Beginning in Winter of 2013, my husband Brian and I began the process of building an off the grid tiny house on our homestead, from scratch. While the infrastructure creation process is far from over (we still are living without running water), I wanted to put all of our posts about building a tiny house in one place, so anyone interested in small-scale construction could follow our process from beginning to end. We initially intended to build a tiny house that would transition into a guest space or office, but once we completed our 350 square foot home we realized that a) we did not have the funds or energy to immediately launch into another building process (our kids were 2 and 5 when … [Read more...]
Living in a Tiny House with Kids
Although tiny houses are often viewed as ideal dwellings for singles or couples, there are many families living in tiny houses with kids. Ours is one of them. We have lived in a 350 square foot house with two children, now ages 5 and 8, for three years. Living in a tiny house with kids has its pros and cons, and I'll tell you honestly that there are days that I adore living in our tiny home, and days that I dream of the addition we may someday build. Living in a tiny house with kids requires an extraordinary amount of creativity, patience, flexibility, and organization. Kids are natural collectors, and love to display their collections prominently. They are also blessed with incredible … [Read more...]
Building an Outdoor Pizza Oven
One of the most exciting projects we have completed on our homestead this summer was building an outdoor pizza oven. Years ago in Oregon, my husband Brian built an amazing brick bread oven, following Alan Scott's plans detailed in the book The Bread Builders. The oven was huge - he could bake 20+ loaves of bread at a time - and it was so well insulated that it held heat for days. Brian ran a "Community Supported Bakery" for almost 9 years, selling organic, artisan sourdough bread baked that he baked in his wood-fired oven to friends and neighbors. When we began creating our off the grid homestead, we knew that we wanted to include an outdoor bread and pizza oven. But another Alan … [Read more...]
Three Reasons to Build a Tiny House
Tiny houses have emerged as an extremely popular alternative to modern “McMansions,” and as a way to create shelter that is affordable, sometimes portable, and eco-friendly. We have spent the last two years building our 350 square foot home. And while I’ll be the first to tout the benefits of going tiny, I’ll also admit this: We never set out to build a tiny house. Even so, it was a great decision for our family, and in this post, I will share with you my top three reasons to build a tiny house. When we moved to NE Missouri in 2011, one of the aspects of living in this rural community that most excited us was the opportunity to build our own home, in a county that has very … [Read more...]
Tiny House Tour :: Part One
One thing I love about blogging is receiving emails from people who are following their own radical homestead path. Frequently, the questions I receive are related to building and living in a tiny house, particularly an off-grid tiny house. Often I get asked for photos or a tour of our tiny house interior. If you've been following along for a while, you know that my husband built our 350 square foot home. (If you're new to Homestead Honey, please check out this category for posts that I've shared as we've built.) With hardwood floors in place, bookshelves neatly dividing the living room from the bedroom, and windows freshly washed, it seemed like the perfect time to take you on a video … [Read more...]
Building a Tiny House :: Flooring
There are many cliched bits of advice you come across when building a house: - "Build a house, lose a spouse" - "Everything will take twice as long and cost twice as much" -"Don't move in until you've finished your house, otherwise it will never get done" Well, I'm pleased to report that Brian and I are still happily married to one another, and we actually have stayed well within our house's budget. However, I can absolutely attest that everything DOES take twice as long to build, especially when balancing building with homeschooling two young children and attending to other homestead chores. And more importantly, it is extremely challenging to work on a house while living in … [Read more...]
A Homestead Pantry
A few weeks ago, I shared a photo of our custom pantry-in-progress on Instagram. What a flurry of excitement it generated. And it should! In my mind, a well-organized, well-stocked, and beautiful homestead pantry is one of the best ways to store and easily access whole foods and canned goods. Plus, for our tiny 350 square foot house, it is essential that we are using every inch of space wisely and efficiently. Little by little, my carpentry genius husband Brian is creating these gorgeous, efficient spaces, and our tiny house is starting to look as divine on the inside as it always has on the outside. Details like tile flooring, a mudroom shoe cubby, plaster on the walls of the mudroom, … [Read more...]
Less Is More: The Tiny House Movement
Welcome! If you're looking for information about building a tiny house, or a real-life example of the tiny house movement in action, you've come to the right place! We live on a completely off-grid homestead in NE Missouri with our two young children, and our 350 square foot tiny house was built by my husband over the course of a year and a half. I've shared the process of building our homestead from scratch on this blog. A few of my most popular posts about our tiny house experience are: Why Build a Tiny House How Much Does it Cost to Build a Tiny House Tiny House Tour :: Living Room and Bedroom and the Building a Tiny House series: Building a Tiny House Framing, Windows, and … [Read more...]
A Homestead Shed
This spring we needed to move all of our belongings out of a 24x36 storage shed and onto our land. While this was great motivation to get everything we owned in one place, it was also a bit daunting, as we had not a square foot of storage space! Brian quickly began work on a 100 square foot tool/storage shed. The construction of the shed itself is really interesting - he hand-hewed off-cut black walnut limbs into square posts that created the shed's support. We purchased some newly milled local lumber from the Amish and a new metal roof that is used to collect 200 gallons of rainwater. The floor, loft and siding were constructed with reclaimed plywood that was literally lying on the side … [Read more...]
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