Jay Shafer - Part 2

5 Day Tiny House Hands-On Workshop

Ready to Change YOUR World? You do not want to miss this! This is a one-of-a-kind, never before, FIVE DAY, HANDS-ON tiny house workshop! Join us and spend the week with a power-house of tiny house personalities: the renowned tiny house guru Jay Shafer, tiny-houser B.A. Norrgard, and construction professional … Read more

Jay Shafer Workshop

by Kent Griswold

I want to present a local workshop for Bay Area Meetups – Jay Shafer October 4th, 2014, Graton, CA There’s a lot of erroneous building information being bandied about in the small house world these days, and half of it originated with me. When I designed and built my first … Read more

Maxime’s Tiny House

by Kent Griswold

My name is Maxime Chénier and I am from Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. I am 26 years old and I work as a forest firefighter for the province. I fell in love with Jay Shafer’s houses about 5 years ago and since then I have been planning mine. I move a … Read more

Four Lights Tiny House Company’s Workshop

by Kent Griswold

A Tiny House Workshop Like No Other Four Lights has taken Tiny House Workshops to a whole new level. Join seasoned tiny house builder and designer, Jay Shafer and construction expert, Daniel Bell in this ALL NEW tiny house workshop series. The Los Angeles Workshop is coming up April 6-7! … Read more

Healdsburg High Students build Tumbleweed Epu

by Kent Griswold

advanced construction students and tiny house

Last Tuesday I had the privilege of visiting the local Healdsburg High School. Ray Holley had invited me down to see a Tumbleweed Epu being built by sixteen high school students. A few years ago the industrial arts program at the high school was being shut down because of lack … Read more

Four Lights Tiny House Company

by Kent Griswold

Jay Shafer contacted me recently about his new website and new houses he is introducing today. He sent me the following press release to share with you. Jay Shafer will be unveiling what he calls his, “best tiny houses yet”, at fourlightshouses.com this Tuesday, December 11 at 9:00 am EST. … Read more

Austin’s Open House

by Kent Griswold

Austin was only 15 when he started building his tiny house. According to Jay Shafer he is the youngest person he is aware of who is proving that anyone can build a tiny home if they choose to. Austin has completed building the Tumbleweed Fencl and he is scheduling an Open … Read more

Tiny SIP House

by Kent Griswold

by Art Cormier

My name is Art Cormier and I decided to build a tiny house this last fall. I realized I had been living in large space, but only using a small portion of it. I began to research floor plans online and decided to start with the basic layout of Jay Shafer’s Walden (Tiny Tumbleweed Houses).

The thought of framing up such a small space and subjecting it to the stresses of transport on a trailer seemed daunting. S.I.P. (Structural Insulated Panels, SIPS.org) panels seemed like a good option.

With the panels each surface would be one piece, making the construction easy. S.I.P.s allow someone without extensive building skills to put together a sound structure. This was my first experience using S.I.P.s and there is much detail of the process on my blog, tinysiphouse.blogspot.com.

Kai’s Weebee and Will’s Tarleton

by Kent Griswold

Kai Schaede from Germany spent three months constructing his modified Weebee to meet his needs. Most Tumbleweed Weebee’s that have been constructed have been built on a trailer, but Kai wanted his on a permanent foundation so he altered it to work for him. Kai hopes that his pictures will motivate … Read more

Original Jay Shafer Epu Open House

by Kent Griswold

Announcement

If you live in the Boston area be sure and go and visit the original Epu, the first built Tumbleweed that tiny house celebrity Jay Shafer built and lived in. It will be on display for an Open House this Saturday, May 12, 2012 from 1 pm to 4 pm in Boston, 88 Lambert Ave. (Avenue not “Street”)

If you can’t make the open house, fret not, as during the Boston Tiny House Building Workshop, you can also make a field trip to this very site, for a more intimate look at the structure, and with guest speakers galore….

Tiny House Dweller and Author, John Hanson Mitchell
Gypsy Wagon Builder and Dweller Sage Radachowsky
Mariah Coz and her Comet Camper, a classic Avalon she’s renovating in a green and off-grid fashion to serve as a mobile classroom.

And perhaps more….

Also the Boston Workshop (May 19th and 20th) hosted by Derek “Deek” Diedricksen will be on hand to give you a tour, and answer any questions you might have in regards to tiny housing. Derek is also teaching upcoming workshops in DC, Chicago, and NYC. The event will also double as the delayed book release event for Diedricksen’s “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks.” which spent 15 weeks as the #1 ranked Carpentry book on Amazon).

Livin’ Large, Living Tiny

by Kent Griswold

Guest Post by R Blank (this is a repost from his original blog)

My wife and I have now been living tiny for several months. For those who don’t know, tiny homes (living units under roughly 200sq’) have become increasingly popular in the past couple of years. When we researched many options for different types of tiny homes, we found a lot of information — but very few first-person accounts of the experience.

And, after all, that’s what tiny living actually involves — a fundamental shift in thinking about consumption and space utilization — the rest (what type of tiny home, whether its mobile, how its built, etc) is all just details.

ContainerHome2 — Our Shipping Container from LEED Cabins, in Place, with the Completed Porch and Privacy Fence

Given the increasing popularity of tiny homes I thought it might be valuable to someone out there considering the same to read some of my thoughts on what this experience has been like for us.

In our case, this isn’t a tiny home, so much as a my home-office. But we decided to place this small office structure on the land first, before building our home. Our land is 30 miles away from the nearest town (where ‘town’ is quite loosely defined; we’re literally 20 miles away from the nearest service at all, which is our post office), which makes development quite challenging. So we started small, so we could establish a base of operations without too much trouble (that it took us a year to even get this far, is an entirely separate story).

Tiny Homes Finding Fans in the Pacific Northwest

by Kent Griswold

Seattle Tiny Homes Press Release “Honey, I Shrunk the House – by 1,377 Percent” A local Seattle-area family has just built a new home that’s only 159 square feet. They’re part of a national movement toward smaller, more sustainable housing that is taking root in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle, WA, … Read more