Elizabeth Turnbull's Tiny House

August 12, 2008 2:30 PM

Elizabeth Turnbull, an incoming graduate student at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, is bringing her own housing.
posted by dchase (66 comments total)

Good for her. I used to dream about a tiny, cozy house. My dream house looked better than hers but, then, it was a dream..
posted by bz at 2:35 PM on August 12, 2008

In the video she comes across as being this close to snapping and killing everyone nearby. I'm not sure why.

Cool house though - I wonder where she's going to set it up?
posted by odinsdream at 2:41 PM on August 12, 2008

This is not very novel. I myself just last year lived 3 weeks in a Tiny House with 4-5 other people.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 2:41 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Did you build your own tiny house, TOCT?
posted by me & my monkey at 2:44 PM on August 12, 2008

Exactly where she will place the Tiny House in New Haven is not determined, but Turnbull is talking with the city and the university about suitable sites. Turnbull said she is optimistic she'll find a spot that is safe and convenient.

This is obviously kind of critical, and was the part I was most interested in, since just parking the thing on any old New Haven street is unrealistic (it would probably be vandalized and one would not sleep soundly). I'm curious to find out where it winds up being parked.
posted by ornate insect at 2:50 PM on August 12, 2008

So she's going to be a squater?
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:51 PM on August 12, 2008

I stopped reading at "composting toilet and shower combined" That is FOUL.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:52 PM on August 12, 2008

The house is 8 x 18, and she's looking to use a "composting toilet that recycles human waste"- how do you do that without stinking up the whole house?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:52 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

So she's going to be a squater?

Yes, just above the composting toilet.
posted by subgear at 2:53 PM on August 12, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Shit some you guys can be soulless.

I am in love with Tiny House.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:54 PM on August 12, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

I stopped reading at "composting toilet and shower combined" That is FOUL.

Heh, I nearly stopped while trying to figure out how a grown person takes a shower in a 3 by 3.5 foot space- perhaps it is not contained by walls on all sides? If it was, how would you raise your arms to wash your hair?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:55 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

> I stopped reading at "composting toilet and shower combined" That is FOUL.

Properly maintained, you can't tell the difference between a composting toilet and a water flush one. The video shows that it will be in the same space, so it is just a small bathroom. I do not think you are showering while standing in the composting toilet.

Also, I too am smitten by Tiny House.
posted by mrzarquon at 2:56 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

No, I just went on an RV vacation, but people building their own tiny living spaces isn't unfamiliar to me.

The only difference is this one for some reason has a newspaper article. I would speculate class plays a role.

Gutting a school bus was a common technique I saw for mobile ones. My favorite one was a school bus with a VW hippie bus welded on top, all painted purple.This is similar - actually with the funny lighting that could be purple and they could be the same one.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 2:58 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I think more people need to have the option to live in a tiny house like this - I would go for it, as I am a location is everything type of person. Peoples attitudes need to change about living arrangements if we are to do anything about affordable housing or climate change.
posted by timmow at 3:01 PM on August 12, 2008

I just measured a 3.5' x 3' square in my bathroom. it includes the sink, and 1/3-1/2 of my bathtub, so it is more than possible to shower in that space. Looking at the video, the walls appear to be filled with expanding foam, and will probably be water proofed. The shower system will most likely come from a boat or rv setup, there will be a drain in the floor, and you just pull out a curtain around you when you are showering to keep from getting the toilet wet.

I have used similarly designed showers, and they work just as well as any other shower. I mean, you aren't going to bring a shower buddy in with you, but that isn't what the shower is designed for.
posted by mrzarquon at 3:05 PM on August 12, 2008

Properly maintained, you can't tell the difference between a composting toilet and a water flush one.

Yes, I can. Especially when properly maintaining it.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:14 PM on August 12, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Yeah, it's a home-built trailer RV. For $40K she could have got a barely used Airstream. That's hot.

It's neat that it's self-contained but the downside is that it's really low density. Fun for her, but imagine trying to house a few thousand students in these things. At some point regular townhomes or apartments or dorms actually become more ecologically friendly because they amortize their utilities over more people. The counterargument is that she's using the latest and great technology which uses a lot less power than what most dorms were built with. And for a year's worth of rent she ends up with a fun little trailer to use when she's done.
posted by GuyZero at 3:21 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Huh. I would've expected to see students living in trailers at Appalachian State, not Yale.

[NOT APPALACHIANIST]
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:32 PM on August 12, 2008

I bet that thing barely gets to New Haven behind a truck and will never go anywhere again. How is this different from buying a decent trailer, living in it, and then eating the depreciation at the end of your stay?
posted by StandardObfuscatingProcedure at 3:43 PM on August 12, 2008

Kind of reminds me of the housing crunch we experienced around 2000 in Santa Cruz. There wasn't nearly enough on-campus housing, even including the on-campus RVs and mobile homes a lot of people were living in and renting out, and it's a small town. I wound up renting part of an unconverted garage that year for $400/mo.

But first, I called on a listing for a bedroom that fit my budget, at $500. It was in the mountains in Felton, separate from the main house, but I would have access to the kitchen and bathroom there. The homeowner explained how cool and cute the room was, located amongst the redwoods, actually atop an authentic redwood stump! I think I finally began backing away when he asked me how tall I was. So, it's a treehouse? Like, a child's playhouse? kthxbye.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:52 PM on August 12, 2008

How can I convince my wife that living in a Yurt would be fun while I'm in medical school?
posted by dirigibleman at 4:05 PM on August 12, 2008

Why is it greener to build a new house and truck it around when many houses already exist in New Haven?

That said, I want a Tiny House.
posted by the jam at 4:14 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

i just bookmarked a site about this earlier today. mega cool.

i believe she got her inspiration from tumbleweed tiny houses. tumbleweed founder jay shafer lives in a 96 sq. ft. house and has for about 10 years now. the houses are growing in popularity for a number of reasons (part of my reason tends toward anti-consumerism), not the least of which is the cost factor. shafer has been doing a series of workshops this summer (one left, in asheville, n.c. in september), and he's taking his house with him.

for those interested, the tiny house blog has quite a bit of information, and more than a few links.
posted by msconduct at 4:43 PM on August 12, 2008

Related news: A prank gone wrong. Tiny House towed out of Dean's parking space, impounded.
posted by clearly at 4:54 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

i believe she got her inspiration from tumbleweed tiny houses.

No need to believe.

From the FPP's linked article:

"An inspiration for her house was the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. in Sebastopol, Calif., which sells small, transportable homes. But they were more expensive than she could afford."

posted by ericb at 5:06 PM on August 12, 2008

Yale has a Forestry School? Fuck me.
posted by bardic at 5:07 PM on August 12, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I've always liked the Tumbleweed and have wanted to build something like it for a long time (longer than I knew about the Tumbleweed, for sure). But I keep coming back to the reality that the most green living isn't to have my own little separate dwelling, but to live in a multi-person building (an apartment) that has been built with green principles.

For some reason, I only hear green construction principles discussed in the context of single-family dwellings. It seems to me that the apartment/condo industry could tap into green principles and market it to appeal to people who really want to have a small footprint on the planet.

As for Tiny House, it's a cool thing the young lady has done and she should be encouraged. But really, as has already been mentioned, she just built her own RV trailer. It's nothing really innovative in itself, but the newsworthy thing is that a student did it and the college is encouraging her to bring it to live in while studying.
posted by darkstar at 5:08 PM on August 12, 2008

Yale has a Forestry School? Fuck me.

Yep. Founded in 1901.
posted by ericb at 5:10 PM on August 12, 2008

She is so cool. Not for everyone; see some of the comments above. My friend lived in his parent's poolhouse for a while, it was about 120 square feet I guess. He was very comfortable.
posted by Daddy-O at 5:12 PM on August 12, 2008

Is no one going to mention that she is hot?


Okay, forget it then.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:12 PM on August 12, 2008

trying to figure out how a grown person takes a shower in a 3 by 3.5 foot space

Errr...is "grown" a euphemism here? My standard shower is 25-26" wide from wall to inside-the-shower-curtain. A standard tubless shower is square, so 3x3' would probably be oversized. Plus the toilet is probably mounted inside the shower. It works for George Costanza...
posted by DU at 5:16 PM on August 12, 2008

Tiny House.
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:21 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I think that Thoreau in Walden still pretty much holds the record for tiny-house zealotry:

Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free.

posted by Creosote at 5:25 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

For some reason, I only hear green construction principles discussed in the context of single-family dwellings. It seems to me that the apartment/condo industry could tap into green principles and market it to appeal to people who really want to have a small footprint on the planet.

Hey, darkstar - San Francisco's doing just that!

"The new codes, aimed at water & energy conservation, recycling, and the reduction of carbon emissions, apply to all residential construction and large commercial buildings."
posted by rtha at 5:51 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Is no one going to mention that she is hot?

Yeah, most definitely... in a non-traditional, slightly crazy, speaking-a-little-too-articulately-and-slightly-too-fast kind-of way.

She better park that thing on a roof of a building with heavy locks, though. Otherwise... New Haven will not be so kind to her happy ecologically-friendly dreams.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:53 PM on August 12, 2008

That's awesome, rtha!
posted by darkstar at 6:27 PM on August 12, 2008

She is totally cool, and smarter and more motivated than I ever will be. I wish I had lived in an RV in college, or something like this.
posted by mecran01 at 6:45 PM on August 12, 2008

Why is it greener to build a new house and truck it around when many houses already exist in New Haven?

Because buying or renting an existing house wouldn't get her any publicity. Duh. Or did you mean greener as in "more environmentally responsible"?
posted by refrigerateafteropening at 6:58 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Yeah, most definitely... in a non-traditional, slightly crazy, speaking-a-little-too-articulately-and-slightly-too-fast kind-of way.

That's exactly how most of the very-smart/very-educated people I know talk, when they're talking about something they know very well and are excited about. My linguistics-crazed ex-girlfriend, for example, or the English Lit grad students when something like "sexuality in early Victorian works" comes up.

At the risk of getting rocks with "boyzone!" scrawled on them in red paint, yes, she's very hot, and her nerdy enthusiasm for this project is a huge component of that.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:05 PM on August 12, 2008

Hello, attractive Yale hippie chick. I made you some kombucha.
posted by cmoj at 7:11 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Why is it greener to build a new house and truck it around when many houses already exist in New Haven?

Well, for one thing, it's way less fun to just sign a lease than to build something. Plus, of course, the publicity generated by everyone seeing this probably has a larger net Green benefit than just her living on her own, in that she's having a small but nonzero nudge effect toward encouraging/informing people about the very idea of living in a small space rather than a large one.

But what, may I ask, is so wrong about taking something like "I'd like to live an efficient, non-consumerismy life" and adjusting it just a little bit so you can do something that is, and I'm choosing my words as objectively as possible, really freaking awesome?

(Also, $11,000 + super-cheap heating is still a damn fine deal - maybe a little bit less optimal than a used RV, but it's not like she's at a point where she's earning any kind of EFFICIENCY FAIL lulz.)
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:15 PM on August 12, 2008

We used to have kids living/sleeping in the 3x4ft library study room/phonebooth things in college. And not in the "wow I'm here all the time studying, I totally live here ha ha" kind of way. These people did not have homes. They showered in the gym, went to classes, and slept in the ****ing 3x4 study rooms at night.

So: Bah! Get off my tiny lawn!
posted by bhance at 7:28 PM on August 12, 2008

That's really quite impressive. It makes me wonder what kinds of projects she will take on during her graduate work.
posted by inconsequentialist at 7:31 PM on August 12, 2008

Exactly where she will place the Tiny House in New Haven is not determined, but Turnbull is talking with the city and the university about suitable sites. Turnbull said she is optimistic she'll find a spot that is safe and convenient.

The tiny house thing isn't really so OMG, I mean it's neat but the big deal about affordable housing is that all the land everyplace most people want to live in (in the US) is owned by someone who would like you to pay to park your ass there [be it in tiny house, tiny car, tiny sleeping bag, tiny RV, tiny dorm room, tiny church]. I think this is great as far as proof of concept, don't get me wrong, but BYOTH only works if you can also find a place to put that house for free or for cheap.

Now if she can get Yale (and/or other schools) to set up a special lot for Tiny Housers to park their tiny homes, I think that would be something that would make this seem a lot less like one person's cool project and more like something that would be useful in a general sense.
posted by jessamyn at 7:38 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Her blog. Her CL post looking for a place to park it.

Note: "I'd like to share a shower and laundry facilities as if I were another roommate." so I'm not sure what that says about showering in her tiny bathroom.
posted by jessamyn at 7:43 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

/burns a lump of coal in her honor
posted by b1tr0t at 7:55 PM on August 12, 2008

If only Ted Kaczynski had put his tiny cabin (now on display at the Newseum, a fact which he does not like) on wheels and rolled it onto campus; he would have been the most popular misanthropic mathematics PhD around.
posted by ornate insect at 8:18 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'd take the Only House of Margaret Wise Brown anyday. And may I say, that in my recently ended eight day stay away from the wonderful world of the internet(s), the only thing I really missed was Metafilter. Now, I don't know if I'm doing this properly, so please, be nice. And my house in Mount Shasta has a bathroom worthy of a 747, so . . .
http://www.margaretwisebrown.com/long_bio.htm
posted by emhutchinson at 9:43 PM on August 12, 2008

If she needs a place to put it, perhaps she could mount it on pontoons and float it in a waterway. Tiny House becomes Tiny Houseboat.
posted by Ritchie at 11:19 PM on August 12, 2008

Sounds like what she learned building this house will translate to a sweet ass tree fort after she graduates and get stationed somewhere.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:41 PM on August 12, 2008

Given the way she attacked this summer project, I predict she will attain her degree by next week around Thursday.

Really, that's one of the key parts of the awesome here. Sure, there are other ways to be green, and extant housing would have the lowest carbon footprint, and so forth. But there's nothing like getting hands-on experience making something to gain an appreciation of what it is you're working with.
posted by dhartung at 11:43 PM on August 12, 2008

I was expecting to snark (I'm another of the 'wouldn't it be more green to live in a house that already exists' folk) but she's so cool.

Also, I guess those people who think she talks too fast must live in places where folk speak really slowly, she sounded completely normal to me - a little slow if anything.
posted by The Monkey at 2:34 AM on August 13, 2008

Elizabeth Turnbull's tiny house is bigger than my house.
posted by vbfg at 6:48 AM on August 13, 2008

If the Tiny House is rockin'...
posted by rusty at 7:24 AM on August 13, 2008

It's cute and it's likable, but how is it heated?

I'd think that in New Haven in the winter 'passive solar' might need a little bit of a boost.

Also, that composting toilet needs a 'leech field' and a couple of venting pipes.
posted by jrochest at 7:43 AM on August 13, 2008

She's heating it with propane- she's estimating $200 a year for that, which seems low to me (that's only 10 20-lb tanks, I'd expect she'd blow through at least a tank a week) in view of New Haven's pretty darn cold winters.

Hope she insulated that roof pretty well...
posted by jenkinsEar at 8:26 AM on August 13, 2008

Is no one going to mention that she is hot?

Yeah, most definitely... in a non-traditional, slightly crazy, speaking-a-little-too-articulately-and-slightly-too-fast kind-of way.

She's cute, and I really like her voice. Very soft and clear at the same time. I have friends who constantly have to repeat things two or three times -- I wish they'd take a lesson from her.

I also found myself wondering if she could have accomplished the same thing with some modifications to a readily-available secondhand travel trailer. I know insulation might be an issue, but conversion to solar power and composting systems seems doable. Still, pretty neat that she's gotten so much support and assistance to keep her DIY costs down.
posted by Tubes at 8:29 AM on August 13, 2008

I like the idea of the Tiny House, and I think the project is very cool -- but as a grad student myself, and her original goal being "Hey I'm going to spend X on housing during grad school anyways, why not build it myself" -- that purpose seems somewhat defeated since she is going to have to pay for a place to park it, as Jessamyn said.
posted by sararah at 9:10 AM on August 13, 2008

In grad school, between housing situations, I lived in my lab on campus for five months. It was about the same size as Tiny House, perhaps a little smaller, with far less floor space available and none of the amenitites she has. I unrolled a sleeping bag at night and tucked it away in the morning. Showered down the hall in the building's one regular shower in the wee hours to avoid being seen. Washed clothes by hand in the lab sink.

I wasn't the only one who took advantage of their lab this way for temporary housing.

One Saturday morning, one of the professors came in early to practice his french horn in the building's long hallway, curious about its acoustics, I guess. After letting out a few window rattling blasts from "Siegfried's Theme" down the corridor, he was surprised to see three heads pop out of different labs along the hall, grad students who had been sleeping in their labs and shocked at being awakened by music of the apocalypse.

It was an interesting experience, living there. I never felt cramped for space, but the lack of privacy was a bother. I was glad when another housing situation opened up.
posted by darkstar at 10:07 AM on August 13, 2008

When I was at Marlboro College in 1969, a student showed up with his own tiny house. It was maybe a third the size of Turnbull's, made by the guy's father of completely unfinished wood and metal, and they set it up next to a dorm, probably because it had no plumbing (I'm guessing). He had to live in it because he (and his whole family) had become intensely environmentally sensitive (reacted to completely ubiquitous stuff like carpet dyes and synthetic upholstery) apparently as a result of spending a few days in a rented vacation cabin that had just been dowsed with pesticides. The story was, IIRC, the family had become so ill they to be airlifted out, and had to build themselves a completely synthetics-free new house... He could manage several hours a day of classes in conventional structures, but sleeping in a dorm would have been too much. He weathered a VT winter in his little wooden bubble; don't know how comfortably. Couldn't find a link; sorry.
posted by dpcoffin at 11:12 AM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Good ol' hippie spirit. This is only a little smaller than the former-chicken-coop eco house where I was born and raised for the first year of my life (77-78).

Yeah, nothing new here but the context, but I love to see positive attention being paid to this kind of simplicity-by-choice while it's still so rare in the U.S. She will get a lot of attention (and hell yeah she's hot! -- perfect messenger for the cause, in terms of attracting mainstream media attention).
posted by kalapierson at 6:21 PM on August 13, 2008

jrochest: There are several models of composting toilet that don't need anything but a vent through the roof. E.g. this one.
posted by rusty at 7:39 AM on August 14, 2008

You guys don't get it - when a rich person moves into a trailer, it becomes an eco mini house.
posted by w0mbat at 10:19 AM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

trying to figure out how a grown person takes a shower in a 3 by 3.5 foot space

Just like everyone else with a small shower. Standard showers (without a tub) are around that size; many smaller.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 11:58 AM on August 15, 2008

N-thing the sentiment that this is only news because it's Yale. When I was much younger, a boyfriend I had for a year was mostly homeless during that time. The third-nicest place I ever stayed with him or his family, after my dorm room and his elderly aunt's house (she kicked everyone out because she could barely support herself), was a tiny house.

You opened the front door and the sofa was right in front of you, extending along the wall. To your right was the double bed, flush up against the other wall with just enough room between the two to walk. At the end of the bed was a tray table with a TV old enough to have knobs. Behind the TV was a half-wall. Behind the half-wall was the small kitchen, which your feet were in if you dangled them off the end of the sofa. The kitchen was big enough for a stove, small fridge, single sink, and pair of wall cabinets. The bathroom was to the right of the kitchen, and contained a shower stall and a toilet you hit if you tried to open the door all the way. There was no loft, no closet, no clever storage area.

The entire place would probably fit twice in my current living room, but it had power, water, a roof that didn't leak, doors that locked, windows that both opened and closed, working plumbing, and a floor with no holes, which made it nearly a castle as far as they were concerned. They may have been proud of it, but it wasn't because of their eco-awareness or carbon footprint.
posted by notashroom at 2:17 PM on August 15, 2008

N-thing the sentiment that this is only news because it's Yale.

Well, uh, it's a human interest story about a student at a Connecticut college from one of Connecticut's bigger newspapers.
posted by ericb at 2:30 PM on August 15, 2008