Anyone who’s heard the siren song of tiny homes can tell you the pull is very strong. You start obsessing over square footage (Is 94 too small? Because 460 is laughably huge, right?) and picking out your favorite Tumbleweed house (definitely the Whidbey — just look at all that light, and the fireplace!). You read the Rowdy Kittens blog and feel like you’re on a first-name basis with Eli Spevak. But there’s been no way to actually SEE if you could handle living in a shoebox without plunking down the Gs. Until now.
The recent opening of Caravan, the world’s first tiny house hotel, means you can test out tiny living for $125 a night in Portland (of course). Two Portlanders, Kol Peterson and Deb Delman, transformed an empty lot with three micro-homes that share a fire pit, guest seating, and barbeque. OPB reports:
In the 120-square-foot Rosebud house, you have to move the bedroom stairs before you can sit at the kitchen table. In The Pearl, its 90-square-foot neighbor, the toilet is in the shower. And at 160 square feet, The Tandem is “the mansion of the bunch,” [Kol] Peterson laughs.
But somehow they all have full size beds, closets, kitchenettes, dining tables, electricity, flush toilets, and showers.
Tiny homes continue to get buzz for being relatively low-energy and low-pollution, boosting urban density, and preserving green space. Plus, there’s just something intoxicating about the challenge of a small space (and no mortgage) — it’s like putting your possessions on Twitter’s 140-character diet. Caravan isn’t just for the micro-curious, though — Peterson and Delman report a surprising number of “normal people” staying there. Anyone who likes the social aspect of a hostel and wants to stay in Portland’s hip Alberta Arts neighborhood will appreciate it.
Check out this slideshow of all three tiny houses:
