'Portlandia' send-up of the 'tiny house' movement

I’ve often written about the cottage lifestyle, featuring small homes usually set around a common.  It makes a ton of sense for some parts of today’s downsizing market.  Carried to an extreme, “tiny houses” provide minimal space for people who don’t need or want much, in exchange for ridiculously low prices that enable owners to maintain a low-budget lifestyle or spend their dough on something else.

The video below is a wicked send-up of the movement by an independent film crew for the Portlandia Film Festival, and is itself basically a send-up of the Porlandia TV show, which continually caricatures and skewers the oh-so-sensitive and -sustainable lifestyle in and around Portland Oregon, and does so with a wicked combination of gentle affection and stinging satire. 

Like so many creative comedies on cable TV these days (Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback and Web Therapy; Laura Dern’s Enlightenment; Larry Davis’s Curb Your Enthusiasm), Portlandia makes you laugh and cringe at the same time.  It’s a sketch-based series in which every sketch stars the same two actors, Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and lead guitarist/singer for Wild Flag, Carrie Brownstein.  It is shown on the Independent Film Channel (IFC).  This film is so much like the actual show that I thought it was from the show.  (Thanks to Steve Davis and Lloyd Alter for the correction.)

Enjoy!

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Related posts:

• What's going on with new home sizes - is the madness finally over? (February 9, 2012)
• Smaller, more sustainable living in neighborhoods that fit in (January 3, 2012)
• "Katrina Cottages" find post-Katrina uses as affordable housing, educational facilities, offices, & more (July 11, 2011)
• What other cities can learn from Portland (and it’s not just what you think) (September 30, 2009)
• Downsizing the footprint with Tiny Texas Houses (May 6, 2009)