Tumbleweed, Part 2

This was Day 2, or the final day of Jay Shafer’s Tiny House workshop, and today’s focus was on designing our own tiny Tumbleweed house. After the morning session, in which Jay shared some of his design principles, many of us liked Jay’s own designs so well that we will most likely buy one of his ready-made sets of plans. Perhaps we’ll make small departures in some of the details here and there to make them more ‘our own’, but many of us felt no need to depart from one of his basic designs. I fell into this category, as did about ¾ of the class. While the remainder of the group designed their own plans, the rest of us opted to meet in the adjacent room. Our purpose was to share with each other our ideas and the time frame in which to build one of these extraordinary structures. It was a relief to know that I am not the only person who has been totally obsessed with this concept; between 35-40 people had enrolled in the weekend program! There was such an enormously wonderful energy in this diverse group of people, that it’s hard to believe that (with the exception of a few couples and friends who had come together), as of yesterday morning, none of the rest of us had never met one another before! However by the time we said our goodbyes late this afternoon, many of us felt like fast friends, and had planned a re-union here at The Lodge in October, for what will be the first east coast Tumbleweed house-building extravaganza! By rough estimate, between 4-6 tiny homes on wheels will be created in our parking lot over a 10 day period. Jay will be here as well to oversee the event, lend his expertise, and possibly lead another workshop. It will be the ‘first’ of hopefully many such small house events on the east coast and around the country. Stay tuned for more details on this exciting new development! Plan to visit during the second half of October to discover what this ‘self-reliant’, environmentally sustainable lifestyle is all about!