This is to announce the find your alternative housing tiny house workshop event in Portland, Oregon on Thursday, June 27th, 2019 from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.
Are you thinking about some kind of creative home — like a tiny house, RV, backyard home, or backyard community? If you know you want a home that’s “different” but don’t know which one, we have THE perfect event for you!
Brattleboro, Vermont — Tiny House Fest Vermont (THFV) began with 5,000 attendees in 2016. As the festival grows, so does its engagement with not-so-tiny ideas. On Saturday, June 23, in downtown Brattleboro, up to 30 houses will be on view, and over 35 presenters will celebrate design while asking how the tiny house movement can change communities for the better.
View of the Pop up Tiny House Village in downtown Brattleboro. While Hurricane Harvey passed through the area, the number of houses and attendees who came to tour tiny houses and see presenters increased over the year prior. Credit: Liz Lavorgna, Core Photography
Dee Williams built her tiny house on wheels in 2004, so long ago that she had to track down Jay Shafer in person just to figure out how to build one. It was before the tiny house movement as we now know it – there were no blogs, videos or ebooks back then. Dee has lived full time in that little house in Olympia, Washington for over ten years, although last year she added a second, even tinier house to the mix: an eight-foot-long Don Vardo design with no loft. This second house has become her home-away-from-home in Portland, Oregon when she visits friends or teaches tiny house workshops.
The full story of how Dee came to build her first little house more than ten years ago is a long and rich one. Her memoir, The Big Tiny, came out last year and arrives in bookstores in paperback on April 22nd, 2015, and there’s no better way to hear the story than from Dee herself.
When I visited her simple little house in Olympia last year, most of our conversation focused on how the house has changed her life and perspective. For Dee, one of the biggest changes was that despite building the house to be “self-contained,” it actually taught her to be interdependent with others – to lean on her friends more and let herself be leaned upon.
Dee Williams’ Life in Two Tiny Homes
Dee’s new tiny house went book touring with her through California and Oregon. Photo by Dee Williams.
A few different companies offer tiny house workshops to teach people how to design and build their own tiny homes and find freedom from debt, freedom from stuff, and freedom to roam. But as the free and online resources for tiny houses get better and better, what’s the “value” in taking a tiny house workshop?
Dee Williams has been teaching tiny house workshops for years, and her company PAD Tiny Houses recently contacted former participants who have gone on to build tiny homes on wheels so they can understand how workshops help people when they’ve really gotten going building. They received a letter from Kate Goodnight, a former workshop participant who’s now partway through building her “Naj Haus” tiny home on wheels in Hood River, Oregon reflecting on her experience:
“Building a tiny house is no small endeavor. Houses don’t just miraculously stand on their own. They need to be framed just so and be protected from the elements. They need to breathe and stay warm. They need to be wired and plumbed safely. Stick them on wheels and you have a whole new set of complications to keep your house from shooting off the trailer, bits flying willy-nilly in a trail of destruction down the road. To be able to pull off building a tiny house, you need a lot of experience to draw on. If, like me, you don’t have it yourself, you need to find it elsewhere…
Photos from recent PAD Tiny House Workshops:
Dee Williams showing off a partially constructed tiny house at a PAD Workshop. Photo: Chris Tack
Is now finally the time for small homes to be more widely accepted in more neighborhoods everywhere? Do you think all of this publicity will help us lower square footage standards and make them more reasonable? Let us know in the comments after you watch and enjoy below.
If you enjoyed this video and article on the Tiny House Movement on TIME Magazine you’ll LOVE our Free Daily Tiny House Newsletter with even more stories like it!
Not long ago I told you about Dee Williams and her book tour for The Big Tiny.
Not that many of us got to go visit her while she was touring (lucky for you if you did!) but in case you missed her you can at least see some of what you missed right here (below). Below is a video of her speech in Boulder, Colorado where she met fans, signed book copies, and shared her story with others. Please enjoy and re-share. 🙂
If you’re interested you can get a copy of Dee’s book The Big Tiny. She also offers a book on how to build tiny houses, plans, and workshops at her company PAD Tiny Houses.
How would your life be with no mortgage, no car, and a teeny tiny house to call home? When I first heard about Tammy Strobel and her husband Logan they were living simply in a minimalist apartment. Today they are living in their own mortgage-free tiny house on wheels designed and built by PAD Tiny Houses.
But why? Around six years ago Tammy was dissatisfied with her life because she was commuting for two hours every day just to go to a job that she didn’t even like. They were $30k in debt, owned two cars, and were living in a two-bedroom apartment. So Logan suggested they downsize.
