Barn-style tiny house doesn't break the bank

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Durango, Colorado's Rocky Mountain Tiny Houses recently completed a barn-style tiny house for a retiree who wanted a low-budget home to put on her land in Beulah Valley, Colorado. Clad in reclaimed materials and sporting a modest interior, the Bitterroot Valley tiny house runs off-the-grid with solar power.
According to Rocky Mountain Tiny Houses, the Bitterroot Valley derives both name and design inspiration from Montana's Bitterroot Valley and its picturesque barns. The tiny house sits on a 20 ft (6 m)-long trailer and was constructed using SIPs (structural insulated panels).

To keep costs down, the firm used inexpensive materials and those left over from previous projects to clad the tiny house, including rough cut lap cedar, rusty reclaimed corrugated metal, and cedar shakes.

The interior is unpainted as the customer intends to paint and stain it herself, in addition to adding some of her own extras. It is livable however, and includes a main living area, kitchenette, and bathroom on the ground floor. Curiously, the customer didn't require a shower installed or much in the way of plumbing.

"The utilities in this house are the simplest we've ever installed," explains the firm. "She did not require a shower, only a Loveable Loo compost toilet. We did leave space for a shower to be installed in the future, if needed. The kitchen features a single bowl sink with a pump faucet that pulls water from a 6 gallon container below. It drains to daylight under the house. There is no other plumbing in the house! "

A storage-integrated staircase leads to the home's single bedroom and it gets all power from a 1,000 watt solar array on the roof that's hooked-up to a battery bank to ensure the juice keeps flowing if it's cloudy or dark. Lighting is LED throughout and a couple of 30 lb (13 kg) propane tanks feed the kitchen's two-burner stove and a heater.

The price for the Bitterroot Valley pictured came in at US$39,000, plus $6,400 for the solar setup. Rocky Mountain Tiny Houses says that a similar build but with added shower, hot water heater, proper plumbing, and larger appliances would come in at around $46k, not including the solar power.