About
We created this WordPress page as a journal of our project, the creation of a daedala, a well-made thing, in the form of a tiny house. A tiny home that is beautiful and vital, a house made by clever craftsmen and women, with our experience shared so that others may learn and be inspired. There are so many good reasons we want to do this, but chief among them was our realization that the math of American cost-of-living vs. quality of life does not add up favorably for our generation, is worsening with each year, and is unlikely to change without a radical change of Zeitgeist. As we see it, the driving force behind the first-world economy are the people fighting the tide of debt which we are all entrapped in, the ends justifying the means, although the end is never known or chosen. Our sense of community, of responsibility, and the honest wealth of family & friends, of simplicity, of time and self-sufficiency, is lost and forgotten. We choose to fight, to live and revive those things, to make a path so that others will follow and way will be made easier.
We choose to exit the vicious cycle of blind consumption and live; we want to die leaving behind children that we raised ourselves, a life lived meaningfully with uncluttered minds and souls, and no debt, in any form, to pass on. We feel lighter already.
I’m excited to be following your journey.My family and I are due to recent foreclosure taking the opportunity to change our life we have decided downsize and simplofy our lives from owning a 2,000 sq ft home. We are moving to a living space under 750 sq ft hoping to achieve in the future under 400 sq ft so I am always looking for information. Thank you for sharing, Allie
Dear Allie,
Thank you. I am impressed by your spirit of optimism and your willingness to try something so different and new; you took a foreclosure and turned it into lemonade. You sound like you and your family have a wonderful adventure ahead of you!
Thank you for your kind words! Have a great night and thank you for following. Allie
I love that I have found your site, you have LOTS of hearty information already! Thank you so much for sharing it!
Thank you! We thoroughly enjoy reading your blog as well 😉
Loving watching your progress! What are the dimensions of your building? And can you clue me into the magic of building those wonderful curved rafters?
Our building dimensions (exterior) are 8’6″ by 20′ long by 13’5″ high. Our interior dimension width is slightly narrower as we wanted to incorporate siding “hips” over the wheel wells, so the interior from inside of siding to siding is 89″ (7’5″). And I am glad to hear that you love the rafters; we do, too, but they were a lot of work! We used a handy little construction book which has formulas for calculating curves, and we cut two pieces for the body from 2 x 8 and then “sandwiched” it inside two full-length pieces of plywood, and glued and stapled them together, so they are very strong. The reason we didn’t just cut each rafter from one whole piece of 2″ thick stock is that we would have had to buy a very wide, long board and that would have been cost-prohibitive. Steaming and bending of stock is possible, as they do in ship-making, but more technically difficult than we wanted to deal with. And we do not plan on having our rafters show, so although they are not attractive, hidden, they make a beautiful arch!
Thank you! Can you tell me the name of the book that you got your calculations from? I really just might do this!
What will you use for roof insulation? Ceiling? Roofing?
Hi, have you tried the tadelakt in the bathroom yet? I have to decide whether to plaster or paint in the next few days and wonder if you have tried it and moved it successfully (without it cracking)?
Sadly we have not graduated to such fancy things yet, and we won’t know about cracking with moving for some time. I hope whichever you decide works out for you!
hi! I still have not come to a solution on a chemical-free shower? Still trying to decide whether to do tadelakt. The clay plaster on the MgO walls has cracked throughout the house so we would have to do something different to prevent that in the bathroom. Maybe lathing and glue added to plaster? My other option is figuring out if I can use these aluminum wall panels I have made with a tolerable glue
Hi! I am new to this blog and am wondering if you are still posting and how your tiny house is working out and if you were able to hang on to your ideals. My husband and I built a 30×30 cabin to live in back in 2000 and now are building a caravan.your blog has been informative and very helpful! Thank you!
Hi Amber! Yes, we are still doggedly hanging on to our ideals, and love living in our own house 😉
We haven’t posted much not because there isn’t a lot going on with The Tiny, but because we have a new addition to the family who is very jealous of our time! I am hoping with the cooler weather that we will start posting some of the improvements made over the summer. Thanks for visiting.
Congratulations on your new addition! Thank you also for the inspiration! I decided finally to build a vardo by myself and am now in the third month of the build and am having the time of my life with “Celestine”. I’m building her for our Oregon winters and damp weather so more like a boat! It’s slow going because she’s full of recycled materials and thrift store finds as well as materials from multiple trips to Habitat for Humanity but I should have her travel worthy by December….we’ll see. Thank you again for the great updates! Amber
Amber