Furniture for Small Spaces

Tonight I found a website entitled "Furniture for Small Spaces" http://www.furniture-for-small-spaces.com/

As the site says, "Furniture for Small Spaces offers fun decorating ideas, fabulous space saving tips and, most of all, compact and modular furniture. That means you no longer have to push, shove and kick huge pieces of furniture into spaces that won’t fit. Rather, you’ll find yourself delighting in the ever-growing selection of space saving ideas and furniture at your fingertips."

The site is organized by category, listed on the left hand side of your screen, or you can scroll down and sample from the listing of what's new. Categories include:

• Organizing Small Spaces - offers helpful suggestions and strategies as well as some question and answer-type sections
• Closets for Small Spaces -discusses a variety of approaches such as creating a closet with a garment rack or closet system kit
• Furnishing a Small Livingroom - provides a range of suggestions such as a wall mounted can opener, fish tank, wall mounted computer station, etc.

to name a few.

One of the topics under the what's new list is wall mounted electric fire places. The web site features a picture and general description of a Dimplex EWF-SS Sahara Wall Mounted Fire Place and then provides a link to CSN Fireplaces where the unit can be purchased.

Another new topic is washer/dryer combo units. The website features a picture of an LG washer dryer combo, a general description of the item and a link to the Compact Appliance website where combo units from a variety of manufacturers can be purchased.

A Tiny Stone House

The other evening I was searching for pictures of small houses and I came across this picture on Maria Roff's blog http://icelandeyes.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

According to her blog, this tiny cottage named Sómastaðir (or "Pleasant Place") was built by her great-grandfather in Reyðafjörður, Iceland. According to her post, there were 22 children in that family. As she writes, "they didn't all live in house at the same time, but I understand that it was always pretty crowded nevertheless."

This is the first tiny stone house I've seen on line. If any readers know of any others, I'd love to hear from you.

Miniature Quilts

In keeping with tiny house thinking, I considered how my hobbies would need to be adapted in order to better fit into a downsized life-style.

Knitting is no problem as it is a fairly compact hobby to begin with. Projects are reasonably compact unless you are into knitting bed spreads or afghans. Sweaters, vests, socks, mittens and scarves easily fit into a knitting basket. As long as the knitter can control the impulse to buy yarn (and this is easier said than done), knitting is portable, tiny house-friendly hobby. Crocheting falls into a similar category. Once again, focusing on smaller projects would be key.

Quilting can also be down-sized. While a full size quilt will require sufficient space to construct if traditional techniques are used, even this can be adapted to a smaller space if a "quilt-as-you-go" technique is utilized. Another approach is to consider smaller projects like table mats, runners, seasonal items, and quilted clothing. Below are several photos of smaller projects I have in the works.




If all else fails, the avid quilter should consider miniature quilts. If you go to your favorite search engine and type in "miniature quilts free patterns" you will have no problem finding patterns for miniature quilts. For example, at http://www.freequiltpatterns.info/QuiltCategories/FreeMiniatureQuiltPatterns.htm there are a variety of patterns available to see if this approach to quilting is for you. If you are the kind of quilter who feels there are so many quilt patterns and so little time, consider scaling down your favorite pattern to miniature or select from the many minaturized patterns that are out there.

The picture below illustrates a completed miniature quilt - finished size is 20" square. You can find the pattern for this one at http://www.qorsite.com/styles/mini/miniqlt.htm




Now, if I just have to find a way to control the urge to buy fabric, especially fat eighths and fat quarters (i.e. smaller pieces of fabric)...some habits are definitely harder to break than others. Oh well, what's life without a few challenges?

Cheers!

Being a Tiny House Fan

I love the internet! Even on a day when I'm nursing a stomach bug, I can still indulge my small house habit. Today I learned how to become an "official" fan of other blogs and websites devoted to tiny houses so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you.

The Tiny House Blog http://tinyhouseblog.com/ is one of my favorites. Kent Griswold has a wonderful variety of topics on this blog and often features other bloggers as well. Today's latest post is about a group of women who restore vintage travel trailers and share camping adventures. They call themselves "cowgirls" and any woman who has a vintage trailer can join in their fun. Take the time to have a good look at this blog as there is a wealth of good information for tiny house devotees.

The Mini Mobile Cottage site http://mobilecottage.blogspot.com/ is chronicling the construction of a tiny house by Jeff and Arlene Hemsley and features other topics relating to their adoption of a tiny house life style. The latest post is by Arlene where she shares her "Eat Simpler, Save Money" strategy.

The Small Living Journal http://smalllivingjournal.com/?nomobile features a number of contributors and describes itself as a "bi-weekly web-zine on the small house movement." The latest issue features a number of recognizable people from the small house movement (Michael Jantzen, Kent Griswold, Greg Johnson, to name a few) sharing their goals and plans for the future. The controbutors come from different back grounds and have travelled different paths; however they all share a love for small, if not tiny, houses. It offers validation that the small house movement definitely has a broad appeal.

Anyway, that's a sample. Enjoy!

Varde Mini Kitchen From Ikea

One of my favorite things to do is browse magazine stands for British home decorating magazines. You can usually count on finding something interesting pertaining to small space living. Yesterday I found a reference to an IKEA product that you won't find on the IKEA Canada page: the Varde Mini Kitchen.

This free-standing kitchen includes all the major functions one would need in a neat 140 cm wide by 69 cm deep by 208 cm high package. It features:

• a ceramic hob (i.e. stove top) with two burners


• a small under the counter fridge


• single bowl sink with mixer tap (i.e. faucet) and sound absorbing material under to bowl


• spice rack


• small black board for notes


• cupboards (a mixture of birch, birch veneer, particle board with melamine shelves


• stainless steel legs and back-splash

They have considered safety features as well. Besides the usual wall brackets to anchor a the free standing unit, when you close the left side door, this cuts the power to the stove top. There will be no closing the doors with the burner left on!

For more information on the Varde mini kitchen, go to http://www.ikea.com/ , select "United Kingdom" from the bottom of the European country list and then search for "Varde mini kitchen" using the search feature in the top right hand corner of the screen.

Row Houses

Since I now live in an attached dwelling, I thought this next post should be about row houses. St. John's is well known for its colorful row houses lining the narrow streets in the older parts of the city. While some of these row houses are larger homes (e.g. 2500 square feet), some are fairly small (i.e. 500 - 800 square feet). They are often brightly painted and sections of the older, down town area have inspired people to refer to them by nick-names such as "jelly bean row."

For those of you who frequent The Tiny House Blog, you may recall the posting about the Spite House, which was a mere seven feet wide. St. John's also has its share of narrow houses as the pictures clearly show. The other pictures below are a sample of colorful row houses in downtown St. John's.

Building Considerations in Cold Climates

I had a comment in response to an earlier posting that I thought might be of interest. The contributor, who lives in Alaska, expressed concern about foundation methods and permafrost.

I lived in the arctic for about a year and a half (Baffin Island) and noticed that all the new construction had the houses and apartment buildings on steel posts which were sunk into the permafrost, down to the bedrock. The underside of the houses were enclosed and insulated to prevent utility pipes from freezing while ensuring good air flow between the houses and ground.

The pictures below illustrate what I'm talking about. They were taken in Iqaluit, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada several years ago. The dark blue unit with the Toyota parked in front is where we lived while we were up there - a two-bedroom unit. You can see that the entire thing is on posts. It was one of eight units that ran horizontally. There were enclosed porches front and back (air-locks), to minimize heat loss to the house when going in and out. The bottom picture shows a polar bear skin leaning up against a large apartment building, which was also built on a steel framework of posts and beams. This building was visable from the back step of the unit shown in the top photo. Both buildings are in the territorial capital, Iqlauit (Inuit for "place of many fish"). In both pictures the perimeter is also enclosed by a lighter framing and chain link fencing (to prevent animals and children from crawling under and tampering with the mechanical systems).

Moving House in March - A Downsizing Exercise

I took a new job in a different part of the province last fall and left my partner and four dogs expecting that this "living-apart" arrangement would only last for a few months. Well the house didn't sell before Christmas. I won't bore you with the details; however, I will tell you if you plan to make a major life change that involves switching jobs or moving, try not to do it just before a once-in-a-lifetime banking crisis. Stuff goes wonky and banks can get down right cantankerous to deal with.

When December came, I realized I needed to shorten my commute and find some temporary digs so I rented a small one bedroom basement apartment. I moved some stuff in gradually, personal belongings mostly, and furnished the place almost for free thanks to donations from friends and family. Over the nearly four months I was there, I began to notice the stuff I insisted on having around and the stuff I didn't miss at all. When I made journeys back to visit with my partner and pooches, I was reminded of all the other stuff I actually owned but was living without, quite easily I might add. Each evening, as I visited some of my favorite tiny house websites, I began to believe I might actually be able to downsize to a tiny house one day.

On a subsequent trip back home, we got an offer on our house (in March no less), came to an agreement on the selling price and I returned to the city to begin a search for a new home in earnest. Even in the hottest real estate markets, there is always less to choose from in the latter parts of winter,and such is the case in my area. We eventually settled on a town house that was about 400-500 square feet smaller than the detached house in which we lived before. The pictures below will give you an idea of the difference - the red house is the house we just sold, the blue house (middle) is our new place.

Moving in day was challenging. Because we were still in the grips of winter, there was no "pre-move" yard sale to thin things out, so we moved into our town house with pretty much everything we had in our 1500 square foot house and garage. Can we say "tight squeeze." As I type this, I can see numerous boxes labelled "yard sale" awaiting good weather so we can offer the contents for adoption, so to speak, and we can hardly wait! We've sold off some furniture already with the help of the internet and taken some clothing donations to the GoodWill. There is something liberating about thinning out one's belongings!

This house is easier to clean and heat and because it is a townhouse, we are already getting to know our neighbors. While 1200 square feet is far from "tiny", it is considered a small house and brings us a step further in terms of downsizing. We are expecting to be here for a maximum of five years. At that point, we hope to be moving into our much smaller, owner-built, retirement home.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to build a tiny house on wheels. I am paying close attention to the Tiny House Blog and all posts that relate to owner-built tiny houses. I'm still in search of the perfect retirement home plan to accomodate two adults and four dogs in a northern marine climate.

I'll let you know how the yard sale goes - we're aiming for a week from this Saturday, weather permitting. Cheers!