Less Is More Presentations

On Sunday night Dave Cain and I kicked off Less is More at Yestermorrow with photographic introductions and a parti exercise. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we had field trips and design time. Dave and I also lead a series of mini-workshops covering everything from tiny home regulations and financing to structural considerations and humanure systems. By Thursday it was Less Time, More Drafting. And Friday we had our final presentations from twelve wonderful students. Check out the photos in Day 5: Less is More Presentations.

Fortunately, Paul Hanke (one of my co-instructors for the Tiny House Design-Build course - which has just a few more open spots for July!) and Kathy Meyer (who has taught small house design courses at Yestermorrow before) joined us as jurors to give feedback and suggestions. We got to see these amazing presentations:

• Elliot's tiny home on wheels with a triple-duty multipurpose table and a complex arched roof
• Reese's snowboarder's heaven on wheels, outfitted with everything needed for hitting the slopes (perhaps even including the slope of the roof?!)
• Eli's get-away with shaded verandas and big fans to beat the Georgian heat and room for dance parties to dance to the beat
• Addie's tiny home on wheels with a lofted sleeping nook accessible by a clever ladder with built-in storage
• Anna's cat-friendly cottage with a reading nook tucked over the stairs
• Geoff's timberframed cruc home featuring a sunken living room and just the basics to live happily (like a baby grand piano!)
• Jody's tiny home on wheels with a cozy window seat, a bay window, and a clever ladder
• Hannah's small home featuring a krunkle (or two) and an alleyway for access to the porch and art studio
• Caitlin's Oratory - a garden shed/beekeeping workshop/eventual sauna built from reclaimed materials and flooded with light from handmade stained-glass windows
• Annie's cabin which employs permaculture principles to heat water and use graywater from the tub for greenhouse plants
• Greg's gypsy wagon for farmers, which borrows inspiration from sheepherders wagons of old
• Jenna's desert oasis for family gatherings, including a soaking tub, a dining patio, clever sleeping nooks, and a simple humanure system

Less Time, More Drafting

Our week of Less is More at Yestermorrow has flown by! It seems like just yesterday we said Welcome to Less is More and now, all of the sudden, tomorrow is our presentation day. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we had small home tours in the morning, a design lesson in the afternoon, and evening discussion and slideshows. You can learn about our Sunday orientation and our Monday tours in Welcome to Less is More.

Check out the Day 2 Slideshow for photos from Tuesday when went on 3 small home tours. First we toured Suzanne's home, which is rumored to be an old sugar shack.  She added a mudroom, a sunroom, and a small office when she remodeled a few years ago. Her home features wide counter tops, a trap door to the basement, built-in storage in the sleeping loft, and stained glass separating the bedroom from the clawfoot tub. I think if I lived in this beautiful home I'd spend a good deal of time soaking up sunshine in the sunroom with its wonderful views.

Then we headed to Sallie's small home, which I adore since it's fun to see a place that was designed by a woman my size. Sallie doesn't have any upper cabinets in her kitchen so it's nice and bright with sliding glass doors on one side and windows on the other. I am particularly charmed by the ship's ladder to the guest room and her octagonally-shaped bedroom.

Afterwards we explored Todd and Molly's log cabin, which has two cozy lofts - one for sleeping and one for knitting, TV watching, and reading. They have clever ladders, beautiful woodworking, and a great mudroom, in addition to a very cool vintage fridge.

Yesterday we headed to my co-instructor Dave Cain's place which is not as small as most of the designs being created in this class, but still not so big. Check out the Day 3 Slideshow to see photos of Dave's place and our design work! Dave's house features 12 inch walls which create deep windowsills and a nice quiet inside. He and his partner Nancy have included lots of lovely touches that make their home cozy and unique. I'm especially fond of the lighting Dave made out of old electrical insulators!

A big snow storm came through, dumping several inches of snow. Before it really got going we did a little walk around of Elizabeth Turnbull's tiny house, which was one of my original inspirations to attend Yestermorrow and design and build myself a tiny house.

Today the snow storm has provided just the right conditions for hours and hours of design. It's fun to see so many different design processes at work. Check out the Day 4 Slideshow for pictures of Drafting Day! We have students sketching, drafting, and researching. There are people taping out kitchen layouts on the floor and delving into SketchUp modeling. I've enjoyed answering and asking questions as the designs evolve. I can't wait to see everyone's presentations tomorrow!

Welcome to Less Is More

Last night Dave Cain and I greeted our students for Yestermorrow Design-Build School’s Less is More class. We started out with a round of introductions in which everyone shared photos that inspire them. Then we moved on to a parti exercise borrowed from Paul Hanke, one of my co-instructors for the Tiny House Design-Build course. Each team of two students selected a found object which became the “big idea” for a shelter design. It was amazing to see what they dreamed up in 20 minutes! Check out our Welcome to Less is More Slideshow to see what they came up with! This morning we started out our first full day with field trips in the nearby area. You can see photos of our field trips and studio time in the Day 1 Slideshow.

Before heading out we made a list of things we wanted to observe while we were visiting small homes. Here are just a few of the things that made the list:

• material selections,
• feel of light,
• workspace,
• designated vs. multi-functional spaces,
• movement and flow.

Our first stop was Ben Cheney’s house, which was designed and built by the Yestermorrow Semester Program two years ago. This 680 square foot home features a woodshop on the ground floor, a kitchen with spaulted maple cabinets, a living room with a Vermont-made wood stove, a deck with river views, a cozy bedroom. The showstopper at this house is a dramatic cantilevered dining room nicknamed The Krunkle, which features magnificent views of the forest and river below.

Our second stop was Emily & Susan’s tiny house on a trailer. The shell of this home was built during Yestermorrow’s Tiny House Design-Build class three years ago. It’s not quite finished, but it was fun to see how much progress Susan and Emily have made since I first saw the house in October. I especially enjoyed getting to point to various features of the trailer as I shared information and tips for connecting a tiny house to a mobile foundation.

This afternoon was spent playing with big ideas. We discussed which activities we’d like to do in our small homes and which we’d like to have access to. Each student generated a set of lists: activities, wishlists, and site characteristics. Then we moved to drafting tables and broke out the markers so we could spend the rest of the afternoon playing with bubble diagrams and figure ground exploration.

This evening we discussed our observations from today’s field trips and explored the question “How BIG is small?” I’m already looking forward to tomorrow’s adventures: more field trips, a drafting lesson, and sharing pretty pictures to illustrate interior design tricks for small spaces. Follow along!

Home Again at Yestermorrow

Every time I return to the Yestermorrow campus, it feels like a homecoming. This is my seventh trip to Yestermorrow and the only time I’ve arrived here via Boston. (Special thanks to the dear folks in Boston – Jessica, Sage, Alison, and Maggie – who showed me a great tiny time there!)

The first four times I came to Yestermorrow I was a student, taking the three-week core curriculum Ecological Design in the Built Environment, then Less is More and Composting Toilets, then a splendid 2-week Natural Design-Build Intensive, and finally a set of 3 workshops: Sustainable Development, Green Remodeling, and Invisible Structures.

After completing my Yestermorrow coursework I headed off to Portland State University in 2011 to earn my Masters of Urban and Regional Planning and my Urban Design Certificate. In the summer of 2012, between my two years of graduate school, I also completed my Practicum Project for my Certificate of Sustainable Design & Building at Yestermorrow, when I finished out a tiny house on wheels. Tandem is currently located at Caravan – The Tiny House Hotel in Portland, OR where it’s available for nightly rental. Here’s a Teeny, Tiny Film about me and Tandem which fellow Whitman College alum Emily put together for my practicum presentation.

When I was a student at Yestermorrow, I had fantasies of someday coming back to teach at Yestermorrow when I had enough gray hairs to attest to my wisdom. So as you might imagine, I was pretty excited to return to Yestermorrow just a couple years later to speak at the first Tiny House Fair in June 2013 and then again in September-October 2013 as an instructor for the 2-week Tiny House Design-Build.

This time I was greeted with a big hug from Dave, who manages Yestermorrow’s facilities and plays a mean stand-up bass, a firm handshake from Eric who coordinates Yestermorrow's Semester Program, and another hearty hug from Heidi, maven of Yestermorrow’s incredible kitchen. I arrived just in time for lunch, so I had a chance to meet a couple of the interns and to visit with Jenna, one of our students who arrived early. After lunch Jenna and I went for a walk around the Yestermorrow campus. I haven’t been gone long, so I wasn’t able to identify any big changes since October, but it’s always fun to play I Spy and notice the subtle shifts. It was especially nice to walk down to the river and see how different it looks iced over.

Tonight we’ll kick off our 1-week Less is More class with a full studio of 12 students from as close as Montpelier and as far away as California. A couple students are also coming down from Ontario. I can’t wait to meet all of them and learn about their plans for small homes! Stay tuned this week for updates!

Tiny House Treasure Hunt

 

My Tiny House Started with a Window, and A Beautiful Arched Door, and A Sink for Good Measure. So I ordered my brand new Custom Vardo Trailer from Iron Eagle, too. Then a few days ago I found My Kitchen Windows, just in the nick of time!

Now that I'm preparing for my tiny house build this spring my tiny house treasure hunt begins in earnest. I know that the next important steps are refinishing my door and building my arched rafters. The materials I should be keeping an eye out for at this point are things like cedar siding, metal roofing, and half-used rolls of house wrap.

But I couldn't help but get a little distracted by shiny things when I popped into an antique store that was moving locations and found these copper canisters. I've always had a soft spot for these countertop containers and I'd never found a set that seemed quite right for me. I found myself melting a little when I realized these little copper canisters were labeled: Cookies, Flour, Sugar, Coffee, and Tea. So it's a good thing for me they were also on sale half-off! I think they'll be a charming addition to my gypsy wagon kitchen, right there near my hand-hammered copper sink.

Apparently Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Groundhog's Day, which is probably just as well since we need more rain this winter. Looks like I have six more months to boneyard materials and work out the construction details. I'll be requesting building help later on, so you can be looking forward to that. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!)

In the meantime, if you see great deals on small batches of building materials or if you happen upon something wee and beautiful, please let me know. It has to be just right, of course. It has to sing to me. But I'm open to the possibilities now. I'm on a tiny house treasure hunt!

My Kitchen Windows

 

My Tiny House Started with a Window and a couple weeks ago I dropped the sashes off at Wooddale Windows so that a frame could be made for them. I knew that Wooddale, who has been making wood windows for the past several decades, was precisely the person I wanted to build the arched frame for the window that started this whole project. I believe it will be the piece de resistance in my wee home and I was pleased that Wooddale was fascinated by my project. I grinned when I read his emails:

"Ya know, we have built many arched windows in the past. There is a lot of labor that goes into building arched top frames and sash. Along with that costs are much higher. We are interested in your project. We have never built windows for a Gypsy Wagon, which will be a nice change... Send a 50% deposit that gets you in and I'll buy lumber and get it in here, when I trip on it a couple of times, it's time to build your windows. Thank you so much, looking to enjoy this job." - Wooddale

Besides the arched window, my vardo design called for two more windows, one for either side of my galley kitchen. So I had been haunting the ReBuilding Center for the past few months, looking for my kitchen windows.

I knew just what I wanted: They had to be a matching set. They had to be double paned. They had to be wooden, at least on the interior. They had to be about 3 feet tall and between 4 and 6 feet wide. They had to be in good working order. They had to be beautiful. Not that I was picky about it...

Needless to say, I hadn't found them. So I was just about to commission Wooddale to build me the kitchen windows of my dreams. I thought I'd wanted a little curve in the top trim the way old streetcar windows are, but I also wanted some sort of divided lites and when I tried sketching it out I realized it just didn't look right. So I came up with a new design, one that had both the curve and the divided lites. After I sent Wooddale the sketch of what I wanted I started seeing similar windows around town. And every time I did my heart skipped a beat. So I knew they would be gorgeous. And probably worth every penny of the price tag that accompanies meticulous craftsmanship.

But yesterday, just before I was going to send a deposit check for my windows, I decided to make one more trip to the ReBuilding Center to scout for my kitchen windows. And this time, when I walked among the rows of windows on a Tiny House Treasure Hunt, there they were.

My kitchen windows.

Two matching Pella windows. Double paned. Wood interiors. Three feet tall and 4 feet wide. In good working order. And beautiful.

Yes, one of them needed a new crank. Yes, their flanges had been cut off, as they so often are on reclaimed windows. Yes, they needed a good wipe down. Yes, a new coat of sealer probably wouldn't hurt either. But otherwise, they were just right. They were also a fraction of what I would have paid for brand new custom windows.

As I admired them I realized that my only hesitation was that if I purchased these windows Wooddale wouldn't be making me the windows of my dreams. I love supporting craftspeople like Wooddale, especially those carrying on traditions like building wood windows the old-fashioned way. So I'm delighted that Wooddale will be building the frame for my arched window. I know he has customers lined up, eager to have him create beautiful windows that match their historic homes. So I certainly know who I'll turn to if I ever decide to have the windows of my dreams built for me.

For now, I'm thrilled that I found my kitchen windows. It means I'm this much closer to being able to order my Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs)!

A Sink for Good Measure

For several of my tiny house heros The Kitchen Sink was the first purchase. It was their way of saying "Hey, I'm really going to do this thing! I'm going to build myself a tiny house." And then things started to fall into place for them.

My Tiny House Started With a Window and I felt pretty lucky that I'd found My Beautiful Arched Door, too. Since I'm a rather superstitious person, and I wanted the good luck to keep coming my way, I decided I'd better find myself a sink, too.

One morning I came across a beautiful hand-hammered copper sink on Craigslist. When I called the number the man who was selling it said he was on his way downtown and he offered to bring it by so I could take a look. I decided if he was determined to get his asking price I'd have to let it go. I am hesitant to pay more than I've budgeted since I know how budgets creep. I really can't afford to let that happen.

On the other hand, I know that a handful of beautiful things really matter. For me, the parts of a house I interact with daily - the sink, windows, door, knobs, pulls, and latches - are the parts that need to be beautiful and functional. It's like my cousin explaining that it's okay to buy jeans, t-shirts, and socks that don't speak to your soul, but you've got to have good shoes and a coat you love.

Fortunately, when I offered the man the amount I'd budgeted for a sink he accepted. He lives in a floating home, but he thought my tiny house was novel anyhow. When he saw Bayside Bungalow, the tiny house on wheels I'd rented for the year, he was pretty impressed. He liked the idea of his tiny sink finding a place in my tiny home.

My copper sink is large enough and deep enough that I'll be able to do dishes easily. But it's also small enough that it has moved with me three times now. First to My Summer Garden Cottage, then to my Home Sweet Yurt, and most recently to Sweet Pea. I love knowing that the next time I move it will be to install it in my vardo! I've begun scouting for a copper faucet that will match my sink. It seems the only way to do it justice.

So it seems My Tiny House Starts with a Window... and A Beautiful Arched Door... and a sink for good measure. With these three pieces guiding the character of my gypsy wagon, I think it's going to be lovely!

Let the Tiny House Treasure Hunt begin!

My Beautiful Arched Door

The summer before last I had My Summer Dream Job: Tiny House Design-Building. It was brilliant, lucky, backwards, or some combination of all three that I had the chance to build a tiny house for someone else before I built my own.

While I was finishing out Tandem (which is now located at Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel and available for nightly rental), I soaked up as much information and muscle memory as I could so that someday I would be ready to build my tiny dream house. And I started scouting Craigslist for materials, just to get a sense of what was out there.

I wasn't going to actually buy anything since I knew I wouldn't be building that summer. I definitely wasn't going to buy anything large!

But a friend invited me to visit the ReBuilding Center on a Saturday afternoon in August and I saw it.

My door.

An arched door with an arched leaded glass window and an arched frame, too. The fella I asked about it said it had been there a couple weeks. The price was more than I'd been wanting to pay for a door, but it was just what I wanted.

I decided to sleep on it.

And I didn't sleep well because I was nervous about making the commitment... but even more nervous someone else would get MY door. So I reserved a truck through Getaround and was at the ReBuilding Center before it opened on Sunday morning. When I walked in and told the guy I was going to buy that arched door he grinned and gave me a discount. The man who helped me load it into the truck said arched doors are rare but arched doors with frames in good shape are one in a thousand. I feel lucky that we found each other despite the odds, my door and me. So My Tiny House Started with a Window and then, all of the sudden I had a beautiful door, too. With an arched door and an arched window, my house was definitely taking on a life of it's own. And a shape of its own. When I found my arched window I was already pretty sure my house would be a vardo, but finding my arched door sealed the deal.

Then I started getting a little nervous because I didn't have A Sink for Good Measure, so my scouting began again...

Happy Birthday to Niche Consulting LLC

A year ago today I started my own sustainable design consulting company, Niche Consulting LLC. So my baby company is one year old today! Happy Birthday, Niche!

For Niche, like for most start-up companies – and most human babies for that matter – the first year was full of experimentation and growth. Through Niche this year I taught workshops, met with clients for design and lifestyle consultations, sketched up tiny house designs, participated in conferences and working groups, and supported other sustainable development companies. I worked with dozens of great individuals and a handful of wonderful companies, including Intrinsic Ventures, Portland Alternative Dwellings, Caravan – The Tiny House Hotel, and Yestermorrow Design-Build School.

As I've embarked on Lina's Next Adventure, I've learned a great deal through trial-and-error as well as from the advice and support of friends, family, colleagues, and a few perfect strangers, too. Sometimes it’s felt like I could barely hold my head up and sometimes it’s felt like I was crawling, but now that I’ve got my feet underneath me, Niche and I are eager to toddle out and explore what this second year of life is all about. (Hopefully, it won’t be the terrible twos!)

Of course, I’ve also been overwhelmed by the support from my friends and family. Special thanks go to Sandy Hall, Amy Gammill, Rose Jones, Kathy MacMaster, and Pat Hovis for being my cheer squad! It’s also been great to be starting up my company while several friends and two of my sisters start companies of their own.

These friends and family members of mine also welcomed new businesses into the world this year:

• My sister Sarah created Farthest North Films so that she can pursue her love of documenting life in Alaska. (Her company is so new the website hasn't been built out yet - stay tuned!)
• My sister Katie created Bring Baby Fitness so she (and her infant son Caleb) can help other new parents take good care of themselves and their little ones. (Her company is so new the website hasn't been built out yet - stay tuned!)
• My friends Derin and Andra Williams have created Shelter Wise LLC to build tiny houses and do energy efficiency work.
• My friends Deb Delman and Kol Peterson created Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel.
• My friends Jeremy Beasley and Kelly Nardo are creating a film about tiny living called Small is Beautiful.
• My friend Karin Parramore co-founded Good Life Medicine Center (and its development overlapped with construction of her tiny house on wheels, Serenity! Two new babies for Karin this year! She deserves a medal – and a break!)
• My friend Lindsey Thompson started up Thompson Family Acupuncture Clinic and began blogging at Stick Out Your Tongue.
• My friend Lisa Curtis has developed Kuli Kuli Bars which you can now request that your local Whole Foods carry.

Meanwhile, I continue to be inspired by the friends who have blazed the entrepreneurial path before me and created sustainability-focused companies of their own:

• Brittany Yunker rents out her sweet Bayside Bungalow as a tiny vacation rental.
• Tammy Strobel teaches e-courses on simple living, writing, and photography (I've just registered for her latest one A Simple Year and I'm so excited to get started!)
• Dee Williams and Joan Grimm provide inspiration, education, and information for people creating tiny houses through Portland Alternative Dwellings
• Matt Eppelsheimer does web development through is company Rocket Lift Incorporated
• Corey McKrill builds websites through Jupiterwise Design
• Curt Bowen supports sustainable farming practices in Guatamala through Semilla Nueva
• Emily Dietsman and Andy Asmus grow amazing food, flowers, and community through Welcome Table Farm
• Apologies to anyone I left off the list! Remind me and I'll add you!

It’s been an honor to work alongside these impressive folks as we create companies that strive to do well by doing good. Here’s to supporting small businesses with big hearts this year!