A Praising Accessory Dwellings

Yesterday I joined Eli Spevak, Martin Brown, and Jordan Palmeri for a workshop about appraising accessory dwelling units (ADUs). See the Accessory Dwellings website for lots more information about ADUs, including this post about appraising ADUs. I suppose I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to housing, but I everyone there seemed to think it was really fascinating, so I was in good company. One of the things they talked about was how accessory dwellings often add value to a home because they create possibility (rental income, a space for live-in help or a young adult that's temporarily returned to the nest, or a parent deciding what the next step is after retirement). There are tons of spaces that are being rented out to singles and couples across the country.

The demand is high and it's a win-win situation for home owners and renters alike. But because so few of them are permitted most mortgage companies tell appraisers to completely ignore ADUs when figuring the value of the property. This makes it tricky, of course, for homeowners considering building an ADU to justify the expense. If it won't increase their property value it's hard to make it pencil out. So many people are building ADUs for the value they bring that's not monetary. The group of folks there would like to see ADUs getting some attention and recognition as a legitimate housing option. There are more single-person households in America than ever before so it would be great to have more housing options that are legal and permitted.

Another interesting aspect discussed was Jordan's research which shows that of all the different things you can do to make a building more sustainable, building small is the most effective. Now I completely understand that most people like having a little more elbow room. (A few of my friends like a little more head room than my kitchen affords, too.) But I do think the research helps create the case for building the smallest spaces that meet our needs.

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

Today was an exciting one for me and the tiny house. A Canadian reporter named Tim interviewed me for a story about small houses. It will probably be a short video that includes information about several people living little. I'm camera shy so I don't think I need 15 minutes of fame. Fifteen seconds sounds just right to me. But also I'm excited to spread the word about how cool it can be to live in a small space, so I hope he got something that will be useful. After our interview Tim and I headed up to Rocky Butte since it was a beautiful day and he was hoping to get some footage of Portland that could be used by his news station. The view from the hilltop wasn't great because of the treetops in the way, but he was pleased with some footage of Mt. Hood.

Here's the video featuring me and the tiny house I'm living in!

If the Bike Fits...

Ever since I arrived in Portland I've been scouting Craigslist for a small used road bike. And when I say small, I do mean small. I'm just barely 5'1" so it's hard for me to find a bike small enough for me. Fortunately, my friend Sarah is obsessed with scouting Craigslist for used bikes so she was determined to find me one that was being passed on by a pre-teen. I was delighted when she sent me a link for one that I'd already found that morning: a vintage Peugeot with a 47cm frame and 540 wheels.

When I called the guy he told me it was a bike he'd fixed up for his 11 year old to do some bike touring with the family. But she's 13 and has grown out of it now. It sounded perfect. I told him I'd like to take a look. "Yeah, you'll have to come ride it," he told me. "Lots of people have been interested but it's too small for everyone who has tried it." Hmm. I thought. Sounds like Cinderella's bike.

So I took the bus on down to Southeast with my helmet, bike lock, and lights. I'll admit, it was love at first sight. I had a pretty good sense that if I got a chance to see it in real life I'd be riding this bike home.

"She's tiny!" I said, when I saw it. "You're tiny!" he countered. It was just scuffed up enough that I figured no one would be itching to steal her. But it rode nicely, so I paid the guy in cash and headed off on my new bike, marveling at how suddenly Google map's bike timeframes became more realistic. Even though my "new" road bike is probably twice as old as my 15-year-old mountain bike, it feels positively zippy in comparison.

I took it to the bike shop at REI for a quick once over. The guy said, "Well, I wouldn't have advised you to buy this bike. It's a European bike so replacing parts will be a nightmare. I'm going to suggest that you don't put a dime into it. Just ride it into the ground and buy yourself a new bike as soon as you can." I explained that I'm a grad student so a new bike isn't in my budget and I'm hoping this bike will serve my needs for the next couple of years. "Just out of curiosity though, what would it cost to get me on a new road bike?" I asked. We explored the options and figured out that short of buying a kids mountain bike and swapping out all the parts to make it a commuter, my best option was a $1200 road bike that he was pretty sure he could special order in my size. All of the sudden $120 was sounding like a pretty good deal, even if she was a little rough around the edges. Character, right?

I didn't end up riding my bike home from my friend's house where I made dinner tonight because I'd like to pump up the tires first, but it was easier putting it onto the bike rack on the bus, so I'm already pleased with my improved commute!

Thanksgiving!

This year one of the things I'm thankful for is this delightful tiny house! I spent the holidays with dear friends in Corvallis and then hosted a couple friends for dinner on Friday evening.

Yesterday a friend whose occupation as an arborist provides good access wood chips, brought us a truckload of them. He and I spread them around the tiny house and around the raspberry patch, covering the muddy spots and creating nice paths. It was a beautiful cool sunny November day and it felt great to be working outside for a couple hours. The wood chips smell fantastic and I think now that the mud puddles are covered the house will be a little easier to keep tidy. I have a shoes off rule anyhow (I think that's necessary in a tiny house!) but this way I won't be tracking mud as far as the porch.

I've spent most of the last two days studying in my little window seat. Today I've enjoyed listening to the rain on the windowpanes and skylights. Other tiny house dwellers have remarked about how great it is to be more tuned into the weather and I thoroughly agree. It feels so cozy in here on a blustery day!

Keeping Cozy

I've started a paid internship with a planning organization so my schedule is very full these days. It makes me really appreciate the tiny house when I'm able to be home. I love sitting in the window seat reading for classes with my cat on my lap, cooking hearty food in the little kitchen, or sleeping in the snug loft.

I have found that the radiator heater works best if I keep it at a baseline temperature and crank it up when I feel too chilled. There is a timer on the heater but it doesn't have a setback option, so I haven't been using that feature. (It comes up to the temp you've set at the times you tell it to but then it turns off completely at the end of the period you've set and I find that if I turn the heater all the way off for a long period of time it takes a while for the house to heat back up again.) If I keep it set at 58 while I'm away and then bump it up when I get home, it doesn't take long before it's nice and cozy. I don't know yet how much electricity I'm using now that I've got the heater turned on since the electricity meter I purchase to monitor my usage doesn't fit in the outlet because of the way the plugs are oriented. I'm curious but not enough to have figured out a way to check. That will be one of my projects once the term is over.

One of my neighbors recommended a heater that is installed on the wall and I'm considering getting one because it would be less obtrusive than the one on wheels that I've been using. I wouldn't have to relocate it every time I have a friend over for dinner and need to turn my desk into a dining table. I'll keep you posted about whether I decide to go for it and, if so, what I think of it.

Potty Talk

When I tell people that I live in a tiny house most of them want to know about my cooking facilities. When I tell them about my microwave, cook top, and fridge, they realize it's not much different than their kitchen.

But the folks who think to ask about my toilet facilities usually keep their eyebrows up a bit longer. Many people who live in a tiny house use a composting toilet - either a commercial one or a bucket with sawdust. Some people line a 5 gallon bucket with a plastic bag and tie it up and put it in the garbage can each week. (If you think about it, there's a lot of human poop going into the landfills from baby diapers and elder's diapers!) Others decide to actually compost. The Humanure Handbook provides detailed directions about how to safely fertilize poop. However, my host and I decided that it would be best for me to use the toilet inside her house or at school for poo. Setting up a humanure composting system might be the last straw for the neighbors. They've been just fine with a chicken coop and a tiny house, but we don't want to push it.

On the other hand, pee is sterile and it makes a great fertilizer. The garden has lots of non-edible plants so I keep a plastic pitcher inside the bathroom to collect pee. Once or twice a day I dilute the contents of my pee pitcher with water (urine needs to be diluted about 8 parts to 1 with water so it doesn't burn the plants) and dump it on the bushes outside my house. (I've found that daily emptying is necessary so keeping the container small ensures that I'm really good about emptying it frequently!) My guy friends seem to prefer just stepping outside to "water a bush," but the gals who have used my pee pitcher system said it was no big deal. The bamboo loves the nitrogen and I love the simplicity of the system.

There's a whole book about fertilizing with pee called Liquid Gold. There are also periodic articles and essays about using urine as a fertilizer in the news and on blogs. I like this one called "Are We Wasting Human Waste?" I was fascinated when I learned in a permaculture class that humans produce approximately the same amount of nitrogen in their urine each year as it takes to fertilize the food they eat in a year. There is a connection here, but it's been broken. Instead we buy commercial fertilizers, many of them using petroleum products, to fertilize our food crops and we flush our pee into a wastewater treatment system which uses tons of energy and water to process the "waste." Some people are trying to reconnect they nitrogen cycle by fertilizing edible plants with urine. I have a guy friend who found that his tomato plants grew like crazy once he started peeing on them. If you stop to consider it, it's odd that we think nothing of putting other species' poop on our food plants but we're squeamish about using our own sterile urine as a fertilizer. For now I'll stick to fertilizing the bamboo, but I'll keep watching for more research, too.

Taking the Heat

I've lived in the tiny house for a month now and I'm still a little giddy every morning when I wake up. I've settled into some routines that work well for me and it's feeling more and more like home. A friend helped me fetch my oh-so-comfy Savvy Rest latex foam mattress from Walla Walla where I'd stored it with a friend for a few weeks while I settled in. It's 10 inches tall, which reduces the headroom when I sit up in the loft, but it's so luxurious I'm perfectly okay with it. It's such a cozy spot, especially on chilly mornings.

Out of sheer stubbornness I decided I wasn't going to turn the heat on until November. It's the 2nd of November now and I'm really grateful for the heat. I'll take it! Brittany installed a propane boat heater but she said she actually preferred using the electric oil radiator heater on wheels, so that's what I've used today. It's been nice and toasty. I think the heater will become part of my daily routine, too.

Each day I crack the windows top and bottom to provide good ventilation while I'm out since there isn't an exhaust fan in the house. Brittany had trouble with condensation last year, so per her request I'm also running a tiny dehumidifier. When it fills up (which happens about once a week) I use the contents of the little pail to water my two house plants.

I do a load of laundry at my host house once a week. When the weather is nice enough to dry clothes outside I do. I haven't tried line drying inside the tiny house because of the moisture management issues, but I might give it a go now that I'm using heat again. I do have a five-line retractable clothes line I could run between the lofts.

The water heater is a four gallon tank instead of an on-demand model. I don't figure I need it on when I'm not using it, so I flip the water heater on when I get up in the morning. I do my cooking early in the day and pack food to eat in between classes. I turn the water heater off before I leave for school so it isn't using up propane during the day while I'm gone or over night while I'm sleeping.

Tidying up the house goes pretty quickly since everything is close at hand. I put things back in their places, wipe down the counters, shake the rugs, sweep the floor. It only takes about fifteen minutes!

And I don't need to deal with the least favorite of chores: cleaning the shower. The tiny house does have a shower but I haven't used it since I have access to the gym on campus. I bike to school several times a week which takes me about an hour since I'm a slow poke. When I get there I shower and get ready for class. I like that the tiny house has a shower and if I wasn't going to shower at the gym almost every day anyway I think I'd probably be using the one here. Instead I'm using it as a closet. The shower curtain rod works perfectly well for clothes hangers and it makes the bathroom a sweet little dressing room.

It's such a good Little Life!

Entertaining in the Tiny House

Who says you can't entertain in a tiny house? I just served dinner for six! This weekend Brittany, the woman who built the tiny house I'm living in, came through town with her partner Dylan, an old friend of mine from college, so I invited three of our other college friends to join us. Before long I was hosting a dinner party for 6 in the tiny house!

It was an intimate affair considering that three of us women wedged our hips next to each other on the window seat. We moved the desk/table over to the window seat and pulled the leaves out to create a little more surface area for six plates and a bunch of food. I had two chairs inside the house but we borrowed another from my host house so that all six of us could fit around the table. There wasn't much more room to move about and I think if we hadn't all been good friends it might have been downright uncomfortable, but we had a grand time.

I made a lentil soup and picked up some tasty walnut cranberry bread and fancy cheeses. Dylan and Brittany brought wine and Lindsey made a lovely salad with fresh greens from the garden. Corey and Sarah brought a peach feta torte and a creme brulee stout that was mind-blogglingly delicious. We lit candles and told stories and laughed a lot.

As is the tradition in my house when we sit down for a meal, we all said something we are grateful for. I am grateful over and over again that so many people have helped to make Portland and this tiny house feel like home to me.

Pro-pain!

When Brittany helped me settle into the tiny house a few weeks ago she left me a propane tank with a little bit of fuel. At the time my host had said "one of these days you'll be cooking dinner and - poof - your propane will be out." I knew she was right but felt like I had too much else on my mind to worry about it.

Tonight was that night. I was half way through cooking my pasta when the propane ran out. Luckily I was able to finish it in the host house kitchen and it gave me a chance to visit with my neighbors. So I guess it's time to figure out how to get a propane tank filled.

This, like so many other errands, would be much easier if I were a car owner. I have never owned a car because I don't really like driving. I know lots of people actually enjoy driving but I think it's stressful. And while I certainly appreciate the freedom and convenience, I don't want the troubles of owning a car either. My commitment to being car-free is sometimes an obstacle to my determined self-sufficiency, but I like that it requires me to come up with alternatives. I can usually find a creative way via foot, bike, or bus to move myself and the stuff I need to and from. (I know someone who moved her entire apartment with her bike and a bike trailer!)

But a propane tank is heavy and I don't think the bike trailer is a good idea for transporting flammable liquids. I recently joined Zip Car so this may be my first adventure with car sharing...

Follow up: My neighbor plans to be out and about running errands tomorrow so she offered to fill up the tank for me. Thanks! I do think this would be a good car share errand though. I plan to periodically rent a car for the afternoon to get a bunch of errands done so this sort of hauling task will go on that list!

A Mentor, A Plan, A Tiny House Tour

When three people say "you know, you really ought to talk to _____," I suggest you get in touch. Today I had an informational interview with my new hero Eli Spevak, owner of Orange Splot, LLC. He's agreed to take me on as an unpaid intern!

Eli is a graduate of the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning program I'm doing at Portland State University. He's now a real estate developer, specializing in small-scale, community-oriented, infill and retrofit projects. The communities he builds are so breathtakingly beautiful that I truly stopped in my tracks the first time I saw one. This was my first day in Portland when I went for a long walk and was drawn off my intended route by catching sight of Sabin Green out of the corner of my eye. I was determined to find the builder, so imagine my delight when I finally looked up Eli and Sabin Green was one of the first things I found on his website! (Go to Orange Splot and click on projects and then Sabin Green to see what I'm talking about.)

Eli is fascinated by small spaces like I am and he has coordinated tiny house tours in the past. Recently he's been pretty busy with other projects (like a cohousing community called Cully Grove, just ten blocks from my house). So we're going to brainstorm ways that I can help out, which just might include organizing a tiny house tour.

Meanwhile, Dee Williams of PAD Tiny Houses has been trying to rally tiny housers in Portland since there are quite a few of us now and we haven't had a chance to meet each other. I hope that when these two worlds come crashing together something amazing happens!