Small house plans, little house plans, anything to do with residential architecture seems to resonate with me. Perhaps that’s why I named my blog “Little House in the Valley.” However, recently our little rental house in the valley has been the bane of my existence. How’s that? I run into door ways while turning a corner, I trip over  the vacuum that someone’s left in the hallway, I have to leap over hall fans that are placed in our narrow hallways to generate some air flow; all of a sudden our little rental house seems just too little.

But I’m not going to let a poorly designed, 1950’s ranch style house deter me from my dream of a little-not-so-mcmansion kind of house. There are a plethora of options out there, especially if you’re a DIY type of person. I’ve found plenty of prefab designs to drool over, yet one has recently struck a chord with my little house dream: Blu Homes. Not only do their prefab homes start at a reasonable price, they are environmentally friendly, and have open floor plans. Their four initial designs range in size from 408 sq. ft. to over 1,500 sq. ft. (still somewhat small compared to modern-day homes.) The basic floor plan that all four designs include is an open design incorporating the living/dining/kitchen area. No need for walls separating out each room making it compartmentalized, Blu Homes opens up the “living” area for a more natural flow of traffic. A few reasons why an open floor plan appeals to me:

• Increased air flow. This is important considering I own pets and my husband is a smoker. The dust, smoke, and pet smell is easily trapped in smaller rooms, but diluted in larger areas (not so sure this is any safer, but it’s less smelly!)
• Furniture options are innumerable. Instead of worrying about wall placement, or too much wall space, furniture can be moved to the center of the living space giving each area it’s own function, while at the same time, keeping foot-traffic flowing.
• No more running into doorways or tripping through narrow halls. The days of the long, narrow hall are disappearing in modern home plans. Yet, they still do exist. That wasted space isn’t needed in a living area, there’s no need to separate the living room from the dining room or kitchen. An open floor plan makes better use of available space without clouding it up with hallways.

Blu Homes Element two-bedroom floor plan

Blu Homes smaller plan, the  two-bedroom Element, is one of my favorite plans. The only thing I’d add would be a kitchen bar or island for seating 2-4 people, an option available in two of their larger plans. The open floor plan in the living area allows endless possibilities for furniture arrangement and foot-traffic. No more running into doorways!

Does your home have an open floor plan? Are there drawbacks to an open floor plan?

Eco-Cottage

Though I’ve made a decision to continue renting for a while, I continue to research all of my future home options. To back track a bit, a couple reasons purchasing a home has been put on hold: 1.) I’m not sure where I want to live. After camping around the town of Ojai last weekend and bicycling around the small town, my husband and I fell in love with the area all over again. But we’re just not ready to take the plunge and live in a city of under 10,000 people. 2.) Our down payment savings fund is a bit down. We haven’t been able to save as much as we had hoped for a down payment at this point in time. Though I’m not discouraged, we are still looking at home ownership as our next big financial goal. I still need to pay off my crummy line of credit before we make this move, however and this gives me time to do so. 3.) We’d really like to purchase a home in a decent neighborhood or build our own eco-friendly one. The  homes in our current neighborhood are within our price range or a little higher, but we really don’t like the area and don’t want to commit to living here another 5-10 years. Hence, renting a while longer may give us the opportunity to hunt down a nicer neighborhood or move out of the area all together.

So, here are just a few more eco-friendly, small kit-home plans for your (and my) enjoyment:

• Modern-Shed: A while back I looked into the possibility of living in a Tuff-Shed as a means to purchasing land and living off it inexpensively until we could build our dream home. Modern-Shed could be just another alternative to our plan (or the entire plan itself!). What’s even more exciting, their located in Los Angeles. Their models range from small office sized containers to full living quarters that are just under 650 sq. ft. Pricing is quite reasonable starting at $11,200 up to $81,000 for the larger model.
• Eco-Cottages: Most of the content on their site tout these homes as great second homes or vacation homes. However, I don’t see why they couldn’t function as a full time residence, except for the smaller square feet which many people would find too cramped. I especially like their slide show showing illustrations of all their models. Too bad they aren’t actual cottage photos. Price ranges from $37,000 to $69,000.

Perhaps putting off my dream of owning my own little house in the valley isn’t such a bad idea. Every week I find another amazing prefab, ecofriendly house that I love!

Worldly Rent to Own Quick Statistics:

• United States: US ownership is just under 65% versus renting at 21% (per BestPlaces.net). I’m going to assume the missing percent are kids living with parents? Or alternative living arrangements like living in an RV, a house boat, or being an urban nomad.
• Los Angeles: home ownership is at 37% where as renting is at 59% (not surprising!)
• Based on NationMaster statistics, many Europeans own their homes versus rent averaging out to about 63%. (I was surprised by this one. I was under the impression many people rented.)

Mini-Yakezie rolled into one:

• 20’s Money with Black Swans Circling. Not the most uplifting post, but perhaps on target. I’m a “glass is half full” type of gal, so I look at things with a silver lining. The euro tanking means planning a trip to Europe may be on the horizon, the Gulf oil spill may mean our government may finally start moving our economy away from oil (or we could begin doing this ourselves, ride your bike!). You get my point!
• Deliver Away Debt with Focus on the Debt Snowball. A great strategy to pay off debt. Remember my crummy line of credit? I’m using this theory to get the stinker paid off!
• Out of Debt with Why My Credit Score is Important to Me. My score is important to me, so I understand Mrs. Accountability and her quest for a better score, whether it’s for refinancing purposes or first-time buyer purposes, the lower the APR the more you save on finance charges!

As I continue my research on alternative housing ideas, I find that they are so many more options that I could ever imagine. One of my favorite ideas for new housing is using recycled materials, like Phoenix Commotion. To summarize my three-part series on alternative housing ideas, below is a list of topics I’ve been focusing on:

• Topic 1: Converting old buildings, such as train depots, post offices, and even grain silos into a house.; I like the idea of repurposing an old building and making it livable. The silo idea is fascinating, too bad there aren’t many in my area.
• Topic 2: Container houses; I’ve come across this topic a few times while looking at prefab houses. I think there are some great plans out there.
• Topic 3: Building homes out of recycled materials; I’ve posted about this before, Phoenix Commotion is just one company that builds homes out of recycled materials for a very low cost. I really like the idea of incorporating recycled materials in a home.

Topic 3 – Recycled Residences; building homes using lightly used materials

I first came across this idea through Treehugger.com, they featured a small company called Phoenix Commotion. Phoenix Commotion was building houses for low-income families out of the most unusual materials, all of which were salvaged. What really caught my eye while scanning the article’s photographs was one particular wall made from the bottoms of glass wine bottles. I thought it was a most creative way to reuse old glass bottles and this got me thinking: Instead of throwing away our glass bottles, mason jars, windows, or old lumber, why not donate them for projects such as these? Apparently I’m not the only one to think this represents the meaning of reuse, recycle, reduce.

Here are just a few other amazing ideas that fall into the recycled residences theme:

• Use recycled materials to build your dream home: Eliminate the Muda posted not long ago about retiring in Detroit. Not because the city is a haven for retirees, but because the housing market is so affordable (you can still find homes for under $20,000!). But what if instead of moving there, you purchased a home then moved it to a new location? Or, purchased a deteriorating home, then used the lumber and windows for a recycled residence some place else? It could work with some creativity and hard work. *On a side note,  I’m not saying everyone should move historic homes out of the city or that the city is uninhabitable. I don’t want to cause more harm to a city that is already struggling.
• Build a Cob Home: I posted about cob homes before, when one young man spent over a year making and building his home out of straw, sand, and clay. However, there is an entire site dedicated to these types of homes. Cob homes look a little like the hobbit homes in Lord of the Rings, they are made of natural materials and are hand shaped, many in circular patterns versus today’s standard rectangular shaped house. They are durable, completely environmentally friendly, and requires no heavy machinery.
• Build a Paper House: This may seem like a ridiculous idea, just think what would have happened to the three little pigs had the third pig built a paper house! However, technology has changed the idea of paper into a more durable structure, especially when it’s shaped in the style of a honeycomb and is as thick as cardboard. Inhabitat featured a durable wall house last year that is literally made out of recycled paper. For under $5,000 an inexpensive dwelling can be built to withstand generations of use.

Summary

So many choices for homes exist today. Luckily, I have some time before I purchase or build my own little house. With an endless supply of creativity for reusing and recycling materials, perhaps my home will include some of these features. I live for the day when I can describe and showcase it! Until then, I can drool over these seemingly abundant ideas.

Would you be open to building a home out of recycled materials? What about cob?

Following up on my Recycled Houses… post, my focus today is on container living, or topic 2. There are so many alternative housing choices today that I find fascinating.  Especially since I’m on a budget, my quest for my own little house may end up being one that follows an unconventional path. Here are my three topics that I’m covering in detail:

• Topic 1: Converting old buildings, such as train depots, post offices, and even grain silos into a house.; I like the idea of repurposing an old building and making it livable. The silo idea is fascinating, too bad there aren’t many in my area.
• Topic 2: Container houses; I’ve come across this topic a few times while looking at prefab houses. I think there are some great plans out there.
• Topic 3: Building homes out of recycled materials; I’ve posted about this before, Phoenix Commotion is just one company that builds homes out of recycled materials for a very low cost. I really like the idea of incorporating recycled materials in a home.

Container Living (photo from Jetson on Green)

Topic 2 – Container Living; Reusing, Recycling, Reducing

You see them chugging along the train tracks, large Maersk containers carting all our crap, I mean stuff, to places like Walmart and Target; large silver, red, and blue cargo containers filled to the brim. But what happens to these containers when they’re empty? Often times, they’re shipped back to where they came from, usually China. Is that cost-effective though? Shipping large, empty metal containers back on a barge clear across the world? What if instead we found a way to repurpose these containers that didn’t take as much energy as it does to ship them across the ocean? A few companies were obviously thinking this same way. On my search through Google, there was a plethora of information and photos, here is just a taste of what can be done with an empty shipping container:

• Individual homes: Instant Built House (whose website it under development, unfortunately) is creating individual container homes for temporary housing purposes. According to some statistics, 250 million containers exist in the world and 5% (that’s 12.5 million!) are idling sitting around collecting cob-webs. This particular company is turning these unused containers into beautiful homes. Jetson on Green posted about this a few years ago, click here to view photos and his article.
• Mother-in-Law homes: Your parents may be getting older and their house is just too cumbersome for them to take care of in their golden years. They begin thinking about mobile homes or perhaps they’ve hinted to you they’d like a small guest house in the back corner of your yard. For around $2,000 for the container (whoa…completely doable!) and a little help from an architect, you can design a terrific home that your parents (or you) can live in. Quik Build, located in New Jersey, can help you design and build your container home. (You can also download a PDF file from their site that details the design package and average price, which is under $200K)  Green Living Ideas have some fabulous interior photos of container homes.
• Apartment Living: Are you adventurous? Do you want to live in something unusual, or different? A Container City might just be for you! Stacking multiple containers together, work, office, and living space has been created in various areas of  London, England.

Would people call your house style boxy? Well, yes. But the concept behind reusing already constructed materials is something more people should investigate. For more information on container living, check out the Web Urbanist.

Would you consider living in a shipping container? Do these designs inspire you to think “outside the box?”

On my quest to become a homeowner, I’ve been doing research on ways to save money on purchasing a home. One way is to buy land then build something affordable. However, I’m coming across many other terrific alternatives to a traditional home. Here are just a few ideas I’ve researched. Today I’m describing topic 1 (as I’m short on time!):

• Topic 1: Converting old buildings, such as train depots, post offices, and even grain silos into a house.; I like the idea of repurposing an old building and making it livable. The silo idea is fascinating, too bad there aren’t many in my area.
• Topic 2: Container houses; I’ve come across this topic a few times while looking at prefab houses. I think there are some great plans out there.
• Topic 3: Building homes out of recycled materials; I’ve posted about this before, Phoenix Commotion is just one company that builds homes out of recycled materials for a very low cost. I really like the idea of incorporating recycled materials in a home.

Topic 1 – Building Conversions: From Train Depots to Silos

What happens to old buildings once they’ve served their purpose? Many times they are torn down or condemned after years of neglect. But what if instead of neglecting these sturdy buildings, people converted them into livable dwellings? That’s just what some people are doing. In Paintsville, KY one woman took on the challenge of restoring the old town post office and turning it into a show piece of a home. The old post office building, purchased for $162,000, went through a metamorphosis of change. The exterior still resembles a post office, with heavy brick and stone facades with the etched “Post Office” sign above the front door. However, the interior is a beautiful combination of old and new and resembles a home floor plan. To read the entire article detailing her journey, click here.

Post Office Home - photos by This Old House

I’ve always been curious about train stations; people moving to and fro, why tracks were even laid in certain places and not others. Many train stations have detailed stories associated with them that tell something about the town, usually their quirks, history, and how the town came to be. While researching train station renovations, I came across a terrific site that lists many train stations (or train depots) that have been converted into livable dwellings; Escape Artists. Most of the stations listed are located in England (They even list two that are currently for sale in Europe), but the site lists some specific things to think about before purchasing a train station such as is the track still in use? I would have never thought about this! Apparently it may not make much of a difference in terms of being able to purchase and convert the station, yet I can see some people not being able to handle the noise or vibrations. Safety would also be an issue for families with small children.

Dent Train Station Home - England

And finally, converting grain silo’s into houses shows true dedication to repurposing a building. According to one site, Mother Earth News, grain silos can start at about $7,000 (quite reasonable..I might be able to afford this option!). Some amazing stories and photos can be found on this page of many people find other purposes for their empty grain bins.

Grain Bin Homes - photos by Mother Earth News

I’ll post about topic 2: Container Homes in the next day or so….stay tuned!

Do you live in an unusual residence? Has it saved you money in the long run, or did it cost more converting it into your abode?