“Most people have to spend their time at a job they don’t particularly like just to pay the mortgage, interest, insurance and property taxes on a house where they never get to be because they are always at work,” Blake Lensing said. “Every time Lauren and I talked about buying a house, it never seemed like the right move for us. It felt like it would be an anvil around our necks.”

Lensing said living in a tiny house forces the couple to examine what’s really important. After downsizing from their 1,500-square-foot home, he said the biggest challenge is keeping their tiny space clean because there’s just nowhere to hide dirt and clutter. But the greatest reward is a simpler lifestyle.

“Material possessions require time and energy to obtain the means to buy them and then to store, maintain and protect them. The cycle of consumption was not fulfilling to us. It never ends,” he said. “It really is like a drug to which you develop a tolerance. When you live your life to consume, no matter how much you have, it’s never enough.”

By decreasing their possessions and financial obligation to a large mortgage payment, the Lensings have attached themselves to building relationships and experiences rather than focusing on their material possessions.

“Life can be as simple or as complicated as you make it,” he said. “We prefer having an uncluttered life and mind.”

ZONING REQUIREMENTS
A few drawbacks to building a tiny house yourself or having one built by a contractor who is not certified to build RVs are getting a loan, getting insurance and finding a place to put it. One of the problems with living in a tiny home is it doesn’t meet the single-family zoning requirements of most cities. It may be difficult to get a permit to build such a small home on a permanent foundation. So the solution to that is to build the home on a trailer instead of a foundation. The disadvantage of building a home on a trailer is the size restriction.

Beck said that building codes and legislation are trying to catch up to this new product that doesn’t seem to fall into a standard category.

“My wife and I talked about living with less and took steps to building a tiny home in downtown Little Rock,” said Michael Orndorff of Michael Orndorff Construction in Little Rock.

Not on wheels, but a foundation, his 269-square-foot, one-bedroom tiny house sits on its own lot just off South Main Street. The Orndorffs don’t live in the house, but they rent it out as a bed and breakfast.

He had to jump through a few hoops with the current building codes, Orndorff said, but the city worked with him, even though there is no classification for a home as small as this one.

“The tiny house is symbolic of having what you can afford and what you can manage,” he said. “You can work your way up. … Tiny houses are good for the environment and, politically, they’re good for the economy.”

“America has its system set up where you can’t build anything different, and the zoning laws prohibit you from building tiny homes next to conventional homes,” said Samuel Pettit of Pettit Contracting in Cabot.

For 38 years, Pettit Contracting has been building homes in the Cabot area. Pettit said he’s been watching his parents construct 2,500-square-foot homes all of his life, but he sees the need to explore building tiny homes, too.

“I’m looking into building tiny homes, and it’s on the drawing board for this year,” Pettit said. “Tiny homes allow you to reduce what you use, reduce your bills and reduce the time normally spent with the upkeep of a conventional American home.”

AS SEEN ON TV
As a contractor who plans to live in a tiny home himself, the question Pettit poses is, “How can we downsize intelligently without compromising our quality of life? How do we give everyone this opportunity? Tiny homes deliver a really cool tiny space with zero waste … We are killing the planet, and construction materials are getting more expensive.”

Stewart and Pettit aren’t the only ones who see the Tiny House Movement as the way of the future. HGTV also realizes the popularity of tiny homes. The network is expanding its “House Hunters” franchise to include a second series, “Tiny House Hunters” that premiered in December, and one of the shows was filmed in Mountain View when a guest on the show was shopping for her tiny house.

“With ‘House Hunters Pop’d’ and ‘Tiny House Hunters’ we’re giving our most popular franchise a fun spin,” said Allison Page, general manager, HGTV and DIY Network. “No one knows better how to slice, dice and expand the ‘House Hunters’ concept than we do.”

The FYI network also filmed an episode of “Tiny House Nation” at Slabtown Customs for clients who wanted a tiny house.

“Tiny homes are humble little dwellings that are a lot easier on the earth, and it puts us back to humanity’s more nomadic roots,” Pettit said.