The Joy of Tiny House Living: Everything You Need to Know Before Taking the Plunge (Creative Homeowner) How-To Manual of Practical Considerations for Building, Owning & Living in a Tiny Home on Wheels

by Chris Schapdick

Your indispensable manual for tiny house living! The tiny house movement continues to grow and thrive. Are you ready to go tiny? If you're considering joining the small home lifestyle, you have many decisions to make before you can realize your Is tiny living right for me? What kind of structure should I build? Where can I park my tiny house? And what about the toilet? The Joy of Tiny House Living is today's indispensable manual for fully understanding all the practical considerations that go into building, owning, and living in a tiny home on wheels. This book will help you learn everything you need to know about the challenges of tiny living and discover how other people in the tiny house movement are finding answers to the same questions. Award-winning tiny house builder Chris Schapdick offers first-hand information to help tiny home aspirants realize the dream, with advice on design, construction, legalities of living in a tiny home, and how to deal with some of the inevitable challenges of living tiny. Upgrading to small has many benefits for those who are well informed—that's where this book can help! Learn everything you need to know about tiny house living, "I aim to align myself with people that inspire. You should always look for those with that mad scientist gleam. Chris has it, and he's about to share it with you."
—Derek "Deek" Diedricksen, author of Microshelters and Micro Living , former host of HGTV's Tiny House Builders " The Joy of Tiny House Living is filled to the rafters with practical advice, personal experience, important questions to ponder, and fabulous photos that will inspire and prepare you to embark on your own tiny house journey."
—Susan Schaefer Bernardo, author of The Big Adventures of Tiny House

Genres: Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

Published June 10, 2019

Reviews

[Hanna Boven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good start to thinking about building my own tiny house, but did include a lot of information that seemed unnecessary or already known

[Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

In addition to featuring a wide range of tiny homes (not just tiny houses on wheels but also vans and buses) and interviews with those living the tiny home lifestyle, this book gives much food for thought for anyone thinking of possibly going tiny themselves.

Going tiny has become a bigger trend in recent years and I've dreamt of doing it myself for nearly two decades since I first came across an article about Jay Shafer and his tiny homes. I did go tiny for about a year and a half in a 28' class C motorhome but opted for a traditional home again to better fit the needs of the furry members of the family. After nearly six years in one place, I've been getting the itch to pull up roots again.

This book gives plenty of examples of tiny houses to drool over, but more importantly, it goes into the reality of living tiny and brings up issues one might deal with. Watching the numerous tiny house TV shows, I think many of the people on those shows could have benefited from a book like this to better align their expectations with reality. I love that the author doesn't sugarcoat things here. Living tiny has many benefits, but there are definitely trade-offs.

A good portion of the book deals with the various aspects of constructing a tiny home. This would be very handy for those thinking of DIYing their own tiny home.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since I began watching tiny houses being built on "Tiny House Nation," I have been fascinated by the trend toward not only building them, but the trend of living in them. Chris Schapdick's The Joy of Tiny House Living : everything you need to know before taking the plunge is interesting and full of photos and accounts of those actually living "the dream." While I do not ever consider myself to be one of those dreamers, the fascination with this type of construction continues for me. One of the most humorous, yet needed chapters was one dealing with the selection of a toilet and its installation. At the end of the book there is a checklist to make sure that you are ready both mentally, financially and physically to make a tiny house a reality. I was a little disappointed, however, that there were not more photos of how to create and use that space to your advantage.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Tiny House book I've read by someone who actually builds and sells houses in NY state, where I live.

[Amberwench · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent compilation of things that need decided before you begin your tiny house life!

[Lexi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Bible of tiny home living! Loved this, and the way Chris wrote this was engaging and refreshing.