Erik Organic Founder Completes Construction of Small Footprint Mini-Home

Online, May 6, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Erik Schimek, founder, President and CEO of Erik Organic, recently announced the completion of his custom tiny home, a dwelling that uses primarily wood products in both the framing and the wall and ceiling sheathing, creating a small-footprint space that feels rustic but still incorporates all the modern amenities.

Erik Organic is one of the Upper Midwest's premier custom furniture manufacturers, offering a wide range of styles for every room from bedroom to den, all in native hardwoods that have been sustainably grown and harvested to create "heirloom quality" furniture.

The small custom home is one of a growing number of very small homes aimed at reducing the environmental footprint of American homeowners, which is the largest in the world. In fact, the average American homeowner's ecological footprint is 40 percent higher than Switzerland (the next highest per capital income earner in the world) and 80 percent greater than in China.

In spite of its diminutive size, of about 8 feet wide by 14 feet long, Schimek's custom tiny home is fully self-contained, offering all the essentials, right down to the kitchen sink, with enough windows to insure that natural lighting is always available to defray the cost of artificial illumination.

The home is also expected to reduce heating and cooling needs by as much as 80 percent, compared to the average-sized American home, and the loft design allows heated and cooled air to circulate freely to maximum effect. This reduced use of energy is highly relevant as the nation (and the world) recognizes the inevitable climate impacts of fossil-fuel burning and the near certainty of Peak Oil.

Schimek's custom tiny home, filled with light refracted by the gleaming, pale wood walls and ceiling, is a perfect example of a dawning American culture that has emerged from decades of extravagance and waste. This culture, whose paradigm is conservation, promises the sort of sustainable future toward which environmentalists have been aiming since the 1960s.