"The Big Tiny..."

... with a subtitle of 'A Built-it-myself Memoir' by Dee Williams. Really interesting and amusing. I don't remember where I found the reference that made me want to read it. I requested from the local library and found it was available, picked it up, and immediately started reading.

Williams was having a health crisis, which brought about a life-style crisis. Which caused her to completely change her life. After getting a defib. device implanted in her chest, she decided to build a wee little house on a trailer frame. Obviously someone with some basic construction/handyman type skills, but more than willing to ask friends and complete strangers for volumes of advice. She went visit someone who had built a similar 'escape pod' to live in, pare down lifestyle, and used his basic plans/schematics, then designed her own. Building on weekends, when she had spare time from a full time job, with occasional lifting help from friends bribed with beer and pizza.

Eventually being able to change from working fulltime to support a house, and the endless, perpetual constant upkeep/maintenance and financial drain homeownership requires to living in the back yard of friends. Nearly off the grid in her little house the size of a public parking space. Powered with a solar panel. She could not figure out how to put a bathroom in the smallest space she would grant, so decided to just buy a gym membership for a place to shower. Then moved to the back corner of friends' lot, and 'borrowed' theirs as needed.

A woman with a great sense of the absurd, a very intriguing book. She lives in the Pacific northwest, having moved there as an adult from the Midwest.  I've read articles about tiny, highly portable houses, as well as some that are permanently in place - making the idea of living simply without lots of belongings, flotsam and jetsam cluttering up your life seem to be a delight. Paring down to the barest of necessities sounds wonderful -and scary, thoroughly intimidating. There is a lot to be said for turtles - carrying the basic necessities with you everywhere you travel (unless you really are a turtle and attempting to cross a busy street.)

She supports herself by giving seminars on alternative dwellings. Since this is all about Dee Williams and her big tiny, I might as well give you the website: www.padtinyhouses.com. According to the blurb in the back of the book, she leads workshops on green building and community design.