Tiny House Blogs

If you’re thinking of downsizing and making a move to a smaller house, you might want to check out the advice and real-life experience in these tiny house blogs.  They’ll provide inspiration and motivation even if all you ever do is downsize!  

I wasn’t always a fan of blogs.  I remember when my sister started one for her family, I teased her saying that blog sounded like something you’d hork up, not something you’d read.  Well, look at me now.  Even though so much of my time is taken up with homesteading, homeschooling and writing, I still find a bit of time to read my favorite blogs because they’re a great way to get someone’s personal experience distilled into a 600 word article.

Is Tiny House Living For Me?

Have you heard of the tiny house movement?  I hadn’t until a few years ago.  And, really, I think it’s mostly Americans and other first worlders who think of this movement as novel – most of the rest of the world lives very small.

Some modern families are looking to constantly expand their living space – buying up, to bigger and bigger houses.  Some of these reasons are ridiculously Babylonian in nature – status, wealth, pomp.  Puke.  Puke all over that.

Some families, however, are constantly expanding – new babies come while big teenagers still live at home and everyone starts to feel a bit crowded when you factor in clothes, books, pets, equipment and so forth.  If you homeschool, add more books to that list and a seemingly never-ending stack of projects and papers.  If you are a prepper and store emergency supplies and food, good luck finding space!

Who Lives in Tiny Houses?

Tiny house families are doing just the opposite of expanding, though.  They’re intentionally downsizing in a major way.  Not their families, necessarily, but the space that their family occupies.  There isn’t a technical definition of a “tiny house” but here’s what Wikipedia has to say about them:

“The small house movement (also known as the “tiny house movement”) is a popular description for the architectural and social movement that advocates living simply in small homes.”

I’m not here to preach that moving to a tiny house is what your family needs to do but my husband and I have become fascinated by the intention of this way of living.  To start, we’ve been downsizing our “stuff” as we prepare to move our homestead.  To go through that process with us and try it for yourself, we encourage you to read our article KonMari for Homestead Families.

We’ve also been making tentative plans to adapt the essential ideas of a tiny home to the straw bale design that’s slowly emerging as my engineer husband wraps his brain around the dream of the new homestead.  Let’s face it, there are seven of us and seven people do take up some space so, “tiny” we will not achieve.  But smaller than we have now?  Oh yeah, in a big way.

Tiny House Blogs

To prepare for that, I’ve turned to a trusted source for personal information in an easy to read format with real life experiences – the ever popular blog.  In this case, tiny house blogs.  I thought this list might prove helpful to some others out there who are learning about this way of living; it might just help some understand what those weirdo tiny house people are all about!

Generally Good Tiny House Blogs and Websites

Good Pictures

I’m a visual learner and so I like sites with a lot of real-life pictures of people actually designing and living in tiny houses.  Here are some good visual tiny house blogs:

• Tiny House Blog.   Duh – the name alone tells you its going to be useful.  This is the place on the internet that most of us start when we’re learning about tiny houses, what they are and how they’re built.  This site is a hub for all things Tiny House.  Their newsletter is a fun kick every week – there are featured tiny houses, real life stories, various types of tiny house are examined and you can even hook up with tiny house listings, if you’re in the market to buy.
• Tiny House Design.  This site has a great collection of guest posts from real people designing and building their own tiny houses.  Incidentally, a tiny “house” can be a bus, camper, boat, wagon – just about anything!  When I’m looking at one of these sites, I want pictures and lots of them.  This blog doesn’t disappoint as nearly every article has a great collection of photos to go with the text.  One of the hard parts of visualizing tiny house living for most of us is picturing how it could possibly work!  Take this post, for example – look at the bed, table and hide-a-bed all located in the same space!  Yeah, need a picture to figure that one out.
• Tiny House Swoon.   Speaking of pictures, this blog is the best I’ve found for tons of photos.  That’s basically all it is – some are of professionally built tiny house and some are from tiny houses regular people crafted.  The site isn’t really organized so good luck trying to find something; just go on if you need some ideas and visual inspiration.

Other Good Tiny House Blogs

• Tiny Home Geniuses.  Simple, no-nonsense source for information and suggested products.  One of the hard parts of adjusting to tiny house life is knowing which tools to give special space to and which to ditch entirely.  It’s good to read lots of perspectives until you know what you want to do.  Here are some thoughts on the best ways to heat and cool a tiny home.  So many things to think about even if the home is small!
• The Tiny Life – Similarly good reviews, good collection of articles and resources.  Love this review of the Luggable Loo!

Tiny House Blogs for Families and Homesteaders

I happen to know Teri Page of Homestead Honey and can personally vouch for her down to earth writing, love of family and strong feeling of stewardship with the earth.  Her resources are my first recommendation for tiny house, DIYers with families.

• • Homestead Honey.  This is one of my favorite homesteading blogs but it just so happens that Teri and Brian have spent several years in a tiny, off-grid house that they built themselves.  All of her articles are of worth to anyone looking to learn the lifestyle of small living with a family.  She has several books of interest, too, among which are a DIY Pizza Oven e-book, as well as her print book, Family Homesteading.  Of particular interest to tiny house enthusiasts is her e-book, Creating Your Off Grid Homestead.

 

Other Tiny House Blogs for Families

Tiny House Family.  Their family is such an inspiration to me!  I go on there and just sort of poke around when I’m feeling overwhelmed with waiting to sell our home or wondering if we’ll ever get “there”.  One thing you run into when you’re researching tiny homes is that most of the people building them are single or have 1.2 kids.  This family only has two kids but they’re a great family who are very down to earth and I enjoy reading their musings and experiences.  They also offer courses and have penned a book.  On the blog, there’s a video “tour” that a reporter did but I wish it had more actual footage of the house; the interviews are good, though.  Don’t miss the blog posts or the FAQ’s – both are great!

 

• Living in a Tiny House.  I like this blog because this couple is young, goofy and totally real.  They’re not professionally trained for all this tiny house building they’re doing but they just jump right in.  They’re at such a different phase of life than I am but I find what they’re doing fun and inspiring to watch.

Bless This Tiny House.  Although it doesn’t look like the blog has been maintained since 2014, I enjoy this one, too.  Real family, real tiny house.

Tiny House Growing Family.  I love the article Living with Tiny Kids.  Read it, if you have kids.

Other Tiny House Blogs?

Did I miss one you enjoy? Do you write one that you think I should add to this list?  Leave me a link in the comments so people can check out your site!

I hope this list of tiny house blogs has given you a place to start online with learning more about tiny houses and the people who live in them.  These bloggers have certainly inspired me and my family and for that, I’m very grateful.