What do you get when you combine treehouse designs with tiny house living solutions? A tiny treehouse home that provides financial security and sustainability. After finding a piece of affordable land that would work for a tiny house design, owner Geoff de Ruiter spent the next year designing and building a 165 square foot tiny treehouse. He spent $35,000 for the land, and $8,000 for his home.
He states: “One of the original reasonings for this was place stability. So if everything goes wrong in my life, all I have to do is basically pay my property taxes and I own everything outright”. “Stability to me is also sustainability. Because it means we are not needing to forever chase resources.”
The walls were constructed on a platform and then tilted into position. Naturally, hoisting everything up the height of the tree was the most challenging aspect of construction.
“That was an extremely stressful moment that pushed my mental and physical comfort harder than I had, because of the danger that was involved,” he said. “If I had a $100,000, I could have hired a company to come in with a crane. I could have built the whole treehouse on the ground [and] they could have just picked it up and put it on.”
Effort was made to include many recycled materials, including stair railings made from wood found on the property, and hardwood floors from the non-profit Habitat For Humanity.
But de Ruiter says none of it would work without his incredibly supportive neighbours, who supply him with a single power cord that runs his mini fridge, two 100 watt bulbs, and a small baseboard electric heater. For that, he pays $20 per month, which is actually more than he consumes. He uses six tiny tea light candles to help heat up his home. He uses a composting toilet, and he showers at a local marina/pub, that is about a 15-minute walk away.
I like his mindset with this quote: “If you have a 3,000-4,000 sq.-ft. house, you have no reason to go anywhere. You can have a pool, you can have a hot tub, you can have your own home theatre system. But when you live in a tiny space you really have to live outside of it more. I think that’s great because that means people will get together.”
Photos: Geoff de Ruiter
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