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Why We Finally Went Tiny

Not to be dramatic or anything, but two days after…

Hello and welcome to our tiny adventure!

We are slowly updating the website with more information, so check back for lessons learned on everything from ordering a trailer to our shou sugi ban siding. You can check out our Instagram for the latest (though that's quite behind too).

tinyhomebigadventures

Tami here on Small Business Saturday with a few sh

Tami here on Small Business Saturday with a few shoutouts to our favorite businesses that also happen to be women-owned!

@booksonb is a real live bookstore with the kindest most dedicated bibliophile you’ll ever meet. If you’re in the SF Bay visit her in person, and if you’re not, order online and support a small business instead of you-know-who 😉

@overcomeveryday offers CBD products, specially formulated to support recovery, that are made from hemp that’s grown in Kentucky using organic farming methods… so it’s good for you and the environment. Plus it’s third party tested so you know what you’re actually getting.

@commit30 are only the best paper (and digital!) planners ever! If I was going to design a planner this would be it. Thoughtful, effective and I love the larger mission of going after your goals and dreams!

@disco.apocalypse is another IRL store, doing amazing things in the secondhand clothing space, with a focus on community and the environment. If you’re anywhere near Boulder, CO — or passing through — check them out!

Last but not least and very dear to my heart: @vowmuse… helping you put your love in writing, since 2010. The Muses (full disclaimer, I’m one of them!) can help you out with all your wedding writing needs whether you want a little professional help or DIY tools and templates.

Hope you’re supporting your local and small businesses today!

#smallbusinesssaturday #shoplocal #booksonb #overcomeveryday #discoapocalypse #commit30 #vowmuse

Four walls and a roof! It was so awesome to watch

Four walls and a roof! It was so awesome to watch it come together and to see how proud the students were of their work. Team work!

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#prepandemic #tinyhome #tinyhouse #tinyhomeonwheels #tinyhouseonwheels #thow #tinyliving #tinylife #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousenation #tinyconstruction #diytinyhouse #diyconstruction #californiatinyhouses #californiatinyhome #buildlikeagirl #womenbuild #womenwhobuild #adventuretime #workinprogress #tinyadventures #constructiontime #constructionlife #howto #diy #tinyhomebigadventures

Three sides is enough, right? 😉

Three sides is enough, right? ;)

Getting the third wall in place over the threaded

Getting the third wall in place over the threaded rods so the wall can get secured to the trailer. All hands on deck for this one!

More help from the forklift! This clip shows us ca

More help from the forklift! This clip shows us carefully getting one of the long walls in place, with the help of a #forklift. Such a different process for #tinytwo than for #tinyone which we assembled in smaller pieces and with the help of friends and leverage.

Welcome new followers! Thanks for joining on this

Welcome new followers! Thanks for joining on this journey. And what a journey it’s been and still is. Here’s a pre-pandemic throwback to when we were assembling #tinytwo with the help of the construction students. The forklift helped make it way easier!

Up next: the long walls!

You can see all four walls are laid out on top of

You can see all four walls are laid out on top of the trailer (that's painted gray) and are ready to be put in place. For tiny #1 we framed the walls and only put on a sheet or two of plywood on before lifting it up and putting it in place, otherwise the walls would have been way to heavy for just us (or even our crew of amazing helpers). For tiny #2 we'll show you in the next post how they lifted these walls into place!
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#tinyhome #tinyhouse #tinyhomeonwheels #tinyhouseonwheels #thow #tinyliving #tinylife #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousenation #tinyconstruction #diytinyhouse #diyconstruction #californiatinyhouses #californiatinyhome #buildlikeagirl #womenbuild #womenwhobuild #adventuretime #workinprogress #tinyadventures #constructiontime #constructionlife #howto #diy #tinyhomebigadventures

There was a ton of rain when the students were fra

There was a ton of rain when the students were framing up all the walls, so they did it inside and then put them together to make sure it was correct before adding the exterior plywood. We were initially worried about how they were going to put all the walls together on the trailer but you guys are going to love the solution that the awesome construction teacher had in mind all along!
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#tinyhome #tinyhouse #tinyhomeonwheels #tinyhouseonwheels #thow #tinyliving #tinylife #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousenation #tinyconstruction #diytinyhouse #diyconstruction #californiatinyhouses #californiatinyhome #buildlikeagirl #womenbuild #womenwhobuild #adventuretime #workinprogress #tinyadventures #constructiontime #constructionlife #howto #diy #tinyhomebigadventures

As we shared earlier, for tiny #2 we’ve been wor

As we shared earlier, for tiny #2 we’ve been working with a vocational school. The students get experience building a real house and we get a helping hand. Since they’re students and still learning, everything takes a bit longer than anticipated so we’ve been out there helping on a lot of the steps.
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It's been great building relationships with the students and sharing our vision for our tiny-living lifestyle. Some of the students had great questions about how much this is costing us and were really surprised how affordable it could be (at least compared to Bay Area prices!). Hopefully they're not only getting practical experience but perhaps a glimpse into different possibilities.
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#tinyhome #tinyhouse #tinyhomeonwheels #tinyhouseonwheels #thow #tinyliving #tinylife #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousenation #tinyconstruction #diytinyhouse #diyconstruction #californiatinyhouses #californiatinyhome #buildlikeagirl #womenbuild #womenwhobuild #adventuretime #workinprogress #tinyadventures #constructiontime #constructionlife #howto #diy #tinyhomebigadventures

As we shared in our last post, we started working

As we shared in our last post, we started working our our first tiny house in our driveway but then had to find a new place to work on it. After a short term stay at a beautiful ranch (that's the photo), we found a longer term solution by partnering with a local vocational school that wanted to take on the project of building our second tiny house with their students. So we've been working on tiny #1 while the students work on tiny #2.
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It's a pretty cool arrangement since the students get practical experience working on a real construction project (as opposed to making dog houses and other smaller projects), we get a place to park, and our second tiny house gets built. Everything was going along smoothly until about March 2020... I think you all know where this is going 😉 The pandemic found us locked us out of the school while everyone was trying to figure out the deal with covid. The intense fires during 2020 would have slowed our progress anyway since it's not healthy to be outside during the work smoke days. We also had another small complication that made the tiny houses a slightly lower priority that we'll share with you all soon.
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We still can't get on campus but there's plenty more progress to share to get caught up to the current status of each tiny house. More soon!

Hello! It's been awhile and since we have some new

Hello! It's been awhile and since we have some new folks following (welcome and thanks!) we thought we'd do some introductions again.

Hi there, we're Tami & Kevin. We live in the SF Bay Area and are building not one but two tiny houses. While we're fans of the minimalist lifestyle we also want it to be sustainable in the long-term and with both of us working from home we knew we'd need some extra space. But we'll get to the tiny houses themselves in our next post. Who are we? So glad you asked, here's the short version...

I'm Tami and I'm originally from Hayward, went to UCSC for undergrad, worked at the Oakland Zoo for a few years after graduating and then traveled for the rest of my 20's until starting grad school in international environmental policy at MIIS. After grad school I worked as both an event planner for the foundation of an organic certifier in Santa Cruz and a ghostwriter.

Kevin is from Napa and also went to UCSC for undergrad and then stayed in Santa Cruz until forced to leave... who can blame him? 😉 In Santa Cruz he taught Warrior Yoga and Quantum Jujitsu at UCSC, as well as in the local school school district and juvenile hall. He did grad school in psychology, went through ICC to become a trained integral coach and then became faculty where he trained other coaches while coaching his own clients.

We reluctantly left Santa Cruz after Kevin suffered a TBI and then post-concussion syndrome. We settled in the Bay Area and then soon after started work on our first tiny house. For awhile we got to work on it in our driveway but then a neighbor called the county and we had to move it... the issue was a parking violation, not working on our tiny house. Lesson learned: let the neighbors know what's going on and ask them to contact us before the county. But more about the tiny houses in the next post!

For tiny #2 we’ve been working with a vocational

For tiny #2 we’ve been working with a vocational school. The students get experience building a real house and we get a helping hand. Since they’re students, everything takes a bit longer than anticipated and we’ve been out there helping on a lot of the steps but overall it’s been a rewarding experience for everyone.

No, this is not a #throwbackthursday to when we we

No, this is not a #throwbackthursday to when we were just starting our green tiny house. This is actually the very beginning of tiny house #2. Yep, you read that right... we’re building two tiny houses. To answer the most common questions:
- No, we’re not selling one.
- Yes, they’re both for us.
- The green one that’s partially built has two offices, a bathroom and a sleeping loft.
- This trailer will have our living room, kitchen, small bathroom with W/D and another sleeping loft.
- When they’re finished they’ll face each other with a deck between so we’ll have just under 500 square feet of indoor space plus outdoor living space.
Any other questions? :)

While it doesn’t look exciting, I’m very excit

While it doesn’t look exciting, I’m very excited about these photos because they show the plumbing for our tiny house! Let’s be honest, taking a hot shower is one of the best things ever and no matter how tiny we’re going a nice shower is a priority! PEX makes it really easy to install everything and the flexibility is important for a tiny house on wheels that moves.
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#pexplumbing #plumbing #tinyhome #tinyhouse #tinyhomeonwheels #tinyhouseonwheels #thow #tinyliving #tinylife #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousenation #tinyconstruction #diytinyhouse #diyconstruction #californiatinyhouses #californiatinyhome #buildlikeagirl #womenbuild #womenwhobuild #adventuretime #workinprogress #tinyadventures #constructiontime #constructionlife #howto #diy #tinyhomebigadventures

We’re going to see how quickly we can get caught

We’re going to see how quickly we can get caught up! It’s only been a few months... nothing much happened, I’m sure 😉
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We now have wool insulation in the ceiling (shout out to @havelock_wool for making nontoxic, environmentally friendly insulation!) and are ready to close up the ceiling. The plywood is painted and next step is to install.
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#tinyhome #tinyhouse #tinyhomeonwheels #tinyhouseonwheels #thow #tinyliving #tinylife #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousenation #tinyconstruction #diytinyhouse #diyconstruction #californiatinyhouses #californiatinyhome #buildlikeagirl #womenbuild #womenwhobuild #adventuretime #workinprogress #tinyadventures #constructiontime #constructionlife #howto #diy #tinyhomebigadventures

We hope everyone had a lovely thanksgiving with fa

We hope everyone had a lovely thanksgiving with family & friends, good food, and time to reflect on what you’re grateful for! 🧡 We’re grateful for each other, supportive families, awesome friends, livelihoods aligned with our values, and the ability to build our own home.
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We took a (semi-intentional) break from social media for a few months but there was still plenty going on with the tiny and in the rest of our life. These photos are from a family vacation we took to Scotland and Ireland last month. We’re already ready to go back! 🇮🇪 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

And we’re back! Not that we actually went anywhe

And we’re back! Not that we actually went anywhere. I just needed to take something off my plate and social media was an easy one to remove.
Not a lot of updates from the last couple months — we now have insulation in the ceiling and we put up an interior wall. More details about those aspects coming soon as well as an update on what else has been going on…

Across from the shower, our little IKEA sink will

Across from the shower, our little IKEA sink will fit right above the wheel well and just below the window. That’s a short wall to the right with a light switch and outlet. And to the left that sideways outlet you see will actually be inside cabinets so we can charge electric toothbrushes and whatnot inside the cabinets so we don’t have things cluttering the sink area.
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We’re going to have to custom design and build the cabinet for the sink to sit on because of the wheel well, but it’s a great use of space since we wouldn’t be able to walk there anyway.

Coming soon: a shower! — The blue tape outline o

Coming soon: a shower!
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The blue tape outline on the ground is where the shower pan will go. And then because we had to accommodate the wheel well, there will be a tiled seat in the shower. We initially saw the wheel well as a design challenge but as we were building the seat, decided that it’s a blessing that’s given us a little more space. Instead of a pretty tight 32” x 32” shower we’ll have a 32” x 50” shower, which will feel much more spacious.
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In the wall you can see the hot (insulated on the left) and cold water PEX pipes coming in from under the trailer. All that’s needed is an adapter to connect it to a temperature adjustment handle and then the shower head. Which means it’s time to decide on fixtures!
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(Don't mind all of our construction clutter in the background!)

Inside and outside view of the room vents that we

Inside and outside view of the room vents that we installed.
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These vents make sure the air inside is always fresh, without loosing any heat/coolness. Through some magic of technology the fan fits completely inside the 6” tube and allows airflow without changing the temperature inside. So if it’s hot outside but cool inside, the fan will preserve the inside temperature.

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