Could you live in only 125 square feet? That's exactly what a Boulder, Colo. couple are doing now that they have completed building their brand new, tiny home from scratch.
Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller spent 10 months building all 125 square feet of their dream home and documented the entire experience on their blog, on Facebook and in a short documentary about tiny homes titled, "TINY: A Story About Living Small."
Smith and Mueller spoke about their inspiration to build a tiny home in their Kickstarter video, a campaign they used to help raise money to cover the costs of post-production for the "TINY" documentary.
"When we first started this project, we were really surprised to learn that house sizes in America have almost doubled in the last 40 years," Mueller says in their Kickstarter video. "It seems that we're building bigger and fancier houses and consuming more resources to do so, but we don't necessarily feel more at home in them."
So Smith and Mueller asked themselves a question: What does make a house feel like a home? For them, the answer was found in the tiny home movement which inspired them to build their little house. Mueller goes on to say in the Kickstarter video, "The people who have chosen to simplify and downsize their lives have more time and resources to devote to the things that are really meaningful to them."
According to 7News, the house may be tiny, but it has all the comforts of a larger, more traditional home -- just on a smaller scale. The layout consists of a sitting area, kitchen, bathroom and sleeping loft that can fit a queen-size mattress. However, the composting toilet is far from traditional, but it is sustainable -- a five gallon bucket with peat moss and sawdust. "You'd be surprised how well it works and how much it doesn't smell," Smith told 7News.
Smith and Mueller are not alone in their desire for extreme downsizing. In Boulder County alone, several notable tiny homes have popped up in the last several months: Ann Holley's and Darren Macca's "Protohaus" was recently profiled by 9News and Glenn Grassi put his very tiny 84 square foot off-grid mobile house up for sale at the end of 2011.
The small house movement is gaining speed all over the country. Their are even online organizations like the Small House Society, advocates for smaller home living and a hub for those involved in the movement. There are even companies that are entirely devoted to building tiny houses. One of which, Jay Shaver's Tumbleweed Tiny House Company -- has multiple layouts and sizes that could seemingly fit the needs of an individual or a family looking to downsize their home's footprint.
As Smith and Mueller wrap up their documentary, they are also putting the finishing touches on their tiny house and getting ready for an open house in Boulder at the end of April, according to the tiny house's Facebook page.
Read more about the building and documentary process at Smith and Mueller's TINY blog.
Watch the "TINY" trailer above [via the TINY blog] and take a look at the construction process below:
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