Building Gypsy Rose

Lovely pictures. Yes, summer seems brief now that its gone... much like life itself. Endless while we're in it's midst.

Perhaps you can answer a question I've often had when seeing tandemers. Why not put the shorter person in front? The taller person can see over the front rider, but the person in the rear only gets to see the back of their partners shirt.

What do you do when "facilitating the bicycling experiences"?

Greetings! Thanks so much for sharing all the info about your tiny house - it has been a great help to me as I also build my own in Olympia. Would you mind sharing where you found your "warm" light LEDs? I am also in the same predicament as you were...Thanks!

ej,

Good question about the tandems. The perception about tandems is often that it is a sort of gender thing or that control issues are involved, but the reality is that traditionally styled tandems handle best with the heavier rider on the front seat (which is at the center of the bike). It's a matter of weight distribution. There are, however, tandem designs that put the lighter rider up front in a recumbent position that is extended out over the front wheel. Those designs achieve the proper weight distribution while also allowing both riders an unrestricted view.

We see thousands of cyclists at Local Motion's Trailside Center on Burlington's waterfront. Much of the work is helping riders plan routes for recreation or commuting, pointing out areas of interest for out-of-town cyclists, renting bikes, bike repairs such as fixing flats or adjusting brakes, educating riders about sharing the road with cars, etc, etc.

Local Motion is a bike/pedestrian advocacy non-profit organization serving northwestern Vermont. For more, visit http://www.localmotion.org .

Best,
Kevin

Brittany,

I got the lightbulbs from "The LED Light" at: http://www.theledlight.com/12volt-led-bulb.html

Glad to hear that you've found the blog helpful. Best of luck building your own small energy efficient home.

Best,
Kevin

How is the bottom of your house holding up? If I remember right you used plywood to cover the frame?

Great to read how things are going, any new photos of Rose

Hello, I'm a 24 year old student and I find these tiny homes on wheels very interesting especially as an actual home while I'm still young and have no family....Following your progress has been fascinating and you had come up with some ingenious ideas to some problems. I've been thinking of the design of a house like yours that would fit on a 8x20 trailer as well and I wanted to get your opinion on what you think of the design below. My main concern is primarily the insulation in the floor during midwestern winters, not vermont winters and wanted to get your thoughts on it and the other design elements basically about their feasibility. I really liked your shed idea because I thought that same thing, but did not think it was possible.

My idea for a mobile home similar to this is to have a 8×20 trailer where one is trying to max out the height at around 13 feet something. The entrance will be on the side farther toward the corner of the building/trailer (the opposite side of the hitch). Now for insulation i though the sing honeycomb would be great all over. Once you walk in you immediately are stepping into the shower/toilet/mudroom area. Here you could put some nice tiled flooring with a drain. This area might be 3 feet by 3 feet. I was thinking a composting toliet could be placed in here with the shower like those small wooden ones where you essentially go to the bathroom in a bucket, but it would be made completely out of plastic. My first question is why you chose your toilet and not a more simpler one where you could have placed it against the wall and then had a little door on the outside to remove the bucket without having to transport your remains through the house.

Then when you want to shower just put up curtains of some kind or hard plastic material. To the left when you enter is the back of closets that go from floor to ceiling. I’m thinking the ceiling maxes out at 8 feet. However, for the shower room the headroom would be lower since there would be a tankless water heater installed overhead, with a overhead shower as well. Then going through the mudroom/shower room you enter the kithen which is 3 ft. x 5 Ft. Here you could do use a 2ft fold down piece of wood as a temp. counter that could be folded up into the side wall just for more space, but can be folded up to create an open air kitchen. Thus, in the back of the home you have the kitchen and bathroom taking up a total of 3 ft. x 8 Ft. of the original 20 ft. x 8 ft. The rest can be used as a living room/bedroom/dining room/tv room/office. Thus you would have 17ft. x 8 ft. to work with. Instead of creating a loft for just a bed, I was thinking of raising the floor a bit to put a king size bed underneath the floor boards. When you want to go to bed you would just lift up the floor boards. Additionally, you don’t need insulation because then during the day the bed acts as insulation(I liked your idea of simply putting insulation on the underneath of the house though as well and this combined with sing floors below the bed could have a lot of insulation). To further use the space under the floor boards I figured this space would be great to store your clothing as sort of a dresser under your feet. This way too the clothes can act as a sort of insulator, but you still have a closet on the backside of the shower to hang anything (this closet would additionally have a dehumidifier in it to quickly dry clothes acting as a sorta dryer). Additionally, since we have the bed underneath the floor boards that means you have no loft, thus I was thinking you could create like a 2 foot attic space for storage that could span the entire length of the trailer except for the space over the shower and kitchen sink which both would hold a large water tank that gravity feeds the sink and shower. Additionally, for a computer table or dining table you can have a pully system in the attic where by rope a thin table can be lowered down that will usually be right against the floor to the attic. Thus, with your shed and the attic you would have a lot of space for anything you needed storing, while most clothes and even shoes could be stored under the floor boards. I do not know how you could use the floor boards as a dresser, but I'm sure they could be developed. I believe these ideas would make very efficient use of the space, but I did not know quite how well not having insulation would work in a place such as this? For furniture I was thinking just use inflatable furniture to adapt to my needs. Let me know what you think.

Additionally, I wanted to know why you chose a composting toilet over a loveable loo type toilet. With you toiler can you just throw the material out in the woods, whereas the material from the loveable loo would have to be composted first? I just know that I would not have any need for the material like you would with your garden so I wouldn't mind just getting rid of it, thus a toilet like a loveable loo would take up less space, but if I could avoid composting outside that would be great, unless I could simply just pitch it somewhere.

Marion and Kevin,

What a great blog, a great story! Just spent the last few hours revisiting Vermont.(My home was in the busier "metropolis" of Brattleboro, in Putney. :-)

I've been in love with small-home living for most of this lifetime and hope to have a portable abode in the future. Your journal affirms the possibilities.

Best of everything in the beautiful home you've created.

Jean

Zac,

While I haven't written an entry about it yet, after two years of attempting success with the Sunmar NE toilet, we've yanked it out in favor of the simpler system.

Kevin

Jean,

Glad you enjoyed the blog! Our experience has found that living in a small house is more than just possible, but is very, very comfortable and enjoyable.

All the best,
Kevin