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.

Doug's daughter and her life partner are developing a sustainable living homestead in Northeastern Pennsylvania. ebb and flow organic farm is their 3-season home where they've built two tiny houses by hand (with construction help and direction from Doug) in the past 5 years.

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

In good weather, the outdoor deck area (right side) becomes a summer kitchen and also features an outdoor shower setup.

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