Floating Home FAQ has just written a useful article on floating home utilities and details.  In particular, he details how the sewage system works (or sometimes doesn’t).

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details on how you get services to these types of homes, I encourage you to check out this article.

Moreover, I’d rather tickled to discover another floating home blogger in the area.

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to attend Jay Shafer’s Tumbleweed Tiny House Building and Small Space Design workshops. It was an interesting experience. I came home with most of a notepad full of notes.

Jay Shafer is soft-spoken, down to earth, and very approachable. I really enjoyed having a chance to chat with him in person and ask boatloads of questions. I have to say, though, that after spending two days with him, I understand better now why he has a business partner. (grin)  Jay is very much an artist interested in things such as ideals and aesthetics. He has a tendency to go off in three directions at once, can easily be derailed by an interesting tangent, and I suspect he might give his designs away for free if someone more practically-minded wasn’t on top of the day-to-day realities of trying to run a business at a profit. But Jay is passionate about his work and fascinating to listen to. Honestly, he reminded me strongly of some of my favorite professors from college.

Saturday’s class focused on the mechanics of building one of the Tumbleweed Tiny Houses from the ground up. For anyone who’s planning on attending this workshop, I’d suggest buying a set of plans and doing your homework in advance. Think about the construction process and make a list of questions you’d like to address during the workshop. Jay was highly responsive to what people in the class wanted to discuss. Those who came armed with a list of things they wanted to learn pretty much drove the flow of the class for a good part of the day. (For what it’s worth, If something you really want to know doesn’t get addressed during the lectures, Jay was also good about being approached during breaks or lunch.)

The path was a bit circuitous, but, by the end of Saturday, Jay had hit on all the major elements of constructing a Tumbleweed. Due to time constraints and getting derailed on some lengthy discussions on particular construction points, we didn’t get into quite as much detail on the water and electrical systems and finish work as I would of liked. (Although, to be fair, I was also one of the culprits who contributed to some of the tangents.)

I made plans to go to Orlando primarily for Sunday’s design workshop. Although, I actually ended up getting more out of Saturday’s, so I was glad I attended both. (For whatever reason, everyone who attended the Saturday workshop also attended Sunday.  I guess most people figured that if they were going to spend the money and effort to travel for a workshop, they might as well do both.)

One of the things that really appeals to me about the Tumbleweed homes is the very clever use of interior space. They feel like well-thought-out ship cabins to me. I was hoping to glean some ideas from Jay about how he developed these designs with the hope of applying some of the concepts to my own place. But the class pretty much focused on the design of the broader structure. The point of the class was to encourage people to really think about what were the essential items and elements for them to be happy in their home. And, once this list was compiled, to design their own small space.

Jay lectured about design elements for roughly three hours, drawing a lot of concepts from Christopher Alexander’s writing. The rest of the day was spent working individually on home designs and then reviewing the designs at the end of the day with the whole class. I probably didn’t get as much out of this exercise as the rest of the class in that I already had my own small house and it was over the size limit for the exercise. So I spent the afternoon tinkering with the floor plan of a fantasy Tumbleweed geared for my lifestyle (including a 6 foot 7 inch boyfriend which is somewhat problematic in that the standard Tumbleweed ceiling hits at 6 foot 3 inches). It was an interesting exercise but not directly applicable to my real-life situation.

Where I saw a lot of value in the class was that Jay spent the afternoon consulting with any of the students who were having issues with their designs. He spent more than an hour apiece with some of the students and was sketching out fresh designs left and right. Considering most of the Tumbleweed home plans run around $500 and Jay gets paid $100 an hour when he consults, I would say most of the students got more than their money’s worth out of the class.

One thing I didn’t anticipate was just how much I would enjoy and learn from my fellow classmates. It was quite exciting to be in a room full of people who were interested enough in tiny homes to be seriously considering one of their own. Most of the time when I talk about the small home movement with friends, they look at me like I’m out of mind. These people were just as geeked about the subject as me and knew a lot of the same sites and people that I did. Better still, several of them knew about sites and products, I didn’t. We spent the better part of both days trading names and links back and forth. By the end of the weekend, I was ready to take 3 or 4 of them home with me and build out very own Lilliput-scale commune of eco-friendly Tumbleweeds.

Two people in particular proved to be extremely useful in the class. One couple who was going to get started on building their home as soon as they got back from Orlando, brought their contractor, Steve, along. Another member of the class, Paul, has lived in trailers a significant portion of his life and is also quite handy when it came to construction. Steve and Paul frequently elaborated on points Jay made about construction or, in some cases, actually suggested potential improvements to what Jay has been doing. I think several of us were glad to have them both in the class.

All in all, I was glad I attended and it was great fun to actually get to meet Jay Shafer in person after admiring his creations for several years. If you’re serious about building your own Tumbleweed Tiny House, I would say the workshops are well worth the effort of attending before you get down to work.

In the most recent chapter of the Floating Folly renovation saga, we left our poor heroine (i.e. me) chewing her nails to the quick because: 1) her contractor had a seriously broken leg; 2) her house was currently without siding or a roof; and 3) the rainy season was about that start…

Well, since then, Portland has received an unprecedented amount of rain–yes, even for Portland–with some snow thrown in for good measure. I’m talking forecasts with 100% chance of precipitation for weeks at a time. And on the rare days it hasn’t been raining, it’s been too cold to cut lengths of siding outside.

Kenny has been receiving biweekly messages from me asking for assurances that he’s worked some sort of magic to keep the place water-tight. I didn’t care if he shrink-wrapped the whole damn house. I just didn’t want water getting into the new insulation or mold ending up growing in my walls.

Needless to say, I breathed a small sigh of relief this morning when I received word that the last of the siding is going on today. The new stairway to the rooftop deck gets built tomorrow. And then, once Kenny gets the siding on around the deck wall, the new roof can go on. Glory be.

I’m hoping they can get the stairway and deck siding on before the next onslaught of weather, which looks to be arriving Thursday. Then I just have to pray for one more break in the weather long enough for the new roof to go on.

Any who’s been following my entries probably knows that I am fascinated with Jay Shafer’s Tumbleweed Tiny Houses. This probably makes less sense than it might otherwise due to the fact I already own a tiny home and have absolute zero need for another.

So, I was happy when I discovered a constructive way to channel this obsession of mine–I am now part of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses newly-launched affiliate program to sell their books and house plans. My hope is to live vicariously through others who are planning to build a Tumbleweed Tiny Home.

But that’s enough of a sales pitch for one day. More than anything, I’m just excited to be able to offer the plans through my site. I like the idea of fostering the small house habit.

Rima Staines is a remarkably talented artist who spends her time in the U.K. and Scotland. Her work reminds me greatly of two of my favorite artists, Arthur Rackham and Brian Froud. I fortuitously stumbled across her website one day while running queries for work.

To my delight, I discovered Rima is a kindred spirit who is charmed by little homes on wheels. She now lives out of an old van that was remodeled by her partner Tui and herself. Their little place, the Hermitage, makes me think of a hobbit-hole on wheels. It has a quirky kind of warmth and bohemian beauty that I suspect is a close reflection of her inhabitants.

Rima and Tui have recently been traveling in their little home through Scotland, and recent posts on her blog show some fantastic countryside. If you’ve ever wondered what modern-day gypsies might look like, here they are.

Rima has a fascinating blog. I encourage you to check it out both for more photos of the Hermitage and to see a lot of examples of her lovely artwork. (Two prints of which are on their way to me now.)