Tiny House Blog

In celebration of summer and for Kent heading off to Hawaii, I thought I would do a post on these vintage style trailers by Dayton Taylor and Vintage Trailer Crazy. Part trailer, part Woodie station wagon, these 19–(Any Year) Woodie Love Bugs can be manufactured to match your tow vehicle, birth year or whatever theme you want…including “Surf’s Up.”

Each trailer is 12 feet long and weighs 1,200 pounds. They are custom made with hand built oak and birch walls and cabinets. The Vintage Trailer Crazy design team will consult with you to create your custom Woodie Love Bug. These trailers are built new from the ground up, but use VIN numbers from vintage 1930-1950 trailers. Over 500 man-hours go into the production of each little trailer. They cost around $12,500 and Dayton told me that they sell a lot of them, primarily because of the popularity of smaller trailers. Continue Reading »

Libby Reinish and Tristan Chambers contacted me about a project they are working on and wanted to share with you.

My partner and I are building a bow-top gypsy wagon and documenting our progress on www.whittleddown.com. This is our first tiny house, and we will be moving into it in one month, when we depart our home in Santa Fe, NM and begin a cross-country move to New England. We plan to live in the wagon for the remaining warm months of the year, and haven’t entirely ruled out retrofitting it for winter living later. The wagon is based on a gypsy wagon design, but we like to think of it as a contemporary take on the prairie schooner.

Our gypsy wagon design meets our three main goals: 1) To build a home for just over what we currently pay for a month’s rent ($1500 total), 2) To build a portable home that can be towed by my Hyundai Elantra, which has a 1,000 lb tow rating, and 3) To find a design that provides all our basic needs (food prep, sleep, electricity, toilet) in a small space. Continue Reading »

On the last update of the Protostoga there were many requests for interior photographs. Ann recently sent me some so I wanted to do another update.

Ann says: The interior of ProtoStoga is difficult to photograph because the space is so small. The floor area is 4’10”x7’6”. At the ledge it is it’s widest 6’4”x8’3”. I hope the photos I included this time will give a better idea of what the space feels like. The one through the front door is a photoshop collage and does not quite line up correctly but it still gives a pretty good idea.

We had our first guest this weekend. It was really exciting! We set up the interior as a bedroom with a full-sized bed across the space. There was enough room left over for a bags and stuff. She made a little video and when she sends me a copy I will share it with you… Continue Reading »

George one of our readers spotted Katy’s Don Vardo and emailed me to let me know he was in the progress of building his own little vardo and would enjoy sharing his project with us.

Using a home built trailer using classic and modern building techniques and style. Based on traveler’s and “gypsy” wagons from Britain and France as well as sheep wagons from the western U.S. George is keeping this to the absolute minimum in size and weight. George doesn’t plan to live in it so it can be thought of a base camp.

You can view more pictures and follow his project at his Paleotool’s Weblog. I will also do an updated post when George completes the vardo, so stay tuned.

Continue Reading »

Michael’s latest version of Tiny House Living is up and you can visit it here. This weeks issue covers everything from wall tents to pre-fab. My two favorite stories are the Gypsy Wagon and the Osprey pictured below.

Today is my wife Janelle’s birthday and I am running around doing house cleaning and errands so we can spend this afternoon and evening together so just a short post this morning. Enjoy the Tiny House Living information and have a great weekend.

Last year I let you know about a coveted workshop offered up in Port Townsend, Washington on Gypsy Wagon design and builds. Jim Tolpin contacted me the other day to give me the schedule for the 2010 year.

Jim says, “We’ve shortened the seminars to three days to focus on design development and to make the class more affordable.” The price is $295 for the three day seminar and limited to 25 students at each of the seminars offered. Register Here.

Students helping to steam bend a wagon hoop around a form.

In this three day weekend we will begin by exploring in depth how the late 19th century, English-made “Living Wagons” (called “Vardos” by the Gypsies)—were designed, built and used. Continue Reading »