Tiny House Blog

Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont is hosting a building class focused on building a tiny house on wheels.

They’re hoping to find a client who would like to offer their little house as the subject of the class — significantly jump-starting the construction process! Essentially, the client would dictate the design and offer the materials, including the trailer, and the folks at Yestermorrow would begin the construction process as part of the class. http://www.yestermorrow.org/workshops/detail/tiny-house-design-build

If anyone is interested in getting more information about the class or how their project could be used in the class, please contact Paul Hanke of Yestermorrow. He can provide information about how the class went last year. I’ve attached a photo of the little house they started last year. The porch and other aspects of the house weren’t complete, but the walls and roof were on and the project well underway by the end of the class. Paul’s e-mail is jphanke@gmavt.net.

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).

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Brian Liloia also known as Ziggy to his friends and well known for his cob house, which I have covered in the past here on the Tiny House Blog, is building a new home using a timber frame structure.

The house, code named Strawtron, is designed to be a passive solar, straw bale-insulated house using timber frame as the main structure.

The interior living area is 13 ft x 24ft which is about 300 square feet, it also has a loft and a green house area that is used to bring in passive solar heating.

Brian is making the small timber frame house plans available for free.

As a side note if you would like to help build this house Dancing Rabbit is offering a Natural Building Workshop in the summer of 2012. This includes two workshops one a Timber Frame Workshop and the second a Straw Bale Workshop. Only 12 spaces are available so click here to learn more and to apply.

P.S. Ziggy just sent me the full details so I am including them below.

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So, I live and work in a ‘green’, semi sustainable workshop space that was a shell of a buliding in which I built water systems, heat, and toliet/shower…..

The place is a ‘workshop’ basically, a commercial space that I use for my art/music studio and to live in. The place is in rural Colorado, no address (not on the city’s map), it was a shell building, a large garage basically…the house/studio is heated with a west bay door that opens to a homeade acrylic glass window that in the morning let’s the east sun in for heat, there is also 3 large south facing windows for all day passive solar heat, the ‘running water’ is all carried in (usage is around 5 gallons per day or less) and the sink is made from a water container with a spigot attached (properly) with hose clamps and gasket.

I fill the sink with water as needed but it runs on gravity, the toilet is a composting toilet inspired by the humanure compost toilet system, so I use either peat moss or good pine sawdust for cover material, I also have another toilet just for urine (number 1), the shower is a little less luxurious and is a large plastic basin that I use either a hung solar shower or water jugs with holes drilled in them. I have a small copper quartz heater for at night mostly and a wood stove for heat, the studio is about 1000 sq ft (so not exactly tiny), (but not a large ‘house’ either). Continue Reading »

Dan Louche from Tiny Home Builders is going to be offering a unique workshop starting in March and I wanted to make sure you all new about it. I’ll let Dan tell you about it below.

Building a tiny house by yourself can be intimidating, especially if you have limited construction knowledge. But imagine if instead of doing it alone, you were part of a community of people with different levels of knowledge and experience working in tandem toward the common goal of building and living in a tiny house. In this community there would be an experienced instructor who was there to guide you and answer all of your questions along the way. This is the idea behind the Tiny House Build Along.

At the end of six months you could be living in your own tiny house. A house that is mortgage free, environmentally sustainable, that you built with your own hands. Beginning on March 1st 2012, I will be building a tiny house, and I invite you to build yours with me.

Participants will get access to an online community where each step of the build process will be broken down and scheduled to allow ample time for completion. Illustrated instructions and videos will be provided for each step so that you understand exactly what needs to be done. There will also be a discussion area where you can post your questions which will be answered by your fellow builders and myself. For each step there will be an opportunity to call in and ask your questions with the instructors answers broadcast live over the web to all participants (these sessions will also be recorded for others in the event someone is not available at the specified call time). My personal number will also be provided for a limited number of immediate answers.

The total cost is $849 and includes your choice of one of the Tiny Home Builders tiny house plans (Tiny Living or Tiny Retirement), the Tiny House Construction Guide, and unlimited access to the Tiny House Build Along online community.

You’ve dreamed of living in a tiny house, if you’ve thought of building your own home, but didn’t know where to start, then this is it! This is your start!

Reserve your spot today for $99.
Learn more at tinyhomebuilders.com/buildalong.

Laurel Nest Yurts is offering a workshop in the beautiful mountains outside of Santa Cruz, California and you are invited to join them to get some hands on experience in building a yurt.

Laurel Nest Yurts is offering a “Complete Yurt Building Experience” and a DIY Yurt Building Workshop.

Laurel Nest Yurt building workshops give you all the skills you need to:

• Build the platform
• Plan, design and build your walls, roof and tono.
• Install framed and mesh windows and skylight
• Sew your yurt cover out of Canvas
• Erect the yurt

The cost for the workshop is $125 to help cover costs incurred by workshop (snacks, materials, instructors, printing of the manual, etc.) We will have a limit of 10 people at our workshop, snacks and camping available.

You can get the complete details here: http://www.laurelnestyurts.com/ blog or use the following contact information:

For more information or registration contact:
Adrian
831-338-8300
adriantepperman@gmail.com