Tiny House Summer Building Camp Photos- Part 1

Well, since I'm somewhat caught up on rest from five days in the backwoods of Vermont, and with four of those days being our Relaxshacks.com "Tiny House Summer Camp", I thought I'd share some photos with you. Note: Kent Griswold's Tinyhouseblog.com will have MANY MORE photos- a fuller array- very soon for viewing- he'll have more of a backstory and details on all this too, so this is just a sampler or sorts...all of photos I took.

Orzo, my dog, guarding the site, as we wrap up the days work (Day 3) on what will eventually be called "The Rockhill" cabin- Bill Rockhill and his son Billy busted butt on this project, and well, it also is on a hill, and next to a ten ton rock- "Rock Hill". The name has as nice ring to it too....ALL of the windows we fitted for this were FREE- found, scavanged, and/or donated.

     I might also add that this SOLD OUT workshop was an unbelievable amount of fun, and we worked on not one, but TWO tiny houses/cabins in the woods, where all involved got to not only help with building these structures, but helped DESIGN them- it was a pretty open canvas. Framing, roofing, post-hole digging and joist/floor frame setting, site selection, and beyond, we covered a very wide array of related subjects, both first hand and in our nighttime campfire discussions. We also took field trips to Mariah Coz's Comet Camper, Uncle Bob's Log Cabin (off-grid/solar), The Goodridge Lumber Mill (they're AMAZING!), The Pine Crest Tiny Cabins (www.pinecrestmotelandcabins.com), and also got to see (and some got to stay in) my stilt cabin, my U.B. 30 Treehouse, The Hickshaw micro-cabin, and more!

The end of the camp weekend, we shot this photo. We got alot done, considering we were mostly working off-grid in the middle of nowhere, AND taking some field trips and hikes to other tiny houses sites, all in between.

 Anyway, long story short, it was a blast, and a huge success, and we will have another- either in Vermont, and/or at Bill Rockhill's Bear Creek Carpentry HQ in the Adirondacks- soon enough.


OUR NEXT WORKSHOP....
I also plan on having another small workshop in MA (10 miles outside Boston) in the late fall, and for any interested, kidcedar at gmail dot com. I'll have more info soon enough. November 2nd weekend looks like our best bet- which'll mean nice, cool temperatures, thus warranting a bonfire at night for discussions.We'll have guest speakers, demos, actual building (a collaborative project), and then some....

Me, on top of the roof, testing out the rafters, and adding some purlins.

Anyway, THANKS to all who came, and to all who helped out. A special thanks to the following.....

Bill Rockhill and "Bill 2" from www.bearcreekcarpentry.com
Kent Griswold from www.tinyhouseblog.com
Steven Harrell from www.tinyhouselistings.com
Jon Kalish (and Pam)- NPR Host/reporter for Make Magazine
Janice Kenney- owner and dweller of/in "Tumbleweed 2" who spoke about her lifestyle.
Dustin "Dr. Demolition" Diedricksen, for his help as another one of our instructors
Mariah Coz of www.cometcamper.wordpress.com
Alex Pino of www.tinyhousetalk.com
Jay and Taryn of www.pinecrestmotelandcabins.com
Colleen and her crew at www.goodridgelumber.com
"Uncle Bob" Bennett- for use of his family's solar log cabin in the woods. 

and more- who I'll thank in upcoming posts....

Day 2, we spontaneously decide to start another cabin, so that more people can get more hands-on time. Here, we're cutting and prepping the knee-walls.

Sittin' 'round the fire on a break, discussing our next steps. Meals, discussions, nightly cocktails, etc- were all focused around this fire pit near my stilt cabin.

Willem Smith-Clark, and his father Jeff (all the way from California!) finish up a sheathing cut for Cabin #1.

 YES, I'm sure some of these photos, alongside thousands of others I've taken over the last year or so, will end up in the follow-up book to "Humble Homes, Simple Shacks".....

 -Derek "Deek" Diedricksen