The start of an idea?

My grandmother and her gentleman friend toured the country, visiting family, friends, and interesting touristy type places. They traveled in simple style and planned their trips, the food to take, the clothes to wear, and their budgets. They were very frugal, and some thought they were quite different. When they traveled to far places, they did not stay in other families or friends homes, nor did they stay in hotels, lodges, resorts, camping trailers, or tents.

Instead they stayed in the black sedan in the background. Grandmother slept in the back seat, and her friend slept in front seat. The food was in coolers in the trunk along with a suitcase for clothing. For more storage they made a platform with a lift top so it doubled as a bed and storage area in the back seat. The storage was in the foot area between the back and front seat.

They crammed a lot of stuff, miles, life, and memories into that sedan. They had what they needed and nothing more. It was a simple life for them in their later years that they chose.

They chose only to travel with the basic necessities. The only time they stayed in the car was for sleeping at night, or driving to a new place. Otherwise, the rest of the time visiting; was used for visiting. They did not need to drive to place for lodging and so that saved them time and money.

Tiny Green Cabin Park Model

They had exchanged the motels, hotels and resorts for life experiences. They sound like the forerunners of tiny house folks.

They also planted a seed in me that I could live small, and without all the trappings of what society says I need and by example that I could acquire some great life experiences.

Pictured are; Upper Right Plymouth Rock National Park, tiniest US Park

The next picture is Henning, my grandmothers friend, my sister, and myself. I was 11.

The 3rd picture is a park model rendering by Tiny Green Cabins.

White Bear Lake builder of tiny homes provides a truly different option

Ice houses are a favorite winter retreat in Minnesota, but could you call something that small your home?

From his blue, steel framed workshop in White Bear Lake, Jim Wilkins has built six homes for people across the country who are comfortable with less - much less.

Wildflower Tiny House

In 400 square feet or less, Wilkins’ Tiny Green Cabins have a living room, kitchen, bathroom, loft bedroom and porch on the frame of the trailer able to be pulled behind a pickup trunk. With wood siding and traditional windows and doors, these structures are far more homey than Spartan ice shacks on a windswept lake.

Wilkins business was featured in a short documentary on sustainable shelters from the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History. The documentary correlated the size of the home to energy use and pollution emissions. The Bell Museum presented Tiny Green Cabins as a way to shrink your carbon footprint - or foundation.

Wilkins, 62, is the only builder of tiny houses in Minnesota and his customers range from Texas to Massachusetts with just as a wide a range to live in them. A North Dakota teacher bought one to get away from house payments, a Colorado mathematician purchased one to use as a writing retreat, a Wisconsin recluse sensitive to chemicals has one because Wilkins uses natural materials.

Wilkins built his first tiny house in 2008 when he was mired in a divorce and struggling to make house payments with an underwater mortgage for his ranch style home in White Bear Lake.

“That’s why I started building tiny houses; I thought I was going to be living in one.” Wilkins said.

A visitor to the website tried to call out Wilkins, presuming he was building them without having lived in one himself..

Well, the barrel-chested 6-foot tall man not only lived in one for a year but he called the experience “magical”

“When you climb in, it would be like climbing in a tree trunk to sleep like a troll or an elf,” he said. “It made life real simple because you are reduced down to the bare essentials.”

When the divorce was complete and the mortgage was worked out, Wilkins said moving back into his old house felt strange.

“You get so accustomed to it being small that you get lost when you go back,” he said. “You realize how much space in a house that a person doesn’t use.”

Regulations pose a challenge for buyers of tiny homes. The homes can’t be wider than 8′-6″ without a road escort and must be less than 13′-6″ high to clear bridges. Also the International Code Council states that no habitable rooms can be less than 70 square feet and city ordinances on minimum requirements for home sizes vary.

“A lot of people build them and license them as an RV” Wilkins said, “and when they park them they change them into a seasonal home.”

Andy Greder is a free lance writer based in St Paul, MN

As Printed in Spaces Spring Summer Resource Guide

Good GLORIOUS Morning from Nashville, Tennessee!

I’m so excited to be a part of the Tiny Green Cabins network of friends.

All NATURE is awakening to New life. New birth. New Possibilities.

Fresh. Clean. Beautiful. Lush. Vibrant.

It’s SPRING GREEN around here.

How’s it looking in your part of the world?

Spring in the South... FRESH. GREEN. LUSH.

Photo by Glory Davis

As SPRING shows off her beauty, we find even more ways to enjoy the OUT-OF-DOORS.

Playing. Working. Resting. Reading. Sunning.

I LOVE to read in a hammock.

Feeling the light cool breeze and warmth from the Sun.
A Goldilocks  ”just right” moment in time!

Now… I don’t want to see or feel:
TICKS. CHIGGERS. MOSQUITOES. or NO-SEE-EMS.

And here’s how I keep them away:

I use *Young Living Essential Oils…

Citronella. or Peppermint. or Lemon. or Patchouli. or Cypress.

or Purification. or Lemongrass. or Rosemary. or Thyme.

or Spearmint, or  Geranium, or Tea Tree.

ESSENTIAL OIL APPLICATION:

Topical: DILUTE 20:80 ( I part EO to 4 parts carrier oil)

Apply to exposed skin as needed!

Other EZ ways to repel insects and moths from cabinets, drawers, closets:

*Young Living Essential oils can be diffused, put on cotton balls or cedar chips

or make a sachet and add to your storage areas.

Refresh oils when needed.

Here’s to us all ENJOYING this BEAUTY Filled GREEN SPRING day!
“BUGGED” free!!

Faith

www.youngliving.org/abeautifulway

www.tender-touch-therapies.com

* Information given here ONLY applies to YOUNG LIVING Clinical Grade Essential Oils.

DISCLAIMER: The information contained here is for educational purposes only. It is NOT provided to diagnose, prescribe, or treat any condition of the body. This information should not be used as a substitute for medical counseling with a health care professional.

Cozy Is Magical!

Living in a small space has its challenges and virtues. I find that it forces me to be more thoughtful with what I bring into my home. Since there is little room for storage, everything is on display. Because of this, I try to be careful with what I buy. I ask myself if I really need it and if I will want to look at and live with it every day.

Living small also challenges me to live and build sustainably. There are countless articles and stories on the web about living small, and I find the most satisfaction in providing a service to folks that want a tiny house that is healthy to live in.

Building tiny houses for chemically sensitive people has taught me a lot about some of my own issues. I get migraines and would resort to a pill, a dark room, all the while hiding away from life for a day or so…burying my head in a pillow waiting for the pain and nausea to lessen. Then I started connecting the dots, when a migraine hit; what was I doing? And that started revealing a pattern linked to some building products that I have used over the years; cedar, Portland cement, treated material, solvents, oil based paints, poly finishes and other man made products.

Building tiny houses for folks with chemicals sensitivities has made me aware of how products a lot of us take for granted can and do affect others. And it reminds me of the canary in the coal mines; miners used canaries to warn them of dangerous breathing conditions, and now I view the folks with chemical sensitivities as the “canaries” that inform us of dangerous conditions in our homes and our work places. As each day passes, I see more warnings about products we used to consider “safe” for human use.

Building small has also made me realize that I do not need a lot of space to live in. The Wildflower is a magical and cozy place to live and climbing into the loft reminds me of being a child when I would hop into bed, cover with quilts and blankets. As I drifted off to sleep all the while listening to the winds whirl around the eves while the rain pummels the roof.

Regardless of the ways in which we are challenged by our space, keeping these inspired quotes in mind provide a good starting point to seeing the benefits these challenges provide.

• 1 You know you have reached perfection of design not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

• 2 Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it. - Leonardo Da Vinci

• 3 The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. - Socrates

• 4 Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. - William Morris

• 5 Live simply so that others may simply live. - Elizabeth Ann Seton

I Love my Job

I love my Boss

I am self Employed

Thanks to everyone for making that possible

I Love my job

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
— William A. Foster

Pictures are of the Wildflower II

Tiny House Interior Finish Stairs with Drawers

Tiny House Welded Frame

Advantages of Steel Framing

Using cold formed steel instead of wood in steel tiny houses plans provides the following advantages:
Strength: Steel-framed houses have withstood hurricanes and earthquakes. Steel’s qualities allow it to meet the strictest wind and seismic standards in the building codes.
Fire resistance: Steel is not combustible, so it will not feed a fire.
Resistant to water and insect damage: Most structural damage is due to water rotting the wood frame components of the house; whereas water does not rot steel. And insects aren’t interested in steel!
Steel is “true”: Unlike lumber, which is often warped, steel is always straight.
Environmentally friendly: Steel delivers a number of unique environmental benefits such as product longevity, recyclability, easy transportation and less raw material wastage.
Lower insurance premiums: Due to steel’s fire, insect, wind, and earthquake resistance, homeowner’s insurance premiums will be much lower.
Earthquake Tested: Structural integrity of steel framed houses tested in full-scale simulations resulting in positive outcome
Healthy: Steel also doesn’t need to be treated with pesticides, preservatives or glues making it safer for handling and living or working around.
Design-Flexible: Steel offers architectural and design flexibility due to its inherent strength. This allows large span distances and curves to be easily incorporated into designs.

Connections: Welding steel together is often stronger than the actual product and stronger than any fastener or screw is capable of. The weld adds a tensile strength that is vibration resistant just like in aircraft and space vehicles.

We install windows at Tiny Green Cabins using the following steps for all of our tiny houses.

Tools Needed: Hammer, caulk gun, slap stapler, level, tape measure, utility knife, work gloves

Materials needed: Butyl Caulk, Dupont Flex Wrap, Dupont Straight Tape 4″ wide, Shims, Great Stuff Window spray expanding foam

Step 1;  After the Tyvek house wrap has been installed and wrapped into each of the windows opening, cut

Wildflower Tiny House Bunkhouse Model

the Tyvek house wrap at the window rough opening top corner diagonally about 4″ upward and away from the window and tack back.

Step 2; Cut the Dupont Flex Wrap 12″ to 16″ longer than the window sill. Peel off the paper backer centering the Flex Wrap in the opening and full width of the sill. Press into place across the bottom and up the sides of the window - minimum up each window side is 6″.

Step 3; Peel the paper off the back of the flex wrap hanging outside the window and starting at each window corner, pull the corners outward and stretch while adhering it to the walls, then pull and press the rest of flex wrap into place.

Step 4; Using the shims, lay a shim at each window sill corner for creating a space to insulate used in step 10

Step 5; Caulk up the sides of the window frame, across the top of the window rough opening and down the other side to the sill. Warning, DO NOT CAULK ACROSS THE BOTTOM OR WINDOW SILL  - EVER

Step 6; Insert the window into the rough opening, center the window on the opening, and nail at one top corner of the window flange. Level the window and after leveling nail the other top window corner.

Step 7; Plumb the window sides   Tip: Square the window and check the reveal spaces where the window meets the window jamb. To square, using a tape measure, check the measurements diagonally from each corner to the opposite corner - they should be equal.  Also check the window edges from other features of the wall, such as wall corners or fascias to make sure things are set correctly. On a tiny house, since other features are close to the window, this is a check that everything is spaced correctly. After this check nail the window in place and around the window perimeter, nailing through every other hole in the flange.

Step 8; Install the corner flaps at each corner of the window.

Step 9; Cut the butyl tape for each side of the window and across the window head. Each piece should be cut 8″ to 12″ longer than the window. Install each side, and then install the top piece of Butyl tape.

Step 10; Pull the Tyvek that was tacked out of the way, fold it down, and tack in place, cutting just short of the window head. Tape to the butyl tape and Tyvek together to seal them tight.

Step 10; insulate the window jambs cavity to wall opening. We recommend Great Stuff as the expanding foam seals the cavity better than a stuffed fiberglass can. Plus the foam does not allow mold to grow if the window leaks.

Here a good video that follows our best practices

By Guest Blogger, Annie Blair from Tiny House Wisdom

It is an unfortunate reality for so many families these days that rates of Autism and other Spectrum diseases are incredibly common. Many children suffer from a host of other physical and mental ills that leave families grasping at ways to cope and do the very best they can for ailing children.

Tiny Houses are not only cute, but they are inherently adaptable to a variety of circumstances. Much has

The new home and landscape of the Wildflower II

been said about the use of these homes as a way to help the aging. Many place them in the backyard of relatives and this practice has been discussed at length on other sites, so I will not address that here. They have also been used for therapy cottages for children who need stimulation and productive play. But the possibilities do not end there. These diminutive structures are easily used to meet the needs of children with physical and mental handicaps, or even mental illness.

First of all, for a family struggling to house, clothe and feed children of special needs, tiny houses are a financially excellent choice, costing pennies on the dollar when compared to traditional housing. Many families chose not to send their kids to live in institutions due to high rates of abuse and rape. They often find that the cost of dealing with a host of ills at home is beyond the scope of their resources, both financial and physical.

Secondly, tiny houses are frequently mobile. This helps to ensure the flexibility of environments should parents need to change environs or climate to meet the needs of a sick child without having to buy or sell anything. You could live in Florida for two years, and then return to Wisconsin, for example, and instead of rent, etc, you would only have the cost to tow it. The child could stay in his or her own environment for stability. Think of how that could help in a situation where a family lives a good distance from institutions that specialize in their type of disease. This would enable the family to travel for an extended stay somewhere else, in order to see specialists or participate in studies before they returned to their home state.

Thirdly, Tiny Houses are flexible in terms of structure, or what you chose to include. As previously noted here in Tiny House Myth #1, these can be used as “PODS” with plug-in sections that can change and grow with the child and needs of the family. For example, you may have a child who would benefit from a therapy room outfitted with various tactile stimuli, or activity of daily living play areas. Sometimes children with severe early onset types of mental illness become so violent, parents find they need to keep other children in separate quarters for their own safety. This could be built fairly inexpensively, and removed or re-designed as the need changes.

Tiny Houses are not all about lofts. For the elderly or mentally handicapped, one level care cottages are popular, and these can be used in a grouping. Mentally ill children and their families could live in a communal lot where each family had its own Tiny House. In the middle of the shared land, there could be a center where the kids receive therapies and other specialty learning geared toward them. This could also include areas for animal therapies where that would be appropriate. The families could pool resources to pay for respite and other types of interventions that could be provided by professionals that are too costly individually.

Fourthly, Tiny Houses are often low toxicity. For children suffering from allergies, tiny homes are frequently made from reclaimed wood with little to no off gassing or other types of pollutants that most try to eschew when building tiny. It is possible that even milder forms of childhood onset mental illnesses could be lessened by the tiny house with lower environmental toxins,

And finally, financially strapped families of children with special needs would benefit from being free of rent and mortgage. Having more free time to spend with the children instead of devising ways to bring in more and more cash as prices rise would be the greatest benefit of all. These parents are often so exhausted trying to make ends meet and still “be there” for their kids that they are worn out from the “lifestyle”.

As you see, the possibilities are endless and do not require government grants to achieve. Tiny Houses can be built by hand, (a learning experience in itself for those children to whom it would apply), and adapted on a case by case basis. They are affordable and flexible, and I think are a great potential to address needs of the children who are not being helped by existent services

For more articles by Anne Blair, visit Tiny House Wisdom

Or Beginnings

In the last 3 days, 3 newspapers have called for interviews, and asked the question, “How did Tiny Green Cabins start?” There is a stock answer of starting it in the fall of 2008. And while that is correct, at the same time an ending occurred that brought the birth of Tiny Green Cabins.

However, this answer is not quite correct and it is short, as on interviewer asked if I was always lived or promoted “green.”  And that brought an awareness that yes, and no.

In my teens, my path was forestry and conservation, and giving speeches for contests pertaining to conservation, wildlife, and forestry management.  The talk, “That Wicked Rain” was my favorite and discussed contributing pollution factors along the Peshtigo River as it

Lake Michigan

flowed from its source to Lake Michigan. 4-H was the organization that I belonged to, and forestry was my one of my choices, as well as working the local fairs, playing softball, and attending Camp Bird, Trees for Tomorrow, and many other seminars. I learned a lot about sustainable farming and healthy living as a young man.

And thinking that my career path was forestry engineering with paper and lumber mills, my classes were always preparing for college. Not one shop class. Yes, I loved building small projects around the farmstead, such as an addition, grain bins for feed storage along with chutes to a lower level, picnic tables, and minnow traps.  For each project, my dad would say to figure it out, draw some sketches, and put together a material list. His added instructions were to look at the list and figure out what could be salvaged and what had to be purchased.  The grain bins and chutes were all salvaged material from older builders. It had bins that sat on 2^nd floor with chutes to 1^st floor with a pullout slide for opening the

Canoeing on the Peshtigo River

chute allowing the grain to fall into a bucket. It was metal lined to keep mice out of it and saved a lot of time when feeding the goats, pigs, rabbits, and chickens that were kept on the 1^st level.

Over the next 40 years, I raised a family and followed a career path of college, sales, journeyman carpenter, estimator, quality, senior estimator, and design, engineering, and estimating manager with Universal Forest Products.  All of these careers merged into my starting of Tiny Green Cabins and is coming full circle to what started many years ago on a farm and in 4H in northeastern Wisconsin; living healthy and sustainably.

Following is an An excerpt from an article about Tiny House People on Tiny House Wisdom;

I am learning that Tiny House people are not alike. Some tiny house builders are engineers, like Bill Kastrinos, some are poets, as is Jim Wilkins, some are scientists, Jay Shafer comes to mind,  Abel Zimmerman is an artist, and Brad Kittel is a pioneer.  Of course I could go on, there are philosophers, salesmen and dreamers, and each one brings their own tiny view of the subject. These are inspiring, wonderful people who are creating and rebuilding our country and even pointing the way for sensible living.