Tiny House Blog

I am currently on my way to check out some tiny houses in the tropical nation of Belize. However, I thought I would leave you with a video of my teardrop trailer, the Sunflower, put together by the lovely Kirsten Dirksen of Fair Companies. Last fall, I met Kirsten’s parents at Austin Hay’s tiny open house and began to converse with her by email. She became interested in my bright yellow teardrop and wanted to show the lifestyle from my point of view.

From a mix of random video that I shot with my Sony Powershot, Kirsten edited together a very nice snapshot into the average life of a teardropper. During our final fall camping trip in the Eastern Sierras, my fellow teardropping friends and I get a little goofy in the video as we hike, soak in natural hot springs and cook over hot coals with a Dutch oven. My little cat also makes a guest appearance. If you are interested in learning more about how I got my teardrop and about teardrop trailers in general, you can visit my blog at www.tinyyellowteardrop.blogspot.com.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

I recently featured a teardrop trailer builder in Eugene, Oregon on the Tiny Yellow Teardrop blog and was pleased to find out that the family-run Oregon Trail’R company is one of very few companies to offer teardrop trailer kits. These types of kits can be perfect for people who are interested in building or owning a teardrop trailer, but don’t possess the skills, time or tools to build one completely from scratch.

Jon and his brother Sawyer of Oregon Trail’R create and supply a solid foundation for their FronTear style trailer. This includes precut walls, a floor, doors, bulkheads, partitions and spars. The buyer can do all the assembly themselves or Oregon Trail’R will begin the build and the buyer can finish it themselves. The buyer supplies the frame and chassis, galley and interior cabinetry, lighting and any other finishing details. Oregon Trail’R can also supply a custom frame designed for a 5×8 foot trailer for $1,300. Continue Reading »

I recently started a new blog just for teardrop trailers. After traveling around and camping in my tiny yellow teardrop for about five years, I’ve received a wide range of accolades, comments and questions. I thought a blog would be the best place to address these questions and put up posts for anyone who has considered purchasing or building a teardrop trailer.

The blog will focus mainly on my own teardrop trailer and the experiences of camping in a teardrop, but I will also be featuring various teardrop builders and owners, including my friend Guy, who lives in his trailer full time. I will also be posting camping tips, tricks and recipes, campgrounds, teardrop manufacturers and, of course, lots of photos.

I would love to hear any questions you may have about teardrop trailers and I’ll do my best to address them. Also, please let me know of any teardrop owners or builders who would like to be featured. Here is the link to the blog http://tinyyellowteardrop.blogspot.com/

Photo by Christina Nellemann

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

by Abel Zyl Zimmerman

Though I normally build tiny houses, I don’t limit myself to that kind of structure. So, I recently built this teardrop trailer for some really sweet people who live just a few blocks down the hill from me.

It is always so hard to fall in love with a project, and then have to give it away. But the sweet flipside is knowing that someone else is out there enjoying it immensely. Indeed, the day after I delivered it, they departed on a week-long camping trip (in November, no less!)

Anyhow, the Zyl Teardrop is 5 feet wide and 9 feet long. It has a queen-size sleeper, a ‘rumble kitchen’, some nice LED light bars, a marine-type epoxy-varnish wood finish, all stainless steel hardware… and it only weighs 625 lbs. I think a team of dachsunds could pull it. Continue Reading »

With some families trying to get in a few more weekends of camping before school starts, I thought I would share some photos of a rare 1952 Kom-Pak Sportsman teardrop trailer that I ran into at my local grocery store. Bob Sullivan of Nevada was towing around his white trailer during Hot August Nights, the classic car celebration in Reno, Nev.

Bob found the Kom-Pak languishing in a junk pile and was able to get it for free. After several months of cleaning and remodeling, he was able to bring the little trailer back to life. The fishing boat portion was recreated from the original mold. Continue Reading »

by Rebecca Turner

After 6 years of living in the real world (aka – not college) we’ve come to the conclusion that the path we are following might not be exactly what we wanted after all. We are finding that we are letting the daily grind of our jobs wear us down and aren’t taking the time do the things that make us happy. So after much thought and lots of long talks, we decided it was time to ‘turn-about’ and make some changes.

Photo Credits: Rebecca Turner

We have always loved camping and have longed to take a great cross country road trip. So to this end, we’ve decided to throw caution to the wind, plan a great trip and build a teardrop trailer! Though we have some skills (I work in architecture and my husband is a mechanical engineer) we have never built anything like this before and are learning as we go. This is also ultimately a great test to see if we can design and build something together without killing each other! Continue Reading »