The Home Crowd

Bedroom just too boring and stagnant?

Maybe it just needs a computer-based, ball dropping screensaver being shot up against the wall from a projector…

Really cool art installation “Disturb me” by Thepopcornmakers.  – Link

I think I’d rather have the projector facing opposite the bed… you know, for watching movies and HGTV and all.

From Dailymail UK -

A group of little old ladies from Britain, have been knitting scale reproductions of their neighboring structures for the last 23 years.

This is really quite impressive.  I can only imagine how these ladies would fare in a gingerbread house competition.  Apparently, they gained much publicity for announcing the sale of their 60 property collection.

Head over to the Dailymail UK page to see these and many, many more pictures of the ‘properties’ and their real life counterparts. – Link

What a great little animation!

watch the american housing market spiral out of control.

subprime from beeple on Vimeo.

HomeAid is a leading national non-profit provider of housing for today’s homeless. The organization builds and renovates multi-unit homes for America’s temporarily homeless while they rebuild their lives.

Annually, the fundraiser known as “Project Playhouse” benefits HomeAid Orange County (CA) comes together in the open air of fashion island and culminates in the auction of the playhouses at the conclusion of their exhibition.  And these aren’t your run-of-the-mill dolled up sheds you might be imagining…

Hampton Harmony (above) by Shea Homes was featured at last year’s event.  The assortment of playhouses are typically funded by homebuilders and product vendors.  Volunteer firms also provide architectural, interior design, and landscape design services, as well as countless hours volunteered towards the labor of creating these miniature McMansions.

High design? For a playhouse you say?  You may swap out with the kids after you see how well these pads are outfitted.  It’s not unusual to see playhouses very fine interior spaces, decked out with granite countertops and plasma televisions.  And they won’t take up much of your backyard space as each playhouse is designed to fit in a 10′X10′ space.  However, if you’re planning on diving into this mini-housing auction, make sure to bring your checkbook as many playhouses of years past have gone for upwards of $50,000.  Still not a bad deal considering the cost of housing per square foot.

The Sketch Pad (above) by William Lyon homes was also featured at 2007′s Project playhouse event.

The playhouse village will be on display near the Atrium Lawn at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California from September 6 to October 11, 2008. Visitors have an opportunity to view the pint-size creations on display by purchasing a ticket at the playhouse village. While at the village, visitors can purchase tickets to enter an opportunity drawing to win one of the playhouses on display (all remaining playhouses will be available for auction on October 11, 2008). Funds raised, including raffle and auction proceeds, support HomeAid Orange County’s mission of building dignified housing where homeless families and individuals can rebuild their lives.

The opening day, September 6th, however, is the best chance to get a good peek inside the playhouse village.  For a donation of $20, you can tour all the playhouses, inside and out.  This is a great deal, due to the playhouses shutting their doors for the remainder of the exhibition.  You can still tour the playhouse village for a $5 donation, but the only way of seeing inside is through their teeny teeny windows.  Be sure to check this event out if you’re in the area.  All the money raised goes to a great cause, and if you enter the raffle, you may just end up winning one of these playhouses.  Which will likely only be expensive as you dress up your actual home in order to not be shown up by the kid’s playhouse in the backyard.

Link to HomeAid

Link to Project Playhouse

From the LongCountdown.com,

With earthquakes, tsunami’s, and various natural disasters happening on a seemingly monthly basis,  here’s one of Japan’s answers to providing temporary shelter after the fact.

So, for 150,000 yen (approx. 1400$) you get two 90 pound boxes of cardboard pieces.

Then, you begin assembling your cardboard igloo over a plastic sheet.

And provided that you have a couple of friends clad in painter’s outfits, you can neatly roof your highly flammable new bachelor pad.

And then, a wonderful silver tarp and duct tape along the seams waterproofs your shelter, so long as that rain falls perfectly vertically downward.

The only way this could be more comical would be if it was used as a prop in a Japanese game show.

• So…. It’s made of cardboard huh? Should smell real nice after rain hits it once, and your soggy walls cave in.
• Probably better keep this monster in your car, because if your permanent home caves in, crumbles in a heap of wood, steel, and concrete, it’s going to be quite the chore to unseat both of these 90 pound packages.
• Best use yet: plant a windmill on the front, and charge the neighborhood children to putt a golf ball through your front door.
• Oh, and it costs 1400 bucks.  To live in a glorified cardboard box.  You could easily find a water heater box for much less.  Actually, for 1400 dollars, you could BUY a water heater, live in the box, and with a little ingenuity have indoor plumbing with enough left over to buy a tankless water heater, and use it’s cardboard box as a den.

OR…..

There’s another recent development in temporary shelters, real cutting edge technology you may want to try.  They’re called Tents.  Very hard to find (Wal-Mart, target, drugstores, basically anywhere), but if you can manage to track one down, you’ve got a temporary shelter which repels rain, weighs only a few pounds, and if you’ve spent a hundred bucks on one, you’ve likely bought the family size.  Someone should have tipped off those cardboard guys..

Check out the story, and many more great pics at Longcountdown.com.

I see from time to time these quirky stories of world’s smallest house. This one, in Toronto, however, I see pop up the most.

Estimated at around 300 square feet and roughly 6 feet wide at the interior, the home is on the market for somewhere between 170-180K. Seems like alot for something that looks as if it started off as a shed for the brick home on the right there.

On the plus side, now you’ve got a reason not to go all out with a giant plasma tv, as it may not fit on the wall. Behind that wall is the bathroom, kitchen, and at the rear is the bedroom. The bedroom sports a murphy bed which couldn’t possibly fit any tighter.

Seems tight… Don’t suppose a young married couple in a starter home could get along with sleeping in bunk beds? Perhaps these from a previous post?

Anyhow, also found on youtube was this news clip of the home when it was previously up for sale in 1993. The bathroom looks to be the trickiest part as taking a seat on the commode would be like trying to fit in your old high school desk with that sink positioned where it is.

More pics here at Joeydevilla.com

Similar pics here at TeamSugar.com, as well as a floor plan at the bottom of the article.