Teenagers building their own tiny houses.

[montanabill]

Our teenager we have been raising has decided he needs a place to live where he can turn up the volume on his video games and music.
I am interested in he and his friends actually making something they can live in.
So I am paying for the cheapest lumber and some tools and giving a little bit of help as they build some tiny houses.
They are building two eight foot square rooms by nine and a half feet tall (room for a sleeping or storage loft and then a eight by sixteen foot room between the two bedrooms.
They are building everything on concrete pavers so theoretically they could be drug on a car trailer and moved.
Some photos of construction and some of the foam hot tub cover cores I have collected and dried out to use for insulation.

 

[Magpie]

Brilliant - look forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

[old tex]

Honestly I have never seen the advantage of tiny houses for most people. In this case I find them a brilliant idea. Kids learning to build something & getting experience in designing & doing the work themselves. That is going to pay off long term & a lot of ways.

 

[Amish Heart]

Very cool! Keep more photos coming when it's finished

 

[Lenny]

Interesting. He put a lot of thought into it. Please keep us updated. Thanks

 

[Spikedriver]

Ive seen a couple stories about kids building backyard tiny houses. The one turned out very well for less than 2k total and had electricity. The kid's dad was an electrician though so that helped. For them to build their own space to hang out in shows great initiative. I hope it turns out well for them!

 

[joel]

Sounds big for the tiny house I have saw.
However, according to Google it is a tiny house, because it is under 400 square feet floor plan.
So great that teens are using their time to learn a skill & make something useful.
More pics please.

 

[Haertig]

That's a great idea! Kudos to the kids building this and kudos to the adults supporting them. You might want to suggest to them that they paint it well with marine paint or in some other way seal it. That (it appears to be) chipboard paneling does not hold up well when it gets wet.

 

[montanabill]

as far as square feet of on the floor living space it will be about 230 sq foot of floor space not counting lofts.

As for the wafer board not holding up in the rain....yes we will be painting it and installing water collection gutters. With 12 inches of moisture a year and cold and snow things like this cheap wood product hold up for quite a while.
to keep the neighbors and such happy we will be painting and doing contrasting trim or maybe a fake board and batten look. The local reusit store has cheap paint sometimes.

 

[randyt]

I built a tiny home when I was 13 and then again at 19. 12 foot by 16 foot log cabin. Lived in it for a spell

 

[d_marsh]

I think it's a cool idea. I wish them luck.

BTW, I too once lived in a tiny home with brothers. It was made from canvas, was in a desert and everyone had guns.

 

[Weedygarden]

When people were homesteading, they had to have a home in order to prove up on their land. It was common to have a 12 by 12 or 12 by 14 shack for a home, with the idea of building a larger home when they were more settled. Small, crowded, but small enough to keep heated.

My grandmother's sister Mary homesteaded land that my grandparents later purchased from her that became part of their ranch. Grandpa and a hired man built the 12 by 24 tarpaper shack that they lived in for about 8 years, 7 children and 2 parents= nine people. I asked my uncle what happened to aunt Mary's shack? He didn't know. I am reading the book, Journey, A Novel of America, by James M. Vesely. I learned what happened to Aunt Mary's shack. It became the chicken coop, as was a common practice when the bigger home was built.

A number of years ago, I brought up the topic of tiny homes. There was such a negative response to the idea of tiny homes.

There is a podcast that came out recently that said that the average age of a new home buyer is 52 years of age, due to how expensive housing is. Building a tiny house on wheels that could be moved around would be a way to work up to a home on a foundation.

 

[Weedygarden]

 

[elkhound]

theres a youtube channel called my little homestead.....the family let their kids build tiny home/bedrooms to learn and do stuff....they have grown up over the years now and have married and they have become of some of the most interesting and capable young adults on the planet. i would be proud if they were my children.

the son bought an ancient well drilling outfit and got it going and fixed the families well. sadly the dad just recently died....but never fear....mom and adult children continue on.

https://www.youtube.com/@mylittlehomestead

bill i bet this build will do amazing things for the young man.

 

[randyt]

Here is another one small cabins

 

[Supervisor42]

It is great to see boys that want a 'Boy-Cave' actually building one, instead of expecting one to magically appear because 'daddy wrote a check'.
Kudos to @montanabill for passing down responsibility.

 

[Weedygarden]

theres a youtube channel called my little homestead.....the family let their kids build tiny home/bedrooms to learn and do stuff....they have grown up over the years now and have married and they have become of some of the most interesting and capable young adults on the planet. i would be proud if they were my children.

the son bought an ancient well drilling outfit and got it going and fixed the families well. sadly the dad just recently died....but never fear....mom and adult children continue on.

https://www.youtube.com/@mylittlehomestead

bill i bet this build will do amazing things for the young man.

I've been watching My Little Homestead for a number of years. They build with earth bags. They had 4 children and built an earth bag dwelling for each of their children who are all grownup now. They built a studio for technical work and recording. They are currently working on a large shop. The father, Gary, died of cancer in the last year. They used to post videos every Friday night until Gary died, but now post them once a month. They live outside of Tucson, maybe in Cochise County. https://www.youtube.com/@mylittlehomestead/videos

There is another family who I do know that lives in Cochise County who is also building with earth bags. They have 4 children. When the children were younger, they lived solely in an Airstream and traveled, but now live in Arizona.

It is about building with what resources that are available to you where you live. If there are lots of trees, log homes and milled lumber are used. If you live where almost nothing grows, as in areas of Arizona and other places in the south, earth bags work. When people settled on the prairie, they had grasslands and used sod. This is what my great grandparents used when they first moved to South Dakota. Later, they built a home from lumber.

 

[elkhound]

I've been watching My Little Homestead for a number of years. They build with earth bags. They had 4 children and built an earth bag dwelling for each of their children who are all grownup now. They built a studio for technical work and recording. They are currently working on a large shop. The father, Gary, died of cancer in the last year. They used to post videos every Friday night until Gary died, but now post them once a month. They live outside of Tucson, maybe in Cochise County. https://www.youtube.com/@mylittlehomestead/videos

There is another family who I do know that lives in Cochise County who is also building with earth bags. They have 4 children. When the children were younger, they lived solely in an Airstream and traveled, but now live in Arizona.

It is about building with what resources that are available to you where you live. If there are lots of trees, log homes and milled lumber are used. If you live where almost nothing grows, as in areas of Arizona and other places in the south, earth bags work. When people settled on the prairie, they had grasslands and used sod. This is what my great grandparents used when they first moved to South Dakota. Later, they built a home from lumber.

yes..i have watched them from the start....those kids are awesome...now adults...gotta stop calling them kids..they are young adults now...simply awesome humans they are !!

 

[LadyLocust]

When people were homesteading, they had to have a home in order to prove up on their land. It was common to have a 12 by 12 or 12 by 14 shack for a home, with the idea of building a larger home when they were more settled. Small, crowded, but small enough to keep heated.

My grandmother's sister Mary homesteaded land that my grandparents later purchased from her that became part of their ranch. Grandpa and a hired man built the 12 by 24 tarpaper shack that they lived in for about 8 years, 7 children and 2 parents= nine people. I asked my uncle what happened to aunt Mary's shack? He didn't know. I am reading the book, Journey, A Novel of America, by James M. Vesely. I learned what happened to Aunt Mary's shack. It became the chicken coop, as was a common practice when the bigger home was built.

A number of years ago, I brought up the topic of tiny homes. There was such a negative response to the idea of tiny homes.

There is a podcast that came out recently that said that the average age of a new home buyer is 52 years of age, due to how expensive housing is. Building a tiny house on wheels that could be moved around would be a way to work up to a home on a foundation.

That is kinda funny and makes complete sense. When times were lean (WWII era) I know there were chicken coops that were converted into small homes. I knew a couple who lived in one for a short period of time when they were first married.

 

[Weedygarden]

That is kinda funny and makes complete sense. When times were lean (WWII era) I know there were chicken coops that were converted into small homes. I knew a couple who lived in one for a short period of time when they were first married.

There is a community in the Denver area called Sheridan, Colorado. It was pretty rural up until post WW II. I have heard people refer to some of the homes there as chicken coops.

I think people would by a lot, and then would build as they could afford cinder blocks, or whatever they needed. Many of the homes were made from cinder blocks. I have seen some of those homes. Around 15 years ago, Sheridan had a shopping area get re-developed, and the money from the taxes for the city of Sheridan was going to help them become a classier place to live. They had streets that were not paved, no sidewalks in many areas, and just a poor little community.

The city sent inspectors around after that shopping area was developed. They knocked on doors without any notice and said they were city inspectors, there to see the homes. More than 100 of those home were condemned by the city, and probably rightly so. I never saw it, but I heard that the wiring in one of the homes was so bad it was strange that they had never had a fire. I imagine if the city could condemn that many homes, they had to be really rough, built without inspection or building codes way back after the war ended. Just driving down the streets you could see some really pathetic excuses for homes.