This fun photo of our community doing a human pyramid was taken by the none other than Kristina of Kristina Lynn Photography. She took oodles more photos, too, so stay tuned for those!
During the Tiny House Conference and the Tiny House Community Workshop during A Tiny House Whirlwind about a week ago, I had the opportunity to show our tiny cohousing community to a few fine folks. And I realized that we haven't introduced ourselves to the rest of you. After much deliberation and a long brainstorm list last winter we dubbed our community Going Places.
This particular name was selected for a few reasons.
- First, the street we live on is Going Street, which is one of Portland's bicycle boulevards. So our four units (three bedroom suites and the common house we all share) are the Places on Going Street. (Think "Peyton Place" but without the drama or bad lighting!) There's another intentional community on our street that's called On Going Community which we think is quite clever, too. Well done to those brainstormers!
- Second, we love the forward motion of the concept of Going Places, indicating success, as in "Wow! She's really going places!"
- Third, we also like that living tiny allows us to actually Go More Places. We enjoy traveling and we get to do more of it these days, both because of my sustainable design consulting work, but also because living little helps us keep our housing costs reasonable so we can invest in travel opportunities.
- Fourth, as many of us tiny house dwellers often note, living in a small space also inspires us to engage with other people in other places: the park, the coffee shop, our neighborhood association, etc.
- And finally, I just love a quadruple entendre, so that one rose to the top because it had so many different meanings.
Our community is Isha and me, Lori (who was my right-hand woman during the T42 build), and Kyra and Ryan who live in the bedrooms upstairs in the Common House. Oh, and of course, we have our beloved kitty Raffi and Lori's sweet pup, Piehead.
So, that's us. We're Going Places! Looking forward to having you follow along as we share more about our experience living here.