Have you always wanted to live off the grid, close to nature, in a simple dwelling you designed and built yourself? Well, you can!…..assuming, of course, that you have access to land that would enable you to do so, along with the means to do all the stuff I just described, the physical ability to live away from the amenities of civilization, and so forth.

Via Collective Evolution (so consider the source) (h/t Lisé), we learn of a guy who built his “dream mini-home.” In Thailand. On land that was pretty much donated to him. But it’s still a pretty cool house. It has a rooftop hammock platform, which I would totally dig.

Don’t get me wrong—I think it would be great if people en masse could live in a more sustainable way. The key term there is en masse.

That’s really the thing about “tiny houses” and their promise of a “simpler” life (h/t Mike, Sam): they always seem to be surrounded by nature, so perhaps they are so alluring because while the houses might be tiny, the lots appear to be huge.

There’s also the extensive series of questions about exactly what amenities and comforts of modern life tiny-house dwellers must give up. Or, as Hipstercrite puts it:

I f’ing love the idea of downsizing and living a “simple life,” but seriously, where do you put your shit? You still have some clothing and shoes and towels and all that jazz, right? Or do you just wear overalls now? Overalls and Birkenstocks and one towel that you share with your entire family. Where do you wash that towel, hmm? Do you have a tiny river that runs behind your tiny house? I bet you do. I bet your whole Goddamn property is whimsical.

Of course, you also have tiny apartments in the big city, some of which might not be fit for human habitation, and all of which are probably still prohibitively expensive for most people.

The tiny apartments that are actually habitable (with any amount of enjoyment of life, I mean) also seem to have inordinate amounts of modifications, customizations, and so forth. The one-room apartment in Hong Kong that can convert into 24 different rooms is pretty cool, but not everyone has the means or the skills to do that sort of thing.

So yeah, a tiny house sounds great for someone living a modern American lifestyle, assuming that you either live alone or don’t mind the extremely close company of others, and that you don’t have to keep very many changes of clothes handy.

For some interesting “tiny house” ideas that I Tumblr’d, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.