I could have sworn we’d linked “Tumbleweed Tiny Houses” before—I’ve certainly spent plenty of time on their site—but I can’t find a link. SFGate.com has profiled the company, which specializes in building homes with floor plans less than 500 square feet. Its founder, Jay Shafer, lives in one of his own tiny houses.

He bought an Airstream trailer, remodeled it and spent two years suffering the long, bitter winters before conceding that insulation was one amenity he was unwilling to forgo. “So I started from scratch and built myself a small house,” he told me. He built the 100-square-foot home on wheels and parked it on a friend’s farm outside of Iowa City. Eventually, he moved back into town but not without some difficulty. “I wasn’t allowed to put the house on a city lot, because it was too small,” he explained, referring to the minimum-size standards in the codes of many cities and counties across the country. So he bought a house, put his little house in the backyard and rented out the main house.

Think you could handle it? Personally, it sounds wonderful. My only issue would be all my project materials, like the tubs of Lego, computer parts, homebrewing equipment, and books. But I could make one wall all bookcases…

You can order a catalog of Shafer’s homes on his site for $14 or a set of floorplans for $20. I’ve always been especially fond of the “Vardo,” which is based on the design of gypsy wagons.

Small houses challenge our notions of need as well as minimum-size standards [SFGate.com]