Good News and Sad News

Posted June 20th, 2010 by Michael Janzen and filed in News

The good news is that I’ll most likely be moving the Tiny Free House off the family farm and closer to home. In fact I may squeeze it along side my regular house and fence in a little more of my side yard to keep my neighbors from freaking out. This is good news because having it here will allow me to work on it much more often.

The sad news is that it looks like the family farm is going to have to be sold. Both the primary legal owners are retired and living there… and living way out in rural anywhere doesn’t always make the most sense as we all get older. So both are carefully working through the details of selling and moving. It’s sad because the land has been in my wife’s family for over 100 years. But then again 100 years ago the world was a very different place and the needs of folks back then were quite a bit different from folks these days.

So while this is good and sad news it also seems like the right thing to do all the way around. Although it does increase my interest in finishing the house soon and finding some cheap land to set it up as a home away from home.

So stay tuned… now I’m working on moving day preparations like finding the quickest way to batten down the pallets and exploring the best freeway-free path to safely make the 60 mile trip. The house IS on wheels but it’s far from complete and will need some added support to make it through all the bumps and turns.

Tiny Free House in the NY Times

Posted September 11th, 2008 by Michael Janzen and filed in News

Not long after I got started down this path, Steven Kurutz, a reporter from the New York Times contacted me about this project. We talked a few times on the phone and they sent out a couple photographers to take pictures of me working in the tiny free house. The article is in the paper today!

Photo credit New York Times