Tiny House Archives - follow your wild heart

House building reflection part 1

Everyone says that building a house is exhausting and costs a lot of time and money. And yet probably everyone underestimates it. And above all: it doesn't matter how small or big the house is. The cost is almost always higher.

I have a roof over my head

After the preparations and the addition of the new rooms, my house is unfortunately far from finished. After another break of about 3-4 weeks, the time had finally come: I got a roof over my head!

My little house is growing up

Inspired by the original building, the extension was also to be built with cross-laminated solid wood panels. But since there was not enough space to use straw-insulated walls as well, we chose thicker wood panels instead. And in this case that means 18cm thick! If you want to cut a board like that, you need a circular saw so big that at least I almost can't carry it.

Preparation for the annex

The original house I bought not quite two years ago was planned as a modular house, but only with the two original modules that could be taken apart and reassembled. Any further expansion was not planned. Accordingly, so several tasks were necessary to prepare for the addition.

Reflection: 2 years of living in my new Tiny House

Soon it will be 2 years since I moved into my new Tiny House. Actually, it's still a construction site, because I don't have a bathroom, and the planned addition is only now really getting started. Nevertheless, I'm finally taking the time to do some initial reflection on living in my new tiny house.

Tiny House Diaries – Making a house a home

I approached decorating my home the same way I approach so many other things in my life: Trial and error. I knew roughly where the bed would probably make the most sense, but that was it.

Tiny House Diaries – Tiny House on the move

It's been about 9 years ago, that I started dreaming about wooden tiny houses. About a year later, I was the proud owner of a construction container, that I turned into a cozy little tiny house experiment. Now, all those years later, I finally arrived at my next step of living small.

Tiny House Diaries – The Foundation

The foundation, the base of a house is incredibly relevant. Every detail, every height must fit, so that the house then stands on it stably.

Tiny Houses in Portland

As I mentioned in my last post, I was in the Pacific Northwest at the end of last year. One of the stops was to Portland, Oregon, which is widely known for its big Tiny House community. But when I heard that there are about 6000 Tiny Houses in that area, I was really surprised about the number. Before I had come to Portland, I wasn’t aware, of how big that Tiny House Movement in the U.S. really is. There are two or three different regular shows on TV covering that topic, from following a person or family in their journey to get their very custom-fit amazing Tiny House, to realtors specialized in “Tiny”, looking for tiny and small houses to buy.

While I dove into the scene, I learned that some definitions are more strict than others. A “Tiny House” to a lot of people is not just a very small house, but specifically a small house on wheels. Others just use it for all kinds of very small houses, even tiny appartements. The Tiny House Movement is not just about choosing the size of your home, it’s also (at least most of the time) a social statement. It’s about questioning the current house sizes and all that it entails, simplifying your life, getting out of (or as a precaution not to get in) debt, being able to move without having to give up your house, and probably many more other reasons. But even though everyone has a different reason for joining the Tiny House Community, it still feels like a bonding aspect that really forms a global (sub)community. This inspired me to look a little closer at the Tiny House Communities in Europe, which merits a separate blog post 🙂

During my trip I was able to visit the Portland Tiny House Hotel “Caravan “, which is actually just an old parking lot with currently 6 Tiny Houses arranged in a circle and a small communal area with a fireplace in the middle. Even though it’s not especially cheap to spend a night in one of the houses, it is a great (and relatively cheap) opportunity to try out living in one of them, and maybe even finding out some details of what you really need or don’t need in your own Tiny House.

At the Tiny House Hotel tour I met a Portland resident living in a Tiny House named Lilypad . She was very gracious and showed me her tiny magical amazing universe. It is relatively unusual compared to most of the other Tiny Houses I know, because it has two lofts, both accessible by stairs (not with a ladder). She really created a space with 5 different areas that feel like rooms, making it feel a lot more spacious. The thing that made all the difference was the roof, that was high on one side and a little curved on the other. Having that instead of a gable gives you about twice the headroom (to the sides) in the lofts.

A lot is said about why going Tiny is great, some voices are already countering it. For me, it always depends on your goal. What are you willing to give up? What are you longing to gain? It’s a very vital part of going tiny that should be asked in the beginning. But I believe if those balance each other out, you’re good to go. How about you? What do you think is the most important question to ask when going Tiny?

It’s party time!

As I mentioned in my last entry , I finished my tiny house mostly because I set myself a deadline. Aside from the final result, this really shows how good I work with a deadline and a little pressure ;-). And it wasn’t just a random deadline.. It was the date of my (tiny) house warming party!

Over the years I spent some time with project lifecycles and especially systems like the one in Dragon Dreaming and the natural cycles of the medicine wheel resonated with me. Within Dragon Dreaming, there are four recurring phases in the cycle:

Dreaming
Planning
Doing
Celebrating

The last one – Celebrating – is looking back on what you have accomplished, reviewing your actions, maybe naming all the things that you could have done and will do better next time, and especially celebrating. This is a vital part of finishing a project that is overlooked a lot of times in our society.

I almost forgot about that important last step (of the first cycle) of my project, but since I had told so many people who were interested about my home that there will be a party, I felt the need to actually do it, not being aware of how important it would be for me. It was a great party and with it I was able to really enjoy, celebrate and be proud of what I had created. Only during the celebration did I realize how important celebrating and really appreciating your accomplishment is.

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