March 3 through 16, 2019 One of my favorite Tom Robbins quotes is, “You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.” And that’s a bit how it feels to be planning a tiny house design and building workshop in New Zealand — or “NZ” as my friend and co-teacher…Read more
By Dee Williams Lately, I’ve been looking at the unexpected education that I’ve gotten over the past 13 years of tiny house living. When I set out to build my house, I knew I’d learn more about how to use a saw. And before I moved into my house,…Read more
People ask us all sorts of questions about houses and home, and when there are no easy answers, sometimes all we can do is share a story or a perspective – “advice column” style. This response is from Billy, author of the Life in a Tiny House Ebook. Dear PAD, My goal for the new year…Read more
By Dee Williams A friend recently sent me an article from The Onion about a beaver who shifted his dam project from that of house and home to esoteric art project. She added a little note that said, “For some reason this made me think of you.” I read the article and not surprisingly, my…Read more
A big goal of our Tiny House Basics Workshops is to help attendees design and build a tiny house that fits them, and to do it right the first time. We answer the questions people have right now, AND give them the tools and resources they need to answer the questions they don’t know they…Read more
By Dee Williams Last month, I flew to Japan to participate in a Tiny House Building Workshop hosted by my friend Yuichi, one of PAD’s former students and a master tree house builder. He worked for almost a year to bring students and teachers together for several weekends to teach the group how to engineer…Read more
While tiny houses are getting more and more coverage in the media, it’s still difficult to find an opportunity to go inside and tour one. This is a shame, because like any space, you’ve got to be inside it to really know what it’s like. A picture is worth a thousand words, but an experience is…Read more
By Dee Williams It’s hard to choose a tiny house builder. Tiny houses on wheels aren’t just miniature versions of normal houses. They shouldn’t be built like a shed, barn, or a “normal house”, they need to be able to handle their specialized circumstances. So even someone who has worked in construction for the past 30…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
This past weekend, Dee Williams and the PAD crew held the Casa Pequena Tiny House Building Workshop at the Casa Verde Earth Day Festival in McMinnville, Oregon. Workshop participants got hands-on experience building and expert instruction on the construction issues specific to tiny houses, and festival-goers were introduced to the tiny house world as a…Read more
We had a blast at our recent February Tiny House Basics Workshop! While we gather our thoughts about the weekend and comb through the feedback we got from our great crop of enthusiastic participants, please enjoy this guest post from Lina Menard on her wrap up of the weekend. Lina is a tiny space dweller and…Read more