Build it Tiny Workshop on Saturday, 11/10

Dee Williams's tiny house design and consulting company Portland Alternative Dwellings will be hosting a Build it Tiny Workshop on Saturday, November 10, 2012. I attended on of PAD's workshops in June of 2011 and it was a fantastic experience. If you're interested in tiny houses and would like to learn from a tiny house guru, I strongly recommend you attend!

Here's more info:

This workshop will focus on tiny house planning and design considerations and particularly on the 'sticky wickets' of code restrictions, insurance, wastewater/water, and siting. We’ll provide case studies, first-hand knowledge and an opportunity to learn from experts and pioneers in the Tiny House Movement. You’ll meet other like-minded tiny house enthusiasts and find out what they are dreaming up. We'll tour a tiny house in a pocket community after the workshop. The class size is limited, so sign up soon. For more information about PAD visit our website: http://padtinyhouses.com

Saturday, November 10th 9am-4pm  (5:30-7pm Tiny House Tour) Historic Kenton Firehouse 2209 N. Schofield, Portland, OR 97217 Registration online: $175

Build Small was BIG!

The first ever Build Small, Live Large Summit was a big success! Approximately 300 people attended the conference on Friday, October 26th at Portland State University, which was hosted by Cascadia Green Building Council.

As Jordan Palmeri introduced the summit he described the DEQ study that showed building small is our single greatest green building strategy. Jordan explained that the study results inspired the Accessory Dwellings website and formation of the Space Efficient Housing Workgroup, which includes folks like Eli Spevak of Orange Splot and Kol Peterson of PDX ADU. I've been privileged to be part of this group for the past year as we've discussed ways to mainstream small as a sustainability strategy. Coordinating the Build Small, Live Large Summit was a big step in the right direction.

Ross Chapin presented a fantastic keynote address about how pocket neighborhoods have caught on as people seek a balance of community and a little place of their own. The rest of the sessions addressed challenges to building small, financing small spaces, and design tricks for maximizing small spaces.

I was delighted to be among the presenters as I shared the stage with Derin Williams of UrbaNest Northwest and Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwelling for the Biggie Smalls: The Notorious Tiny House session, which explored radical smallness. We had a great time sharing our stories and responding to the audiences questions and comments.

You can sign up for meeting notifications of Oregon DEQ’s Space Efficient Housing Workgroup by sending an email indicating your interest to Jordan Palmeri. You can also read Kol's perspective on the Summit in his blog post on the Accessory Dwellings website.

Three cheers for small houses! Hip, hip, hooray!

A Month in the Yurt

This weekend marks one month of yurt living. I’ve figured out my systems and routines for this little place, but even more, I’ve decorated and started to meet some neighbors, so now it’s feeling like home. The skylight is still my favorite part, though there’s a ripe fig that’s taunting me. I’ve managed to enjoy many other figs since moving into the yurt, but this big, ripe purple fig is hanging overhead, visible through the skylight but just out of my reach. So alluring and so alluding!

Now that the weather is getting chillier – it was 38 degrees last night – people have been asking me how it’s going, living in the yurt. I tell them it’s been great! I have noticed the dropping temps, but so far it’s been very comfortable still. I lived in Eastern Washington for ten years and experienced the four distinct seasons there, so I feel myself bracing for the long weeks of below freezing temperatures, hoar frost, and snow. But it’s nice to know that although it will continue to get colder, I do live in a very mild climate and it won’t get dramatically colder. I joke about how Portland has four seasons, too – warmer, cooler, wet, and wetter – and they can occur at any time of the year!

After confirming my building science with Derin of UrbaNest who does home energy auditing, I’ve made a small step to address the cold weather by reversing the insulation layer. It was set up for summer so that the reflective layer was facing outwards to deflect heat so I switched it so it’s now reflecting heat back into the space. It’s a thin insulation layer so it doesn’t do much for conductive heat losses, but it should help a little bit. I also closed up the windows for the winter. I miss having the view of the fig tree right outside, but I’ve noticed it is quite a bit warmer this way. I will be take a few more steps to weatherize the yurt. So far I have only had to turn the heater up to the third notch out of ten notches. I’ll keep ratcheting it up a notch as needed. I figure if I’m still chilly by the time the heater is running full-tilt, I’ll just add an extra sweater and be glad my Crockpot Does Double Duty!

Build Small, Live Large Summit

A couple years ago Jordan Palmeri of the Department of Environmental Quality conducted research exploring the effectiveness of various green building strategies. The research was discussed in an Ecotrope article featuring My Summer Garden Cottage as a case study. It will likely come as no surprise to any of you that building small was the single most effective way to conserve energy and resources. But this “finding” has profound implications for our country’s building industry. Our society has committed to the bigger is better mantra. It’s created a mess of our finances, requiring unsustainable resource extraction, and supported sprawling development patterns that make us unhealthy. But reversing this trend is like swimming upstream.

Fortunately here in Portland we’re gaining critical mass. Jordan rallied a group of people to discuss ways to support what he calls space-efficient housing. Through my internship with Orange Splot, LLC I connected with the working group and I’ve been helping out here and there as the working group created the Build Small, Live Large Summit. The summit has been coordinated by Nicholas Hartrich of Cascadia Green Building Council and it will take place on Friday, October 26^th at Portland State University. Dee Williams, Derin Williams, and I will be presenting in a session called Biggie Smalls: The Notorious Tiny House. We hope you can join us!

Crockpot Does Double-Duty: Hot Meal, Hot House

Just after lunch, when I was getting ready to head to campus for an afternoon class, I dumped a bunch of veggies, lentils, water, and curry into my crockpot so that I could have a nice warm curried lentil soup waiting for me when I got home. When I arrived home I was delighted to discover that not only was my dinner ready and smelling delicious, my house was uncomfortably warm! So I cracked the skylight open, turned the fan on low, and added some coconut milk to my soup. Within a few minutes I was happily eating my soup in a house that was just the right temperature. I will remember this trick as the days get colder: the crockpot can double as a space heater in a teeny, tiny space!

Here Comes the Rain Again

Portland has been experiencing an unusually long, warm, and dry autumn, but on Friday, after nearly two months of rain-free days, the dry spell was broken. For the first rainstorm of the season it was pretty impressive. All day long it poured buckets and people scrambled from building to building. As the ground became saturated and the leaves clogged up the gutters the puddles in the potholes became little lakes in the streets. I hadn’t brought my rain pants to school with me, so I was drenched by the time my bike and I made it home again. But once I was there I was delighted by the experience of rain on my Home, Sweet Yurt. The drumming of raindrops on the skylight is really a magical sound.

My dear friend Sarah arrived in town just as I got home and it was nice to share the rainy evening with her. We cooked up delicious burritos and then enjoyed tea and chocolate as we listened to the rain. Sarah is a hardy soul and she’s lived on a farm in a tent with an outdoor kitchen so I knew she would like my new abode. But she has a lower body fat ratio than I do so when she started shivering I decided it was time to get my Envi heater set up.

I hauled it out of the box and remembered that the Envi Heat doesn’t work unless it’s hung on a flat wall, 8 inches from the floor. I glanced around, remembering that in the yurt I don’t have any flat walls! So I decided to attach it to my dresser. With the help of a screwdriver and the included template it was installed, plugged in, and heating the house within 10 minutes. I’ve kept it on the lowest setting ever since plugging it in and it’s been very cozy.

On Saturday I spent a couple hours helping Derin build the walls of the gable ends of his UrbaNest tiny house. Then Sarah and I had a great time exploring Portland, including breakfast at Pine State Biscuits, wandering along Belmont, a pot of chai tea at Tao of Tea, a couple hours in the kids’ section at Powell’s, bacon maple Voodoo donuts, and a stroll along the waterfront. It was a lovely way to spend the first rainy weekend of the season!

Building an UrbaNest

Through coordinating the Pedalpalooza Accessory Dwelling Tour I met Derin and Andra who built an ADU in their basement. We’ve kept in touch about small spaces and I was excited to learn that Derin and Andra have recently decided to start an energy efficiency consulting and tiny house building company called UrbaNest NW. First step: build a tiny house. I’ve been missing building since I wrapped up the tiny house I built for Orange Splot through My Summer Dream Job. So on Saturday I went over to Derin’s place to help him frame up the walls. It was a perfect October day: high clouds, yellow and orange leaves floating down in the breezes and blusters, still warm but with a hint of crispness. Derin already had one of the short walls mostly finished when I arrived so I helped him with the window framing and the top plates. Then we moved on to one of the long walls.

I took over the chop station while Derin did the final figuring. Derin is meticulous and had everything organized and laid out, but it’s amazing how there are always little tweaks here and there that are necessary once you start building in real life. We were talking about this when we took a snack break in the late afternoon.

I told him I often think of rock climbing when I’m building. Designing is like climbing at an indoor rock gym. You can get pretty good at technical climbing indoors: balancing, strength, agility, spotting your next foothold, etc. All this knowledge transfers to climbing on real rock, but outside you have more factors to consider. You’re contending with slippery surfaces, critters in the cracks, loose rocks, temperature variations, etc. Building is more like climbing on real rock: you’re dealing with the actual pieces of wood that are going to become your wall structure and they all have their own personalities. It’s like they come to the building process willing but with caveats. This is, of course, one of the most frustrating aspects of building, but that character is what gives wood it’s beauty and makes it a pleasure with which to work.

Once we’d knocked out two walls it was tempting to keep going, but Derin wisely suggested that we do the rest of the cuts and lay out the wall so that he could put it all together in the morning when he was fresh. We set up a second chop station and got to work. The two long walls are nearly symmetrical so we were able to lay out the new frame on top of the first one. Thanks to Derin’s detail-orientedness, the two matched up perfectly, at least at the lay out stage! I wanted so badly to come back the next day and help get the other walls up, but my schoolwork demanded my attention. So Derin had a few other friends come help out and I had to just appreciate the photographic evidence of another hard day’s work.

My Kitchen Cupboard

Drawing inspiration from several all-in-one kitchens I’ve seen on the tiny house blogs, I decided that I wanted a kitchen cupboard in the yurt that would contain everything I need to prepare, cook, and serve meals. So I found a TV cabinet for sale on Craigslist and was lucky enough to have the fella offer free delivery, too. A friend of mine helped move it into the yurt and I spent this evening setting up my kitchen. The kitchen cupboard is about the same height, width, and depth as my dressers are when stacked so these two pieces of furniture at the door create a sense of entry. In the space where the TV usually goes I have a microwave, a toaster oven, a cutting board, a couple of drawers full of kitchen gadgets, and a 2-gallon water jug with a spout. The drawers contain dishes for eating and serving, canned and boxed dry goods, and my cooking tools: 2 pots, a pressure cooker, an electric one-burner cook top, and an electric water kettle. Now let’s see… what’s for dinner?

Home, Sweet Yurt

Just before I ran off for my interview with Portlandia’s The Real Portland, a few of my friends from school helped me move my 198 things into the yurt. (Check out My 200 Things Challenge). I’m not yet settled, but I love it already. It was so nice to sleep under the stars in my glorified tent. And although it’s a small space, I have big plans for it! I think my two most useful strategies will be to use the vertical space and to take advantage of the lattice walls providing lots of spots to hang things. I stacked my dressers just as I did in the tiny house. One dresser is dedicated to my clothing. The other I’m using to store my art, craft, and drafting supplies, my electronics, and my toolbox. I’m using the space under the bed to store outdoor gear like my sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and backpack as well as my summer clothes. I plan to find a tall cabinet to use for My Kitchen Cupboard.

I’m so excited to be closer to campus and the happenings of inner Portland. The location may be my favorite thing about my new place. The dome skylight oculus is definitely my favorite part of being in the yurt. I’ve considered putting an overhead skylight in the vardo I want to build for myself. Living with the dome skylight for just a couple days has convinced me that it’s a great idea. The quality of light from overhead is different and really lovely!

As I settle in and begin unpacking, I realize I’m now surrounded by the things I like best. Downsizing from a Tiny House to a Tinier House was not as difficult for me as my initial downsizing from a two-bedroom house to a yurt. As I moved into the yurt with my belongings I became especially grateful that I've embarked upon My 200 Things Challenge, too. I am, without a doubt, less materialistic than I was a year ago. I am better able to appreciate items for their functionality and the pleasure they bring me.

Portlandia’s The Real Portland

A couple weeks ago some folks from Portlandia contacted me regarding tiny houses. They explained that they are doing a web series to show that even though the show spoofs on how bizarre Portland is, there really are people doing strange and wonderful things here. (Here's the video!)

“We want to interview people who live in a tiny house community in Portland,” they said. I explained that there isn’t yet a community of tiny houses here, but many of us are working on starting one. (For good measure, I asked on the Portland Tiny Houses facebook group and no one else knew of one that already exists either.) However, I assured Portlandia I could connect them with tiny house residents and suggested a few possibilities. They ended up deciding to interview John Labovitz about his Tiny House Truck and they invited me to be part of the interview.

It was pretty amazing to see the crew arrive and descend upon John’s 14-foot-long-tiny house. They’d sent their “small” crew of about 20 people. (By the way, how in the world did they manage to find parking for not one but two 15 passenger vans right off a main street on a weekend afternoon!?) In addition to the sound crew and the video crew there were people who had us fill out waivers and people who made sure we weren’t wearing any brand name stuff. I was sporting a Yestermorrow T-shirt on purpose, but I was pretty sure they’d be okay with it and luckily they were. There were people who held shiny screens to reflect the light in the right way. And I’m pretty sure one guy’s sole responsibility was to dispense tape!

The folks who did the interview were funny, but it was clear they hadn’t done their homework because they weren’t asking the right questions. They didn’t really know much about tiny houses. Sometimes it seems to me everyone knows about tiny houses by now, but it’s a good reminder that’s not true. Since we were at John’s place most of their questions were for him, but I had fun piping up a couple times to tell them about Downsizing from a Tiny House to a Tinier House and My 200 Things Challenge.

If the interview is used it all it will be part of a web series leading up to the next Portlandia series. Either way, it was a fun experience. And it certainly made my moving day epic!

Update: Here's the video! Turns out I didn't get a speaking part after all, which is fine by me since John and his wee house truck (and his neighbors) are the stars anyhow!