We ordered a tiny house on wheels, so we can live on our property while we build the dome house. The tiny house movement has grown since it first came on our radar, and there are many styles to choose from now. I remember when Jon and I drove to Santa Rosa in 2009 to tour a Tumbleweed trailer by Jay Shafer, who is very active in the modern tiny home movement. His home was concise and organized, and it was an attainable house for us at the time, but it felt very cramped. Jon and I like to cook together, and since we’re vegetarians, we spend a lot of time chopping mass quantities of vegetables. The Tumbleweed kitchen felt like a one-person kitchen if that person’s cooking consists of heating a can of soup.
Now, however, a tiny house trailer seems like a great idea. It will be convenient to live on the property while we build the dome. If we didn’t live on the land, we’d need to rent in Bishop because it is at least 6 hours away from our current home. I mentally allocated the cost of rent for a couple years to the tiny trailer purchase, so it feels more reasonable.
But we don’t want to go too tiny. We had the opportunity to camp with our cats last year, when our neighborhood was ordered to evacuate during the CZU fire in the Santa Cruz mountains. I am extremely grateful that the cats didn’t have to wait in their crates in a loud, scary place with other stressed pets who couldn’t be with their owners. It was a tight fit, though. The cats were always piled on top of us or underfoot (I stepped on everybody’s tail at least once, ouch!) From this experience, we knew living in the Scamp would feel too cramped while we build our house.
Prior to the Scamp, we had an old 21′ class C RV. It was a great size for us when we had 1 cat… and a storage unit for our extra stuff. The sleeping loft in a Class C really help expand the space. We went on many camping trips and lived in “The Beast” full time for a few months when we were moving to Alaska. We’d still have it today, except that everything that could go wrong with it mechanically, did, so it needed to retire to be a non-operational vehicle home.
I first looked at larger rv travel trailers with pop-outs because, while not cheap, they are less expensive than a wooden tiny home trailer. However, I wasn’t convinced that they would last for 2 years of full time living. A well-built wooden tiny home should hold up to daily use, will be easy to repair wear and tear, and will make a fantastic cottage for our guests when we move into the dome.
We looked at many different floorplans and videos online and found a company with a floorplan we really like: the Escape Traveler One XL. We like that it has a tallish loft (think stoop instead of crawl) for sleeping and one for storage as well as a staircase to the loft, which will be handy for our snugly cats and for when we’re not quite awake enough to use a ladder. It has built-in storage, a room for our office, beautiful wood interior, and big windows to enjoy the view.
Temporary structures (like trailers on wheels) are allowed on vacant land by Inyo County while we have an active building permit for a primary residence. Cities and counties around the country have different rules about living in a temporary structure on vacant land, but many do not allow it. One reason is because governing agencies develop codes to keep people safe from structure collapse, fire, snow loads, wind, etc. Historically, travel trailers and mobile homes weren’t built to these permanent residential standards, which has resulted in injury and death. Another reason is that some home owners are afraid their property values will go down if their neighbors live in a small or mobile house. Tiny houses can certainly be built to safety codes, but NIMBY attitudes appear more difficult to change.
