They are not just plainly adorable, tiny houses are the most practical, functional and cutest home one could ever have.
In the village of shipping containers, tiny homes with wheels are taking over the city that has an increasing rent due to the influx of new inhabitants. California has been seeing more of the repurposed shipping containers and tiny houses.
Hipsters dissed pricey San Francisco and have flocked to the industrial neighborhood of Oakland where a village named Containertopia with 160-square-foot shipping containers is located. Luke Iseman and Heather Stewart are the founders of this community when they bought an abandoned lot for $425,000. But, they were forced to leave the lot which wasn't zoned for residential leaving. They moved the community into a warehouse, then on.
Residents pay $600 per month to live in a container that is modifiable to the liking of the lessee. That beats the average rate in SF of $5,856.
Tiny houses require lesser materials, thereby, making it affordable and environment-friendly. There is a belief that a tiny space is good for the mental health, too. These, among many other reasons, are what drive hipster millennials to get themselves a tiny home, especially those that cannot afford an apartment with a starter's salary.
"Creating a microstructure involves creative thinking, outdoor activity, and problem solving - things many people crave but often find absent from their busy (and sometimes repetitious and regimented) modern lives," Derek Diedricksen wrote in his book, Microshelters: 59 Creative Cabins, Tiny Houses, Tree Houses, and Other Small Structures.
"Welcome to a world of imaginative, out-there fun - all within the realm of 'shelter,' from the most basic to the utterly brain-bending," he added.
Containertopia is not the only container community in Oakland. Gregory Kloehn, an artist, makes tiny houses made from containers and recycled materials. They give them to the homeless in the area.
"If we can do it in one of the highest-cost places in the world, people can do this anywhere," Iseman told the Times.
