by Matthew Wolpe
So, I’m designing and building a tiny house. Last year one of my students showed me a picture of the Tumbleweed houses and said she wanted to build one and wanted me to help out. I laughed and thought it was funny and intriguing, but inside I was like “Are you serious, you’re gonna move into one of those?” Okay, so fast forward six months, and the New Yorker article came out and I was reading it in bed. It was a rare moment of epiphany, aided by some lovely company.
It was the ideal next step for me.
There were a few considerations:
- I loved my housemates to death but don’t love my basement room, particularly in the winter
- I’d been building chicken coops for the past year, something I’m a little tired of, so it was like a giant chicken coop with new challenges
- I had been trying to buy a house with friends in oakland for over a year and am convinced this is my only way towards home ownership in the bay area, and
- After finishing the manuscript and seeing my sweetheart leave the country for a long while I had the compulsion to throw myself into a giant project.