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 Lizabeth Moniz calls it.
Lizabeth, myself and the local New Zealanders at Casita Bonita will be leading a two week intensive in tiny house design and construction in scenic Nelson, New Zealand from March 3 to March 16. During the day, the workshop group will all work together to build a real tiny house structure. In the evenings, we’ll dig into the design process, letting each individual student draw up plans for their own tiny home.
What Dee Williams’ New Zealand Workshop Will Cover
This hands-on tiny house workshop will focus on:
- Basic carpentry techniques and tools, like saws, hammers, and metric tape measures
- Sound tiny house structures, like framing for earthquakes, hurricanes, etc
- Design ideas that integrate individual aesthetics/needs to the reality of site, weather and community placement.
In the process, we’ll actually build a structure, and design our own homes. It will be rigorous, but time and money well spent. In fact, I wish I’d taken a class like this before I built my first house. I could have saved myself from making mistakes and scratching my head so much. And I would have developed a sense of community that would invite me to lean into others for help, advice, inspiration and patience… and that’s what life is really all about!
Want to learn more about this workshop? Hop over to Casita Bonita’s site right now!
Dee Takes New Zealand!
Why New Zealand? It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go, and lately I’ve been asking myself why. Is it the adventure of teaching folks how to build a structure; how to swing a hammer and design something that is functional and kind?
I’ve heard stories about New Zealand: beautiful mountains, beaches, forests and people, but maybe those are just a myth. And I’ve taught two-week workshops before, and know how it feels to fall in love with the community that develops by working hard day and night, eating meals together, and discovering what makes each of us ‘tick.’
I’m excited because I’ll learn from each of my co-instructors, the students and from the amazing place and people that are hosting us. I’ll discover community — an authentic, real community — while working my ass off with students and teachers, and I hope some of you will join us for two weeks in a beautiful place. We need and want you to be a part of this! You might even meet New Zealand’s cutest sheep (I assume), who was spotted by our workshop host on a recent hike!
For the agenda and registration details, hop on over to Casita Bonita’s site right now! I can’t wait to get out there and start building, and I hope to see you on the other side of the world!