After A Week Long Send Off, My Round the World Trip kicked off with eight days in Maui visiting my sister Sarah who has split her time between Hawaii and Alaska for many years. What an epic way to start this adventure! There was mist falling when my sister greeted me at the Kahului airport on Maui a week ago, so she teased me about bringing the rain from the mainland. We headed straight for Paia where she presented me with a young coconut and a lei, accompanied by the chant for the gifting-of-a-lei.
A number of circumstances collided recently to compel me to move the Lucky Penny to my property in Walla Walla where I have a ground bound small house called Valencia Cottage. So on Tuesday trusted tiny house movers Linh and Stephanie Pham helped me move the Lucky Penny safely from Portland to my place in Walla Walla.
As I packed up recently in preparation to travel cross country in my Honda Fit, I did some downsizing… It was harder than it had been during my last couple of moves because this time I had more stuff. I’d been living in a bigger space…My apartment was a studio, but it was still about 6 times bigger than the Lucky Penny! I talked with several people about the experience and a handful of them said “oh my goodness, I need to do more of that!” So I’ve decided to offer a 6-week Downsizing Tune Up…
The weeks between Winter Solstice and New Years Day are often reflective time for me anyhow, but that's been especially true for me this year. For one thing, I have my new spouse to dream and scheme with. Isha and I have been making our lists and checking them twice as we identify our goals, what we're going to commit to, and what we're going to let go.The other big life change this year is that I am delighted to be starting a new job as the Operations Coordinator for Green Hammer tomorrow!
This paper was originally written by Lina Menard of Niche Consulting LLC in June of 2012 as a term paper for a course she took as part of her Masters of Urban and Regional Planning Masters program at Portland State University. The course, USP 510: Planning & The Housing Market, taught by Dr. Lisa Bates, focused on the intersection between planning, regulation, and affordable housing. This version of the paper was updated in January 2015.
Yesterday was Beltane (AKA May Day) and it marked the one year anniversary of starting the build for our new tiny house, T42. To celebrate, we want to share photos with you! In mid-March, Kristina of Kristina Lynn Photography came to do a photo shoot. As I've hinted at in my Niche Newsletters, Kristina is a photographer who especially loves taking photos of people in their homes and recently she's become intrigued by tiny house dwellers. So it was an awesome opportunity to have her come shoot our little house. She captured some truly fabulous shots and we're excited to share them with you!
People often tell me that they'd love to taken one of our tiny house workshops but they can't afford it. I respond by telling them that if they're serious about building a tiny house they really can't afford NOT to come to a workshop. The few hundred dollars they invest in the workshop will save them significant time, money, and heartache since they'll gather information and learn from other's mistakes. Fortunately, my friend and colleague Alek recently wrote this post about the benefits of taking one of our Tiny House Collaborative workshops. So in case you're not on the Tiny House Collaborative mailing list, I am cross-posting it here. Enjoy and feel free to respond in the comments. Thanks!"
On Friday, Dec 30th we moved T42 to her new spot where we're Creating a New Tiny Cohousing Community. Most years I make the transition between one year and the next with some quiet days of contemplation, reflection, and intention setting. This year Isha and I did those things, too, but our days weren't exactly quiet. Instead, we had two tiny houses in motion, which meant figuring, patience, a decent amount of physical labor in cold temperatures, and a lot of deep breaths.
It's high time for a catch up! The month of September was a fun one because we wrapped up the O'Keefe Tiny House Build Blitz and I spoke about tiny house design at Tiny House Fest Vermont... I kicked off October with a trip to Ojai to teach at Tiny House 101 workshop with Lee Pera and Vina Lustado through the Tiny House Collaborative... and so much more!
Friday was Day 5 of the Build Blitz for Erin Maile & Kevin O'Keefe's tiny house on wheels... By lunchtime the roof panels were up and we spent Friday afternoon working on a number of touch up tasks... Since the house wasn't quite yet ready for her maiden voyage, we decided we'd better do some more work on Saturday to get her prepped.
The Green Mountain Panel crew came out en masse to help us get the first wall panel up. We tipped up one of our slanted end walls and then its adjoining panel on the corner. Once we had a corner in place we were able to work our way around the building in both directions. With a crew that big it went pretty quickly.
