Tiny House Blog

Guest Post by Alex Pino

This May 25-26, 2013 Dan Louche and I are hosting a Tiny Home Builders workshop in Alpharetta, Georgia.

This location is about 30 minutes north of Atlanta so it’s easy to get to from anywhere.
It’s a lecture and hands-on experience led by Dan Louche and myself. We’ve already reserved space in a warehouse for this event so that participants will get to:

• Listen to lectures on tiny houses
• Tour a real tiny house between speeches
• Practice building house components using real tools
• Meet and connect with other tiny house enthusiasts

Photo by Dan Louche

What You’ll Learn at a Tiny Home Builders Workshop

Dan Louche is a design and build expert who’s going to explain things such as:

• How to design & build tiny houses
• How to use plans to prepare and build
• What tools you’ll need and how to use them safely
• How to find the best deals on materials
• What you need to know about trailers

What’s even better is that as he explains these concepts, we’ll get to have a real tiny house nearby to reference. Continue Reading »

I received a note from my friend Dee Williams about an upcoming workshop and wanted to share it with you as the time is fast approaching. I wish I could make this one personally as it would be a lot of fun and is near where my daughter lives. Here is what Dee has to say.

Hey there!

I wanted to drop a note to ask a favor. I know you’re swamped and in the middle of your normal awesome life, but I wanted to let you know about some up coming workshops being hosted through Portland Alternative Dwellings (www.padtinyhouses.com). It seems there’s a rush of activity right now with great workshops on the horizon, hosted by Jay Shafer’s new company Four Lights Houses, Yestermorrow Design Build School, Tumbleweed, Deek Deitrickson’s Relaxashacks, and others.

PAD is excited to be a part of such a dynamic community of tiny house enthusiasts. VIVA LA TEENY TINY!!

PAD is hosting a two day Tiny House Design Workshop on February 23 and 24th in Portland Oregon. This same workshop will be repeated in April. We’re focusing on the nuts and bolts of tiny house construction, codes, moisture control and energy efficiency and systems (meaning poop, showering, turning on the lights and cooking up a meal… not necessarily in that order). Our classroom discussions will be anchored by a half-day tour and discussion at POD 49, a pocket community that includes a tiny house and two big houses. Folks can sign up for one day (Saturday or Sunday), or both.

In June, we’ll be hosting a hands-on Tiny House Building Workshop complete with tools, sunscreen and a big o’ can of LET’s DO THIS!

Would you please consider helping to get the word out about the workshops… blog it, blab about it, bang a drum or otherwise broadcast our work, and send folks to our website (www.padtinyhouses.com) for more information? Also, if you’re interested in attending, we’d love to have you there… just let us know ASAP so we can reserve a spot for you and immediately begin to ice down the beers (or other appropriate celebratory libation).

Again, we appreciate being a part of the tiny house world that was in part created by YOU!

Dee Williams
Portland Alternative Dwellings

Hey all, a belated happy new year, and here’s a brand new video mini-tour of “The Whittled Down” Caravan, which made a guest-structure appearance at our Tiny House Building Workshop in Massachusetts this past November (one of five tiny shelters, structures, houses, we had on site!). It was built by Tristan Chambers and Libby Reinish (now of Easthampton, Massachusetts) for a mere $1,500 – trailer and all. They drove it to Massachusetts all the way from New Mexico, where it was originally built. This little wagon also had a full page photo spread in “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks.”

By the way, some guy named Kent Griswold (tinyhouseblog.com) will be trekking cross-country to speak and hang out at the next workshop that I’m hosting alongside Steven Harrell (from tinyhouselistings.com) in Wilmington, North Carolina (April 26th-28th). Other speakers include Laura LaVoie from 120squarefeet.com, Dustin Diedricksen (environmental engineer and small house dweller/builder), Alex Pino of tinyhousetalk.com, and more….its almost becoming a tiny, “tiny house convention”. We’ll ALL be building a tiny guest house too, and holding campfire discussions at night. Its limited to 25 people to keep it more intimate.

We’ll have the full roster/event poster out soon, and keep you updated. You can also sign up at Relaxshacks.com for this three day, hands-on, workshop.

-Derek “Deek” Diedricksen

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company has been having their biggest sale on upcoming workshops and it ends today, November 30, 2012. I sent out an email yesterday to let you know about it but decided to post it here on the Tiny House Blog just to make sure everyone had the opportunity to see it and take advantage of this special.

Here are the details:

•  40% off tickets if you order today, November 30 for 2013 workshops.
•  50% off additional tickets for friends or family
•  1 Hour Consultation  a $75 value

Tickets are normally $399 each, so this is a great value if you’ve been considering attending a Tumbleweed workshop.

Get the complete details by clicking on the link below:

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/pages/workshops

Following is a map showing where the workshops will be held. Click on the city you are interested in and you will be directed to more information about that workshop.

An update, before I drop some info on a NEW hands-on building workshop collaboration in North Carolina (below)…

We recently just completed our Relaxshacks.com Tiny House-Building Workshop two weekends ago, and it was absolutely incredible(!) to get to hang with a group of twenty-plus people for so long a time. It’s amazing how well you get to know and bond with people when a workshop becomes a camp-out, not to mention an all-out, tiny-house-obsessed, event. We had attendees from New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky, and beyond- and luckily the weather was GREAT (we got hit with a big storm two days later!)

Aside from many guest speakers including Sage Radachowsky (Gypsy Wagon Dweller), Doug Immel (Fencl Builder), Dustin “Dr. Demolition” Diedricksen (Small Home Dweller and Environmental Engineer), Tristan Chambers and Libby Reinish (who brought out their Whittled Down Caravan), and Mariah Coz (n’ Matt!) (who lugged out their ultra-cool Comet Camper), we all collaborated on building a tiny travel trailer/tiny house. Continue Reading »

Sorry for the short notice, I get these up as soon as I can!

Author of the book Pocket Neighborhoods, Ross Chapin, will host a workshop in Asheville, North Carolina on November 5, 2012 at the Lord Auditorium in the Pack Memorial Library located at 67 Haywood Street in downtown Asheville.

On his website Chapin describes pocket neighborhoods as, “clustered groups of neighboring houses or apartments gathered around a shared open space — a garden courtyard, a pedestrian street, a series of joined backyards, or a reclaimed alley — all of which have a clear sense of territory and shared stewardship. They can be in urban, suburban or rural areas.

These are settings where nearby neighbors can easily know one another, where empty nesters and single householders with far-flung families can find friendship or a helping hand nearby, and where children can have shirttail aunties and uncles just beyond their front gate.”

During this workshop, Chapin will offer a presentation on this topic for professionals and the general public, sharing stories of communities from around the world, their historic precedents, and the key design principles that give them vitality.

To get all the information visit the Local Plan website. http://www.localplan.org/2012/10/pocket-neighborhoods-author-ross-chapin.html