A couple weeks ago we built a bike shelter for our tiny cohousing community. Here a few pics of Kyra, Isha, and me finishing the roof.
Every time I teach a Tiny House Community & Zoning Workshop people get really curious about the details of how we set ourselves up for success, so I wanted to share an update on our tiny cohousing community's process. One of the things our fledgling tiny cohousing community is working out now as we settle into our rhythms is how we go about chores and work party projects. Which, of course, means identifying projects so that they can be tackled during those times we've designated.
When Isha and I purchased this piece of property with the goal of Creating a New Tiny Cohousing Community part of what attracted us to it was that it was so well-maintained. It's a fabulous 1926 house in an even more splendid neighborhood. (I seem to like this vintage because the little house I own in Walla Walla - the little house where I first learned to make home and got most of my early experience with power tools as I worked on renovation projects) was also built in 1926. For more on that lil place, check out Oh, The Joys of Homeownership!)
So, of course, seeing as our house is now just over ninety, it has its quirks. But it also has lots of character and it had been lovingly updated. Nevertheless, the first project list started right after our first walk-through. "Well, we'd definitely need to..." and "It sure would be awesome if..." seem to slip right off the tongue as soon as I look at a house. Another project list developed when we had the inspection and that one was added to when Isha walked through the inspection with the inspector and the realtor. Yet another list was created as we negotiated repairs as part of the purchase contract. Then, of course when we settled in during those few months when we realized Our. House. Is. Too. Big, we made another little tick list. As well as a list of big, dreamy ideas. Then we had a home energy audit which added a few more items on another list. And when our community mates moved in and we started discussing chores (and standards of cleanliness) we made yet another list. Or two. Maybe it was three. I can't remember.
In any case, by the time I went to compile all the lists to make some sense of them we had six or seven of them! So streamlining took some time and it was helpful to distinguish between projects (which are completed once and then don't need to be done again) and maintenance (which needs to be done with some sort of regularity). Sure, some projects may have ongoing maintenance once they're complete, but we won't be building the bike shelter again next weekend! It was nice to see that we had lots of overlap on our lists. Great minds think alike and amongst our group we seem to have similar priorities. And we'd already checked some of our projects off the list! That's always nice to see, too.
So now we have a few different lists but they make sense to us at least!
On the Maintenance List we have a couple tabs:
- A list of weekly chores which we'll be rotating through at the end of our weekly meetings. This includes our Popcicle Stick Chores which I'll tell you about in a future post.
- A list of seasonal chores which we'll be doing during one of our work parties each quarter.
On the Projects List we have a couple tabs:
- A list of work party chores which we'll be tackling during the two work parties each quarter that are not designated for seasonal chores.
- A list of capital projects which will require us to save some funds and/or hire some professional help.
It's neat to have the chores and projects streamlined and we're looking forward to seeing how it works out. We'll keep you posted!