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!

Spring Cleaning Sweet Pea

They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but in Portland it sprinkles in and it drizzles out. Last year I didn't feel inspired to do a my Spring Cleaning of the Yurt until April. Nevertheless, this week I decided it was time for a good spring cleaning of my Home, Sweet Pea.

I’d been through a couple rough weeks, which helped me remember that stuff is Just Stuff. I realized how much I rely on the technological tools that keep me working each day. Fortunately, I now have a new phone and a new computer. And after a couple heart-wrenching conversations and a celebration of life ceremony for the person who reassured me that it really is time to build my tiny house (we'll miss you Les!), I also have a renewed appreciation for connections with the people I love and admire.

It seemed a good time to get my house, my head, and my heart in order again. Cleaning is not one of my favorite activities, which is one of the many reasons I live in a tiny house. But cleaning can be cathartic. It’s a good opportunity to blast the music and get moving again. So I cleaned the tiny house from top to bottom while listening to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Griffin House, Birdy, Pink Martini, Joshua Radin, and Eva Cassidy.

As I noted in Tiny House Cleaning Checklist, it turns out that, when cleaning a tiny house, it really is best to clean top to bottom. As you strip the bed and catch any dust bunnies, cobwebs, and bits of schmootz that have gathered in the corners of the loft, you can send them downstairs so they'll get swept up by the time you get to the floors. I also reinventoried my pantry and did a bunch of laundry. And vacuumed every nook and cranny, scrubbed every surface, and reorganized every drawer.

It’s nice to be leaving Sweet Pea in good shape as I put the house and my dear Raffi into Laura Klement’s care. I’m head out to Boston tomorrow to visit with a couple friends then to Yestermorrow for a week to teach the Less is More course with Dave Cain. Stay tuned for more tiny tales!

So Much Blogging - Just Not Here!

Dearly Beloved Readers, I have actually been blogging recently. And prolifically, I might add. But obviously not here. And I don't necessarily have much to show for it just yet. But there's so much good stuff to come. (I've been prepping for my tiny house build, too, so things are going to get even more exciting around here very soon!)

I have an alibi. (I've been at AccessoryDwellings.org and TinyHomes.com)

And a motive. (I'm helping other people tell their small living stories.)

So please let me explain...

Since December I've been Coordinating the ADU Case Studies Project, which means I've had the opportunity to interview the owners of granny flats, backyard cottages, and garage apartments to learn about their inspirations, challenges, and triumphs. Each of these homeowners has created a second home of 800 square feet or less on their property. I've now had the pleasure of working with more than 30 homeowners to help them tell their ADU story. I've learned a great deal about the impacts of regulations, incentives, and design guidelines. And I've heard some really wonderful stories about how ADUs have provided flexibility for the sandwich generation and increased the supply of affordable infill housing. At this point we've published nine ADU Case Studies on AccessoryDwellings.org, there's one ready to go live on Friday, and there are many more in the queue. Here are the ones that are already live:

• Michael Klepinger’s ADU: Ellen Bassett’s Garden Cottage
• Jeff McCaffrey & Beth Bonness’s ADU: Hawthorne Guesthouse
• Wally & Lara Jones’ ADU: Keeping Good Neighbors
• Lissa & Matt’s ADU: Planning for Our Sons’ Future
• Jill’s ADU: A Home of Her Own
• Stephen Williams’ ADU: An ADU on the Alley
• Susan Moray’s ADU: Updating History in Ladd’s
• Scott Powers’ ADU: 3 Generations at Home
• Kol Peterson’s ADU: A Backyard Home

You can subscribe to receive the posts in your email inbox or you can just check back each week on Friday. If you ever miss me and my writing, you know where to find me!

Meanwhile, I've also been helping 31 Voices for the Tiny House Movement get settled into their role as regular contributors to TinyHomes.com. TinyHomes provides a venue for tiny house designers, dwellers, builders, and enthusiasts to share their love of tiny homes. February was our first month with daily posts. (We've got a couple openings for regular contributors so if you'd like to claim one, please let me know!) Another exciting update is that we are now accepting profiles. You can create a Personal Profile to shout your love of tiny houses loud and proud. And since tiny homes have plenty of character (and often their own names, like Sweet Pea and Bayside Bungalow) you can also create a Tiny Home Profile to show off your tree house, studio apartment, backyard cottage, etc.

My Custom Vardo Trailer

01/20/16: These days I'm doing Project Management for two tiny houses on wheels, so I've been talking to trailer manufacturers in several states to learn about their latest and greatest models. It's amazing to me that there are now several trailer manufacturers who specialize in building tiny house trailers. Back when I had my custom vardo trailer built in 2013 there were several companies that had customized a trailer for a tiny house, but as far as I know Iron Eagle Trailers was the only company that had created a tiny house specific trailer model. I also realized that I never did post the piece I started about my custom vardo trailer, so I figure this is as good a time as any to send it live! I've popped it back in time with the other building prep posts as I was acquiring my building materials and Almost Ready to Build.

After living in two tiny houses on wheels, a yurt, a travel trailer, and an accessory dwelling, I've developed a pretty bad case of Trailer Lust. So it's exciting that I have my very own custom vardo trailer sitting from Iron Eagle Trailers, just waiting for me to begin my build.

I knew I wanted to build my tiny house, The Lucky Penny, on a new trailer because a tiny house specific trailer would save me time and money in the long run. Several of the people I know who have built tiny houses on used trailers spent as much money retrofitting them as they would have spent on a new custom trailer and they didn't end up with a trailer that was as well suited for their tiny home as it could have been. There are now several companies that have customized car haulers for tiny houses and a couple of them could do it more affordably, but I knew I wanted to get mine from Iron Eagle Trailers because of the quality of construction and their level of experience with tiny house trailers.

Rob of Iron Eagle began building tiny house trailers for Dee Williams several years ago. The two of them had developed two versions of a tiny house trailer - one that was about 7.5' wide and a "Fatty Trailer" that was about 8.5' wide. I first met Rob Manzij at Iron Eagle Trailers a couple years ago when Seeking: Everything but the Kitchen Sink. At the time, I was helping Jane prepare for her Tiny House Build Week. She and I worked with Rob to develop a trailer design that allowed us to build wider than the trailer frame, but was lighter than the PAD fatty trailer. (Rob has now developed an even better model called the PAD Series trailer.) I was impressed with how knowledgable and thoughtful Rob is!

So once I had my vardo design figured out, I ordered my custom tiny house trailer from Iron Eagle. It's a single axle trailer with a 5K axel. Having it single axle should make it a bit easier to maneuver. This was one of the first trailers where Rob tried out the improvements that later became the PAD Series trailer. It has the cross ribs dropped below the trailer frame so that the cavity can be filled with insulation. It also has tube framing welded to the sides of the trailer frame and then angle irons welded to that, making it 8'2" wide and easier to secure my walls to.

I plan to host my Build Blitz over Memorial Day Weekend so that's when I actually start construction. Right now I'm on a Tiny House Treasure Hunt. I've already acquired:

• A window worth building around
• My Beautiful Arched Door
• A Sink for Good Measure
• My Kitchen Windows

I can't wait to take all these beautiful things and build myself a home out of them on top of my new custom vardo trailer!

Snow Day Catch Up

It's been three weeks since my last post, My Tiny House Starts with a Window, but it feels like it's been ages. What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been! And, as is my way when I'm life switches from full to busy, I've written more posts than I've posted. Fortunately, Laura Klement has already posted about three of the big events in her post Tiny Chairs, Houses, and a Mixer, which leaves me to write about other exciting events from the past few weeks.

And what a perfect day to do it. Today is a snow day! The Snowpocalypse has gone so far as to drop several inches of snow here in Portland, OR of all places. So I have the perfect excuse to snuggle up on my window seat with hot cocoa and catch up on Little Life posts.

Two weeks ago I began working as the Living Building Challenge Assistant for the Breathe Building. I'll be doing material research and tracking as this community wellness center pursues the world's most rigorous green building standard. I'm looking forward to being part of the challenge.

Speaking of material research, the week I started up with the Breathe Building I also made a trip to Cotton Cloud to investigate options for my bi-fold mattress and I began researching my tiny appliance options in earnest. I've enjoyed swapping notes with Ben Campbell of Ben Builds a Tiny House. (It's amazing how much appliance options have changed since I first began exploring them four years ago!)

Last weekend I co-taught a Tiny House Basics Workshop with Dee Williams and Joan Grimm of Portland Alternative Dwellings (PAD). The workshop drew 22 people who are exploring everything they need to consider as they decide whether or not to create a tiny home of their own. It was fun to have them explore Sweet Pea through interactive activities. And, of course, I enjoyed talking with them about everything from applicable building, zoning, and RV regulations to electrical systems and community building. Their tiny house dreams were contagious and I can't wait to see the tiny homes they create! (I'm especially eager to watch Jeannie's house plans evolve since she's basing her wee abode on Baba Yaga's! Hopefully she'll keep me posted and I can keep you updated, too!)

Finally, Niche Consulting LLC now has a logo, thanks to my incredibly talented friend Jeanne McMenemy of Calligraphica - who was able to extract the idea from my brain and put it to paper - only better than I imagined!

Meanwhile, I've continued working on the ADU Case Studies Project and TinyHomes.com is now set up with daily contributors. Watch for catch-up posts over the next couple days!

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...