I was recently contacted by a fellow named Roy who was looking for something to do with 200 pallets. He couldn’t find any buyers or even someone to haul them off free, so he’s decided to build something out of them. To help him visualize how I’d build a house from pallets I drew these 3D drawings with Google SketchUp, the free 3D drafting software from Google.
I’ve been getting better at drawing with SketchUp and it only took about 30 minutes to draw this up. I’ll eventually replace the 2D plans on this website with a better 3D plans. In the mean time I thought I’d share with you what I shared with Roy. The tiny house pictured here would use about 50 to 70 pallets. I left the roof off the design because I’m thinking more and more that the roof should be conventionally framed. Pallets over head just seems a little too risky, although I think Roy is going to find a way to do it safely. Continue reading
This is a tiny house concept designed by students at Emily Carr University that is intended to be a simple shelter for the homeless. These little houses measure less than 64 square feet and cost less than $1500 in materials. As tent cities continue to grow accross America maybe it would make sense for local governments to allow tiny house communities like these to solve the immediate need for affordable housing. They would sure beat living in a tent. 
Preparing for disasters usually includes things like storing food, water, and basic survival gear for keeping yourself alive and safe through difficult times. But I’ve never seen anyone suggest that they should prepare for the possibility that information itself may become difficult to access during a disaster situation. There is an incredibly simple and virtually free way of solving this problem; download Wikipedia itself.
Yesterday there was a great story on Oprah that included a segment on tent cities right here in Sacramento. I first came up with the tiny pallet house plans one weekend in the fall of 2008 as a hurricane blasted into the Gulf Coast. Today I’m thinking that tiny pallet houses might be a valuable temporary solution for those Americans stuck out in this current economic hurricane.