Keeping up with the Joneses - We never knew them!

I was tagged by 101 Centavos to take part in the “7 Links Project“. This project highlights 7 of my past posts that directly relate to the following 7 questions, sort of a “blast from the past” type project.  Trip Base initiated this project with the intention of uniting bloggers and bringing to light old posts that may have not gotten as much attention due to the blog’s infancy at the time of posting. Without further adieu, I’ll address each of the 7 categories below.

Your most popular post - It may come as no surprise to anyone that my most popular post happens to be Little House Plans I Adore. This post’s popularity has a lot to do with the fact that the first 3 words of the post match my blog’s name and tag line, hence this post appears on the first page of a Google search when someone types in “little house plans.”  No surprise here.

A post whose success surprised you – What is surprising is that people are searching for Tuff Shed house plans. I guess that’s why Tuff Sheds as Living Space? post is surprisingly popular. I’m not the only person who has seen a Tuff Shed and thought, “I bet I can live in that!”

The post that you are most proud of - I have a couple of posts that I wrote early on that I’m proud of, but the one I’m most proud of is Who are the Real “Joneses”? I wrote this post after I read The Millionaire Next Door. I poked around the web investigating where the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” came from and found out it originated from a 1920′s cartoon. The irony is that the cartoon’s main characters never see their neighbor’s, the Joneses, but they try and out-spend them. How ironic.

Your most beautiful post - I don’t know if I would describe any of my posts as beautiful, but I guess my most “beautiful” post per se is Lose the Lawn, Save Money. I learned a lot about gardening and lawns while living in our last rental house. I know that when I finally do purchase my own little house, I’ll go small on the lawn and big on the drought-tolerant local flora and fauna.

Your most helpful post - I was working on a series of helpful posts (and still am), but the one I think was most helpful, I hope, was Savings Account Non-Existent? Try a New Approach. It was a problem/solution style of post that clearly defined finding the problem and creating a step-by-step plan to solve it.

Your most controversial Post - This happens to be a post I didn’t write. It was a guest post I hosted, Is Owning Your House Outright a Bad Idea? It just happened to get picked up by The Consumerist and many of the comments were down right opposed to the ideas presented in this article. All I can say is it’s good to look at both sides of an argument and weigh them equally.

A post that didn’t get the attention it deserved – Selling the American Dream is by far my favorite post that didn’t get the attention it deserved. I wrote this post one month into my blogging endeavors and was truly inspired by what I was seeing every night through Netflix; main characters barely employed and living in some McMansion in an expensive city. This is propaganda at it’s worst.

As part of the 7 Links Project, I have nominated the following bloggers:

• Afford Anything
• Life and My Finances
• Mom Vesting
• The Penny Frugalista
• Ultimate Money Blog

It was refreshing revisiting these posts through this project. I’ve written over 500 posts in 2 years and have forgotten some of what I’ve written. I’ll have to go through my posts more often.

Tumbleweed Tiny Houses on Sale

I’m engrossed in little house plans and have done extensive research in my quest for the perfect little house. Though I’ve found lots of options for small and tiny house plans, Tumbleweed Tiny House Company is still one of my favorites. Many of their homes can be built on a trailer and offer excellent space utilization. They also have small, stationery homes as well that require a foundation. Now, fitting a family of 4 into one of these homes may be a stretch.  Their homes are meant to comfortably fit one to two people; say a single person or empty-nesters who are ready to downsize and be more mobile. I also just wrote a post about how inflation over 40-years has really modified the “American Dream” and maybe it’s time to think outside the suburban track-home.

For those ready to make a move and go small, Tumbleweed is having a sale on one of their tiny house plans, the Popomo, until the end of this month. This mobile style home appears to be one of their easier to build homes. It’s basic structure is a rectangle and estimated cost to build is $20,000. This home is also one they have actual photos of inside and out. By the looks of it, it’s quite modern and can easily be pulled by a full-size truck. Ready to make your move?

Now, for some weekly reads:

• Money Beagle shares his debt perspective over the past four-years. He’s been doing a terrific job paying off their student loans.
• Bucksome Boomer with Should Retirement Include Living Apart from Spouse? I can’t imagine living apart from my husband, but the couples discussed in this post had very different views of retirement. For some, this works, but I can see where it wouldn’t work for all. Interesting topic.
• The Squirrelers with Gift Cards: Hurry up and Use Them! Not all gift cards are created equal. Some expire, some stores close, and sometimes the vendor who sells the gift card has no affiliation with the gift card store. Beware gift card users!
• Mighty Bargain Hunter with Netflix is still Cheap! I agree. Even with their price increase and change in plans I’m still a Netflix subscriber and have been for years. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.
• Mom’s Plans with I Closed My eBay Store. Melissa’s been working on decreasing her inventory and closing out that store and she finally did it.

Recycled House by DRW

I love writing about little house plans, or residential architecture in general. Yet it takes some research, on my part, to find new home designs, links to great sites, and then time for me to organize my thoughts into legible paragraphs. I keep thinking that I’ll set aside one day a week for house plan posts, but with my limited amount of time, this isn’t going to happen any time soon.

But with that being said, I did find time this week to research some ecofriendly house designs that I thought were interesting.

• Circular home designs - Deltec Homes: I’ve never been a big fan of octagonal or circular homes. I just didn’t understand the purpose to them. However, I found the Deltec site that explains it. In so many words, the point of them being there are no “load-bearing” interior walls allowing for just about any floor plan layout. Their roof acts as the supporting beams, so the modifications to the interior are endless. I can see this being a huge factor if one wants a very open floor plan. The only drawback I see to circular homes is that many of the walls are curved. This would drive me crazy placing furniture against them.
• Passive Solar Designs – The Plan Collection: Passive solar is a up and coming word these days. Basically, if you design the house with enough light and windows pointing in just the right direction, you can heat your house naturally. This would save money on your gas bill during the fall and winter months. Though, I would worry about the summer months in warmer regions, like say, Arizona! You don’t want your house acting as a sauna.
• More Passive Solar Designs - SunTerra: I like the fact that SunTerra explains the point of a passive solar home and includes the importance of overhangs for shade. They also calculate how much money could be saved on heating a house passively, approximately 1/3 overall. Their home plans include explanations of how each home’s architecture reinforces green building ideas such as a zero energy home and an earth sheltered home. I also learned the purpose of a flatter pitched roof:  it decreases the interior volume improving the energy efficiency.

As a more critical consumer, many house plan sites I come across boast about “green building.” But to put things in perspective, green building really boils down to being resource efficient. The more recycled materials, the less stress is put upon the environment. My all time favorite home builders is Phoenix Commotion: taking one persons junk and turning it into another person’s treasure.

My obsession with residential architecture seems to grow with age. Or, perhaps it’s because I still don’t own my own little house. However in my quest to own my own place, I have come across some fantastic little cottage plans along the way. Some of the plans I’ve encountered are from architects building communities in other states, so purchasing the plans is my only option at this point. Other plans are kit homes my husband and I have discussed as an alternative to buying an existing or older home. The more I search, the more amazing alternatives I come across. (In my next life I think I’ll be an architect!)

Ross Chapin is one architect that I admire. His housing communities are well thought out and the house plans are adorable! Too bad I don’t live in Washington. My favorite house plans fall in the small house plan category, homes between 1,300 sq. ft. and 2,800 sq. ft. Though the larger square footage, 2,800 sq. ft.,  I wouldn’t consider small. The Kaleah and Vinnlee plans are my favorite, each house has a sunroof or two and a fantastic front porch. The Vinnlee has a slightly more open floor plan that I like more so than the smaller Kaleah plan, but I’d be thrilled living in either home. All of Chapin’s plans are for sale. His website also offers PDF files for examination before purchase, this is smart. I have little experience building my own home, but I would think you’d want to run the plans by a contractor before purchasing to make sure the layout would work on the existing lot.

Another option my husband and I have discussed is buying a kit home. It seems a like a slightly easier and less expensive alternative to building our own home from scratch. There are so many choices today, but I have listed a few of my favorites below:

• Michelle Kaufmann’s Glide House – This prefab house incorporates sustainability. The price isn’t too bad, but it is one of the more expensive prefab homes I found. Square foot average cost is $145 per sq. ft.
• Maple Homes – This prefab home company has some great designs, I especially like their Craftsman houses. The only downfall is they are based out of Canada. I’m not sure what the pricing would be to deliver to Southern California. Square foot price up to $60 per sq. ft. which is 1/3 of the total build price, according to their site. Not bad if the total price ended up at $90 per sq. ft, much less than anything where I live.
• Marmol Radziner – Has some great modern looking prefab homes, think Frank Lloyd Wright in design. The price isn’t bad, $179,000, for the smaller Rincon 5 series, but the larger Skyline series seems a little steep starting at $500,000.
• Cottage in a Day – Small cottage cabin, reasonably priced, can be put together in a day! I personally like the larger model, 2842 T, and I think you can add to it looking at the picture on the contact page.
• Lowe’s Katrina Cottage – Originally designed to replace the temporary housing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit, these kits are apparently being purchased as regular homes as well. The price is really affordable.

As much as I love the idea of building a brand new home or kit home, finding the land where I live is a little challenging. I might just have to settle for an existing older home and renovate it. I found a cottage retreat in Venice that inspired new ideas for doing just that: Venice Beach Eco Cottages. I might have to talk my husband into booking a weekend retreat to check out the cottages.

Have you completed a major renovation on a house? Have you built a house from scratch? Any information on these topics would be helpful!