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Tiny-home movement builds

BOULDER (AP) – Christopher Smith lives in a house smaller than a parking space, between a chicken coop and some beehives in his friend’s backyard.

And the Boulder County man wouldn’t want it any other way.

He built his 120-square-foot house by hand, even though he had no construction background.

He didn’t want a fat mortgage to pay off for the next 30 years, and neither did his girlfriend, Merete Mueller. They’d never dreamed of a McMansion; Smith’s lifelong fantasy was a humble, simple life in the mountains, with a small roof over his head and the world as his living room.

“People seem to forget that there’s a big world outside the front door of your home,” Mueller says. “As Americans in suburban America, we spend a lot of time in our homes. But there are libraries, parks, sidewalks, cafés, a big world out there in the community. And small spaces encourage people to get out more.”

The city of Boulder has a large selection of tiny homes for sale, ranging from a 160-square-foot North Street residence for just $14,000 to a 200-square-foot, two-floor, solar-paneled cabin in the mountains for $65,000.

Compare that to the median value of an owner-occupied home in the city: $354,300.

The cities of Lafayette and Erie also feature tiny homes for sale.

Less ended up being more for Smith and Mueller. They captured their unconventional adventure on film and turned it into a documentary that has taken them around the country on a screening tour. Smith sleeps in his tiny home in his tiny bed when he’s not on the road promoting “Tiny: A Story About Living Small.”

When Smith hammered the first nail in 2011, he knew of about 100 other tiny homes across the country.

Today, he’s aware of thousands. There’s a long and ever-growing list of blogs, magazines and books dedicated to tiny houses, and the websites alone see thousands of hits every day.

There’s even a crop of building and design companies that specialize in tiny homes, such as the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company in Colorado Springs, Tiny Diamond Homes in Morrison and Clothesline Tiny Homes, which has ties to Loveland but a base in New Mexico.

TinyHouseListings.com is a real-estate website dedicated to homes under 200 square feet, and Boulder County has a strong presence there.

The cost of living in Boulder County is one of the major draws of a tiny house, says Smith. So is the freedom. Some tiny houses are built on wheels to give residents the flexibility to easily relocate, and to get around building codes, although it’s not that simple.

A structure permanently affixed to a trailer in the city of Boulder is allowed and not subject to building codes, but a building on wheels in unincorporated Boulder County is not permitted, in part because of the effect of high winds.

In the city, a tiny home with a foundation requires a permit and must follow code: It must have electricity, running water and sewer services. And, although one can find a list of tiny homes in city limits with a simple Google search, Dave Thacker, the city’s chief building official, says he’s never seen a request for a permit. But he’s never shut down a tiny home, either.



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