Take A Closer Look At The Tiny Home This Man Built For Less Than $500

Small living enthusiasts regularly impress us with their have-a-go attitude and ability to salvage scrap and unwanted materials into a viable home.
Pacific Northwest resident Scott Brooks offers a great example of what can be achieved with a shoestring budget under the right circumstances.

image: http://www.sunnyskyz.com/uploads/2016/02/wtf19-tiny-house-sub-500-dollars-0.jpg

Photo: Scott Brooks

Using salvaged materials and gifted items to keep costs down, Scott built his tiny home for "well under" $500.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

The transforming tiny home measures just 83 sq ft, and isn't designed to be easily movable. It sits atop concrete blocks in a 20-acre plot of rural land in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

Let's take a look inside.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

A wood burning stove is his source of heat.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

It has two large skylights.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

Plenty of room for his laptop and electronics - not to mention a nice view. The electricity is provided by a standard hookup.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

The bed folds into the wall over the couch to save space.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

The couch seats four comfortably for lounging... and drinking PBRs.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

It's a small kitchen but it gets the job done. There's no fridge, so he uses a cooler.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

Living in such a small space encourages a certain kind of lifestyle, and Brooks reports that he spends most of his time outside, often choosing to take his meals on camping furniture outdoors.

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Photo: Scott Brooks


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Photo: Scott Brooks


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Photo: Scott Brooks



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Photo: Scott Brooks


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Photo: Scott Brooks

The land is owned by Brooks' friend, who designed the basic shell of the tiny house to use materials he already had lying around, and Brooks and a few more friends then built it.
Handily, the same friend also constructed an outhouse and outdoor shower to serve his own home nearby, and these were made available for Brooks to use, thus freeing up valuable floor space inside the home.

image: http://www.sunnyskyz.com/uploads/2016/02/mar67-tiny-house-sub-500-dollars-27.jpg

Photo: Scott Brooks

Living in a home this small and for under $500 means you have to make some sacrifices.

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Photo: Scott Brooks

But if you can do it, it also has it's perks.

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http://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/1289/Take-A-Closer-Look-At-The-Tiny-Home-This-Man-Built-For-Less-Than-500

How cool was that????
If I lived alone, I could totally, totally, live like that.

Talk about a space saver and for that amount of money you cannot go wrong

It's also quite romantic - not in the relationship sense - I mean I could see myself sitting there writing my novel whilst sipping my tea and smoking a bong

In truth I'd probably be on here shouting at you

It's very cool, I'd like to know a few things, though:

- What was the value of the gifted items? (I.E., how much would this house have cost if he really had to pay for everything)

- How long did it take to build?

- Isn't it supposed to be bad feng shui to sleep under a giant saw blade?

Ben_Reilly wrote:It's very cool, I'd like to know a few things, though:

- What was the value of the gifted items? (I.E., how much would this house have cost if he really had to pay for everything)

- How long did it take to build?

- Isn't it supposed to be bad feng shui to sleep under a giant saw blade?

a lot more than $500

Just from the pics i can see $500 worth of fittings (windows etc) not even counting timber

Ben wrote:Isn't it supposed to be bad feng shui to sleep under a giant saw blade?

Yes, but he's sleeping over it. Entirely different karma.

Original Quill wrote:

Ben wrote:Isn't it supposed to be bad feng shui to sleep under a giant saw blade?

Yes, but he's sleeping over it.  Entirely different karma.

Ah, so. If it were me I'd put the flag on the underside of the bed, though. They still have to sit under a giant saw blade

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Yes, but he's sleeping over it.  Entirely different karma.

Ah, so. If it were me I'd put the flag on the underside of the bed, though. They still have to sit under a giant saw blade

Sitting and sleeping...two different things. Besides, when sitting the saw in on the wall, not above.

The guy's a liberal. The flag is only for accidents.

Ben_Reilly wrote:It's very cool, I'd like to know a few things, though:

- What was the value of the gifted items? (I.E., how much would this house have cost if he really had to pay for everything)


- How long did it take to build?

- Isn't it supposed to be bad feng shui to sleep under a giant saw blade?

What do you mean what were the value of the gift items?
He has not traded them in and has utilized them, thus rendering a need to know what value they are as redundant.
Who cares how much it would have cost with the gifts, clearly not that much more, a couple of grand, but again of what inanely reason do you want to know, when if you really want to know blooming email the guy and not ask the forum daft questions they will be unable to answer. Let alone I fail to see what relevance you are making.

Next what does it matter over the length of time, if he put in his own time to build this?
So if you are suggesting it would have cost more on man hours, then that would be in error on your part if of course he did this in his own time or off his friends time.



Some more information on him, and this is actually nearly a year old this house so I have just found out



Brooks, who constructed the house after a two-year-long journey around Africa, Thailand, India, Nepal, Montana and Alaska, moved back home to settle down a bit, while helping friends start an organic farm. He's dubbed his abode the "Transforming Tiny Home," and built out the interior, while his friend designed the structure. There are no fancy bells and whistles here, no silly, superfluous granite countertops, but the no-frills budget means compromises like no alternative energy options like photovoltaics, no plumbing, no refrigerator, and no cladding (yet) on the exterior. Brooks is connected to the main grid, heating is provided with a gifted woodstove and he uses a nearby outdoor shower and outhouse instead. But the basics are there, and the interior is efficient and compact with a sitting area, fold-down bed, a wall full of hooks and storage shelving, and a generous work surface that doubles as a kitchen, thanks to an awesome, ninja-style hood that hides a portable propane cooktop.



http://www.treehugger.com/tiny-houses/tiny-home-500-dollars-scott-brooks-transforming-tiny-home.html

Didge wrote:Who cares how much it would have cost with the gifts...

The IRS and the County Assessor.

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:Who cares how much it would have cost with the gifts...

The IRS and the County Assessor.

You are talking billocks


https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f14581.pdf


They are not going to waste any such time when the there is no value to the property at present, where it will be more than 500, as he owns land as well
Plus the fact they are non-profit items the gifts he received

Can't anyone just say "wow, what a cool little house"?

eddie wrote:Can't anyone just say "wow, what a cool little house"?

My sentiments exactly

eddie wrote:Can't anyone just say "wow, what a cool little house"?

because the headline says it was for under $500
poor reporting (not didge the OP)
to me that is the real part of the story.
little backwood cottages are not uncommon in some places,

One of the properties i was considering before buying the one i did, had something similar (on 88 acres), It did have external cladding already but no power. it is really just a basic living quaters While you build a proper house. the basic kit cabin cost about $3,000, just for the materials.

How is it poor reporting when effectively it did only cost 500 to build?
To claim it was more is based off a falsehood where its people themselves trying to place a cost on love and kindness by his friends to what actually Brooks spent himself. That is like saying foreign aid which does cost many of us, is then accountable to the victims with cost. The same with any charity, where you have from someone suffering cancer who benefits.to a family that needs feeding.  If people are willing to input both money and gifts, simple to help build a friend an environmentally friendly self sufficient home, is the worst insult ever to even question costs here. As have none of you asked how much this house pays back by being of minimal resources based cost?

Why cannot people actually just praise the man for doing something the vast majority would never have the guts to do. Not only build his own home, but one born from a view to minimize harm to the environment. The cost of charity is born by those who give, not those who receive.

it is not even that environmentally friendly. He’d have to burn extra to make up for the lack of cladding that would provide better insulation.

And it give a false impression as to the actual cost of doing this, as someone that looked in to buying virgin bush block and building, the costs are significant even if you can source labour and material cheap/free, essentially after reading disingenuous pieces like this I decided I wanted to do the similar so I went and asked really how much, and it is a lot more than they ever say in these articles. Builds that were suggested to cost $30,000 in reality end up being more like $70,000. Assuming you are already near power lines, and have water access, If not add $10,000's to the cost.
For me Personally it was better to buy an old farm house that hadn't been lived in for 20 years and fix that (pre electricity build so utilises natural airflows to regulate internal temps)


P.S. Charitable gifts do legally have fiscal value that is why they are tax deductable