TINY HOUSE

magazine Issue 5

Coming Home
with Hari Berzins
Finding that
Special Location
for Your Home

Deciding to Make a Trailer My Home

www.tinyhousemagazine.co © Tiny House Magazine 2013
 TINY HOUSE
magazine

12
5
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26 22
CONTENTS
FEATURES
Freedom on a Floating Home 4
Trailer Renovation 5
How to Design in 3D 9 DEPARTMENTS
Renting and Locating 12 Editors Note 3
Food Storage 17 For Sale 28
Coming Home Interview 22 Market Place 29
 Letters From the Editor TINY HOUSE
magazine
Issue 5

Tiny Is As Tiny Does Publisher and Founder

Editor - In - Chief
Kent Griswold

I
n this fifth issue of the Tiny House Magazine
Heather Wilcoxon gives us a tour of her floating Designers
home in the San Francisco Bay area. Kent Griswold
Andrew Odom
Rebecca Knabe shares
how she took a rundown
Photography
old trailer house and
Tammy Strobel
made a modern and
Ella Jenkins
beautiful home.
Rebecca Knabe
Logan Smith shares some
Marketing Editor
kitchen storage tips,
Kent Griswold
through photos and a
podcast.
Contributing Writers
Tiny r(E)volution interviews Hari Berzins about her Logan Smith
new book Coming Home, a journal of tiny house Andrew Odom
living with a family of four. Kirsten Dirksen
Merete Mueller
Vincent Baudoin shows us some 3D design Rebecca Knabe
techniques, and shares tips on how to make a small Ella Jenkins
space fill larger.
Billing
Ella Jenkins gives some ideas for renting a space to Kent Griswold
park your tiny house once it is built.
Contact Us
Thank you for reading the Tiny House Magazine. I tinyhouseblog@gmail.com
would like to encourage you to subscribe to our
magazine so you don’t miss a single issue. Tiny House Magazine
is published
Kent Griswold by Kent Griswold
and
TinyHouseBlog.com
 Choosing the Freedom of Tiny Home-Boat Life
Click to watch on YouTube

Heather Wilcoxon grew up visiting the Hollywood sets of her actor parents (her father Henry played Marc
Antonyopposite Claudette Clobert in Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra and her mother played Brenda Starr in the
original tv series), but at age 20 she left all that behind to move aboard a boat and for the past 4 decades has
made her home on the San Francisco Bay.

“I'm so used to the water, I'm so used to living on a boat in a small space,” explains Wilcoxon. “I don't have
huge payments, I’m not stressed out by a job, I make just enough money to pay for my lifestyle, I don't need a
lot of money for a big house with 3 cars and 5 bedrooms and big payments, it's not what I'm interested in.”

Wilcoxon bought her current home, a turn-of-the-century vessel in 1986 and she’s been remodeling it ever
since. The Delta Queen was once a cook house barge in the Sacramento River Delta, but in the seventies it
earned a permanent berth in the San Francisco Bay where a collection of artists and boatworkers built a floating
village.

Wilcoxon lives on about $12,000 a year, paying a small monthly fee to the cooperative for berth rights (which
includes sewage and laundry). Her electric bills are only about $12 in the summer and $60 during the frosty
winter months.

Her minimal expenses allow Wilcoxon to live as an artist. Her work has been shown in the American
University Museum (Washington DC) and she’s represented in New York (Brenda Taylor Gallery) and San
Francisco (Jack Fischer Gallery), but her most enduring work is her boat home itself.

“Living on a boat, it's simple. I like that it's simple. You can make whatever space you want yours, that's the
magic of it.”
Kirsten Dirksen is co-founder of faircompanies.com and a Huffington Post blogger. She has
worked for MTV, Oxygen, The Travel Channel, and Sundance Channel. Her documentaries
include "Searching for Da Vinci's Secret" and "Translating Genocide: Journey to Sudan." “We
the Tiny House People” is her first documentary to premiere on YouTube.
 Deciding to Make a Trailer My Home

by Rebecca Knabe

March 2010 was a bad month for me. My husband was unemployed. It had been exactly 20 years since my
beloved mother’s death. My house had been broken into. They stole my money and my car. And to top it all
off, my husband and I abruptly and unexpectedly separated. I was physically, emotionally, and economically
spent. Yes, that month was a stinker!

I was working full time, but still could not afford to stay where I was living. I have a big dog, Cassi, and the
thought of moving into an apartment with her made me want to stick my head in the sand. What was I going to
do?

My good friends, James and Tanille had recently downsized into a small trailer that they had beautifully
renovated from the ground up. Tanille’s parents had done the same thing a year or two before them. I loved
both their homes, and knew that this was my answer.

The timing was perfect – a 1958 pink (yes, pink!) single-wide trailer was for sale in their little trailerpark for
$5,000. It was hideous! Dark brown paneling, stained and ripped flooring, chipped tub and sinks, cracked
countertops, disastrous lighting…. It was perfect!

I had two weeks to make this 450 square foot aluminum tube livable. My wonderful friends helped me around
the clock – sorting, organizing and selling my things, painting every interior surface of the trailer, replacing all
the flooring, and moving me in.

For a while Cassi and I lived in denial. She howled all day while I was at work, and I avoided giving anyone
my address. When asked where I live, I would say, “Reno.” Prompted further, I would say, “Downtownish.”
For the next several months Cassi and I, and the pink trailer began to heal. I hung new lighting and installed
new fixtures. I grieved and mourned my old life. Countertops and sinks were replaced. I remembered that I
liked to live with just my pup and if we wanted to lie around and eat popsicles all day, no one cared. I
organized and decorated and added finishing touches.
Cassi and I took up running, and ran till our feet hurt. I learned to live simply, and embrace a small space. I
mended my heart through the therapy of friendship. I built a fence and planted some flowers. I made the
decision to look to the future with hope and joy.

It’s not always easy living in a trailer, and in a trailer park. There is a stigma attached that only a certain type
of person ends up there. And I have neighbors to prove that is true. But I also have neighbors who really care
about their home, and make it beautiful. And a sense of humor helps. Now, when asked where I live, I say, “A
pink trailer in the ghetto.” People awkwardly chuckle in response, but the moment I bring them inside my
home it’s always the same reaction – “Wow! I can’t believe this is a trailer!” I love my trailer. It’s exactly how
I envisioned it. I would not have been able to afford the changes I have made if it was a larger space. The size
of my home forces me to live a simple life, unencumbered by too many unnecessary things. My life isn’t
perfect. The pink trailer and I are still on the mend, but Cassi and I are very happy.

Rebecca Knabe
www.trailerchicgirls.com
How to Design a Tiny House in 3D
Most designs start with a floor plan— but the vertical dimension is what brings the floor plan to life.

Take, for example, the McG Loft, by Humble Homes (pictured at right). Like many other tiny houses, its floor
plan is very simple. It’s the carefully thought-out vertical dimension—the stair, the height of the loft—that
sets it apart.

Knowing how high things are:

To get started, it may help to familiarize yourself with a

few standard heights in houses:

• The most common ceiling height is 8′-0”. A ceiling

7′-0” or lower will begin to feel quite low.
• Standard doors are 6′-8” high.
• Standard kitchen counters are 3′ high.
• Headroom over a stair should be 6′-8″ or more.

There are many more ways to find information about

heights and dimensions. For human dimensions, some
information is available online or in books on
architecture and space planning.
Photo credit: Humble Homes
Of course, if you’re designing a tiny house for yourself, then you are the best source of dimensions. Grab a
measuring tape and possibly a helper and you can figure out all sorts of things, like your most comfortable
table height, your maximum vertical reach, your eye level, and more.

See below to learn how to draw elevations, cross-section, and 3D models of your potential tiny house:
The simplest way to begin designing vertically is by drawing an elevation. An elevation is simply a side view of
the house. You can draw an elevation of the outside (an exterior elevation) or an elevation of the inside (interior
elevation). You may label your elevations by cardinal direction (north elevation, east elevation…) or by relative
direction (front elevation, side elevation…).

To begin drawing an elevation, lightly sketch horizontal lines representing the most important heights in your
tiny house. Do this at the same scale as your floor plan. Using either the ground level or the level of the finished
floor as a “zero” point, draw lines to show important heights, including:

• Ground level
• Finished floor elevation
• Loft/second floor elevation
• Height of kitchen counter
• Top of windows
• Top of doors
• Top of wall plate
• Top of roof
Next, you will project lines from your floor plan. Orient your floor plan so that the side you are drawing an
elevation of is down. Now, lightly draw vertical lines to transfer the important features (walls, doors, windows,
etc.) to your elevation (see illustration).

You can then try different roof slopes until you find the one that you like best. Most roof slopes are given in
terms of rise and run, with run always equal to 12”. For example, a 6:12 roof has a rise of 6” and a run of 12”.

Finally, use a darker line to outline the shape of the walls, doors, windows, roof, etc. The process should look
something like the illustration above. You can add color and details to your elevation to give it more realism. It’s
also a good idea to add a human figure for scale.

Drawing a cross-section
A cross-section (or simply ‘section’) is another very useful way to study on the vertical relationships in your
design. For instance, you may want to draw a cross-section through the loft area to understand how much
headroom you will have in the loft and below it.

To draw a cross-section, imagine a vertical plane (the ‘section plane’) cutting through your tiny house.
Everywhere this plane cuts through something (walls, cabinets, etc.) you will want to emphasize the cut area by
shading or outlining it. Draw a line on your floor plan to represent the section plane (as seen from above).

For the rest, drawing a cross-section is very similar to drawing an elevation. You can project lines from your floor
plan wherever the section line intersects a wall, cabinet, or other element. You can also project lines to show
elements that are behind the section plane, if you wish.

Drawing a perspective or 3D model

There are several other ways to study your design in three dimensions.

• 3D modeling software. Many different computer programs are available to help you create a 3D model of
your design. Last week I mentioned SketchUp, which is free, and for which online tutorials and a guide to
drawing a tiny house are available. One very powerful feature of SketchUp is the ability to study the
shadows cast by the sun, which is helpful when you’re working on day lighting and passive solar design.

• Physical models. If you’re more the hands-on, crafty type, you may prefer making a physical model using
cardboard, wood, or other materials. Physical models have a powerful “solar modeling feature” too—just
take them outside into the sunlight.

• Perspective drawings. If you want to visualize how your design will look in real life, a perspective drawing is
very helpful. There are many how-to videos and guides available online to explain the process of perspective
drawing.

Vincent Baudoin is a designer and builder with a background in public interest design,
sustainability, and integrated design-build. He develops tiny house designs and construction
plans -- check them out at Pilothouse Design.
 Finding a Place For Your Tiny House: Renting
So let’s say you’ve just built a wonderful Tumbleweed. Construction is over and you’re ready to move in, but
where do you put it? Where can you live in your wee house on wheels?

Renting space on someone else’s property may not work for everyone, but it can be a great solution for those
who don’t have the resources to purchase property of their own. I currently rent in my tiny house so I’d like
to share some tips on how to find the perfect place for you.

Make a Picture Portfolio

Take good pictures of all aspects of your house and put them in a professional looking format so you can
immediately show people what you’re talking about. Not only will the visual get them on the right page but
having something organized to tell the story of your house makes you seem that much more credible. Carry
it with you everywhere and show it off. Make sure to have pictures of everything you would tell prospective
landlords about; water and electric connections, your propane tank, toilet etc. You may want to include some
construction shots at the end.

Tell Everyone

EVERYONE. You never know who knows who, so tell anyone that will listen what you’re up to.
Hand out Contact Cards

Give cards with your information to people you talk with. They may not be able to think of anything helpful in the
moment, but if they do later you want them to be able to get back to you.

Follow Every Lead

If someone indicates that an acquaintance of theirs might be a possibility, see if they can get you in touch. It might
not pan out, but then again it might so be proactive. My landlords are friends of friends of a family member.

Know What you Want

Think about what it is that you’re looking for and don’t leap for an opportunity if it doesn’t feel right. Even
though I found a place in the first few days of my search that was happy to have me, it didn’t line up with what I
was looking for and I found myself unenthused and nervous about it. My current spot is amazing and I knew as
soon as I saw it that I couldn’t wait to live here. Don’t Give Up!

It might feel like you’re getting nowhere, but keep going and try not to let it get you down. I only spent 2 weeks
actively searching for my new location but it seemed like ages and I was never going to find anything.
Renting in a tiny house can give you the best parts of the rental system. You own your house so you don’t have to
worry about putting nails in the walls, you don’t have to be tied down by owning property, and if you should need
to move, you can pick up your house and go. All that changes is what’s outside your window.

Ella Jenkins is a workshop presenter and writer for Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.
She lives in a tiny house and writes about it in her blog Little Yellow Door.
 Fixing Warped And Twisted Boards

Ryan Mitchell
The Tiny Life

During the building process, no matter how meticulously you select your lumber, it will never be perfectly
straight. It is something that first time builders don’t consider, that your materials will be imperfect, which can
result in your house being off.

The longer the board, the less straight it will be.

Another common first time builder assumption that is incorrect is lumber dimensions. To add to the confusion
lumber is milled smaller than their names might indicate. A 2×4 isn’t actually 2″ by 4″, it is actually 1.5″ by
3.5″ and this is the case for all milled lumber.

What I hadn’t realized when I started is that lumber isn’t all milled the same. For example I picked up some
2×4′s that were the higher grade studs to find that they were in fact 1/8″ smaller in each dimension. Also 8 foot
boards are often longer than eight feet. When it comes to ply wood, usually the thickness is the same thickness
indicated, but the 4′ by 8′ panel isn’t always 4 feet by 8 feet. Plywood is also seldom flat, it often has a bow to it,
I found digging into the stack of plywood and pulling out the middle sheets of the pile are often flatter. Also the
thicker the board, the flatter it stays.

So today I wanted to share this video on how to handle warped and twisted boards.

Click to view on YouTube

Click to view on Youtube

Purchase the iPad Version

Purchase the Print Book

 Tiny House Cooking: Food Storage

by Logan Smith
loganblairsmith.com

Photography
by Tammy Stobel
rowdykittens.com

Shortly after we moved into the tiny house we had some dear friends, Dave and Trina Feucht, over for dinner.
Trina is wonderfully clever when it comes to design and what she refers to as “nesting”. Tammy and I were
cooking for Dave and Trina and we were having trouble finding our spices in the midst of our moving disarray.
Trina suggested that we should think about installing a few small mason jars above the stove to artfully display
the spices and allow easy access. We loved the idea, it reminded me of workshops where I had seen similar a
storage solution for bolts, nuts and washers of different sizes.

We installed the small glass jars with a simple screw through the lid and surprisingly its one of the first space
saving details that guests remark on about our home. The solution is simple, elegant, and eye catching because
of the glass. Besides being beautifully shiny, glass also makes it easy to see the quantity of the contents and is
impervious to moisture and pests. Screwing the lids to the bottom of the shelving allows both sides of the
vertical space to be used and saves valuable counter space.

Recently we decided to expand this idea further. All of our dry pantry items like rice, wheat flour, sugar, lentils,
beans, etc are now contained with glass mason jars and displayed on the shelf above our seating area. In
addition I’ve started adding short, wide mouth pint mason jars to take up the space between the 2X4 loft joists
above the front door. I’ll likely start putting drink mixes here like tea, coffee and hot cocoa mix.

Click to Listen
Audio
We installed the small
glass jars with a
simple screw through
the lid and surprisingly
its one of the first
space saving details
that guests remark on
about our home.
TINY: A Story About Living Small
No matter where you are located in the world,
there's a good chance that April is a month for
cracking open your windows, dusting off the
sills, for rolling down your socks and letting the
breeze (even if it's still chilly) blow through
your house and tickle your ankles.
Spring is a season for taking deep breaths, for
feeling rejuvenated and re-inspired. No matter
what type of house we live in or its size, as
doors and windows begin to open, our worlds
get a little bit bigger.
My partner, Christopher, and I have been on the
road with our documentary about the tiny house
movement, TINY: A Story About Living Small
[if possible, link to: www.tiny-themovie.com],
as it makes the rounds at film festivals around
the country. After months of being away, in
NYC to finish post-production and then
traveling for the premiere of the film, we finally
landed back at our own tiny house in Colorado
for a short week last month.
We arrived late at night, in the middle of a freak
March snowstorm (springtime in Colorado is
always unpredictable) and tumbled into the
sleeping loft almost immediately after we fired
up the heating stove. The next morning when I
climbed down the ladder, I found our little
kitchen filled with a soft light. Through the
window, I saw that the sagebrush and clumps of
grass were glistening with a layer of ice that was
already beginning to melt. Christopher was still
sleeping. I poured a glass of water and wrapped
myself in a fleece blanket to sit outside on the
porch.
Our tiny house has factored into our lives
differently than we expected. We thought we
were building a home for ourselves, a very
personal thing, but it ended up pushing us out
into the world far more than we ever thought. As
a result of building the house and making the
film, we have been traveling, sharing our
stories, finding home on the road and meeting
people from around the world who feel inspired
to share where and how they find their sense of
place and belonging. Watching Christopher
pursue his dream of building a house from
scratch helped me to take stock of my own
dreams, and to follow one that I'd held for a
long time: to live in New York City. These days,
I live in Brooklyn, while Christopher splits his
time between Colorado and the big city. More
than anything, this Tiny House adventure has
taught me to treat my life as an experiment and
an adventure. It's funny how having a stable
spot to come back to has made it that much
easier to get out there and explore. And of
course, Christopher and I both know that
eventually our lives will settle and a short week
at the tiny house can become a month or a year.
Many of the Tiny Housers we met while making
the film shared with us how living small has
made their worlds open up in other ways. Ann
Holley and Darren Macca, of Longmont,
Colorado, told us how their lives spill out into
the backyard during the warmer months. They
drag rugs onto a wide wood platform next to the
tiny house and set up tables and chairs for
relaxing in the sun and entertaining guests.
Chickens squawk from a nearby coop and
laundry hangs on the line. I imagine Tammy
Strobel and Logan Smith as the weather warms
in northern California, and wonder if they are
opening their beautiful French doors to the
beautiful scenery that surrounds them. No
matter the season, Tiny Housers have told us
that living in a smaller space encourages them to
explore their communities and to become
involved in ways they didn't think of when
living in a larger home. Dee Williams
volunteers. Other people take walks or spend
more time at the local library, taking yoga
classes, or meeting friends in cafes.
Back on my own Tiny House porch, I see the
Colorado peaks stark and white against a bright
blue sky. They are covered in powder from the
previous night's storm. Closer to where I sit,
melting ice soaks into the thawing earth.
Eventually, the I know the cacti on our land will
open up with pink flowers. These moments of
stillness, of home, help me to open up my world
that much wider and to remember how much
possibility it contains.
How does your home widen your experience of
the world? How does it make your life feel
bigger or more full?

Upcoming screenings of TINY around the country during

the month of April include:
Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival:

Thursday, April 25 at 7pm

Saturday, April 27 at 4:10pm

Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario:

Sunday, April 28 at 9:15pm

Monday, April 29 at 4:00pm
Sunday, May 5 at 1:30pm

Independent Film Festival Boston:

Sunday, April 28 at 9:00pm, The Somerville Theatre in Davis Square

 Imagine Your
Tiny House
New book with
over 200 interior
designs for tiny
houses. Use it to
help build your
own tiny home
ownership dream.

Purchase the eBook

Purchase the Print Book

 Coming Home: an interview with
Hari Berzins
Together with her husband Karl and their two kids, Ella and Archer,
Hari Berzins has been living for about two years in a cozy 8′ x 21′ tiny
house in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. She has been
documenting their adventure over at tinyhousefamily.com.

The tiny house family is currently building a slightly bigger house as

part of their plan to build a mortgage-free-micro-homestead on their
three acres of property.

Although Hari is a noted blogger having written her families stories

onto the audiences of Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show, Yahoo!
Finance, AOL, Huffington Post, CNN.com, HouseLogic.com, and
more, she had recently put all focus on her first book entitled Coming
Home.
I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy and to talk with Hari about the transition from blogger to
author and what her families adventure has done to shape her as a writer. Below is the dialogue we shared.

Tiny r(E)volution: You live in a tiny house? What does that mean literally?

Hari Berzins: Literally, our tiny house is 8’ x 21’ with two sleeping lofts. That means we have 168 sq. ft. of
living space “downstairs” and as much space in our lofts, though there is only 3 feet of head room up there.

Tr: But do you feel like your house is “tiny?”

HB: That depends on the season. In winter our house is beyond tiny. Sometimes I feel like an animal at the
zoo, caged up. Other times the tiny house feels like a cocoon. Tiny, yes, but unbelievably cozy and
comfortable. In summer time I hardly notice the tiny part of my house, unless it’s raining. We spend most of
our waking hours outside, tending to the chicks, ducks, dog, cat, garden and our building projects. When the
weather is nice, my house is huge! It includes gorgeous woods, a creek and lots of sky.

Tr: And now you are publishing a book. Why not just continue with your blog and post there regularly?

HB: Yes! Now I’m publishing a book. I will continue with the blog, and I plan to post even more regularly
there, but publishing a book gives me an opportunity take readers deeper than a 500-word blog post. This
intimate collection of letters gives the reader a sense of the passing of time, and the personal growth that living
tiny inspired in me. Readers who imagine living tiny can get a perspective on the experience. I offer questions
at the end of each essay to encourage personal reflection.

Publishing an e-book also gives me the opportunity to open an income stream with my writing. As I’m sure
you know, maintaining a blog takes a lot of time, and I do need to earn a living, so I’m working on making our
blog a micro-business. My first income stream was the weekly letter, and it’s been a wonderful first step, now
adding an e-book gives readers more insight into our tiny, mortgage-free life, and proof that it’s possible, and
also gives folks the opportunity to support the work I do so that I can spend more time documenting this
journey. I hope to really map it out, so that others can take similar steps to freedom.
Tr: What was the ePub process like? It has been said that anyone can be an author now.

HB: The process was super easy, since I hired Chris O’Byrne. I don’t know enough about the technical stuff to
produce a well-functioning e-book, and Chris has really impressed me with his talents. It was enough for me
to focus on the writing and face the vulnerability of opening myself in this way.

Yes! Anyone can be an author now, which is very exciting. We have a real opportunity to support positive
work all over the world. It’s the “buy local” mentality going global—because in a few seconds’ time, we can
buy directly from the artist next door as well as the artist on another continent. The whole idea still astounds
me. I imagine more and more people living the life they love, helping others by sharing what they learn and
supporting themselves that way. The power of the internet is truly awesome. We are connected globally and
can work together to build our collective communities for the good of all.

Tr: How does living in a tiny house affect your creativity though?

HB: Living in a tiny house affects my creativity quite a bit. Within the confines of a small space, I am forced
to be creative. Artists throughout time have used constraints to force their best work. The simple constraint of
limited space forces me to be creative about finding the space I need. Something in this act gets my creative
juices flowing. For example, I can’t focus with the rest of the family up and about during my writing time, so
I’ve started getting up at 5:00am, so that I can have the house to myself—this constraint of time has given me
a regular writing practice. To add to that, when we have overnight guests, they sleep on the couch which is
where I write every morning at 5:00am. Last time my mom visited, I dried out the shower stall and filled it
with pillows and blankets. It made a cozy and productive writing studio. When my brain switches over to this
resourceful mode, it comes through in my writing. So, in this way the tiny house has really helped my
creativity.

I do look forward to having an office in the big house where I can hang my bulletin board and leave my desk
set up. Currently, my “desk” is my backpack. I also miss having wall space to hang a large bulletin board
where I keep track of my projects. I feel a little scattered every time I pull my “office” out of my backpack.
Tr: What is one universal message you hope readers get from your book?

HB: That home is with you no matter where you go. If you know your heart and your courage, you are already
home. Your house doesn’t define you, your heart does.

Tr: Is there anything you left out or had to omit that you now wish were in the book?

HB: I have written several essays in the last few months about the darkest time of the year and the intense
struggle that was. We were already editing at that point and I wanted to send Chris another essay, and say can
we add this? But at some point, the book has to be finished. Of course the book of our lives is always being
written, so maybe I’ll collect those essays into another little e-book. There are a few essays that touch on the
struggle I faced during winter, but some didn’t make it in. I feel passionate about being fully honest about how
this lifestyle impacts my psyche. Be prepared for winter in a tiny house—or fly south with the birds!

Tr: Was your family supportive in your publishing?

HB: Yes! Ella especially since she’s a little writer herself. She thinks it’s so cool that mommy wrote a book.
She often gives me titles or sayings and she keeps her own various journals. The whole family’s been
incredibly supportive. There are times that I’m not finished writing when everyone gets up, and I’m on a
deadline. I have nowhere to write but on the couch (okay, I can sit in the shower) where everyone else sits, and
that makes it hard for them. Especially when I say, “Please be quiet for a few more minutes.” It’s not easy, but
they ultimately understand and are excited to see me reach the finish line with this book. Karl is even
considering writing his own book. He’s so methodical and clear; I know he’d write an awesome book
explaining the process of building our big house—I’m hoping he’ll be inspired and share his amazingness with
you all.
Tr: Do you think the book appeals more to tiny house folk or does it have a potentially broader audience?

HB: I think it appeals to tiny house people because it is written within the “container” of a tiny house, but the
themes have universal appeal. The book holds the valuable lessons I’ve learned in the last year from really
settling into living this lifestyle. When we strip away the excess of mass culture and come home to ourselves,
there’s a real sense of being alive. So, while this is a book about my life in a tiny house, it’s not a how-to-live-
in-a-tiny-house book, it’s a how-to-accept-yourself-enough-to-be-happy-living-in-a-tiny-space-with-your-
family-and-love-your-life book. That’s pretty universal.

Tr: You talk quite a bit about acceptance – of life, of circumstance, and even of weather. How big of a role
does acceptance play in your day-to-day life?

HB: Acceptance plays a role in my second-to-second life. With every breath, I breathe in acceptance.
Sometimes the breaths are more of a sigh or a grunt, but I’m always trying to see through the eyes of
acceptance. Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well
for a very long time. I find that when there is snow and ice all over the deck and nothing to do in the tiny
house, I get pretty mad because I’m resisting. But if I bundle up and take a walk, the world opens up to me and
I realize how much beauty is waiting everywhere I go. This is acceptance. If we accept and live each moment
of our lives, then we will have lived.

Hari Berzins book Coming Home is available at Amazon for purchase and you can check it out by clicking
this link.
The Hawk House
Tiny House Swoon

Compact Living at its Best.

A seven by nine foot cabana clad in

redwood bark from a neighboring
sawmill.

Native wildflowers and coastal grasses

cover the roof.

Three of the four walls open for

ventilation on stifling nights.

Small cabana with green roof clad in

redwood bark from a local Mill.
Designed by Alex Wyndham.
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Tiny House Swoons
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