Assortment

Expert Advice at Remodelista

 

Hey, loves! Over the last couple weeks, I spent some time on the phone with Remodelista executive editor, Margot Guralnick, answering the great questions she asked about my advice for living a clutter-free life. She's taken our conversations, written them beautifully, and included them in Remodelista's Clean Living issue. I thought you'd might enjoy reading it today. 

 

Read the rest at Remodelista. Also, have you ever wished you had a guide to help define what your passion, vision and purpose for life is, and then create steps to follow it? Check out the Upstream Field Guide, by Tsh Oxenreider. It may be just what you've been seeking to help you compose a simple life. 

 

Cheers to a wonderful weekends, friends!

 

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As I Trip Out of February

 

February does this to me every. single. time. I think I have a week to go in the month and BOOM, no more February. It's like tipping your teacup back for one last sweet swig and finding nothing there. Or, maybe it's like coming to the top of a staircase, expecting one more step, then finding last-second that one doesn't exist, and suddenly being caught in the resultant execution of a chunky, misfit (silly-looking) over-step onto the next floor. 

You know what I mean?

Then, you have to recover a moment from the lack of steps, the lack of tea, the lack of February. 

And quickly re-group for March, which is usually the month that winter and spring fight over. It's interesting to be caught in the middle of a fight for thirty-one days with your rubber boots on. You never know who is going to throw the next punch. Is it going to be sloppy mud, or rotten snow?

Either and both.

While all of that is raging outside, I'll have a pink amaryllis blooming inside (my first ever), and my orchid, too, which I've been waiting for these last twelve months. I'll enjoy them while I generally zip up winter and shake out spring in the little house. It's the best way to handle March, I've decided. Eradicate the dust bunnies, touch-up paint, sew new pillow covers, grow alfalfa sprouts - basically, thumb my nose at the fight outside.

It's what I'm thinking about as I trip out of February.

How do you handle the transition from winter to spring?

 

P.S. Yes. After having January's calendar page up for almost all of February, I've gone ahead and skipped straight to March.

 

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The Shelter Collection - On Permanence and (Lack of) Mobility

 

late-night drafting last spring

With the recent release of Shelter No. 1, the first floor plan in the Shelter Collection of small house plans that I designed, I thought I'd take a Tuesday post to tell you a bit more about the process behind the plans. 

The seed of the idea for the plan came about as a result of you, really (Remember in the beginning, I was designing only one? My, how things changed).  So many of you had written me, saying how much you loved our home, and that you'd like to have something like this, too.

I began to think about this, and how I would design our home if I could do it over again. I knew exactly the changes I would make in key places so it would be even better, and I knew the most important of the changes would be to bring the design into compliance with International Building Code, unlike our house. 

Let me explain.

As you may remember, our house is portable, which puts it in an entirely different category as far as building code is concerned. Ours fits under an RV, or park model classification better than it does a residential building classification.

Except that it doesn't.

You see, portable cabins, park models, and RVs have regulations governing their construction, just like homes have regulations governing theirs. Among other things, the regulations for park models and portable cabins restrict the amount of square footage that the structure can have. That amount cannot exceed 500 square feet. 

Except if you live in rural Wyoming. 

Because there are no building codes in rural Wyoming, we were able to by-pass the usual code restriction on square footage, and build ours at a more liveable 665 square feet. This is certainly the exception to the norm, and wouldn't be possible in most of the country. Because of this, I knew the best way to deliver a design inspired by our house, that would be as universally buildable as possible, was to bring it into the residential category and therefore into compliance with IBC. 

So, my challenge, then, was to design a home that was as small as possible, that lived as large as possible (having enough space in the right places is KEY to livability), and complied with residential building code. This goal required a permanent foundation, a roof slope that provided sufficient headroom on the second floor, 2 x 6 framing, and additional necessary square footage (a standard staircase alone adds a surprising amount). 

If you've wondered or asked about the difference in size between our house and the plan in the collection that most resembles ours (Shelter No. 4, coming soon at 900 sq ft), now you know. If you've wondered why the new plans are for permanent structures, not portable ones, now you know. If you are a family of one, two, or eight, and have a goal of living large while living small, with the Shelter Collection, now you can.*

 

Any questions? Ask away in the comments below. 

 

*Please check local building codes, convenants, and restrictions in your area before planning construction of a small house. 

 

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