One of my lesser known hobbies/passions is minimalistic living & travel.  I'm the guy who goes on vacation for a week with nothing but a small duffel bag and still comes home with stuff I didn't use.  I've been interested in the small house movement for some time now, and Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company has been at the center of that movement since the beginning.  Having spent a significant amount of time on the Tumbleweed site checking out the plans and pictures over the years, I was more than a little excited to find out that Jay was personally bringing a brand new Tumbleweed Fencl on tour across the country.  I was even more excited when I realized that one of the stops was 15 minutes from my house!  I was lucky enough to go down tonight and see the Fencl, and I have a few pictures and thoughts to share with all of you:

Picture
The Fencl is about 125 square feet (which by Tumbleweed standards would be a "mid sized" home).  There were about 15 tiny house enthusiasts there tonight to see the house.  Jay hung out inside and answered just about any question you could think of about his houses and company.  It was a real pleasure to meet him and some of the other folks from the Columbus area interested in these homes.
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The Fencl has a sleeping loft at one end of the house.  A lot of the Tumbleweed houses have full length lofts, but I think I like this design better, as it makes the great room (where we're all standing) feel really roomy.  There's a double ladder to get up to the loft, which holds a full size mattress comfortably.
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Here's a shot of the kitchen.  It features a small fridge and a double burner stove.  There's also a sink off to the right.  The bathroom is to the left.  There's a small heater in the great room which easily heats the entire house (Jay has reported in the past that he can heat his house for an entire year for less than $200)  Another thing that this picture illustrates (if only a little bit) is the abundant storage space.  For being such a small house, the Fencl has a ton of closet and shelf space.

To wrap this one up for anybody who's still with me... call me crazy (many people have), but I've always thought I could live in this type of house, and tonight definitely confirmed that.  When you go small, the quality can be really excellent, and to be honest, I think all of my stuff would fit in here (except for the large instruments, of course... some other kind of storage would need to be arranged for that gear)  I'm not sure if I'd want one quite this small, but I could definitely do less than 500 square feet.  The simplicity would be freeing, I think.

Maybe someday... for now, I'm just glad to say I finally got to see one in person!  So what do you think?
 


Comments

Jeff

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:56:12

Eric, Thanks for the pics and the nice write up. I was able to see Jay and the Fencl when it came through Indianapolis, and your reflections are very close to my own opinions. (even down to the concern over musical instruments) I just recently married last month, and I am curious to know how small a couple expecting children eventually could go in terms of size. Otherwise, I am drooling over a fencl!

 

Eric Frisch

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:03:06

Hi Jeff,

I've always figured that a temperature controlled storage unit close to home would be a good, low cost solution to that problem (it's not like I have my drums and PA gear set up in my apartment now, anyway! Just leave them in the cases and pack them up for gigs) Having said that - there was a woman here in Columbus who had actually drawn her furniture into a floorplan, including her upright piano!

 



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