Friday, March 23, 2018

64 sq ft


64 SQ FT
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note:good cheap knife sharpener
I bought all of them out, but they sell similar:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/263056836275
The minions were telling me how they are buying from E-Bay rather than Amazon, but I had no idea the number of useful shipped from Chinese items such as this I could get.  And I can pay with PayPal, which makes this fun and easy.  I'll highlight other prepper items like this as they occur to me.  PS-the sharpener is for getting an edge back on a dull as dirt knife, then you use your Rada for a fine finish.
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( note: this is going to be included in my forthcoming Hermit Survivalist book, but I thought it could double as a stand alone article )

When you are poor, and/or old, the last thing you want to do is build a huge dwelling.  You can’t afford the construction material and since you are no longer a spring chicken you need to minimize the work you undertake.  As a deluxe bonus, smaller dwellings are much easier to hide ( and heat! ), from both the Zoning Nazi’s and the post-apocalypse looters.  When most people think of tiny houses, inevitably they consider travel trailers.  Those suck.

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There are two reasons for this.  Height and mobility ( there are other reasons, but those will do for now ).  Since you need enclosed latch-able cabinets and you can’t have a high ceiling, all that extra space past 64 square feet STILL feels cramped and vaguely akin to car camping.  But in an eight foot cube, you can place half the floor space up in a loft and things are simply just better organized because of it.  There are Murphy Beds ( the bed is in the wall and folds down to use ) or Hide-A-Bed couches which can be surprisingly comfortable, but I think lofts are just a better idea.

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Sixty-Four square feet are of course arbitrary.  It can be a bit less or a bit more.  The cube shape is just easier as you don’t do as much trimming with store bought lumber.  I screwed up on mine, as I made it 6x12, and when I stretch out at night sleeping I need more than six feet.  But I can fix that, too.  All I need is lumber to replace a floor plan where everything is flat on the ground on wheat buckets.  My biggest flaw was NOT placing a Laz-E-Boy chair down there prior to enclosing.  Sitting all day on the bed blows compared to a recliner chair.

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Hey, what can I tell you?  In one years time I took two and a half grand and paid off my land, paid off the last six months of child support for about the same, and bought all the lumber and insulation needed for the underground hovel, all on minimum wage.  I ran out of money and supplies.  Then I spent a year buying all the prep supplies I had denied myself the last twenty years.  Stuff like, you know, extra food and ammo.  This year I’m going back and finishing it all up, as it seems likely I’ll be forced to move back there soon as the economy implodes for good this time.

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 ( I won’t dwell on this, but suffice it to say 80% of our domestic oil is extremely low EROI fracking oil, deep water and other sludge, not to mention ethanol.  Not to mention the question of how long fracking lasts-a money loser from Day One ).

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My point here is that I was living in a poor design and it isn’t something you should willingly choose.  Both in RV’s and in a crappy cube.  When the sun is shining I can go upstairs from my hovel and move around and stretch my arms.  When it is cold and overcast, I’m stuck downstairs.  And when you get stuck down in a poorly designed dwelling, the days are long, frustrating and just plain suck.  The best design is to have other dwellings where you can store most of your belongings, and the one you live in as uncluttered as possible.  But you can still put a lot of stuff in the primary dwelling if needed.  Just keep that in mind, however.  Sheds serve a very good purpose.

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To the design.  It would be better to show a picture, but I am a wordsmith, not an illustrator, so I’ll do my best.  Take your cube, with the door to one side.  As you enter that door, you are in a five foot wide “hall”.  That wall separates your kitchen and your bathroom.  The bathroom is on the other side of the entrance, and three foot wide.  It is only the shower and the toilet, so there is no sink to clutter things up.  You do your business and then exit the bathroom and do a U-turn to the sink.  It is a couple of steps.  The kitchen is a counter with sink and stove.  A board covers the sink for food prep.  Everything else is below that counter and up above on shelves.  Shelves cover the opposite wall.  The door will need to slide or open outward.  That comprises half the room.

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The other half of the room is the loft with the mattress.  Underneath the loft is your reclining chair and a desk with its own chair.  When you want to use the recliner at night to watch TV, have the flat screen mounted on the wall swing out to its place in front of the recliner.  The bed can be as high as possible, resembling an old sleeper railroad car or a navy bunk.  I would have a dowel above the desk and recliner, and slide your hanging clothes to the side you aren’t using at the moment. 

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Now, yes, things get a might complicated with two people.  You want the privacy roomette for the toilet and shower even if you are alone.  Looking at the crapper all day is stupid and depressing and reminds you that you are a poor hobbit stuck underground.  You need all the other walls anyway, so at least have a curtain to close off the space.  If a second person is there, the privacy is required.  Seating is going to suck.  While a lawn chair is great for lounging outside sucking in fresh air and getting sun, they are NOT comfortable to use all day inside.  You will need a couch that starts underneath the loft and goes right up to the bathroom entrance.

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You could place another recliner in there, one between the end of the kitchen and in front of the desk, or you could do without the desk underneath the loft.  Instead, you have a folding down desk and a folding metal chair.  They offer them now with a cushion, or just place a pillow on it as needed.  I work a good many hours a day at my desk, but I also love my recliner chair, now that my bones are getting old and achy.  I think I’ll be going for side by side recliners.  Both my exterior and interior doorways can be, albeit messily, temporarily widened as they are not load bearing.  Thrift stores always have recliners.

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In my case, I have some storage space.  Trailer up top and down below the entrance way is four by ten.  The only thing I had done with it was tack up a crude shelf for canned food.  Once I enclose that we have a lot of storage.  Don’t discount the amount of crap you’ll accumulate.  Try to build that into your design.  But you don’t actually need all that much living space.  Most folks combine the two.  If you separate them, you’ll probably find you use less for living than storing.  We do love our piles of crap.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2FKEpt5 )
 
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18 comments:

  1. Jim, good cliff notes for our final exam! I was thinking of a one of those tiny houses built (to own specs/sturdy/utilitarian) on a trailer and just back into a half trench on dirt lot and buried. It can be better engineered and equipped for purpose. D.i.y. would save costs over pre made yuppie models. Off site construction in town/central site would be an advantage for time and ease of methods. Maybe a hull deep drive through trench would work to shield vehicle and tiny house bunker from line of sight observation and small arms fire raining during collapse?

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    1. I'd also be concerned with hobby drone observation. If I were a survival group, I'd work on having those.

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  2. That may be a bit too tight. Better option would be two of those cubes, with 'dog trot' cover connection between the two for summer kitchen space. One cube strictly for living / sleeping, the other for storage / work space.

    The roof - vertical 2 x 8s with cleats nailed to cube decks. On top of 2x8s, corrigated metal panels, allowing continuous air venting to keep cube ceiling cool. Some storage PVC pipes in these spaces is allowable (with maybe enough slope for rain gathering ?).

    Be a good idea for floor of cubes to be off grade. Using 12' long corner posts, the floor deck would be approximately 3'6" off the ground. Harder for critters to infiltrate those cubes that way, or burrow underneath the floor.

    Sounds like a winner here Jim - you get a gold star !

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    1. Three cubes would be my goal-it fits just under the allowable non-permit size here. But if funds are extremely tight...

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  3. The tiny houses on trailers have a significant amount of value tied up in the flatbed trailer. If you're digging to lower its profile, wouldn't the hole you create to park in become a swamp with rain water/melted snow? In my area you can dig a below-grade hole and have a masonry wall for a foundation, as long as the masonry isn't more than 4' deep. More than 4' deep and it has to be engineered, have a permit, etc. My way is to dig the hole, pour the foundation, set up your 4' wall at grade level with 8x8x16 concrete block, have each core filled with rebar and concrete, and slather surface bonding cement on both sides of the block. This is probably overkill, but I'm not an engineer so I figure the safest way is to overkill it. Provide for drainage, back fill, build the upper half and roof, etc. Now you've just eliminated 1/3 to 1/2 of your building height and made the lower portion 100% small arms proof.
    Peace out

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    1. Not a bad idea, just dive to the ground behind cement. Then wait until they torch the place :)

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    2. Release the dogs, wire up and light the claymore/fogasse charges, pop up a couple red rain 26.5mm cluster flares for the neighbors up hill to do a mad minute of plunging fire and afterwards emerge, light your cigar with a zippo and get jiggy with the leftovers. Ha! Great plan Jim!

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    3. Yours seems a more actionable plan :)

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  4. Some of the best layout ideas for small living spaces can be had from sailboat interiors. The whole genre of books on people who "escaped" the rat-race by living on a sailboat can give thousands of innovative ideas about miserly living. Of course, I'm speaking of books from the 60's and 70's. Living aboard a boat is a rich man's game now.

    Two really great books on the topic are: Cruising in Saraffyn by Lin and Larry Pardey and The Intricate Art Of Living Afloat by Clare Allcard. These are written BY poor people FOR poor people. Very well written. Well worth your time.

    Also, for some DOOM, Steven Callahan's book Adrift is an awesome true story of his survival after his sailboat sank. Check it out!

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    1. I was watching a vid-from a European but it should translate to here-stating in 1960 a house was 3.5 times the average yearly wage. Today it is 12 times. I would imagine that translates into a lot of different things. Look how cheap a motorcycle was to drive compared to now. I would think a boat is about the same as a house or bike.

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  5. Good stuff here. Though I enjoy most everything you write, I especially like frugal living discussions. "Hermit Survivalist" sounds like a great idea! A couple comments. I think putting the toilet indoors is a bad idea due to smell, health issues, and space intrusion. Keeping it outdoors or inside a very small simple outhouse seems better. I once lived on a 56 ft fishing boat for two years. The head was inside a small narrow deckhouse. Only about 4 ft high by 2 ft wide and usually used with the hooded entrance hatch kept open to enjoy the view! For similar reasons, I also think an outdoor shower should be considered. Never had one at home, but I always found them enjoyable while camping.

    Another issue is the double recliner. Even though it might take a bit more room, two singles sounds like a better idea. More flexibility, and there is the option of eliminating one all together to get more room if the need for two, er, goes away.

    Finally, I second anonymous's idea of adding a summer kitchen for use in all but the most inclement weather. This keeps cooking odor and moisture out of the small space below. I have one outside my house for these reasons, find it very pleasant to work in, and use it in all but the worst weather. Just heating up stuff is done indoors, but major cooking, baking, and doing things that create a lot of moisture, like boiling pasta, is done outdoors. We do move baking indoors in the winter however. The smell is great and the added heat is welcome.

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    1. A sawdust toilet really has little odor. I only get about two months a year of hot summer-the rest of the time the heat from cooking is welcome. That is the reason I never turned the upstairs trailer into another kitchen. I should, and probably will, as a minor luxury fix-up, but it is down the list of priorities. I do bath upstairs when at all possible, but another luxury will be waterproofing a stall downstairs. Bathing at 50F sucks. Lots of tweaks I can do. I'll still plug away on the Hermit book, I just am having a hard time concentrating on it. Eventually...

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  6. Roughly 16 by 16 (256 sq ft) is MY minimum for a single persons cottage- that is 4 of the 4'x 8' OSB or Plywood panels on a side, 48 2x6 vertical studs and then 8 of 16 foot long sill plates top and bottom - a commonly available size that is easy for a single person to handle. When you build the roof, remember that overhanging eaves are your friend, simple concrete piers are available to get you off the ground for your floor structure -get more than you think you need, and put 1/4" or smaller hardware cloth covering the bottom to keep rodents out.Put as much foam panel insulation on the outside as you can afford, then fiberglass between the studs, for an extra insulate shelter. You can get fiber cement siding panels for a reasonable cost- these are very fire resistant. Combine with a metal roof and you reduce your chances of an exterior fire a lot (no single motlotove or wildfire will take you out). If I had the time or strength and energy I would use cinder blocks and surface bonding cement myself instead - but the cost is slightly more and the strength required is more significant (40lbs+ for an 8" x 16" block and you have to have a more expensive continuous concrete footer.)

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    1. 64 sq ft should just be the starter shelter, it really is too small for comfort. Of course it is doable if not ideal. I'd rather settle for smaller if that meant my land was paid off and I had the shelter in place rather as a plan not yet completed due to finances. Always act like tomorrow is the apocalypse ( at a minimum, Pink Slip and eviction notice ).

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    2. Yeah paying off land is prime concern.
      256sq ft is to prevent cabin fever. I have been stuck in a single small structure for some time and it sucks after a few weeks. Keeping the clutter in other buildings helps, but convenience and maintenance always seems to require pulling to many items into the prime living area.

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    3. Of course, if you lived in 64 or 128 for awhile, then that 256 feels like luxury. We should all have that much time.

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  7. "My biggest flaw was NOT placing a Laz-E-Boy chair down there prior to enclosing. Sitting all day on the bed blows compared to a recliner chair."

    My man, you needs a hammock. You lay in it, or sit cross wise in it. Very comfortable and takes down if you need the extra space or want to move it another location. Several of those overhead will hold gear and you can latch materials to the bottoms / sides for even more storage. Hammocks man - check them out !

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    1. It is a possibility. I'll try to keep it in mind. Thanks.

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