12' Cedar-Sided Tiny House on Wheels

12 feet long, 7 1/2 feet wide and 13 feet tall (within all legal towing restrictions)
kitchen area with small, 4 burner propane stove and oven
Salamander Hobbit wood stove
spray-foam insulation rated at R21
loft with queen sized bed and full sitting headroom for two
table that easily seats four and folds down for additional sleeping area
sided inside and out with reclaimed cedar
reclaimed hardwood maple floor, reclaimed alder counter and table
LOTS of storage
wired for 110 with a plug that can be attached to a power source or hooked up to an off-grid solar set up
three lights, with independent switches and three sockets, one GFCI and two with USB ports
sturdy dual axle trailer with 5 new tires
6000lbs
NO BATHROOM OR PLUMBING **(PLEASE see note at end of the description)


We are selling our tiny house, built in the summer of 2017. My husband and I built this small home last summer with plans of living in it over the winter and hopefully beyond, but plans have changed and I think, despite it's small size, it's still just too much house for us. 

It is built on a dual axle trailer to alleviate bumper weight while towing; it has all new tires and professionally installed brakes and is currently registered in Utah. The walls are framed with 2x4s and the sheathing is 1/4" birch plywood (not OSB), then covered with Tyvek and finally finished with reclaimed cedar and corrugated metal. All of the windows are new and double paned. Knowing we were going to be wintering in Montana we decided to go with professionally installed spray-foam insulation in the walls, ceiling and floor (rated at R21), keeping it very cozy despite the sub-zero temperatures this winter. Heat is provided by a Hobbit woodstove. The roof is also corrugated metal, though we used new material instead of reclaimed for that! The door is reclaimed cedar, as well, made custom for us by a friend.

The interior is covered in reclaimed cedar and has a natural stone entryway and then reclaimed hardwood maple floor from a high school gym. The counter and table are made from reclaimed alder. There's loads of storage built into the house--we currently have two pack-rafts, paddles and pfds, backpacking packs, sleeping bags and other camping supplies, as well as a pressure canner, lots of mason jars full of food, bows, arrows, sewing and crafting supplies and more all tucked into the storage areas, with room to spare. There are shelves for books, food and linens as well pots and pans. We've baked bread and roasts in the oven and the range works great.

We did all of the construction ourselves, with lots of consulting from friends who are professional woodworkers, roofers, finish carpenters and more, so while we are not professional builders we did build this solid and to last. It tows great behind our older diesel Ford F250.

Thanks for looking!

***I wanted to talk about the lack of bathroom, as this is the topic we have received the most questions about. I know this is long, but I wanted to be thorough and hopefully avoid wasting folks' time:

When we built this we had no intention of selling. We built the house for us to live in and to suit our needs. Keeping that in mind, we put a lot of effort into making it strong and beautiful (solid construction, high-quality metal for the bolts that attach the walls to the trailer, cedar interior, etc) and decided to forgo a bathroom or plumbing inside the house for a number of reasons. The house is only 12 feet long. This is SMALL, even for a tiny home. The space required to accommodate a toilet and shower were not worth it to us. We knew that we would be living in the house in a very rural location with lots of privacy, and an existing, communal composting toilet system. Bathing was done by taking sponge baths in the house, when we visited friends with traditional houses, or at the local hot springs. We've spent time living on boats and years camping in the Utah desert, so water conservation is pretty second nature to us.

All tiny houses have plumbing issues that make them less convenient than traditional houses connected to municipal systems. Composting toilets still need to be emptied and that means you need to have a place where you can keep your compost long enough to fully break down any possible parasites, bacteria and pathogens in the poop. If you empty the contents of your composting toilet every 10 weeks, that means that, while some of the poop has been composting for 10 weeks, some of it has been in there less than 24 hours. Which means it is not compost, it is still poop. Most books state that the amount of time poop needs to be actively composting (ie: in a hot and active compost pile) is one year before it is safe to spread around your yard. This requires A LOT of space. If you don't have much experience with composting your vegetable scraps, composting human waste is not the easiest place to start. While one blog I looked at said you can just dump the bin from your composting toilet into the trash, I would recommend against this as it is explicitly illegal since fecal matter is considered a bio-hazard (nursing homes either have to mark it as such or incinerate it).

When it comes to gray water, most tiny houses drain to either a tank which needs to be emptied regularly (either by driving to a pump-out, like an RV, or by manually draining the tank on-site) or via pipe/hose to a spot outside with well draining soil. We decided that freezing tanks and pipes in the sub zero temperatures of Montana was not worth the hassle and so left out the pipes and tanks and simply poured our gray water outside after each use, washing dishes, hands, etc into a basin. In this way we could easily spread out where the water went each time.

These are all things to consider when it comes to having a tiny house. If you are hoping to use THIS tiny house in a city, you'll probably need access to external bathroom facilities. As stated before, we put a lot of energy, attention and love into this house to suit our needs. That said, we understand that the lack of facilities would not work for everyone. And we priced the house with that in mind. There are plenty of situations where this house would work, just some things to think about when considering your specific needs.