Dee Williams has inspired tiny house builders across the world, but where did her own inspiration come from? Find out below, in the first of a series of excerpts we’re sharing from her forthcoming memoir, The Big Tiny, due out April 22! In this excerpt, Dee explains her first exposure to tiny homes: in a…Read more
The tiny house movement has an impressive online presence, and some great websites for people to see houses, share ideas, and connect to others in different states. But the benefits of online communities are also its challenges – they’re diffused across huge distances and loaded with information that may or may not be relevant to…Read more
By Joan Grimm New Year’s is my favorite holiday, so I like to stretch it out for the whole month of January. Reflecting on the path we’ve traveled helps us learn from it. Otherwise a whole year of new experiences and change might all go by unnoticed. And 2013 was a big year in the…Read more
PAD is super excited to announce our partnership with ADX and share what ADX can offer the tiny house community. ADX is a 12,000 square foot space in Portland, Oregon packed with shop facilities, tools, and work and event spaces. Access to the facilities is based on individual memberships or attendance at one-time events hosted…Read more
Dee Williams recently showed Kirsten Dirksen from Faircompanies.com around her little house. They made a great, 13 minute video that covers everything from her water and electrical systems, to how she used her body as a measuring tape for her design, to how she found a parking spot among friends: “The cool thing about…Read more
By Dee Williams Many tiny housers are freaked out by the idea of having to deal with a city or county inspector, and they can’t fathom the courage it would take to walk into a planning office to discuss codes. So they build their little house as best they can: reading several books and…Read more
Last week we posted part one of our interview with the founders of Caravan, America’s first tiny house hotel. We knew we were excited about Caravan because they offer people the rare option to rent a tiny house by the night and see how it feels, and let people see different types of houses side…Read more
Portland Alternative Dwellings is happy to operate out of Portland for many reasons, including that it’s a place where people aren’t afraid to blaze a new trail. So we’re not surprised that Portland now hosts Caravan, America’s first tiny house hotel. Caravan includes three separate tiny houses rentable by the night, and space for two…Read more
A Tiny House PioneerDee Williams built and moved into her first tiny house on wheels in 2004. After a medical emergency led her to the age old realization that life is short, she re-assessed her priorities and decided that her friends, family and community deserved more of her time than her four bedroom house.Although she hadn’t tackled…Read more
Next month we have a couple of tiny house work parties coming up – click here for dates and information. “Work party” might sound like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp, but we use the term for a reason. The “work” is learning how to build, and taking on the intellectual and physical challenge of constructing…Read more
At PAD, we spend a lot of time talking tiny houses (obviously), because we love them and love what they can do for people. But living in a tiny house isn’t for everyone, so it’s important to spend time considering some of the other alternatives to traditional housing that offer similar benefits – more community,…Read more
The question of how to find tiny house parking is one of the most discussed issues in the tiny house world. What will the place you call home look like, and who will be part of it? Do you want peace, quiet, and country views that stretch for miles, or to be nestled into your…Read more
Do you struggle to explain the allure of a tiny house to your friends and family? Or maybe they like the cute pictures, but can’t understand why you’d actually want to live in one, or let one park on your property? A couple of recent interviews with Dee Williams and Joan Grimm from PAD provide…Read more