Tiny House Blog

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 »

Tim Kasten wrote to me recently about his Meditation Retreat Gypsy Wagon, so I asked him to send me some pictures and tell us his story. I’ll let Tim take over from here:

I dreamed for a number of years of building a gypsy-style caravan on a 4-wheel 14-foot-long wagon chassis that I bought from Shiloh Wagon Works in Minnesota. Health problems eventually forced me to concede that I wasn’t strong enough to build it alone and that I would have to scale back the design considerably if I wanted to be able to tow it with a small car and maneuver it by myself.

The result was this little wagon built on a 4×8 utility trailer from Tractor Supply. I don’t know its exact weight, but I’m pretty sure it’s under 600 pounds. I tow it easily with a Toyota Matrix. Continue Reading »

Guy Lemieux in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada offers a unique modern take on the gypsy-inspired transportable wooden 4 seasons cottage adapted to modern living with a carefully decorated and furnished interior.

As a cottage or guest house, a workshop, boutique, café, welcome centre, kiosk, camper, base camp, or addition to a tourist accommodation, the Tango caravan comes fully equipped or made to measure, adapting to your needs and blending beautifully with the environment where you use it.

Tango caravans are available in different versions: basic, finished, equipped and decorated, or made to measure. The caravan you see on our site is 24 feet long, Tango now has added 26 and 32 foot as well.

Tango builds the caravans to measure, the price of the base model without furniture (no bathroom and kitchen) are starting at 29,000$ cdn (26 feet) 32,000$ cdn (32 feet) and the full equipped starting at 37,000$ cdn (26 feet) and 49,000$cdn (32 feet). The 32 feet version has two rooms.

This is a new company just started in February of 2009. I had the opportunity to talk to Guy’s wife the other day and they hope to bring these to the United States as soon as they get all the importing details worked out. Go to the Roulottes en bois Tango website to learn more.

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