Thanks to the natural boom-bust cycle of American debauchery, tiny homes have become a (tiny) cottage industry in recent years.
You could call it a backlash of the MTV Cribs fetishization of big homes, which begat McMansions, and subprime mortgages to finance them, and then the subsequent financial crisis. (All this as the great College Loan Reckoning came into focus on the horizon.)
So you can’t really blame people for wanting to take to the woods, or at least, build a highly Instagrammable domicile that’s under 400-square feet and requires the bare amount of debt and materials.
The thing is, these homes usually don’t come cheap, even though they cost a fraction of a “normal” house. You could spend $40,000 building your own tiny house, which, honestly, could arguably be better spent on a sweet RV, or even a farm in Central America.
But if you’re willing to do the work yourself, and don’t mind a lack of amenities — like a shingled or metal roof — you can totally build a tiny house for $500.
That said, there’s no functional difference between the log cabin built above and a moonshiner’s shed. It would probably make a sweet hunting camp for one or two people.
