Tiny House Movement Gains Momentum

The weekend before last we hosted a build weekend to construct Casa Pequena. This past weekend 29 fabulous folks joined us at the Kenton Fire House for a Portland Alternative Dwellings (PAD) Tiny House Workshop. Participants traveled from as far away as Wyoming, Arizona, and Massachusetts. Several of them were just beginning their foray into the world of tiny, so they are going to noodle over the information to decide if a tiny house is right for them. Others have already started on the shell of their tiny house and came to the second day of our workshop to refine their gas, fresh water, grey water, humanure, and electrical systems.

Our workshop covered those topics as well as structural considerations, moisture management, regulations, code, and community building. Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings kicked off the workshop by sharing her story of going tiny nearly nine years ago and watching the Tiny House Movement begin.

Dee, Joan, and I tag-teamed most of the presentations but we were lucky to have several other presenters join us. Derin Williams of Shelter Wise used a life-size model to demonstrate how to install a wall system that minimizes thermal breaks to increase energy efficiency. Carol demonstrated the assembly and use of the Air Head Dry Toilet. Chris and Malissa Tack of Tiny Tack House presented information about their tiny house design-build process with spell-binding graphics and answered questions about the systems they chose. (Check out Chris Tack's website to see more of his incredible photography!) It was a lot of information to cover in just two days, but workshop participants who came from across the country said they appreciated the chance to learn as much as they could and ask all their burning questions.

Some of the participants had been dreaming of living in a tiny house for years. For them this workshop was the first tangible step to making their tiny house fantasy a reality. On the other hand, one participant from the East Coast had heard of tiny houses but hadn't looked into them. He began exploring in earnest on Tuesday and on Friday hopped on a plane to come to our workshop! It was fun to have people from a wide spectrum of familiarity with tiny houses because it provided the chance for all of us to learn from each other. I'm grateful to everyone who taught me about new products, systems, and strategies that will make me a better tiny house design-builder, too.

The folks who attend tiny house workshops are wonderful people. They're collaborative and intentional. They're open-minded and open-hearted. They tackle big questions about needs and wants. They carefully consider what makes a place feel like home. I've come to expect that of tiny house lovers.

What was really special about this workshop was that the momentum of the Tiny House Movement was palpable. In June of last year I assisted with the Portland Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshop led by Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings. That was just 10 months ago. At the time a handful of the 50 people in the room planned to build a tiny house over the summer. This year 16 of the 29 participants said they're considering building this summer!

The Tiny House Movement is getting bigger and I'm thrilled to be part of it! We've agreed that this summer will be full of tiny house building work parties. I can't wait to see the results as people craft their dreams in three dimensions:

• Margaret's rainbow speckled walls from stained glass windows,
• Carter's hammock-slung dance studio tour bus,
• Nicole's tiny house collective in NE Portland,
• Malcom's yurt built of structurally insulated panels,
• Joan's treasure box of salvaged materials,
• and many, many more!

Please keep us posted everyone! Thank you for the chance to be part of your tiny house adventure.

Sunshine for Bike to PSU Challenge Kick Off

Last May Day it was pouring as the Bike to PSU Challenge kicked off. This was disappointing since I was committed to Biking Rain or Shine. Others weren't so brave and my bike was the only one in the racks for a good portion of the morning. This year the challenge started out with glorious weather and I had trouble finding a bike parking spot.

During the month of May I'll be logging my miles on Portland State University's snazzy Bike to PSU Challenge website. Last year I was on a team of 10 and we helped hold each other accountable to riding every day at least one way. Unfortunately, it was a drizzly spring so I didn't stick to my 14-mile round trip commute consistently. I took transit on 4 super soggy days. Nevertheless, as I described in my post 1 Tiny House & 4 Bicycles, I did manage to commute nearly 300 miles by bike in May 2012!

This year my commute is much shorter. I'm only 2.5 miles from campus instead of 7. But I'm also much more likely to ride consistently because the distance is shorter and because in the past year I've upgraded my tires and added fenders and better lights to my commuter bike. This past week I also replaced my old U-lock which drove me crazy with a new one which uses a combination lock instead of a key. One less thing to keep track of! (But it doesn't count as one less thing for My 200 Things Challenge since I actually consider my bike lock as well as it's key part of my bike. If that doesn't make sense to you, check out my logic in My Things Challenge: Who's Counting Anyway?)

This year there are 271 riders on 79 teams logging their mileage. So this month stay tuned for photos of Portland by bike. Cheers to bike rides and sunny days!

La Casa Pequena Shell Constructed in 2 Days

On Friday, April 19 and Saturday, April 20 I teamed up with Derin and Andra Williams of Shelterwise, and Dee Williams and Joan Grimm of Portland Alternative Dwellings to put on a 2-day building workshop to construct La Casa Pequena. The workshop was part of La Casa Verde green building festival in McMinnville, OR. (Stay tuned for lots more photos!)

With Derin’s dad DK and seven fantastic workshop participants from as far away as British Columbia, California, and Utah we built the shell of a tiny house on wheels in just 2 days! (Of course, Derin put many more hours into designing this wee abode and prepping the workshop so that everything was ready to go. Derin had the sheet metal pan installed in advance and two of the walls pre-built. Thanks for your meticulous planning, Derin!)

La Casa Pequena has a simple form with a shed roof, symmetrical sidewalls, and the short wall towards the tongue end of the trailer for aerodynamics. However, the wall system is quite sophisticated since Derin is an expert in energy efficiency. He’s a stickler for building excellent wall systems so we included building science lessons along with construction tips. (You don't have to take my word for it! You can read Angela Ramseyer's and Dee Williams' recap of the workshop, too!)

The tiny house was constructed on a 12-foot long trailer custom built by Iron Eagle Trailers. (Read more about Rob and Iron Eagle Trailer in Trailer Lust.) We started out Day 1 by securing the floor box into the trailer frame with ½ inch bolts through the sidewalls of the trailer and insulating the space between the joists.

Next we finished constructing the frame, using one of the sidewalls as a template for the other. The workshop participants had varying levels of familiarity and comfort with speed squares, impact drivers, and saws, so we shared tricks for building in a safe and smart way.  By the end of the first day we had raised the four walls and secured them to the trailer and to each other with HTT tension ties and fastener plates.

We raised the roof at the beginning of Day 2 with the help of a few folks from Casa Verde booths. Together we hoisted the roof system up onto the walls and secured it with hurricane ties. Once the roof was in place we wheeled La Casa Pequena into the middle of the Casa Verde celebration. We wrapped the house in drain wrap and stapled it in place with plastic washers. (This house has its sheer panels on the inside so we installed the house wrap directly onto the studs without sheathing it first.) Then Tate from Dupont demonstrated how to install a window, using flexible flashing. (Dupont donated the housewrap and flashing for this build. Thanks Dupont!)

Installing windows is my favorite part of the construction of a tiny house shell because it add so much personality to the structure. All of the sudden the house comes alive. In this case it was also exciting to install the windows because we were able to wrap up the workshop once the last window was installed.

Throughout the summer La Casa Pequena will serve as a demo house for micro workshops on plumbing, electrical, and interior finishes. Stay tuned for more information. Meanwhile, we’re switching gears to prep for our upcoming PAD Tiny House Design Workshop next weekend!

Spring Cleaning the Yurt

Friday was a lovely day and I found myself unfurling after being hunkered down for the winter. The yurt was feeling pretty stuffy and musty so it was nice to open the skylight and get more fresh air flowing through. Even though knew it would be better for both me and the structure to ventilate it well, I’d been keeping the skylight closed because it had been so darn cold out. With my busy schedule this winter I never took the time to develop a good ventilation strategy. It seemed that if I kept the skylight cracked while I was gone during the day at class or work all my hot air went through the roof (literally) and it took too long to get the place warmed up again. So I would crack it on warmer days or when I was going to be home for a few hours.

With all the fresh air and sunlight streaming through the skylight, I felt inspired to do my spring cleaning. I hauled my table and chairs outside so I would have enough room to play rubix cube with my furniture. With some help I was able to move my dresser, bed, and kitchen cupboard and remove the rugs that covered the yurt floor. The rugs had provided a barrier between my cold feet and the cold floor, but they’d also become mildewy.

When I rearranged my furniture I discovered that there were a few spots where the mold had grown back where the wall meets the floor. Back in November I’d discovered that I was having Mold & Moisture Trouble and I’d cleaned it up with vinegar and water. I thought I’d taken care of the problem, so it took me a while to realize that the sinus trouble I’ve experienced the past couple months might be related to my indoor air quality. It turns out that although vinegar is a long-time home remedy, it isn’t the most effective mold killer since it doesn’t kill all types of mold. So I decided to step it up. I purchased a spray bottle (gotta add that to My 200 Things List!) and a little bottle of tea tree oil and headed home to do some mold remediation. I removed the insulation I’d placed over my windows on the inside, rolled up the flaps that cover the windows from the outside, and removed the clear window covers. Then I opened the skylight to get the fresh air moving. I filled the spray bottle with a mix of tea tree oil and water and then sprayed the perimeter of the yurt.

Now my house smells fresh and clean and I think I’ll breathe a little easier. I know this weather is a tease and that we have several weeks of cool days ahead of us, so I’m going to put the clear window coverings back on the windows as soon as the yurt is aired out, but it will be really nice to have the additional light and views from having the windows open again. Hooray for springtime!

First Ever Tiny House Fair at Yestermorrow in June

When I talked to Elaine yesterday I learned that the first ever Tiny House Fair is almost sold out! If you want to secure a spot, register immediately on the Yestermorrow website.

The Tiny House Fair will be hosted by Yestermorrow Design-Build School in Waitsfield, Vermont June 14-16, 2013. Elaine, who lives in a tiny house and participated in a women’s building course at Yestermorrow, created the Tiny House Community website because she recognized that tiny houses would be even more wonderful together. She decided the next step was to get key players in the tiny house world together, too. So she encouraged Yestermorrow to host the first ever Tiny House Fair and she’s been helping to coordinate it ever since.

I’m delighted that I’ll be presenting at this year’s tiny house fair, along with fellow west coasters Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings, Tammy Strobel & Logan Smith of Rowdy Kittens, and Able Zimmerman of Zyl Vardos. I’ll also have the opportunity to get to know folks I’ve been wanting to meet for years: Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed and Four Lights, Derek "Deek" Diedrickson of Relax Shacks, and Alex Pino of Tiny House Talk. Together we’ll be covering everything from tiny house design tricks to zoning code and legal considerations.

Join us if you’re able! It’s going to be epic.

La Casa Pequena Tiny House Construction Workshop

Here is a note from Portland Alternative Dwellings (PAD) regarding our upcoming La Casa Pequena construction workshop. I am so excited to participate in this workshop. Please join us if you're able!

We are super excited to let you know about our upcoming (first of the season!) hands-on tiny house construction workshop: La Casa Pequena. 

During this 2-day intensive building workshop you will construct the shell of a tiny house, including building the floor frame, installing insulation, framing the walls, sheathing the assembly, wrapping the house, installing windows, and anchoring to the trailer.  You will experience the building of many of the major components of a super tight tiny house.

Every workshop participant will receive personal attention and instruction from our tiny house construction experts: Dee Williams of PAD, Derin Williams of Shelter Wise, and Lina Menard of Niche Consulting. Whether you’ve never used a power tool or you’re a seasoned builder looking for tiny house building experience, this weekend workshop will provide you the experience and community you need to take the next step toward tiny.

There are only 15 spots and we expect it to fill fast, so register today! 

La Casa Pequena Tiny House Building Workshop will be April 19-20th, 2013, held during Cellar Ridge Construction’s annual La Casa Verde Earth Day Festival in McMinnville, Oregon. To sign up, register on the PAD website.  Keep in touch with us about your tiny house journey via email, Facebook, the PAD website, or an old-fashioned phone call.

Best regards, Team PAD Dee, Joan, Derin, Andra and Lina PAD Tiny Houses  |  www.PADtinyhouses.com <http://www.padtinyhouses.com>  |  503.381.9083

Welcome, Shelter Wise!

The following is a message from Shelter Wise (formerly UrbaNest), one of the companies with which I've partnered for tiny house design, building, and consulting. We're excited about our first joint tiny house build weekend of the season, Casa Pequena on April 19-21 as part of La Casa Verde in McMinnville, OR. Please check out all the great stuff Shelter Wise is up to and tell them Lina sent ya!

 

Greetings,

Business is good and we have many of you to thank for that!  We have been doing a lot of reflecting and are excited to announce our new make over.We have developed our business name into something that we feel fits us like a glove and really embodies all that we do: Shelter Wise.Our website has been updated with expanded information, photos and a blog --so check it out!  We are still offering the same unique services for your dwelling needs and we have been eagerly awaiting this new name to join us.

We are also excited to announce the newest member of our team, Ben Brower, and look forward to introducing you to him. He has a background in Sustainable Building Advising and Project/Operational Management. He will be assisting us in providing all of your Energy Efficiency and Tiny Home needs!

We are also excited to have a new place to do our creative work and we are so lucky to be able to share it with Mr. Sun Solar in NE Portland.  We will be hosting upcoming workshops there and hopefully learning more about solar collaboration; make an appointment and stop by sometime!

We are also over the moon excited to be partnering with Dee Williams and Joan Grimm of Portland Alternative Dwellings and Lina Menard of Niche Consulting on all things Tiny Homes.  Stay tuned for more on that.

Please make note of our new contact information below and don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions or concerns.  And please pass this along to anyone else you think may be interested--we thank you in advance for spreading the word!If we currently have a contract with you we will follow up individually over the next week with an Amendment noting our name change.

Sincerely,

Derin, Andra & Ben

www.ShelterWiseLLC.com

derin@shelterwisellc.com 503.860.8100

andra@shelterwisellc.com 503.341.6518

ben@shelterwisellc.com 360.466.8651

Shelter Wise, LLC

PO Box 18179

Portland, OR 97218

Renewable Resources

When I was a little girl, my grandmother’s friend Maria told me “Your hair is so beautiful. You could sell it.” She should know. She was a German gypsy and she was kidnapped for her beautiful hair when she was a child. Her captors drug her out to the chopping block and released her only after hacking off her think, long hair.

I squirmed when I heard Maria's story and had no interest in selling my hair. But years later I learned about Locks of Love, a company that uses donated human hair to make wigs for children with cancer and alopecia areata. I was considering a career in medicine and, through a job shadow with a dermatologist, I had the opportunity to meet a woman with alopecia areata. She was frustrated by the disease, but I was impressed by how confidently she carried herself. I could only imagine how hard it would be for a little girl who had not yet developed this woman’s poise.

So as a high school student I donated 10 inches of my hair to Locks of Love and sported a bob. A couple years later, as a sophomore in college, my long hair was once again getting unruly so I donated ten more inches. The stylist at the salon gave me a free hair cut when she found out that I was donating. She told me, “Some little girl will be very lucky to get your hair. You should keep donating as long as you’re able!” I grinned at my new chic haircut in the mirror and joked, “Yeah, I guess my hair is a renewable resource!”

So I kept donating. I donated my hair to Locks of Love again right after I graduated from college. Then again three years later. And again three years after that.

Today I made my sixth donation to Locks of Love! I went to my favorite stylist, Sadie at Eclipse. Sadie had to separate my hair into pigtails to chop them off since we wanted to maximize the length. Now I have a cute new doo for spring. Sadie is fabulous, isn't she? My hair will go back to its wavy ways as soon as I wash it again, but it's fun to have a chic look as I head out for my much-anticipated spring break tomorrow morning.

Six donations has been my goal ever since donation #3. They say that it takes between six and ten ponytails to make a wig. My hair’s thick, so I’m going to assume it would take six of my ponytails to make a wig. So I've taken really good care of my hair so that I could keep donating. I’ve given myself permission to do whatever I want with my hair after this donation. I might keep it short or dye it purple. I might even grow it out and donate it again. I’ve noticed that with grad school a few silver strands have worked their way into the mix. I won’t be able to continue contributing to wigs forever. Eventually my hair will change and it won’t work for wigs anymore. (But Locks of Love assures us they still accept donations of grey hair and sell it to off-set the cost of manufacturing wigs.)

I’m (almost) 62” tall (5’2”). In the past 15 years (half my lifetime) I have donated 60” of hair. So I’ve donated (almost) my height in hair. I think that’s pretty cool. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to share a little bit of myself in this strange way.

Human hair is a precious renewable resource! Have you ever donated? If so, what was your experience like?

Let's Not Discount Kids' Tiny House Designs

When I facilitated a tiny house workshop for a group of fifth graders in January I was impressed that Ten Year Olds Design Awesome Tiny Houses! So I was excited when I found a New York Times article recently entitled “Envisioning Tiny Apartments, No Bathroom Required.” As you might imagine, the article addressed what happens when kids design tiny living spaces.

To help set the stage, let me explain as the article did, that the Museum of the City of New York is hosting an exhibit called “Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers” which features micro units. The kids had a chance to tour a full-size model of a 325 square foot micro apartment. (Think: walking through an IKEA model apartment in the showroom.) Afterwards, the youngsters designed tiny houses in a studio station set up with craft supplies.

Journalist Vivian Yee states: “The results, inevitably, were almost all unlivable — some lacking toilets, another entirely filled by a grand piano — as their young creators grappled with the grown-up problem of too little real estate for too many things.”

Why would Yee say it's "inevitable" that children are creating "unlivable" spaces when adults have created thousands of preposterously unlivable houses? Besides, many of us feel a nice sense of contentment in simple structures like a child's tree fort! I’m disappointed that Yee smirked at the kids's designs since kids ignore critical pieces of a “normal” house. I wish instead she had recognized that in many ways kids are much better tiny house designers than adults are.

At least Yee recognized that "too little real estate for too many things" tends to be a grown-up problem. Kid designers are not usually obsessed with cramming all their precious possessions into the space. Instead kids hone in on the essence of what makes a place feel like home. They only include the spaces and the objects that are most important and most exciting to them. It’s true that a grand piano might not be the best fit for a tiny house, but I did have an adult friend request an upright in her dream tiny house. I assured her that as long as she didn’t move often, we worked out the weight balance on a sturdy enough trailer, and she made good friends with a piano tuner it would probably work out.

So yes, some of the kids “forgot” to put in a toilet. Then again, I know adult tiny housers who purposely left out a flush toilet and are instead using a bucket potty. There are even a few architects now experimenting with a boarding house model that does provide a toilet in each micro unit but instead locates them in shared restrooms. A design team comprised of ten-year-old designers probably could have come up with that solution a whole lot quicker than a group of adult architects. Kids probably can’t understand why adults are so anal retentive about toilets and so obsessed with potty talk! Why focus on that when there’s so much good stuff to design!

It’s true that kids don’t always understand the constraints of physics so their structures might not hold up. (Then again, some engineers don’t seem to understand physics either!) And it’s true that kids don’t tend to have a very good sense of proportion and scale. So they may not realize they can’t have the grand piano and the trampoline.

However, I think it’s important that when we ask kids to think about the sort of space they’d like to live in we don’t dismiss their choices. Kids are remarkably flexible and they have an incredible capacity to think beyond the status quo. Their imaginations are more powerful than their logic, but design is all about problem-solving. Logic isn’t always going to come up with the answer and precedent isn't either. We shouldn’t be trying to convince kids that we need our future housing to look like what we’ve already created. Let’s not stifle the creative energy of our future designers and architects – especially when they’re working on space-efficient designs!

Well, Hello, Tiny Housers!

Two days ago I received a plethora of Facebook requests from people I haven't met yet. That seemed odd, so I checked my blog and realized that the Sightline & Grist on Living Large in Small Spaces article that Alyse Nelson wrote last December was picked up by the Tiny House Blog. All of the sudden This Is The Little Life had lots and lots of visitors! (Those of you who sent friend requests, hang tight. I'm working on it! This was the last week of classes for Winter Term and finals are next week.)

If you're new to This Is the Little Life, welcome. My post A Year of Little Living is chock full of links to other posts which will give you a sense of all the adventures the Little Life has taken me on in the past year and a half. Here are a few of my favorite posts:

• Trailer Lust
• Shrinky-Dink Porch
• Tiny Houses Turn Their Backs on the Street
• A Vision for Tiny Cohousing
• Tiny House Build Week: Lessons Learned

Please note that you can subscribe to receive blog posts. Those of you who subscribed in the past couple of days received a batch of updates this evening. One of the casualties of not having internet in my yurt is that I'm better at writing blog posts than I am at actually getting them posted. I like writing - whether it's blog posts or journal entries - during tweelight (the morning equivalent of twilight - the silky-blue morning time when the bird start tweeting). It's so nice to sit with my thoughts, my kitty cat on my lap, right as the world is waking up. Without an internet connection I can't post right then and start finding out what all of you are up to either. But I love that quiet time. Anyhow, that's why sometimes you'll receive notifications in batches. I recognize this is not ideal, but remember you can spread out reading them, too!

If you haven't yet, be sure to check out the cool businesses I've partnered with: Portland Alternative Dwellings, UrbaNest NW, and Orange Splot. And if you'd like to be part of our tiny house community join the Portland Tiny Houses facebook group and the Tiny House Network google group. Cheers!