tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49603592480980145862024-03-17T12:15:20.268-07:00Closer to Home / Green Aerieamandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-36171865607682292052012-02-03T13:25:00.000-08:002012-02-03T13:25:19.637-08:00Coming Home
Hi. I can't believe I'm writing these words. I lost access to this blog I don't even know how long ago, probably almost two years. The posts you can see now from 2011 were imported from another blog that I started when I couldn't get into this one. But it broke my heart to write there and not really be able to continue the story. I've tried many times to contact support at Google, but when they amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-9443531235250598452011-04-02T20:06:00.000-07:002012-02-03T12:39:48.559-08:00Tumbleweed Tiny House Building Workshop“Once you lose everything, you’re free to do anything.” At the utterance of these somehow familiar words, the room becomes charged. People turn from their narrow conference tables to crane their necks toward the man speaking. He looks like a Nashville native, which is to say, he’s got that shiny brown country rock-star hair that falls to his shoulders, the chiseled CMT face, brown hoodie sleeves amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-80713425415105806842011-03-25T16:31:00.000-07:002012-02-03T12:39:48.580-08:00Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshop Quote: Kathey Wilson"I came from a very poor North Carolina mountain family. My father worked in a saw mill and I really didn’t know that I was poor until I went to college and my suite mates gave me a cookbook that was called White Trash Cookin’ and I looked at the pictures and it looked just like my mother’s stove with the salt-shaker box on the back and the grease bucket and the refrigerator. So I had this hungeramandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-54367270408026039932011-03-08T11:00:00.000-08:002012-02-03T19:43:23.563-08:00The Difference Between Constricted and HeldTemple Grandin, the famed animal scientist with Asperger's, is best known for the development of long curved chutes designed to calm cattle being led to slaughter. The invention she is less known for is one that was made for humans: the hug machine, which she developed at 18. Her observations of how calm the behavior of cows was when they experienced consistent pressure on their bodies combined amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-20331801508483318212011-03-07T10:44:00.000-08:002012-02-03T12:39:48.626-08:00Hello LovahBefore I get into a full recap of the Tumbleweed workshop, I wanted to post one of my favorite little houses I've seen in the last year or so: a renovated pigeonnier in Louisiana that was posted at Apartment Therapy a couple of years ago. Did you catch that word? Yep, it was originally intended as a house for our favorite dirty birds.Let's be honest. The downstairs is cool but holymotherofgod, amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-60638428816610552072011-03-07T06:32:00.000-08:002012-02-03T12:39:48.645-08:00Time AwayHi. I'm Amanda. Welcome to the new iteration of my Closer to Home project. A couple of years ago, you would have known me as the documentarian who was working on a small house with her partner in Steinbeck country. Time and circumstance changed all that, and I needed time away from the Small House Movement to find my place again as a One instead of a Two. At that time, I was very involved and wasamandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-71977667241071404052009-12-06T13:32:00.001-08:002009-12-06T14:14:04.381-08:00semi-finalI apologize for going so long without letting those who aren't nearby or closest to me know what is going on. Tyson and I broke up in mid-June, a few days after my graduation ceremony. There are many reasons why this happened, none of which I quite feel like going into. The unfortunate result of this was that I very much wanted to separate myself from my documentary project on small-housers (and amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-69268521574846852122009-03-26T12:00:00.000-07:002009-03-26T11:59:17.790-07:00Tiny House MeetupIn late January, Ty and I drove down to San Diego to attend the Tiny House Meetup hosted by Hillary and Michael over at thistinyhouse.com. There were about 10 people there besides me and Ty and Hillary and Michael: a couple living in an older small house in SD who also have a trailer like Hillary; a guy who lives in an RV in the backyard of an older woman and her daughter (who let him live there amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-4834062377624796052009-03-20T20:04:00.001-07:002009-03-22T19:33:41.714-07:00Of Hurricanes and Tiny HousesSo I have recently discovered Julie Martin with Lodge on Wheels (thanks to Steph) and am hoping to talk to her soon about including her in my documentation of the Small House Movement. While scouring the internet for more information about her, I found that she actually contacted Jay Shafer and they worked together on a design for LoW and have a licensing agreement for the Gulf Coast model for amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-70038148011787584912009-02-23T21:54:00.000-08:002009-02-23T22:20:27.161-08:00"I feel like confessing that I threw a Styrofoam cup away once."A couple of weeks ago, I visited Jay Shafer at his home in Sebastopol. The line above comes from the interview I did with him and absolutely cracks me up. What follows is a bit of writing I did about the trip and includes several quotes from my interview with Jay.
<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-13947923391692595722009-01-27T21:15:00.000-08:002009-01-27T21:54:45.986-08:00Tiny Texas DreamSo WAY back in October, I was in Texas for a friend's wedding and made my way over to Luling to interview Brad Kittel. I would love to post some excerpts from the hour-long interview I did with him, but the truth is, I haven't even listened to it. Chances are that I won't get around to it for a while yet. But since I've finally gotten around to editing a lot of these, here are some of the photos amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-67930357645793731582009-01-24T19:34:00.000-08:002012-02-03T19:39:27.844-08:00Small House: Small Cost? The Math
Plumbing $200
Hardwood Flooring Underlayment $25
Hardie Backer & Screws $126
LED lighting $140
Two windows $200
Shiplap Pine $632
Wood-burning Potbelly Stove $20
Propane Tankless Water Heater $475
Saltillo Tiles $45
Hardwood Manufactured Floors $200
House $3000
Initial Road Excavation $1000
Winch $400
Diesel Fuel $300
amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-49290548939702200752009-01-11T17:00:00.000-08:002009-01-27T22:24:17.793-08:00Reflections on Space and My Dollhouse <!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--><!--[if !mso]> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <![endif]--> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-43296475349254784262008-11-20T12:57:00.000-08:002008-11-20T13:53:54.307-08:00Say Hello to my Little FriendAs I've mentioned before, Tyson and I are currently living in a work trailer at the bottom of the hill which the house sits on top of. This trailer is actually pretty nice for a trailer, but since it's not a trailer made for living in, it lacks certain amenities, such as a stove, a closet, or a bathroom (it comes with a mini-fridge, microwave, small sink, and hot plate). As a result, we have doneamandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-63837018303165860342008-11-05T17:01:00.001-08:002008-11-19T17:05:14.136-08:00Camping OutI realize that I'm a bit slow getting things up right now. I apologize for that and hope to sift through a lot of the photos I've taken soon as I have several posts worth of material and just haven't taken the time to put it up. When I came back from my friends Allison and Rustie's wedding in Luckenback last month, Tyson surprised me by arranging some of our furniture and appliances in the house.amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-31969718222623534752008-09-23T17:17:00.000-07:002009-03-01T19:06:07.010-08:00Small PresencesSome additions to the blog are forthcoming due to the vast intelligence of the friends I have surrounding me. Many of you know that I’m currently in grad school for documentary photography. It’s been a difficult and often frustrating year of school and a few days before I left to work on my thesis in Cape Cod, I gave my friend Tosh, who runs the darkroom at UCSC, the link to this blog. He wrote amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-6662954300124243282008-09-10T18:06:00.000-07:002008-10-03T12:35:29.032-07:00Tread Softly and Carry a Big Stick, You Will Go FarWe have lift-off. Here are a couple photos, for posterity, of the house coming down the driveway just over two months ago. It's hard to believe only that much time has passed, but nice to say that it only took Tyson and his dad that long to figure out how to get the damn thing up the hill. The photo above illustrates the fourth major miscalculation during the initial moving process, i.e., the amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-25135650124810104242008-09-03T11:12:00.000-07:002008-09-03T11:14:31.647-07:00ProgressThis is a photo from Ty's dad's phone. Unfortunately, since I'm in Texas, I haven't been able to photograph the house-moving process, but here's a sneak peek at the progress.amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-69711828322047544332008-09-02T21:01:00.002-07:002008-09-23T17:22:15.796-07:00The Photo Update, with Commentary by TysonTyson - Stove! Here's the PROPANE stove that Manda and I got.$60!!! plus we had a nice day driving around Walnut Creek.This is our wood. I've scrounged it all from job sites whilst pumping concrete. Note the redwood trellis. Score. Dirtsmith, salvage king.This is the spring. All our water comes from here. The square plastic catchment in the foreground is runoff collected for irrigation and road Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-4016065353834421962008-08-16T11:57:00.000-07:002008-08-16T13:17:19.430-07:00Tub? Check. 10,000 Lb Winch? Check.Voilà. La baignoire de clawfoot:If you haven't noticed, our progress has been slow of late, as we have been a bit more occupied procuring things for the house than working on the house. Last weekend, we drove up to San Francisco to get a clawfoot tub. Though the tub was a little larger than we were expecting (a full five feet), we decided to go ahead. Standing in the garage looking at it in amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-75220422975594460362008-08-03T18:46:00.000-07:002008-12-10T01:40:52.720-08:00Nuts and BoltsWhen we last left off, Tyson and I were, as he says, "having an inventure," chasing a tiny house around the area. What you didn't know was that during that time, I was also packing up my tiny apartment to move to Aromas with Tyson. We moved last Sunday and have spent the last week adapting to our new location - a trailer right next to our house. Much like our house, the trailer has no bathroom oramandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-72852084879825941072008-07-28T12:02:00.000-07:002008-12-10T01:40:53.331-08:00Cultivated SerendipityWhen I was a kid, any time our family went on a vacation that required a plane flight, I would sit in the 3-seat row with my mom and brother, while my dad would sit across the aisle with whomever fate threw at him. One time, I remember a man walking onto the plane in an extravagant floor-length fur coat and sitting in the seat next to my dad. My father has never been one to shy away from amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4960359248098014586.post-61865478030110919562008-07-22T16:10:00.000-07:002008-12-10T01:40:55.540-08:00Only in DreamsNot too long ago, I was sitting in the living room of my guy’s parents’ house in Aromas, California. I had come to hang out for a few days and get my grading done in the peace and quiet. His parents were at a graduation in SoCal and before I left and took my laptop with me, Tyson needed to get his tiny-house fix. The first thing you should know is that Tyson and I met on the internet, via amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10277415223553671813noreply@blogger.com8