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!

Known By the State of California

The garden hose I'd hooked up burst earlier this week so I decided it was time to hunt for a drinking quality hose. One of the scary things about hoses is that so many of them have a disclaimer that says "warning: contains a chemical known by the state of California to cause cancer." That's the sort of thing that's worth avoiding, so I called around and found that a local hardware store carried drinking quality hoses that are also made from recycled materials. Bingo!

Trouble was, when I stopped by on Wednesday they didn't have them in the right length. So I went back today and picked up the hose they'd ordered in for me. I packed it into my backpack and headed home on the bus. I got it hooked up this evening and it does reach, but only barely.

My host and I have talked about digging a trench to run the water and electricity underground, but for now above ground seems fine. She has decided she might want a drinking quality hose, too, so she'll probably pick one up this weekend and we'll put the two together which will allow us to snake it from the back spigot which can be dedicated for the tiny house. If we get around to the trench later these two hoses can be used in the garden.

So it's taken two full weeks for me to get all the utilities running just right because I've been busy with school and a weekend out of town, but I think if I'd been a little better prepared it would have been a cinch.

Coq Au Vin

This weekend I headed back to Walla Walla for my Whitman College reunion, catching a ride with my dear friends Sarah and Corey. We enjoyed catching up with old classmates and it was nice for me to be back in Walla Walla again.

But for the sake of the Little Life, what you really need to know is that Corey and Sarah agreed to chauffeur two hens from Walla Walla to Portland. We transported them in wine boxes punched full of holes, so this was a whole new spin on Coq au Vin - instead of "rooster in wine" it was "hens in wine boxes." My host had a chicken coop built in her yard before she and I ever started talking about me parking a tiny house in her garden. She hadn't gotten chickens yet, but was eager to learn about them from me since I'd had chickens in Walla Walla. Finally it occurred to me that it might make sense for me to bring two of my four hens here to Portland. Corey and Sarah have chickens of their own so they were miraculously keen on the idea of schlepping mine across state lines.

On our way out of town I grabbed a backpack full of winter clothes I'd stored at a friends' house and she handed us two wine boxes that we could use as chicken crates. We poked holes in them and went to my Walla Walla house where we loaded the chickens into their boxes and then hit the road. We stopped to give them water along the way and one of them (Ella, the clever one, of course) nearly escaped. (Why did the chicken cross the interstate?) But otherwise it was an entirely uneventful move and I was grateful they were so quiet.

My host had picked up a feeder and waterer as well as food and pine shavings so everything was ready for the chickens when we arrived. They seem to have settled in really well and I'm excited to have my two favorite hens just steps from my front door again! Hopefully they'll start laying again soon...

Tiny Home Improvement

Classes started on Monday so I've been busy the past few days, but today I didn't have classes so my host and her friend helped me with a couple of little house projects.

First, I understand that they don't sell 12 gauge green extension cords because they don't want you to run over them with the lawn mower, but I think they should make them anyhow and figure some of us do know what we're doing. My host ended up coming up with a great solution when she picked up a bright yellow extension cord and a can of green spray paint. We think it will blend in with the grass really nicely!

Another project was adding flat rungs to the ladder Brittany had built. She did a great job creating a safe ladder: the angle is nice and it hooks over a little lip at the bottom edge of the loft so that it won't slip out from under you. But it had round rungs which are a little uncomfortable for my feet and impossible for my cat Raffi to use. He's pretty savvy with ladders, but the round rungs were unmanageable, so I decided to add flat rungs to make it more workable for both of us. The result is a Raffi-approved ladder that will allow both of us to climb up to the sleeping loft safely and easily.

A friend also helped me set up a greywater system for the tiny house. We got some corrugated pipe with holes and some without at our local hardware store. Then we ran the non-perforated pipe from the drainage pipe underneath the house across the path and connected it up with the perforated pipe which we placed in a ditch where my host has been planning to plant bushes. I'll have to be really careful about not letting anything down the drain, but this system should work well because every time I run water from my kitchen sink it will water the plants!

Now that I have some place for water to go I have hooked up a garden hose so I'll have running water! I may replace it with a drinking quality hose soon, but this will do for now. Even on backpacking trips I've had pretty good access to water so I don't think I've ever appreciated running water as much as I have today!

I really enjoyed using candles the past few days so I have to remind myself I can still have an evening by candlelight whenever I want. It is awfully nice to have electricity! Now I can charge my laptop and cell phone, use the task lighting, and microwave leftovers.

I bought water and electric meters, too, so that I can see how much energy and water I'm using. I've always been pretty stingy with my water and electricity use (former housemates will vouch for that!), but I think living in the tiny house will give me an even better understanding of my resource consumption. They haven't arrived in the mail yet, but I'm eager to try them out.

You Know Those Boxes in the Garage?

The ones you never unpacked from the last move?

I don't have any of those! Hooray!

Today I unpacked my belongings into the tiny house and all my thoughtful consideration as I downsized seems to have paid off. The goal is to have a place for everything so I can put everything in its place. I'm pretty close to meeting that goal. With a few more tweaks I think I'll have it.

My cordless drill and driver set was put to use for a couple of "remodeling" projects. Some of the spaces that worked well for Brittany weren't as ideal for me. I am more a drawer person than a shelf person so I changed the height of a couple of shelves in the kitchen to create space for drawers and baskets I could use for kitchen gadgets and food. I also changed the bookshelf heights to better accommodate my small book collection and I raised the height of the window seat so I could slide my laundry baskets under there since I plan to store my scarves, mittens, hats, etc. in them this winter. I moved a couple of hooks, too, and I'm realizing hooks are awfully useful for taking advantage of vertical surfaces in a small space.

Then it was just a matter of unpacking everything into the spaces. There are a few things that seem luxurious and unnecessary (do I really need a hand mixer? probably not, but if it makes me happy, it's worth having!) Everything fits and there's room for more but I'm going to make a concerted effort to not accumulate any more stuff!

I don't have electricity or water set up to the house yet, so tonight I'll be using candles and probably turning it early because I'm exhausted. It seems like it shouldn't have taken all day to get settled, but moving always takes longer than expected, even in a tiny house!

Then This House Dropped Out of the Sky...

We have been joking about how it seems like my tiny house dropped out of the sky like Dorothy's place in the Wizard of Oz. One day there was an empty space in my landlady's yard and the next day it was occupied by a cute-as-can-be tiny house on wheels. Brittany drove her tiny house Bayside Bungalow from Olympia to Portland with me as her copilot. Dylan manned the follow car and kept us posted via walkie-talkie about the reactions we received from passersby. It was amazing how many people completely failed to notice the tiny house on wheels cruising down I-5, but we were glad when Dee Williams called to say she saw us go past. When we stopped at rest stops and went over the scales we got plenty of attention.

We were all a little nervous about getting the house backed into its spot, but Brittany did an excellent job and it's amazing how nicely it fits in. Serendipitously the tiny house colors are exactly the reverse of the colors of my host house! Brittany and Dylan helped with getting the house jacked up and Brittany walked me through all the hook ups and then they headed home and I was left to marvel at how it's all coming together.

Moments later my sisters Amy and Aurora called to say they were on their way. They came by with Lynette's kids forming a fantastic work crew to help me pile my belongings into the wee house: 1 foam sleeping pad, 2 dressers, 2 sets of sheets, blankets, 4 towels, 1 black plastic garbage bag of clothing, a basket of office supplies, 12 books, 3 pots, 1 pan, 8 bowls, 8 plates, 6 sets of flatware, basic toiletries, sleeping bag and pad, a tent, a couple backpacks, my beloved cordless drill and driver set, craft supplies, and 5 boxes of food. They teased me about how most of my stuff was food, but I explained this is the most important part to making my house a home.

Unfortunately, I wasn't set up to cook yet so we headed out to the Alberta Arts district to enjoy a little food cart culture. We dined at the Grilled Cheese Grill and then they bid me good night. I can see Cassiopeia through the skylight of my sleeping loft! It feels like I'm in a wooden tent. So cool!

Tomorrow... unpacking.

The Tiny House Adventure Begins

I woke up at 5:00 am this morning and quickly realized there was no hope of falling asleep again. Today is much too exciting to sleep through! As of tomorrow I'll be one of the people calling a tiny house home. So instead, I am learning how to create a blog...

Two weeks ago today I moved to Portland, OR to begin studies for my masters in urban planning. Over the past two weeks I have:

• sprawled across my landlady's living room floor studying transit maps and memorizing bicycle routes,
• realized that the quantity and variety of food available here is enough to make a foodie like me hungry all the time, and
• enjoyed quality time with the half dozen good friends I already have here, grateful for their willingness to introduce me to this incredible city.

Today I have orientation for my master's program and then I head up to Olympia in a rented F250 truck. Two years ago my friend Brittany built a gorgeous tiny house on wheels and she has agreed to let me rent it from her while I am in grad school. We'll be hauling Britt's Bungalow to Portland tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon we'll get the teeny abode settled in the garden. My very first guests will be my sisters Amy and Aurora who are hanging out in Portland for the weekend. (They may become my moving crew. I figure it will probably take the three of us less than 10 minutes to haul my boxes into the house!) Sunday I'll unpack my belongings into the house and Monday my classes begin.

I feel extraordinarily lucky to have found a splendid place to park the tiny house for the year. My new neighbor (and landlady) purchased a house at the end of a dead end street in Northeast two years ago and has subsequently turned it into an oasis of flowers, veggies, berries, and wind chimes. The tiny house will be nestled into the garden between the bamboo grove, the chicken coop, the clover patch, and the cedar fence.

For the past two weeks I've been living in the host house which has been delightful because I've gotten to know my landlady and her housemates. I've also been able to soak up some of the magic of the space she's created. I've taken to sipping my tea in the morning on her covered porch, rain or shine, and watching the birds breakfast on burgundy sunflowers. I, too, have been gorging myself on tomatoes, peppers, kale, zucchini, and broccoli from the garden, as well as helping my landlady plant new starts that we will overwinter. In the evening I like to listen to the crickets and marvel about how it doesn't really get dark here because of the light pollution.

I miss my house, garden, friends, job, and community in Walla Walla, but it's been a relatively smooth transition. I think this will be a fantastic place to live the little life. To me living little means not only occupying a small and simple dwelling but also being conscientious about how I travel and what I purchase and consume. You'll hear more about all of this in time. I look forward to sharing this adventure with all of you!