swirling around: think small & functional

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November 02, 2006

think small & functional

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hmmm its been a while since i've gone on a rant. but ah well,....so it goes. this morning i was trying to figure out a way to keep minimizing my living spaces in life. i mean...how much room do i really need to take up? could be the influences of a vagabond life we've been living for 10yrs. such as not really settling down per say. anyhow, as a culture the koreans, vietnamese, japanese & chinese (and many others) are all ok with living in small places. completely content with using what is useful and maximizing what is around. i've always been very interested in small space living. in so many cities droves of people do this daily. its such a challenge to me to keep it simple living in the western world where more is better. sq footage is best & crap is cool. don't get me wrong...i'm no freakin angle. but!! i do take the time to try to keep shit simple, clean & useful.

where o where am i running with things? well for the past couple 3+ years i've been living on an island where the average house runs for 500-700k. i mean this in a sense of LOW average. anyhow, all the places are lame & the same. McMansions...phoenix, AZ or vegas style housing. templates cut to order at 650k each. blah blah blah. would you like blue? white or green? hmmm how about red with green? (insert a contractors robot voice for the next sentence) "ummm nope that's not part of the plans you cannot have "what" you want but you can have these instead and just imagine its what you wanted."

yes yes yes i know not all people can afford to be creative. but the questions remain about do we have to just accept what was given to us by a gerneration of our parents or our parents parents? (conservative limits?)

guh...i swear it just seems like slow killing of creative living spaces is rampant with the babyboomers most recent driving up of the housing market. (fu_kers!)

ok ok back to the point. i grew up poor as dirt. literally we strung ends together to make them meet. for YEARS..not just a month here or there. needless to say this means i once lived in a trailer & at this point you should care less what i'm yapping about. but yup...damn skippy its true. for years i was raised around what we could afford. as i've gotten older i've laughed at the size of things.

the next wave of mass acceptable modern housing in my opinion is going to be what i think of as add on choices or upgades to trailer style living. where you can still get a small lot with drivable distances to a city or town. what is trailer living? well in the past it was pre-fab at its finest hour. made for the military as wel as afffordable temp housing or start kits for lower income families. the idea of build it at the factory floor..slap the wheels on it & roll it out the door. now...pre-fab is cool & it costs you $185-300 per sq ft.

i think people can build these (photos below) creatively on their own for about 75k-150k ish or so. of course taking into consideration lot size, climate & small expansions or customizations. essentailly they are pleasing images with a nice feel on the eye.

this idea would need some expansion to create a daily living vibe. but essentailly i really enjoy the simple fold the deck down onto a raised pilon frame.

hmmm yummy and dreamy life right here

these nexts shots are some of my fav's. i could live in a place like these...save money travel & even convert it to a mix of natural gas, woodstove & solar panel lving.
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the traditional...