Eco-Friendly Tiny Houses

Our small house was originally built as a summer cottage in 1950. The owners also operated an ice cream stand in a nearby town. The shop had windows made from glass blocks - all the rage in the fifties, and popular once again. They had some glass blocks left over from the store, so they used them in their little cottage. The glass blocks were still strong in the late 1990s when it was time to expand the little cottage into a year round home.

When my husband Doug (that's him in the photo) removed a kitchen wall from the cottage as he was remodeling, he had to remove dozens of glass blocks. After demolition, Doug cleaned and salvaged the blocks. A few years later he designed an interior window for our home that combined the blocks with scraps of Saltillo tile left over from the floor in our back entry area.

In the photo Doug was fitting and cementing each glass block into the octagon shaped window frame he built by hand. The triangular shapes with plywood hold the glass blocks in place; after the block cement dried, he covered the plywood wedges with triangular pieces of tile. The result is a one-of-a-kind window between our kitchen and bathroom made from new and old salvaged materials.

Peter King, Vermont tiny house builder with a 10x10x10 house and a tiny house model he uses to teach folks how to build their own small houses.

"Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts (And Whatever The Heck Else We Could Squeeze In Here)" is a culmination of one man's love for ultra-tiny living. In his self-illustrated book documenting his exploration into making tiny house structures from recycled materials, Derek "Deek" Diedricksen and covers some of the small houses and cabins he's built.

Visit Deek's RelaxShax blog to find all sorts of cool information about tiny house construction and to view some of his nifty artwork excerpted from his book. There's plenty to see and learn on this blog, and his self-deprecating sense of humor will have you smiling and saying "Yeah" more than once.

My husband Doug's daughter and her partner are developing a sustainable living homestead in Northeastern Pennsylvania. They call it Ebb and Flow Organic Farm. The little farm is their 3-season home where they've already designed and built two tiny houses by hand (with construction help and direction from Doug) in the first 5 years they've owned the land.

This pier-built tiny house has electric, water and septic connections and features a kitchenette and living area with wood stove plus full private bath on the lower level. The ladder-reachable sleeping loft is large enough for two adults and also features a small storage area; the double windows near the roof peak form their bed's headboard.

In good weather, the outdoor deck area (right side of the building in this photo) becomes a summer kitchen. There's also an outdoor shower setup complete with privacy enclosure that was added after this photograph was snapped.

When they're not farming, Jocelyn and Forrest design and craft custom design artisan jewelry from silver, gold and semi-precious gemstones.

About a year ago I asked readers to please consider nominating Eco-Friendly Tiny Homes for the very special Lens of the Day award. I said it would make my day to win this award - and it did, on August 2, 2011. I've won LOTD awards for other lenses, but I think this lens is one of my best ever. I still think it's one of my finest lenses. It's popular enough to have been plagiarized ... but that's another story.

Click this link: to read the official announcement that Eco-Friendly Tiny Houses won the Lens of the Day Award.