I guess the phenomenon of the "Tiny House" is now part of our culture, since there are now HGTV shows about Tiny Houses.  I love a well designed small house.  I am not a fan of Tiny Houses on wheels for a couple of reasons.  It can be hard to find a place to park a tiny trailer and actually hook it up to a sewer line unless you go to a trailer park or RV park.  Tiny Houses on wheels are not built under typical local building codes but under a  the ANSI standard A119.5 for Park Recreational Vehicles, (specifically RV's without motors, gasoline tanks or diesel tanks).  If you would like to put your tiny house on wheels on a permanent foundation, you will need to convince the local building official that the trailer meets the local building code.  It is possible to get your tiny trailer certified to comply with the International Residential Code (IRC) by a third party inspector who watches the trailer being built by the fabricator, but this is not a typical practice by many of the folks building Tiny Homes/Trailers.

For the next couple of months my wife and I are living in the little pink cottage shown above in the Cottage Square neighborhood in Ocean Springs, MS.  This little one bedroom cottage was used as temporary housing during Mississippi's recovery from Hurricane Katrina and was later removed from its transport frame and placed on a foundation at Cottage Square.  It was dual certified by the manufacturer as a HUD Manufactured Home (mobile home) while it was attached to the transport frame and as a IRC compliant modular cottage when removed from the frame and set on a permanent foundation.

We are finding the cottage to be quite comfortable.  We have an actual bedroom compared to the sleeping lofts often provided in Tiny Houses/trailers.  The kitchen and bathrooms are pretty straight forward, built from standard cabinets and fixtures.  There is plenty of natural light and a porch we can sit out on when the weather allows.

I love Memphis.  More specifically, I love the people I have met in Memphis.  Lots of heart and lots of hustle.

The video below is from an introduction lecture we gave as part of an effort to cultivate a cohort of Emerging Developers working in a number of Memphis neighborhoods.  Following the lecture Incremental Development Alliance (IncDev) held two One Day Workshops and a Two Day Boot Camp.  The folks who attended continue to get together and support each other.

I think it is vital for small developers to "find their people".  The work is challenging enough and doing alone with out friends and colleagues makes it even harder.  What we have seen in the Memphis cohort of Emerging Developers is a willingness to help each other that is inspiring.  Nobody wants to see someone else repeat the learning curve they went through.  The Emerging Developer effort has been supported by a number of local sponsors and is worth exploring if your community is thinking about how to cultivate local entrepreneurs doing small scale real estate projects.

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After spending a fair part of the workday on the phone or on video calls coaching small developers, it has been pretty common to find me staying up late to finish work on my own projects.

In an effort to bring more discipline to my daily work routine, my well-organized wife, Eleanor has set up the pay button on the blog (above the photo in the black menu bar) as a way for folks to buy some of my time in scheduled 20 minute blocks.

The rate is $80 per 20 minute block. If you would like to schedule a session, please email me at janderson@andersonkim.com to set up a time. You can attach information to your email that will help me understand your project. (There is no charge for any time I spend reviewing your background information). I typically use Google HangOuts for video call coaching session. Hangouts allows 3 or 4 people on the call and you can share computer screens. Please install Google Hangouts prior to the session and test it out. We can also use Facetime, but Facetime does not allow screen sharing and is limited to two party calls.

As an unexpected side benefit, upgrading the version of the Wordpress blog platform to get the pay button feature eliminated those random advertisements that used to show up in the free version.

Best, John