Recent interview with my friend and fellow tinyhouser, Ethan Waldman. Learn how to live a sustainable lifestyle in a net zero tiny house!
Click here to listen.
reclaimed building materials
How 2016 Begins for the Silver Bullet Tiny House
Yikes! It has been a busy 2015 bringing the Silver Bullet Tiny House to 95% completion, facilitating my own and other tiny house leader workshops, speaking regionally and nationally. The good news, is that I’ll finally be able to get out on the road and meet you all and have the privilege of inspiring others to live the “sustainable tiny life”. The bad news is that my commitment to my sustainable education non-profit, my funding work, tiny house community work and construction have kept me too busy to blog frequently. That will change.
I am still refining the interior and waiting to install the wooden stove (it has taken months to be hand-crafted carefully) and add the permanent solar solution before trekking out on tour this summer. I am so excited to help others dive deeper into new renewable technologies, smarter products, re-up their resource stewardship, learn reclamation and resource repurposing, understand social and cultural responsibility, improve their sustainable lifestyle choices and find more affordable and efficient ways to embed those into their lifestyles.
Most of all, I cannot wait to meet all of my fellow tinyhousers and hear your amazing stories and journeys to a simpler more substantive lifestyle.
This year I will be blogging from the road about our direct engagement and outreach to individuals, families and workers through our continued speaking engagements, co-sponsoring of workshop events, and our Silver Bullet Tiny House American tour this summer. The tour schedule is just beginning to take shape and will remain fluid with stops at corporate sponsor locations, universities, schools and community locations across the country. The tour schedule will be posted later in Spring. See you down the road…if you have an organization, college, university or tiny house group along the way that would value a visit, please notify me in the comments.
In the mean time, a quick heads-up about my mentor, Deek Diedricksen, tiny house luminary extraordinare. He has a stellar cast of tiny housers at his next workshop, Feb. 5-7 at an amazing venue, the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton. My friend Palo, Martin, and others will be speaking and working right along with you! Make sure you sign up quickly as he sells out fast! Click on this link, BUILD SMALL.
Note from the fashion world. What do you do with leftovers from a tiny house or micro shelter build? I have free-cycled them, given them away AND repurposed them into eco couture to raise money for one of my other favorite sustainability non-profits, Long Way Home. Check this out from Benjamin Obdyke:
http://www.benjaminobdyke.com/education-events/slicker-becoming-a-fashion-accessory/
Another reclaimed stool, a cigar box and a tray
I left a gorgeous glass table and some chairs (too heavy for my tiny house) at my local Uhaul “recycling area”. While there I picked up a free cigar box, a tray and a swivel stool that needed some love and attention. I took some leftover wooden “Ball legs” from a commissioned series of large art screens and went to work. (Another Uhaul stool project)
I took a couple of wooden scraps, ripped, whittled and sanded two new legs for the ones missing from the chair, oiled and cleaned the swivel mechanism, sanded the chair and painted it.
And took my new stool for a spin! They don’t make them like they used to! This chair is wicked substantial and will work great for my tiny house kitchen chores.
Did the same with the tray (for tiny house parties) and cigar box (which holds my personally harvested non-GMO heirloom garden seeds).
What do you think?
Tiny House Windows and Doors
In December I made a trip up to the Habitat Restore near Portsmouth, NH, and picked up three doors for the tiny house.* Here are two of them. During the coldest and snowiest New England winter in decades (we still have 3 feet of snow in our yard) I was glad I had a few inside projects I could complete!
My door openings, in order to maximize my loft room, were cut down a few inches and thus I was able to use the excess to fill door knob holes, hardware cavities and scars.
The non toxic finish I like to use is from EcoPaints; they have a variety of air pure, exterior products, varnishes and stains.
It was a challenge to sand, repair, paint and varnish my doors and windows in the small 3′ x 6′ area in the basement with a floor that floods every time it snow or rains. But I stuck with it. As soon as warmer weather and the melting of 3 feet of snow is upon us, out they go…
*My large bay window found by the roadside broke, so the last large window in the back had to be custom ordered to fit the rough opening all ready in the Silver Bullet. Otherwise, the rest are reclaimed.
Mixing Door and Window Colors
In my Silver Bullet journal of the build I placed the formula for the custom mixed paint I am considering for my doors and windows. These are two of my favorite colors and affords me the opportunity to recycle my leftover studio materials.
Two courses I taught as a professor of art were Color Theory 1 and 2 and The Alchemist’s Lens which explored color psychology, effects and techniques, chrome history, and the bastardization of materials or how not to play by the manufacturers rules by knowing more science than they do.
So, yes, I am painting over the exterior of my repurposed, found and purchased vinyl windows with a tested method (laborious, but the results are fantastic) that won’t crack, peel or require much maintenance. And my art studio storage unit is full of the perfect acrylic hues and polymers that will work.
As for my other reclaimed wooden windows and doors, that process is a bit more laborious. Now that I have some time during the snowstorms, frigid temps and injury recovery, I find the process quite meditative. Sand, repair, sand again, paint 3 thin layers of color with chinese brushes – sanding with sandpaper then fine steel wool between, varnish 3 layers of super spar-rubbed on only [after waiting 20 days to set]-sanding with sandpaper then fine steel wool between, then polish w/tiny amount of carnauba wax). Wicked labor intensive but hey, I can’t do any intense construction labor work with my injuries, but swathing a little paintbrush around won’t kill me!
silver bullet tiny house 