Tiny House Conference 2015
What a great event! We just got back from the Tiny House Conference last night, we took a few days after to do a small vacation to the coast, Hazel learned what ‘the ocean’ is, when you ask her where the ocean was she would point to it, not that it isn’t around if you ask her she just looks and looks for it!
So the conference, there were just over 400 people that came, at least 6 tiny houses at various stages and of various styles, lots of builders, bloggers and awesome attendees! It was broken into a couple tracks so there were two presentations going at a time, you picked which ones you wanted and went to those. James spoke on how to use Sketchup on the first day using our plans as an example, I spoke on advanced building techniques (which are really basic building techniques for a tiny house) on the second day. I feel like my session was well attended and there were several people from the Tiny House People group in there, that made me feel LOTS less nervous, thanks for that! 🙂
The main questions seem to be Q: ‘where can I see the sessions if i didn’t go?’, A: currently it is an in-person event only. Q: ‘Why can’t there be things like this on the east coast?’ A: It was last year and it will be again next year, prepare yourself! There were people who traveled from Australia and Iceland though so if it’s worth it it’s worth it! My number one question that I asked attendees is Q: ‘Was it worth the cost?’ Nearly every single person asked had a very enthusiastic ‘YES!’ to that question, so there is that. I am not actually involved in the event at all other than being lucky enough to be asked to speak so hopefully o one feels obligated to tell me it’s worth it :). I know I had a blast!
For those of you who missed out, I bet there is not a speaker there that doesn’t go over the information they covered at length on their own website, if you look you can find all of that information for free, you just miss the interactive component and getting to ask direct questions and get direct answers :). James and I plan to ‘redo’ our sessions in a YouTube video so there are at least two sessions you’ll be able to catch soon!
As for the rest of the trip it was great, we weren’t sure how Hazel would do on the drive, James had to sit in back with her for a bit of it but she did pretty great overall and slept a lot of the 9 hours. When we got to town we of course hit Ikea first thing and filled up my car! ha! I got some cool new lights for the kids’ room, and some clothes hangers, I think I saved a lot of space if they will work and may actually not have to put in a dresser, we will see. Since I got all that I officially have everything I need to build the addon! Which is underway, I have removed the deck already!
From Ikea we settled in for the conference and I got to meet so many idols of mine. My favorite part was having a gal (an attendee) ask Steve Weissmann (the owner of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company) to take her picture with me. He was a very good sport about it. I loved it because he has been such a big influence, it’s like having someone ask your idol to take your picture with you… it made me laugh :).
When everything died down a bit James and I drove to the coast to show Hazel the other ocean. We stayed on the beach a couple days and the weather was gorgeous. We had one of those ‘off’ days the first day where we couldn’t get in sync with one and other so it was a bit tense but we found our rhythm by the evening and it got to be the relaxing vacation it should have been! We both need our own time which is hard to do in a small car! The tiny house is easy to find our own space in! Once we reset all was well though and Hazel had an absolute blast playing on the beach. She is at the point where she is trying out different laughs. She would intentionally face plant right in he sand and get up laughing SO hard only to do it again! It was hilarious! She got to take a bath in a full sized bathtub which was pretty stinking cool in her opinion! She couldn’t wait to do it again the next night! On the last day we drove to Bend, OR and she got to go swimming for the first time in the hotel pool. She was leery at first but then would just throw herself at us! She’s not a great swimmer but she sure has fun 🙂
We are very grateful to have had so much fun, thanks Ryan for all the hard work you put into such a great event! Next year it’s back on the east side of the country, how many of you are planning on making it??
awesome! I’m so jealous, I forgot about it coming up and then we had some family emergencies and that was that. Hope you had a really great trip.
bummer! It was a blast! Sorry to hear about emergencies, hope it all turned out well!