Westermorrow Tiny House Design-Build

On Friday we wrapped up the first ever Westermorrow class – a Yestermorrow Design-Build School course taught on the West Coast. The Tiny House Design-Build class, which has been offered just once a year in VT, has filled up so quickly recently (this past year’s class filled up in just 30 minutes!) that Yestermorrow decided to offer it again here in Portland.

What an amazing experience for all of us! Patti and Lizabeth road-tripped across the country to be here. Dee Williams came down from Olympia to co-instruct with us! And our students came from California, Utah, Virginia, New York, and Illinois. We even had a student join us from South Africa and another from Montreal, Canada! In fact, the only student who was actually from Portland was our client, Merek.

We set up in St. John’s, a neighborhood in North Portland, so that we were able to build at Green Anchors (where I built my own tiny house, The Lucky Penny). We had our studio space at The Colony. And half our class stayed at Caravan – The Tiny House Hotel where they were able to try on tiny living for two weeks while building and designing. Several of them said this was a great experience and two of the seven decided that maaaybe they don’t want to live in a tiny house after all. (They both ended up designing wee houses around 600 square feet - still small enough that they’d qualify as Accessory Dwellings here in Portland, OR and a fraction the size of the average home built in America today!)

We started out our studio time with field trips and presentations covering everything from plumbing and electrical systems to regulations and interior design strategies for small spaces. In the field we started out with safety and tool orientation and then built sawhorses to practice measuring twice and cutting once. By the second week our students were shifting between the build site and the studio to move the house as far along as possible while also creating awesome tiny house designs.

There were definitely some differences between teaching the class in VT and OR. It was strange to not be on a residential campus where sleeping, eating, designing, and drafting are all just yards from each other. But it was also fun being in a more urban setting. I missed being on the scrumptious Yestermorrow meal plan, but it was fun exploring St. John’s eateries (the food carts, Proper Eats, Signal Station Pizza, Super Burrito Express, Big Kahuna’s BBQ, the baowry, etc.) And the second week, once people were comfortable with the area, I switched back to Simply Home’s Community Dinners, which are one of my favorite things!

On the build site we constructed the shell of Merek and his partner Erin’s tiny house on wheels. Their little house has a ½ and ½ roof, meaning that part of the roof is shallower and part is steeper. This allows them to have plenty of headroom in the loft and a more interesting roofline. We nailed the framing together (apparently the Doug Fir we have over here is much harder than the spruce used on the East Coast – we bent a lot of nails as we practiced!) Over here on the West Coast it seems most tiny houses are glued and screwed together instead, so we weren’t aware of this difference! We got the walls framed, sheathed, and raised and the ridge beam, roof rafters, and the first course of plywood on the steeper pitched roof before we had to turn our attention to Presentation Day.

I LOVE Presentation Day! It’s always so inspirational to see what our students create with two weeks of tiny house design and build experience (and for 7 of our students this time the experience of living in tiny houses, too!) We had awesome designs this time around, including several tiny houses on wheels (with a huge variety of layouts and roof shapes and multi-purpose furniture) and a handful of clever ground-bound houses (including an off-grid cabin with creative sleeping for the whole extended family and a small home with space for motorcycles in the living room!)

It was an honor to co-teach with some of my tiny house heros: Dee Williams, Lizabeth Moniz, and Patti Garbeck. I’m appreciative of all the folks who helped make this happen, from Mark, Dan, Luke, and Katie at Yestermorrow, to Matt, Mark, and Kevin at Green Anchors and Rita and Dana at The Colony. I'm thankful that Merek and Erin entrusted us with the beginning of their little home. And I’m especially full of gratitude for our incredible group of 14 students for inspiring me all over again! I can’t wait to follow along on their tiny house journeys! Stay tuned!

How to Travel with Just a Carry-On

I'm better at packing densely than I am at packing lightly. So as I wrap up 5 Weeks in a Carry-On with My Travel Capsule Wardrobe, I’d figured it would be nice to share my favorite tricks for packing densely and traveling savvy:

• First things first, whether I'm traveling or not, I keep my phone, wallet, and keys all together (see Don't Leave Home Without It & I Still Don't Leave Home Without It) for more on that. When I'm just out and about on a summer day I slip my finger through the key loop and my pod becomes a little clutch wallet. When I'm wearing a coat my pod is usually in my pocket.
• If I’m just headed somewhere for a week or less, my 25 L daypack is usually sufficient. I use my mesh bags (see below) with My Travel Capsule Wardrobe.
• When I'm flying I bring one of my Gregory backpacks as my carry on. I’ve tried using a roller bag as my carry-on, but I’ve found that a backpack is much more comfortable since the conditions for rolling are often not present. It’s more frustrating to lug around an awkward suitcase than to shoulder a pack. (And Gregory packs are super comfortable, very well built, and cleverly designed. They’re one of the few brands I rely on so all three of my backpacks are Gregories!)
• If I need to bring a sleeping bag, as I did for 5 Weeks in a Carry-On, the 50-liter Jade pack is the best fit. If I don’t need to bring a sleeping bag, the 35 L Jade will do the trick even for a multi-week trip. And if I’m just headed somewhere for a week or less, my 25 L daypack is usually sufficient. I’ve found that if I pack densely, cinch down the straps, and orient it properly, the 50 L pack fits in the tiny overhead compartments of all but the tiniest puddle-jumpers! I’ve even tucked my 35 L pack under the seat in front of me in a pinch.
• As my personal item, I bring a scrunchable Sea to Summit bag into which I put everything I need to get through airport security quickly: my Eagle Creek shoulder bag, my 1-quart clear zippered Sea to Summit toiletry pouch, my laptop computer, my snacks, my Eagle Creek travel pillow, and my water bottle. Once I arrive at a new destination I put my laptop and toiletries into my backpack. Then I scrunch the bag back up and slip it into my shoulder bag and I’m good to go!
• I wear my jacket onto the airplane for three reasons. First, the jacket is often one of my bulkier items but it doesn’t count if it’s on my body. Second, I often get chilled on a plane without an extra layer. Third, a jacket can be bunched up to give me more back support or to create a pillow if necessary.
• I wear my boots on travel days when I’m on an adventure that requires them so that I don’t have to pack them. Yes, this makes the trip through security more cumbersome than if I have quick on-and-off shoes, but it’s still worth wearing my boots for the weight and the space. Any other shoes I pack are stuffed with undergarments before they’re put into my bag so that the space inside them isn’t wasted.
• If I’m bringing my 15-degree REI Downtime sleeping bag, I use a Sea to Summit cordura compression sack to make it a wee little lump in the bottom of my pack.
• I can’t stand the slippery inside of sleeping bags, so I use a ½ cotton and ½ silk travel sheet from Cocoon, which makes my sleeping bag tolerable.
• I tuck a face mask and a pair of silicone ear plugs into the cover of my Eagle Creek blow up pillow so they’re handy if the person next to me is reading or if there’s a screaming baby nearby.
• I roll my clothes and sort them into two mesh zippered pouches. (These came with my rock climbing harness and shoes years ago and I repurposed them to sort my clothes while traveling!) Depending on the trip, I may sort my mesh zippered pouches by tops and bottoms or by work clothes and play clothes or by outerwear and undergarments. I bring as few clothing items as possible, sticking to My Travel Capsule Wardrobe, and planning to wash as needed.
• As I approach the security line I make sure I have everything I need ready and waiting.  I grab three bins: one for my laptop, one for my toiletry bag and jacket, and one for my scrunchable bag. My shoes go on the conveyor belt first so they’re the first thing to grab at the other end. Then I run my scrunchable bag bin through. I put my laptop in the middle bin so I can keep an eye on it. The toiletry kit and jacket bin goes through next and then my carry-on bag. Once I get through the screening process I put myself back together again: slip shoes on, tuck laptop and toiletry pouch into scrunchable bag, jacket on, pack on, and I’m good to go!

Give these tips a try and let me know how they work for you! And, of course, please share your favorite traveling strategies with me in the comments!

Disclaimer: I included brand names because I often want to know which brands other travelers rely on. I am not sponsored by any of these companies. I just love their stuff!

Disclaimer #2: I know, I know. I’m smaller than lots of people. I recognize that if you’re bigger than me you (and your stuff) may take up more space. Let’s just say it’s karma for all the teasing I had to endure growing up. When I started traveling I quit crying about being little!

5 Weeks in A Carry On

I’ll confess: I’m really excited to wear something new tomorrow! I’m writing this post on my flight home to the Pacific Northwest after five weeks of traveling with just my carry-on luggage. So I’ve worn the same outfits repeatedly and although My Travel Capsule Wardrobe has served me well, it’s going to be great to switch it up!

Over the years, doing domestic and international trips ranging from 2 days to 3 weeks, I’ve learned the difference between Packing Lightly vs. Packing Densely. I’ve discovered that I don’t typically need to pack differently for 2 weeks than I do for one. I just need to make a point to do laundry.

As I explained in Packing Lightly vs. Packing Densely, I haven’t checked luggage since 2003 when I studied abroad in Florence, Italy. Once I learned how much more fun it is to travel with less, I started honing my packing lists.

Check out My Travel Capsule Wardrobe to see what I brought on this 5-week trip.

This may be my most Spartan packing list yet, considering all I needed to do on this trip. My five-week trip included a week taking a Cabinets & Built-Ins Class at Yestermorrow, 2-weeks teaching a Tiny House Design-Build class at Yestermorrow, a weekend with friends in Vermont, two days in hot and humid Atlanta, a long weekend at Tiny House Jamboree 2015, and three days attending a conference in Denver, CO. During this time I camped in a tent for three weeks, stayed in two hotels and one Airbnb, and crashed at a friend’s place for five nights (thanks, Sherry!) I worked on a construction site, instructed in a design studio, and presented on a stage. I went out to nice dinners, hung out in front of the fan sipping sweet iced tea, and hiked in beautiful places. I explored by foot, transit, and car. I traveled through warm dry places and hot humid places. I experienced almost daily afternoon thunderstorms and several cool rainy nights.

So I had to pack a variety of different things for a variety of different situations. And I still managed to fit it all in a carry on.

Check out How to Travel with Just a Carry-On and My Travel Capsule Wardrobe to learn how I did it!

Tiny House Design-Build Class Hits the News

In late July I co-taught the Tiny House Design-Build Class at Yestermorrow in Vermont with Lizabeth Moniz and Patti Garbeck. Over the course of 2 weeks our 14 students developed designs of their own and worked together to build the shell of a small shed house on skids. During one of our morning in the second week Alexei Rubenstein of Channel 3 News stopped by to see what we were up to. And our class made the news last week. Check out the Tiny House Class video clip from Channel 3 to see what Alexei saw when he visited! WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Tiny House Jamboree 2015

What an incredible weekend! In April, when Lee Pera of Boneyard Studios first invited me to speak with her about tiny house communities at the Tiny House Jamboree, there were 3,500 people signed up to attend. By the time she and I connected in the Denver airport and drove to Colorado Springs, there were 11,000 people pre-registered. So we figured a third of those folks would show up and that would be the largest number of tiny house enthusiasts ever in one place at one time. Little did we know. (No pun intended!) Turns out those of us who find tiny houses irresistible are in good company! By the time the three-day event wrapped up more than 40,000 people had passed through the gates of the Western Museum of Mining & Industry (which hosted the Jamboree)!

And what a great crowd! There was incredible energy since everyone I talked to was curious, excited, and exploratory. The tiny house curious folks were just beginning to dabble in the tiny house scene. The tiny house enthusiasts came with sketch books, cameras, and tape measures so they could get serious about their design ideas. One woman even showed up, checkbook in hand, ready to take a leap of faith into the little life! I met people from nearly every state and a few other countries. (Oh hey, #famousfrieda!)

On Saturday morning during our presentation, Lee and I shared 5 Models for Tiny House Communities and 5 Steps to Create a Tiny House Community. I also got to watch and listen as other presenters shared their expertise. Molly Orendorff shared clever tips for decluttering, Damon from Trailer Made explained tiny house foundation fundamentals, Kai Rostcheck of Tiny House Dating played matchmaker for a tiny house dating game, Zack Giffin of Tiny House Nation described the increasing interest in the little life, and so much more! I even got to watch as Andrew Odom performed a vow renewal ceremony for a couple’s ten year anniversary. (And the best part? Their three year old held my hand! Eep!)

Part of the time I tabled with Patrick from Artisan Tiny House, who created my SIPs kit and kits for two sets of clients whose houses we put up this spring. Part of the time I tabled with some other great folks who designed and built their own homes and are now helping others do the same: Lee Pera of Boneyard Studios, Alek Lisefski of The Tiny Project, Vina Lustado of Sol Haus Design, and BA Norrgard of A Bed Over My Head. When I wasn’t tabling, speaking, listening to speakers, or exploring the tiny houses, I had great conversations with great people: Gabriel Craft of Small and Tiny Home Ideas, Gabriella Stupakoff Morrison and Andrew Morrison of hOMe and Tiny House Build, Byron and Dot Fears from Simblissity, James Taylor from The Company Store on Wheels and Orlando Lakefront at College Park (an RV park turned tiny house community) and hundreds of others!

Yesterday I spent the day with Robin, a design client of mine here in Denver. In addition to identifying next steps for her house, she also took me to see Wee Casa and invited me to speak at the Denver Tiny House Enthusiasts Meet Up. That was oodles of fun, too!

It’s thrilling to see so many people exploring intentional living through tiny houses. I don’t think the timing could be better for Ramping Up Niche Consulting LLC. I’m honored to have been part of the first Tiny House Jamboree. We’re hoping that as soon as Darin Zaruba of EcoCabins (and his team - hey, Angela Alcorn, Coles Whalen, and Marcus Alvarado!) have a chance to get some sleep they’ll decide to host the second annual Tiny House Jamboree. I’ve already marked my calendar for the first weekend of August in 2016. See you there!

Tiny House Design-Build Wrap Up

Yesterday we wrapped up our Summer 2015 Tiny House Design-Build class at Yestermorrow. After A Week of Tiny House Design-Build our students had their noggins full of considerations and their drafting tables full of bubble diagrams, inspiration boards, and sketches. The tiny house shell we constructed had its two long walls framed and sheathed and we were ready to put up the end walls.

This past week everything seemed to accelerate. In the field, we framed and sheathed the end walls, put up the rafters, sheathed the roof, installed the storage loft joists and decking, and installed the interior walls and the bed platform. (This tiny house is available for sale! If you’re interested in learning more, please contact Mark at Yestermorrrow.)

In the design studio, students synthesized their design ideas into drawings and models. Three special guests, Mac Rood, Kathy Myer and Chris Cook, all architects, joined me for desk critiques in the evenings to serve as sounding boards for the volley of ideas and questions. It’s always remarkable to me to see how everyone’s designs evolve over two weeks as they wrangle their hopes and needs into spaces that could facilitate the lifestyles they desire. We even snuck in another field trip to the fabulous and well-thought-out home of Ethan Waldman of The Tiny House.

As I noted last time I taught Less Is More, Presentation Day is always a bit like Xmas morning for me. There’s so much anticipation and so much delight in seeing our students designs revealed! I’m especially a sucker for the elegant details everyone comes up with!

This time around we had a variety of tiny houses on wheels with clever ideas such as:

• A closet tucked under a raised bed with drawers that interact with the stairs
• A workbench for projects the length of an end wall
• A mosaicked shower under a sleeping loft with a peek-a-boo view
• Rotating quarter-moon disks to increase counter space in a kitchen
• Rock climbing holds to access a loft
• A swooping countertop with a corner sink
• A fabulous customized desk
• A movable wall that transforms a space into three different rooms

We also had a set of ground-bound structures, including:

• A speakeasy-inspired summerhouse
• A long rectangular house that plays with windows to bring outside in
• A fire-tower inspired octagonal book and puzzle library
• A backyard yoga hut
• A family farm house with a courtyard
• A cozy addition to a fifth generation lake house

I look forward to seeing some of these designs become reality over the next couple years!

Next up for me: spending the weekend with some VT friends (and maybe lending a hand with a tiny SIPs house), a couple days in GA to discuss tiny house feasibility in Atlanta, and then a flight to CO so I can speak about tiny house community with Lee Pera of Boneyard Studios at the Tiny House Jamboree. There are nearly 10,000 people pre-registered! See you there!

A Week of Tiny House Design-Build

Yesterday evening we sent our Tiny House Design-Build students off for a much-needed 26 hour break. Since they arrived a week ago on Sunday evening, we’ve had a packed schedule with lots of hands-on learning. Today they're going for runs, swimming in the local swimming holes, watching a movie, napping, and otherwise enjoying a lazy Sunday in Vermont.

On Wednesday I celebrated another revolution around the sun by exploring tiny houses with my students and fellow instructors and eating lots of desserts (maple creemees, anyone?) We had the chance to go on six field trips to see a 12 x 20 owner-built tiny house, a small live-work space designed and constructed by Yestermorrow’s Semester Program, a wee 2-bedroom featured on Tiny House Nation, a treehouse overlooking a pond, a sculptural house with a barrel vaulted sleeping space, and little efficient guesthouse by the brook. That’s right up there on my top favorite ways to spend my birthday! (Though my Big Birthday Bash at the Tiny House Hotel was pretty good, too!)

In the studio, we’ve done presentations on a variety of topics ranging from considerations for site, climate, and finding parking to options for systems, foundations, and interior design. Our students brought a variety of design ideas including several tiny houses on wheels (THOWs), a portable sauna, a tree house, a one-bedroom flat retrofit, a tiny house truck, and a backyard library with sleeping nook. During our time in the studio they’ve been finalizing their programming, exploring layout through bubble diagramming, practicing their drafting skills, and building models. They have so many clever ideas I can’t wait to see what they come up with during our studio time in the next week!

In the field we’ve been constructing an 11x16 tiny house on skids so we’ve had lots of practice with measuring, cutting, nailing, leveling, remeasuring, plumbing, shimming, bracing, etc. The house has a shed roof, a sleeping platform, and two storage lofts in addition to the kitchen and hang out space. We’ll continue constructing the shell next week and we’ll take it as far as we can in the time we have. The tiny house will be available for sale, so if you or anyone you know is interested, please contact Yestermorrow!

Cabinets & Built-Ins Class at Yestermorrow

Whew! What a busy couple weeks it's been! A week ago I wrapped up my role as Project Engineer & Sustainability Coordinator for the Breathe Building and presented our owner, Chris Calarco, with a stack of Operations & Maintenance Manuals. The heap of materials was so huge I offered it up via hand truck. It's been a true pleasure working with Chris' team and I look forward to visiting the building when I return to the west coast in a few weeks! Until then, I wish them all the best wrapping up final details so Yoga Union, Prema Health, and Fern Kitchen can get settled in and open for business.

Then I kicked off My Summer Adventures with My Annual Pilgrimage to the Oregon Country Fair. It was splendid to have quality time with my fairy godfamily in Corvallis, OR and to share this experience with two of my landies, Karin and Isha. Saturday night we drove back up to Portland and my landies dropped me off at the airport for a red eye flight to Vermont.

So I'm Home Again at Yestermorrow and this time I get to stay for three whole weeks! The past four days I've been taking a Cabinets & Built-Ins class. Our instructor, Justin Kramer, is a fabulous teacher and he's done a great job providing a huge skill set in manageable doses, answering approximately a bazillion questions, sharing lots of tricks and tips, and letting us make and learn from little mistakes (while helping us avoid the big ones). We've been building a cabinet which will be used in Yestermorrow's South Studio.

On the first day we got a thorough woodshop orientation, familiarized ourselves with the plans for the cabinet, and built the "carcasses" for our cabinet out of 3/4" cherry plywood, using pocket screws. The second day the team I was on milled down bass wood for the face frames and attached them to the carcass with biscuits while the other team routed out the backs of the cabinets and installed the plywood backs. I'd never milled wood before so this was a great experience! Yesterday we prepared the wood for our pine drawer boxes and built the cherry doors for the cabinet, using dominoes to secure the frames and inserting cherry plywood panels. Today we practiced joinery techniques on our drawer boxes, using three different methods (fingerjoints, dovetails, and pocket screws) and installed our doors on their hinges. We also created a plinth for the cabinet to sit on, built shelves which sit on pins, and started building the web frame for our drawers. Tomorrow we'll continue with the drawers and finalize our cabinet. It's been a great project and I'm more excited than ever to get back to the woodshop at Simply Home Community!

Next week I'll be teaching the Summer 2015 Tiny House Design-Build course. Stay tuned for updates. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read up on what it's like, you can read the day-by-day account of the 2013 Tiny House Design-Build class.

Oil, Spice & Everything Nice

Editor's Note from 2/24/16: This post was lingering in draft mode and I decided it was high-time to get it published! 

I loved designing and building my tiny house, The Lucky Penny, but I've also thoroughly loved the process of Making it Home. I've been finding A Place for Everything and this past weekend I got my spices and oils all set up. I wanted to have both of these things handy but out of the sunlight since sunlight can diminish the quality of both oils and spices. I think it's pretty cool so I wanted to share it with you. Here are the solutions I came up with!

I bought a bunch of spices recently at an awesome shop called Sequim Spice & Tea, while visiting family on the Olympic Peninsula. But I hadn't come up with a good plan about how to store them yet. Last week I was hanging out at my favorite tea house, Townshend's Tea on Alberta Street, and I realized that the little containers they use for loose leaf tea would be perfect! The woman behind the counter told me where I could buy them online and a couple days ago my containers arrived. I labeled all of them and sorted my spices into them and I now have them tucked into a set of flatware dividers I picked up at Ikea. They work splendidly! It's so nice to be able to pull this drawer out and see everything at a glance. Oh, and you can also see that I have room for two squeeze bottles here. These have my sweet liquids in them: agave and honey.

Remember those copper canisters I found on my Tiny House Treasure Hunt? I decided they'd be perfect to hold my oil containers. So I purchased a set of food grade plastic squeeze bottles and filled them up with a variety of different oils (avocado, sesame, extra virgin olive oil, etc.) and vinegars (balsamic, apple cider, white, etc.) Thanks to Simply Home Community's Bulk Buys, I was able to fill my bottles from the community supply, knowing I'll be able to refill them as needed.

Because we have Community Dinner between four and six nights per week, I do most of my big cooking in the Big House. But I often do cook little things (breakfast, tea, lunch prep, and weekend suppers) in The Lucky Penny. So it's nice to have a good collection of spices and oils so I can prepare a variety of food and enjoy Cooking in the Lucky Penny!

Living in the Lucky Penny

This past weekend was Memorial Day Weekend, which marks the one-year anniversary of the build blitz that kicked off my tiny house build, including: My SIPs Wall Raising, My Tiny House Air Barrier, and my Vardo Rafter Raising. So I've been reflecting a lot recently on the past year and all it has brought me and taught me.

This morning, waking up in my charming lil' house, The Lucky Penny, I marveled (as usual) at the way the light streams in sideways in the morning and how lovely the tree is through the skylight overhead. And I also got to thinking that I miss writing about living little. Most of my blog posts recently have been about workshops and events rather than about my own experiences living in small spaces. And while the events are exciting, the reason I'm teaching workshops and hosting events about small space stuff is because I so love living little that I want to give others the chance to learn how! And the reason I blog is because I find writing helps me reflect on and appreciate the little joys and simple pleasures.

Part of the reason I haven't been blogging as much recently is that I've been keeping busy between working full-time for The Breathe Building and doing consultations, design work, and workshops on the side. I also have a bunch of pending posts lingering from my build so it seems out of order to start talking about actually living in The Lucky Penny. But I figure, that's just silly, right? Now that we've gone through Lucky Penny's Public Debut, people know about the Lucky Penny and they've seen how pretty she is. They have questions about what it's like being inside. (By the way, she seems to be pretty popular as she caught the attention of Tiny House Swoon, Tree Hugger, Small and Tiny Home Ideas, and Shelter Blog!)

So I may as well go ahead and tell you how splendid it is to live little in this sweet space. I'll still share more about the build because people keep asking how I built my pull out bed and where my cabinets came from, but also stay tuned for blog posts about things like:

• My Quintuple-Duty Mud Room
• Cooking in the Lucky Penny
• My New and Improved Chiller Box
• My Pull-Out Bed
• A Place for Everything

I'm looking forward to sharing more about my home, sweet home with you! I've just created a FAQ page. If there are particular things you'd like to learn more about, please share them in the comments there. Thanks!