Tumbleweed's Tiny Gingerbread House Contest!

Hey Tumbleweed Lovers!

Our Facebook friend Christina Rodriguez had a fantastic idea for this holiday season: making a Tumbleweed gingerbread dream house. We liked it so much we're raising the stakes. 

Are you ready to get your holiday tiny house cheer on?

Grab your kids! Grab your grandparents! Grab some tubes of frosting! 

It's our first annual Tumbleweed Tiny Gingerbread House Contest!     

Tumbleweed's own Wendy working on her gingerbread masterpiece 

First place winner will get a copy of both the Small House book AND the DIY Book of Backyard Sheds and Tiny Houses. One runner-up will win a copy of either book, their choice. Both winners will have their gingerbread house photo featured on the website and our Facebook page.

Anything goes: creativity is key! 

Contest Rules:

Please submit a high-resolution photo via the Contact page on our website with a short description. Make the subject line "Tumbleweed Gingerbread House Contest."  We'll accept entries up until December 22 and make our decision by December 23- just in time for the holidays! 

Extra points if you draw up plans for your gingerbread tiny house. Extra extra points if you attach it to a tiny trailer.

Enjoy, and good luck! 

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UPDATE: 

I got so excited about this contest I built my own tiny gingerbread house this weekend. 

Can you top this beauty? 

UPDATE: 

Thank you to all those of who have submitted their Tiny Gingerrbread Houses so far! We have seen some amazing houses.  We decided that we're going to let you, the fans pick the winner for this contest. We will post the top 3 Tiny Gingerbread Houses this Saturday, December 22nd on Facebook.  You will have until 2 pm PST on Monday, December 24th to vote. The picture with the most "likes" will win.  Good luck!!!

Tiny Home Schooler: Emma's Fencl

Watch out world, we've got another young builder! 14 year old Emma Keely is getting ready to work on a Fencl of her very own. And unlike other high school students, she'll be getting a little more than extra credit for her project- Emma is home schooled. As a major part of her curriculum over the next year, she'll be researching, writing, and asking plenty of questions about all aspects of tiny house building.

Emma and brother, Gavin 

The Keely family just bought their 20 acre farm this past summer so they could grow their own food and eventually have a CSA. They're working on a permaculture garden and food forest, and hope that Emma's tiny house will fit in with the sustainable lifestyle the family is quickly moving towards. They're even aiming for zero waste for next year! 

Some added incentive to get building: as Emma gets older, she can simply move her Fencl further and further from her parents' house! It's every teen's dream. 

For Christmas, she'll be recieving a tool kit. As far as other materials, the Keelys have a family friend with a sturdy old barn that will soon be disassembled. Emma hopes to use some of the wood and metal roofing for her Fencl. She'll also get a job and save money for supplies. Her Tumbleweed will be off grid with an incinerating toilet, a solar panel- she wants to build one herself- and a cistern for water. For homework, she has the task of learning what products are available for her tiny house and how they are made

Before Emma gets to start working on her house, however, she's got to earn her stripes: she'll be building a tree house in her yard as a favor to her 10 year old brother, Gavin. By building a simpler "house" first, she'll pick up some important construction skills and with any luck, gain a helpful future assistant! 

We look forward to seeing Emma's progress over the next year, and encourage more teens to check out Tumbleweed possibilities of their own. 

Jonathan Black: Tiny House Builder, Grandson Extraordinaire

I try really hard to be a loving granddaughter: I visit my grandma as much as possible, take her out to lunch as often as she'll allow, and occasionally even help clean out her basement. So naturally, I've always had reason to believe I was the model grandchild.

That is, until I met Jonathan Black at the Tumbleweed workshop in LA.

 Jonathan Black 

A former CalPoly student, 26 year old Jonathan chose to seek a different educational path after several unsatisfying years of school. He currently works as a server at a restaurant in San Luis Obispo, and says he's much happier dealing with "life stress" than "school stress." Now, he's setting out on a whole new meaningful adventure: tiny house building for a cause.

Jonathan's grandpa has stenosis, and is trying to plan ahead for the unfortunate possibility of needing to use a wheelchair. His house in Morgan Hill, however, is not wheelchair accessible. To solve this problem, the family has hatched a brilliant plan: Jonathan will build a wheelchair accessible wing on his grandparents' house.

There's only one problem: to work on the house, Jonathan needs a place to stay. His grandparents owned both a motor home and a shed, but neither was an option. The motor home needed too much work, and grandpa had already converted the shed into an office.

The perfect solution? A Tumbleweed Tiny House for Jonathan.

Jonathan loves the idea of avoiding debt, and is excited to integrate his tiny house into a larger meaningful project for his family. He purchased the Fencl plans before coming to LA. 

Brainstorming at the workshop 

Jonathan played around with many different designs at the workshop, getting input from his mom, Bethany, and other helpful attendees.

He will build the Fencl in January, hoping to use as many found and donated materials as possible. He will be blogging about the process as he goes, as well as checking in with us here.

After he completes his tiny house, he'll begin work on the wing for his grandparents. "My mom doesn't want it to look like a disabled wing," explained Bethany. "We want Jonathan to do something that doesn't look ugly, because it's a sensitive issue." Jonathan will be mentored by a local building inspector who is also an ADA inspector, seeking ways to make the wing both aesthetically pleasing and wheelchair accessible.

By the end of next year, he'll have not only blown me out of the water in the best grandchild competition, but will have completed a little house of his own. Two birds, one stone anyone?

Jonathan with grandparents and mom

Right now, Jonathan is looking for trailers in the Morgan Hill area, so please let us know if you can help!

Getting Tiny at UCLA

Last weekend's workshop in LA was a great success. Despite the rain and a series of confusing road blocks on the UCLA campus, we all managed to find our way to the De Neve plaza Saturday morning. The energy was high, and the conference room was lovely- it even came equipped with coffee!

As a new member of the Tumbleweed family, this was my very first workshop. I was thrilled to get a chance to meet some key players: the weekend speakers featured Jay Shafer, along with self-proclaimed "Tumbleweed poster child" Austin Hay.

 Austin talking about his house 

This was 18 year old Austin's third time as a guest speaker at a Tumbleweed workshop, and he was a big hit. He captivated the group with his tales of poorly measured couches and burnt cookies. Austin's supportive dad was also present- in addition to being a great sport about driving us around in circles on the campus, he fielded a number of questions about parenting, house building, and Austin's personal hygiene.

Hailing from as far as Alberta, Canada, to Atlanta, Georgia, this batch of tiny house lovers brought a ton of information to the table. There were couples, individuals, and some awesome parent-child teams. The most exciting part of the workshop was when the graph paper and pencils came out: with help from Austin and Jay, the participants got a chance to draw out their own floor plan ideas. 

 Austin was particularly helpful to those interested in designing spaces for young people

After we'd had a chance to brainstorm on our own, Jay led a group critique. I loved hearing some of the questions and ideas regarding innovative material usages and layout plans.

Critiquing plans 

Over the course of two days, stories were shared, friendships formed, and business plans hatched- what a great opportunity to network with fellow Tumbleweed fans. We can't wait to see what kind of wonderful projects you come up with!

If you attended the workshop and would like to leave feedback or if you have any questions about upcoming workshops, please feel free to write a comment below. 

From Tree to Tumbleweed

A Unique Approach to Keeping Building Costs Low

William Lampley is proof that a trip to your local hardware store is not the only path to owning a Tumbleweed of your own! A 100 year-old blighted Hemlock on his family’s property in the mountains of North Carolina will be getting a second life as a Tumbleweed Vardo. Getting this four-foot diameter beauty from a remote mountain access road to kiln dried construction ready material turns out to be an adventure in itself.

Retired early from the entertainment industry and debt free, William’s goal is to spend “as much as a month at a time in each of the as many Great National Parks as I can get to.” With a lifetime National Parks Pass in his hand William was looking for a comfortable mode of travel that would not put him in debt. The Tumbleweed Vardo was the solution. When asked about his choice in Tumbleweeds he said “ I just grew impatient recently and Vardo appears to be the quickest, most economical way to get me on the road.” Tumbleweed's Vardo is unique among their designs in that it is a small space mounted on a truck bed - not a trailer. 

Hemlock as a building material is quite popular with many in the construction industry and is stronger than pine, spruce or fir. The key in using hemlock, as with so many materials on the market, is finding wood free from knots and other imperfections.

William’s unique approach to acquiring one of the single most expensive components in building his new home on wheels required more than your normal list of tools. Included in William’s list were his two buddies, Skip and Duke, a 2wd truck, a 4wd truck with a winch, a 16 foot 12,000 lb trailer, three chainsaws and a small Ford tractor with a bucket on one end and a fork lift on the other. 

William shared with us some of his adventures in his first attempt at harvesting the Hemlock:

 “Getting to the tree was problematic today. The ground was wet, so my 2-wheel drive white Ford truck with the trailer could not pull up the soggy access road and bogged down too far up the road to back the trailer down again. We agreed to put Duke in the driver’s seat of the white truck and I got on the tractor and pushed on the back end of the trailer with the front bucket and assisted the truck and trailer up the hill. Also, once Skip got the red Dodge up the hill, he turned around and parked facing downhill, whereupon the Dodge stopped running. Apparently when level or facing uphill the carburetor is fine, but when facing downhill it stalls out… go figure!” 

After much head scratching and tree measuring the decision was made that they could not safely drop it. A professional needed to be called in. This will be an unexpected expense but, once the wood is on the ground, the three men plan on sectioning it, getting it to the sawmill themselves and ending up with lumber worth a lot more than what it will cost to cut down and process. 

Check back for more on William’s Vardo adventure!