Tiny House Fair: June 14 to 16, 2013!                    

Yestermorrow Welcome Sign Yestermorrow welcome sign SOLD OUT!
Registration is full. To request to be added to the waiting list, please call Yestermorrow at (888) 496-5541, Monday-Friday between 8:30am and 5:00pm Eastern time.

If you've already registered and need or can offer transportation from the airport, sign up to share a ride.

Dates: Friday, June 14, through Sunday, June 16, 2013

Location: Yestermorrow Design Build School. Yestermorrow is located between Warren and Waitsfield, Vermont on Route 100. The Mad River Valley is also the home of Sugarbush and Mad River Glen Ski resorts. Here are directions.

Cost: $300 General Registration, includes workshops, presentations, and meals
  • Participants will have a choice of activities.

Lodging Options: (more details on meals and lodging).
  • Cabin lodging (limited availability) $50 for two nights.
  • Camping - bring your own tent, sleeping bag, and gear. $20 for two nights.
  • Off Campus Lodging: hostel (a mile away), bed and breakfasts, hotels (link: local lodging options)
  • Special Offer: free lodging if you bring your own tiny house or camper (no hook up facilities for electricity, water or septic, but we have lots of parking space available).

 Yestermorrow Entrance
Yestermorrow entrance

Yestermorrow Tree House
ADA accessible tree house at Yestermorrow


Schedule (subject to change):  Click here for a printable version of the schedule.
  Friday    5:00 PM to 6:00 PM   Arrival, Orientation and Check-in
      6:00 PM to 7:30 PM   Dinner and Welcome
    Kate Stephenson, Executive Director of Yestermorrow Design / Build School
     7:30 PM to 9:30 PM   Building a Community, Lee Pera and Brian Levy of Boneyard Studios
Boneyard Studios is a tiny house showcase in Washington DC. Boneyard aims to demonstrate creative urban infill on one of many vacant city lots, promote the benefits of tiny houses (highly affordable housing, green, simple, attractive), model to the country what a tiny house community could look like, and advocate DC zoning/code changes to allow construction/habitation of ADU’s (accessory dwelling units) & tiny houses. Brian and Lee will discuss the urban challenges to establishing a tiny house community in the nation's capital.


  Saturday    Everyone     8:00 AM to 9:00 AM   Breakfast
     Everyone     9:00 AM to 10:30 AM    How to Build Your Own Home for a Lot Less (using free or recycled materials), Derek (Deek) Diedricksen
     of Relaxshacks and his brother, Dustin Diedricksen, small house dweller/environmental engineer.
Derek "Deek" Diedricksen, from Relaxshacks.com, host of the online show Tiny Yellow House for Make Magazine, and DIY Network TV Host will be speaking with small house dweller/environmental engineer, Dustin Diedricksen, on "How to Build Your Own Home For A Heck Of A lot Less - Thinking Outside The Box".
Deek's specialty has been building with free, scavenged, and/or recycled materials for years, and his various shelters, tiny houses, treehouses, and mobile cabins have been featured in the New York Times, Yahoo.com, the History Channel, the Boston Globe, NPR, PBS, Treehugger.com, Apartment Therapy, the UK Daily News, the Seattle Times, and beyond.... His DIY tiny living book, Humble Homes, Simple Shacks was also the #1 ranked carpentry book worldwide on Amazon for almost 20 weeks.
      Everyone    10:30 AM to 10:45 AM    Break
     Choice 1    10:45 AM to 12:00 PM    Clever Cabinetry and Finish Carpentry, Abel Zyl Zimmerman of Zyl Vardos
Bet you can hammer a nail. You may have even used a biscuit joiner...
But how do you get all those little pieces of wood to fit around that window frame? How do you make a drawer that doesn't fall on your toes every time you open it?
In this workshop, we'll sail through:
  - The whys and woods of materials selection
  - The tools that make everything easier for you
  - Compounding measurements
  - Fasteners, and how important they are
  - Astonishing techniques, like spiling...
Bring your love of wood. See ya!
     Choice 2    10:45 AM to 12:00 PM    Progressive Sharecropping with Tiny Houses, the "Gardeneer" concept, & the Destination CSA,
    Peter King of Vermont Tiny Houses
Peter King will describe 3 ways in which sharecropping can be a progressive rather than oppressive economic system:
 1) For the tiny house dweller, living and farming on rented land, Peter will explain how the cost of a 3 season tiny house, fence, and tools for a 1/4 acre garden can be earned back by a capable gardener in one season.
 2) Peter will introduce the concept of "gardeneer," a person who spends his or her weekends teaching others how to create beneficial sharecropping relationships.
 3) Peter will describe his vision of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) site that offers classes, games, camping, and more. Rather than CSA customers coming just to pick up their share of veggies, they can experience life in a scale model eco-village.
     Everyone    12:00 PM to 1:00 PM   Lunch
     Choice 1     1:00 PM to 2:00 PM   How to Free Yourself From Your Stuff, Alex Pino of Tiny House Talk
Alex Pino from TinyHouseTalk.com will be speaking on how to get rid of your stuff so you can fit happily into a tiny house. The key to new, exciting beginnings is to part with the old and Alex is going to show you just how to do that in three simple steps. He'll also talk about the psychological challenges associated with tiny house living including pressure from family and friends. Alex will also make time for a question and answer session involving other speakers and attendees.
     Choice 2     1:00 PM to 2:00 PM   Building an Ecovillage, Gwendolyn Hallsmith of Headwaters Garden and Learning Center
Gwendolyn Hallsmith is the founder of Headwaters Garden and Learning Center, an ecovillage in Cabot, Vermont built around a shared ethic of land stewardship, reverence for nature, mutual support and respect, and a sustainable life. She has written about infrastructure of ecovillages for Communities magazine. Currently Director of Planning and Community Development for the City of Montpelier, Vermont, Gwendolyn has over 25 years of experience working with municipal, regional, and state governments.
     Choice 1     2:00 PM to 3:30 PM   Composting Toilet Options for Tiny Houses, Abe Noe-Hays of Full Circle Compost Consulting
Want to furnish your tiny house with a toilet that is odorless, self-contained, and pleasant to use? Composting toilets are the perfect fit for a tiny house that is on the move, or that is in a location without sewer or septic.
In this workshop we will explore all the composting toilet options—from humble, do-it-yourself sawdust toilets to electrically vented, pre-manufactured urine diverting systems. We'll start with the basic biology, chemistry, and how-to of compost, and then move on to the practical and safety considerations of systems that responsibly compost our pee and poop. Special attention will be given to strategies that reduce the toilet footprint to a bare minimum.
     Choice 2     2:00 PM to 3:30 PM    Designing and Building a Tiny House Q&A, Dan Louche of Tiny Home Builders
Dan Louche, author of Tiny House Design & Construction Guide, will discuss some of the most commonly asked questions that come up when designing and building a tiny house. There will also be an opportunity for you to ask questions that perhaps aren't as common.
      Everyone     3:30 PM to 3:45 PM   Break
     Choice 1     3:45 PM to 5:00 PM   Small Scale Solar Power for Your Tiny House, Mariah Coz of the Comet Camper
Mariah Coz lives in the Comet Camper, a 1960's camper that she renovated eco-awesome and off-the-grid! A college senior majoring in tiny house design build and sustainability, she specializes in off-grid solar systems scaled down for tiny houses and mobile applications. Taking advantage of the tiny scale, new construction, and DIY nature of tiny houses, she developed an innovative photovoltaic system that is inexpensive and super energy efficient.
Mariah will bring her camper to demonstrate how PV works on a small scale application, how to find out what your power load is, and how to design your tiny house for a DC-only solar electricity system. She'll show you how you can convert your life to run on DC power directly from the sun, without losing efficiency (and money) through inverters.
     Choice 2     3:45 PM to 5:00 PM    Design and Construction for Specific Climates, Abel Zyl Zimmerman of Zyl Vardos
This workshop is specific to houses-on-wheels and small cabins. There is a lot to take into account when you design your house, AND complicating this is the fact that there are as many ways to build as there are mice on a cheese farm. You are likely to get as many different answers as people you ask. I grew up in the Pacific NorthWET. This is one of the more demanding environments for balancing design practices when building.
We'll cover:
  - managing summer heat
  - making a weatherly exterior
  - insulation
  - interior condensation
  - cold weather concerns: snow load, frost heave, protecting utilities
  - structural longevity
  - pests and bugs
  - practices that reduce maintenance.
If you are planning a project, bring your questions and even a sketch!
     Everyone     5:00 PM to 6:00 PM   Open House on campus: tour the tiny houses and campers of fellow fair participants!
     Everyone     6:00 PM to 7:00 PM   Dinner
     Everyone    7:00 PM to 8:30 PM   Tiny House Pecha Kucha - 12 presenters each show 20 slides of their tiny houses


  Sunday     Everyone     8:00 AM to 9:00 AM   Breakfast
      Everyone     9:00 AM to 10:00 AM   Panel Discussion and Q&A with Presenters
      Everyone    10:00 AM to 10:15 AM    Break
      Choice 1    10:15 AM to 12:00 PM   Life in a Tiny House, Tammy Strobel of Rowdy Kittens and husband Logan Smith of loganblairsmith.com
Are you curious about tiny house living? Tammy Strobel and Logan Smith will share their experience smart-sizing, hiring a builder for their home, negotiating daily living, and moving their little house down the road. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers too!
Tammy’s first print book — "You Can Buy Happiness (and it’s Cheap): How One Woman Radically Simplified Her Life and How You Can Too" — was released in September 2012. She blogs regularly at rowdykittens.com. Logan is a teacher, scientist, and simple-living advocate. He blogs at loganblairsmith.com. Their story has been featured by the New York Times, USA Today, the Today Show, CNN, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Home and Garden Television.
      Choice 2    10:15 AM to 11:00 AM   Little House Sticky-Wickets: Insurance, Financing, & Code Enforcement, Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings
Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings is a designer, builder and certified tiny house nut! She teaches workshops across the country, with a focus on green building and micro-housing. She’s also authored a how-to e-book, Go House Go, and has consulted with hundreds of people to design and build their own micro homes. She’s been featured in Yes!Magazine, TIME Magazine, on Good Morning America, the New York Times, National Public Radio, and PBS.
Dee says, so you want to build a tiny house — a studio, hide-out, man-cave, lady-lair, guest cottage, home — and we salute you! But how do you pull the money together to make it, and what does the city or county code have to say about it?  And more important (perhaps) how can you insure the place against a horrible loss like tornado, fire, meteor strike, or other potential problem? Dee will answer all these questions and more.
      Choice 2    11:00 AM to 12:00 PM   Road Trip, Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings
Dee will explain how to engineer a tiny house on wheels to bump down the road without falling apart; how to meet DOT restrictions and licensing requirements; and how to pinch your tiny house into a spot the size of a postage stamp.
      Everyone    12:00 PM to 1:00 PM   Lunch
      Choice 1     1:00 PM to 5:00 PM   Tiny House Tour — visit 3 to 4 tiny house projects in the local area.
    Limit of 25 participants in the Yestermorrow vans.
      Choice 2     1:00 PM to 2:00 PM   Building Codes and Legal Issues, Lina Menard
Lina Menard of This is the Little Life is a designer, builder, and tiny house dweller. Lina holds a Certificate in Sustainable Building and Design from Yestermorrow and is currently pursuing a Masters in Urban and Regional Design from Portland State University.
Lina will discuss the alegality of tiny houses. She'll address the social, political, and financial issues to consider when designing, building, and siting tiny houses. She will also share information about loopholes, simple living advocacy, civil disobedience, and proposed amendments to current regulations.
      Choice 2    2:00 PM to 2:15 PM   Break
      Choice 2    2:15 PM to 5:00 PM    Resizing the American Dream, Jay Shafer of Four Lights Houses
Jay Shafer, founder and former head of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, has spent over a decade living in self-built homes of less than one hundred square feet. Through his Small House Book, his workshops and through mass media, he has helped to change the way we think about housing in the US. Jay recently began a new venture, Four Lights Houses with a focus on social justice. In his presentation, Jay will discuss how better living, a smaller ecological footprint and social justice can be achieved with smaller houses.


        REGISTER NOW through Yestermorrow's event site!