Erin Maile O'Keefe 0:00

And the thing I was most interested in architecture was affordable housing and how to make affordable housing dignified and personalized. And so when I started looking into tiny houses I really felt like it would address a lot.

Ethan Waldman 0:13

Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast The show where you learn how to plan, build and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and this is episode 71 with Erin Maile O'Keefe, I just finished teaching a two week long tiny house design build course with Erin and was blown away by her design skills, unique insights and the amazing paper boat tiny house that she designed and built for her husband Kevin and herself. The way her house uses space and allows occupants to flow from the public space of the living room. All the way to the private space of the bedroom is incredibly unique and really impressive. I knew I wanted to have Erin on the show to talk about tiny house design, her work in the local community, and the event she organized Tiny House fest Vermont, which is currently in its fourth year. I hope you stick around.

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All right, I am here with Erin Maile O'Keefe as an educator and community artist and activator. Erin has developed kinesthetic multi generational curriculums facilitating group inclusion connection co authorship and empathy. For over two decades she has led in school arts residency curriculums that activate anatomy and life science studies for elementary students attending in a community performance and student led workshops. Erin's background in dance theater and architecture has made the crafting of temporal spaces and community play at the core of much of her work with the completion of a master's certificate in creative placemaking at Ohio State University, Erin founded the human connection project that focuses on activating communities through municipal wide arts projects, creative placemaking and experiential engagement. partners include local schools, businesses, organizations, municipalities and pedestrians. In 2016, Erin co founded Tiny House festival Vermont was the meaningful conversations about building housing and place the process of designing and building her first home that paper boathouse has reignited the dream she had at age seven of designing architectural spaces. Erin Mailey O'Keefe Welcome to the show.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 4:15

Thank you I'm learning,

Ethan Waldman 4:17

we should say that we are here together at the Yestermorrow design build school in Waitsfield, Vermont.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 4:23

Yes, we've had the incredible pleasure of working and teaching together in the last 12 days.

Ethan Waldman 4:29

It has been an amazing experience. I've been really inspired by what an amazing eye you have for design. As we've been walking around, like looking at the students designs, I like run out of things to say and then you go over and have like, so many more things to say ditto

Erin Maile O'Keefe 4:47

in the same way I stop and then you pick up there and I've really been appreciative of all the research you've done over the last how many years decades. So we should

Ethan Waldman 4:58

probably just quick We kind of explain like, what, what is Yestermorrow? And what is this crazy thing that we've been doing? Right?

Erin Maile O'Keefe 5:05

So Yestermorrow is a design build school that started 40 years ago next year, it's going to celebrate its 40th. Year it started in John Connells, the above John Connells garage. And his whole mission was to put design skills and build skills into the hands of the dwellers, that will occupy them.

Ethan Waldman 5:24

So cool. And the campus is kind of littered with amazing projects made from straw bale and Tadelakt walls and timber framing. And they really were early on, you know, jumping in and starting to teach Tiny House classes.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 5:42

years ago, they actually arguably had the first tiny house festival here, I think it was in 2011. So they kind of started the bigger conversation about how to go small. Yeah,

Ethan Waldman 5:55

good for them. Yeah. So the class that we're teaching is a two week intensive where students get to both learn some design chops and also work on an actual construction project.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 6:10

Yes, they. So that's where they get to really kind of Occupy and build this kind of spaces that they're thinking about designing. So that kind of kinesthetic, and hands on experiential learning is really powerful here.

Ethan Waldman 6:26

Absolutely. I've been, it's just been amazing to watch how much they have progressed in these last two weeks. Some, some of them seemingly had never used a hammer before. And by the end, you know, everybody was using a circular saw, everyone had a chance with a nail gun. It was it was pretty amazing.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 6:47

And I don't think I spoke to one person that wanted to stop building, that was a very hard experience for them to stop building.

Ethan Waldman 6:54

I know we had to pull them back into the classroom today, I felt a little bad to do. Well, I want to just start by asking you to describe your house, the paper boat, what is the shape of it? Was there a particular design inspiration for it, or did the shape follow the function that you were trying to get from it.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 7:21

So I should also say that I came to Yestermorrow and took a tiny house design course, which was about five days. And that was, that was a few years ago, probably almost three years ago. And in that time, in that five day period, I got to really just focus on design. And I've always loved modern kind of Scandinavian design. I knew when I designed my home, I wanted to have those clean and clear lines, big windows inside, gets pulled out outside gets pulled in. So I think over the years, I've just cataloged a lot of very utilitarian and simple, modern Scandinavian aesthetics and features.

But actual, like the primary part of my design that was driven by the vertical circulation, so the stairs and stairs, for any of you out there that have tried to design stairs in a small space or any space at all, they take about like, like 500% more space than you think I killed like give a lot like the small little square in the corner of your plan and you're like wait, there's vertical run, vertical rise and and and horizontal run that just can't fit there. So I ended up tipping out. Because in a in a tiny house design, it's on a trailer. It's not a house, like it's not a conventional house, the proportions are different. So I just gave myself the freedom to create a shape that really rose out of the footprint and out of the function of the internal space. And so I counted the back wall. At about a size it's somewhere around a 65 degree angle. And I ran my my stairs up the wall. What that also did was that I wanted to make sure that I divided the living kitchen space from the private sleeping and changing space. I didn't want an open loft. So I knew I wanted to circulate as far as vertical circulate as far away from the entrance of the house. So that back wall got tipped outward. Those stairs run up and are supported by that back wall. And then once I tipped that back wall I tipped the front wall and then all of a sudden it started to look like origami or it quickly got its name that paper boat.

Ethan Waldman 9:52

Yeah, it does have a little bit of a boat that it looks like the hull of a boat, but it doesn't look boat Like, it's actually, I find it aesthetically quite pleasing. Thank you. And, as always, with Erin's permission, I will post lots of beautiful photos of the paper boat on the show notes page for this episode, which I'll I'll say at the end.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 10:21

In addition, I, once you're up in that space, I popped up like kind of a dormer a window, so that the loft space had quite a bit of light without having to use a skylight. So that also gives this interesting fold. So I started to work with in the, on the exterior side, working with this idea that the exterior were these paper cuts or angles that were folded. So the outside has this paper quality. And then there's layers of, there's also a panel that changes materials. So it's, it's a simple exterior with, with a little bit of corrugated metal and a lot of vertical shiplap. But it does have this quality of folding.

Ethan Waldman 11:10

Yeah, and what's amazing about it, that you wouldn't necessarily think right off the bat is how much longer the house is on the quote, unquote, second storey, than it is on the first floor. Right.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 11:25

So the front, I'm going to call it the front where you enter. And this is in the the short wall that is the width of the trailer. And then the back, which is way from the tongue of the trailer, which is the tall wall where there's vertical circulation is the tall wall is at a greater angle than the front, I tipped the front. So that, you know it would be balanced visually and interesting. But what also is interesting about it is that as you walk into the space, that tipped wall next to you on your right side really gives a feeling of opening to this idea that you're coming through a doorway, a smaller doorway, feeling that sense of compression. And then as you walk in, the space kind of unfolds in front of you. So on the right side, you have this wall canted out. And then I've got a long shed roof, which you see on the interior of the living space, which rises up towards the loft, which you just see a wall there. Because it's closed in.

Ethan Waldman 12:30

Yeah, And so the layout and just the design work that went into the kind of, I want to call it the central core, like the utilities core of this house is really amazing. And it will be hard to really describe it. But can you kind of tell us what the overall length of the trailer is and what you were able to fit into this house in terms of utilities. Okay.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 13:00

So I've also designed a number of other spaces. And the approach I have is that there are certain spaces in your house that are just human function spaces where you're doing one thing, and if you're doing one thing, then you really don't need a lot of space. So how do you really compress all of those kinds of spaces, and overlap some of the circulation to where your feet are going to go. So really tracking where your feet are going. And how can your feet cross those same spots or use those same open spots on the floor to do a multiple, multiple functions. So if you're standing in a serious, two foot by two foot or three foot by three foot square, what are their three sides, two or three sides where you are doing different things, what brushing your teeth, going in your cabinets, and washing your laundry, I have one little two foot by two foot space with my feeder there. So when I approached this, I really wanted to divide the space, I wanted to give great priority to the living and dining area kitchen area, it really is what I should say because there's really big kitchen. And then once you hit midway through it's a 30 foot trailer. So the front part has about 17 feet in the front, and then 13 in the back. And then one thing you had alluded to is how much space I got by counting those walls. The back can't is four feet. At the very peak, it's four feet further than the 30 foot trailer. So it creates this incredible volume. So if you were to stand on the edge of the back trailer and you look up there's another four feet in a triangle at the top of that, so So the space divided like that with a shear wall in the center. Once you get past that middle point at 17 feet you I have two, pantries that pull out that have the has the most densely focused storage. And those are accessed from both sides. From the kitchen side, you see the kitchen stuff from the hallway or the back area under the loft, you see either medicine cabinet or my cleaning supplies. And then the bathroom and the shower are separated. The design is has a central axis. So I have a long view in my house intentionally. So you can bring light in from, in my case, the North and the South. And the there is a tiny sink and a bath toilet that are in a small room with a sliding door. The shower is off to the right of the hallway. And it is its own room with strategically placed frosted glass in the middle of the body. And then back behind that there's a changing room with hanging and bureaus and I live there with my husband, Kevin. So it's very much a his hers kind of setup.

Ethan Waldman 16:11

Yeah, it's it's so well thought out. I heard you joke in the class that you realized that it was one big cabinet. Yeah, a big cabinet job. And the cabinetry is gorgeous. And as soon as you look at the pictures, you'll say yeah, that's a that is an intricate cabinet job. Yeah,

Erin Maile O'Keefe 16:30

you definitely have to send out ups to to Dwight Holmes, who's an incredible cabinet maker and Brattleboro. And I saw a stair case that he made with this railing. And I was like, Oh, this is this is definitely the first I'm going to work with

Ethan Waldman 16:43

this is the guy this is the guy. Yeah, the. As soon as I saw the design, I was like, That's brilliant. I love hearing you talk about how showers are rooms, so they don't need their own room. Right?

Erin Maile O'Keefe 17:01

Right. That little area in front of the shower, if it's inside a room is just a place you step out to dry yourself and you can drive yourself inside, or you can drive yourself in the hall or you can write right and

Ethan Waldman 17:11

you even you even designed a sliding panel that would prevent you from say flashing your guests in the living room. As you step out of the shower,

Erin Maile O'Keefe 17:22

they can see my feet because of the of the wheel well. But that's it. Yes. And then. So that little sliding door that Ethan's talking about just comes out covers the shower area, and behind that are our dressers that are built in and are hanging so we can change back there. So there's very much a progression from private to public if you start in the bed. So in the design process, there are so many ways to approach it right. So we talked about approaching it from the exterior, we talked about approaching it from vertical circulation from the central axis where I wanted light, how I wanted to densify all of human function places. And but there's also very much this idea that I'm that I think about it, I think about architecture as choreography. So I think about my choreography as a human moving through space, like a score. And so and I also have to think consider another human, my husband, Kevin. So what do we do from the moment we wake up to starting in the bed, really charting our activity, and how each space can open to the activity that we would do next. So the way it's designed to get out of bed, you out of bed, there's a little platform where we can meditate and stretch, come down the stairs, and there's the place where we have our clothes and our shower, and then the bathroom. And then suddenly we pass through the center wall of this and we're in kitchen and we're in the public.

Ethan Waldman 18:58

It's it's great the way that it flows from private to public or public Public to Private depending on which direction you're coming from. Yes. How have you enjoyed living in it?

Erin Maile O'Keefe 19:09

I have to say, we are so we're surprised every day at how much we love living there. I'm so I'm delighted. And I'm one of those people are like, Well, I have planned a, b and c. So I designed it but and I think it was gonna be good. And we spent I spent a lot of time designing it and spent a lot of time building it longside some really skilled and wonderful trades people and put in the things we really wanted. But all that said I was like, if we don't love it, we will do something different. And every single day we wake up and we just pinch ourselves. We feel so lucky to be in that space. It feels spacious. It feels like just what we need and it feels like it's opened our lives and a lot of ways

Ethan Waldman 20:00

That's awesome. What? Maybe you could share what? You know what made you decide to build a house on wheels in the first place? Yeah.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 20:10

So I originally had designed a house to replace the house, we bought a house in Brattleboro. It was really a camp, it was a hunting cabin. And so when it was originally built, it wasn't intended for three or four seasons. And then through a couple other ownerships before us, they gradually kind of upped the utilities and added on. So the oldest part of the house had so many challenges, I had replaced the roof, and done a few things and decided, you know, it really after looking at it looking at with a lot of people, a lot of different builders and architects it looked like we should probably just start from scratch. So I built a house there. I mean, I designed a house for that spot, and it was 900 square feet, and there was no way we could afford it. So we regrouped. And that was a that was a few year process. And thought, well, if we kind of slowly make improvements to the old house and rent it in a market in Brattleboro that really needs rentals, and then I started to build something in the back corner of the property that would make more sense. And then I could take my time doing that. So then I started looking at Tiny houses, because that was the budget we had. And I also really loved their flexibility. I love to the idea that like for some reason, if we were called to go and move close to family members, we could move it or if we decided our trade needs changed. And so this house suited someone else they could sell it, they could buy it and and move it. So I got really intrigued by that. And I did go to architecture way back when I did not complete that I went for two years. And the thing I was most interested in architecture was affordable housing and how to make affordable housing, dignified and personalize. And so when I started looking into tiny houses, I really felt like it would address a lot of our housing needs here in Vermont, regionally, nationally and even internationally. So I got kind of really into it. And I I started a conversation in my living room with a few people that were also interested locally, and and decided that I was going to build one. And so at that moment, I was designing my house, planning the build. And a dear friend of mine, Betsy, who was also part of those conversations said, Hey, we just started festival.

Ethan Waldman 22:45

That's awesome. So and that's also a great segue into talking about the Vermont. Tiny fast. Yes.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 22:52

So that's you asked me one time I said no, because I said, you know, I'm building my first house. And then she asked me again, I said, really? I don't have time. I'm really I've never built a house before. So this is this is gonna take me all my attention. The third time she asked me I said, Okay, fine, let's do it. How hard could it be? I took time off of teaching. We'll do a festival at the same time. So I should also disclose that I've run a lot of festivals, so she asked the right person. Ah, yeah. So it's tiny house fest, Vermont, and we are this year and 2019 are having our fourth annual festival. It started in Brattleboro. It was also in the streets of Brattleboro over a street that has been somewhat under utilized, but has incredible bones for a festival. It's right down on the whetstone across from our co op. It's called flat Street. It is flat, which is also kind of great. And had a has a number of parking lots and a number of vacant lots that we could put tents up in. And so since the first year to now we've grown quite a bit. We thought we'd have 400 people the first year and we think we had 4000 Wow, yeah, there's a little there's a little buzz around tiny houses. I don't know if you've noticed. I know

Ethan Waldman 24:16

they just travel people in we are all fliers and tiny houses are a fluorescent light.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 24:22

Totally I call it the shiny object of the center. Or the cute

Ethan Waldman 24:26

kitten? Absolutely. Yeah. So the festival is moving for the first time this year.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 24:34

First time this year. It's been the last three years. It's been Brattleboro this year. It's in wait for it. Drumroll the Mad River Valley so it started off by three friends Betsy Lisa, me during this festival and quickly getting in over our heads because of the fervor around tiny houses. And I don't want to say too, like. Our intention is really to have meaningful conversations, like you said, in my bio, the meaningful conversations around housing to me, tiny houses are this incredible, like golden wedge into the housing market. And it's opening up conversations around insurance and finance and zoning. That's, I think that is one of the biggest. The biggest benefits of, of the tiny house movement is that that zoning is being challenged in a lot of communities where disenfranchised people have been locked. I mean, zoning has created disenfranchised people, and, and dwellers, and, you know, there's some, it just feels like, on the planet, we are the only species where we can actually be houseless. So how do we really consider how, how can we? How can everyone dwell in the way that suits them the best? And how do we help that happen? So there's a lot of angles at the festival, we do look at technologies that are building science that's coming up. So we have healthier spaces, oftentimes, those healthier spaces and techniques cost more money. So we're having conversations there and hoping to really connect those building scientists, with the end user that maybe can't afford those super expensive systems. So how do they how can they meet the needs of more of a bigger audience? And then sharing stories of people's personal housing journeys? How did they think about housing? What did had they build it? Where did they put it? How small was it? What do you really need? How can you phase in your building all those things that, I think being able to have a festival where everyone can come and listen, and talk and about those topics, it makes that journey to having a house more accessible,

Ethan Waldman 27:08

I have to say, I've been to a lot of tiny house festivals, and there's nothing else like this. And I say that in a good way, this is much more inclusive and focused on education. And as you've said, the conversations, many tiny house festivals, and I'm not knocking them, because they give you a chance to at least see a lot of tiny houses and interact with people who live in tiny houses. But they're not facilitating a lot of conversations and bringing in a really unique set of voices, voices from outside of the tiny house movement, who might have something really valuable to give, you know, people who are interested in affordable housing or sustainability, or, you know, financing all these, you know, I'm looking just at the presenter lineup from last year, and wishing that I didn't miss it.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 28:07

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of cross pollination that happens. And on that level, too. We have a statewide decision makers that are there we have our legislators they are we. So many decisions, of course, are made in our state houses, which is the way that we're structured. And then it's up to us as citizens to get to our representatives and make sure that our voices are heard, and they represent us. There are other ways of that happening too. And so this festival is kind of an open forum. And it has to be fun. So as an experiential educator, like having those tiny houses there, you get to go into a house, you get to experience that, and then come out and have a conversation, that's a different conversation. It's not necessarily just from your head, you just experienced a small space, you might say, Oh, I couldn't do this, or, Oh, I could totally live this way. Whatever it is, or I want a little bit of this house, a little bit of that house. And oh, I see how they figured out how to get this house off a trailer. And it's on a foundation or whatever it is, whatever your needs are. And there were you know, right now, Ethan and I are teaching nine students, and every single one of them have very different circumstances, so different. And that is just a slice of what's out there. So having the houses they're having different talks and panels, having a community vision stage, which is thinking on the people that are thinking on a broader like how to all these houses fit together. How do they fit together with common public spaces? How do we build up our public spaces, maybe size down our housing so that we can afford it and it's sustainable into our old age? Lots of bigger thinking that way kind of systems thinking and then on the design build stage. You can come And you can really skill up yourself and get yourself ready to design or CO design if you want to bring in a designer fine, but at least be really empowered as an act of co author of your design. Absolutely. And if you want to start building to you're also going to skill up enough to know what you don't know. And then two goes, you'll have resources to go nowhere to go to get those skills to build your own house. And then the third stage is the story stage, which is really wonderful. You get to step into someone else's journey, you get to step into their houses. And it's just a beautiful way to learn through other people's stories.

Ethan Waldman 30:47

We should probably tell people when the fest is Oh,

Erin Maile O'Keefe 30:50

yeah. This year, it's on Sunday, October 27. And that's at it'll be at the base of sugar bush. ski mountain. Okay, so

Ethan Waldman 31:03

that's the Sugarbush resort, in Waitsfield, Vermont, technically, Warren, technically, Warren, they're right next door to where they are. And where can people learn more,

Erin Maile O'Keefe 31:15

so you can go to the website, and you can go to tiny house fest.com Or Tiny House fest vermont.com. And they both go to the same place. The same place. Nice. Yeah. Well, I

Ethan Waldman 31:25

want to circle back actually to to your tiny house and your lifestyle. Hearing you talk about the fest brought up some more questions for me, which was just you enjoy living there? Is it working financially socially? Like is it is it working to meet the needs that you identified? When you said, Hey, why don't we save some money by living in a tiny house? In our in our own backyard?

Erin Maile O'Keefe 31:57

Yeah, I think it is, we definitely dropped our own personal utilities, we still have a house that we rent that has higher utilities. So I think we're, we're able to take the money that we get in rent and reinvest into the old house and make that more sustainable. So overall, yes, we are saving money. And we have money to reinvest into an old house, rather than tearing it down to maybe gradually improve it.

Ethan Waldman 32:32

Nice. So then it sounds like it. It is working out. Yeah.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 32:36

And then we get great. We have three different families or individuals. We're a family and but there's a single person that's in one of the apartments, there was already an apartment that was attached to the house. And then there's the house apartment. And that's had another family in it. So we do we have we're populating our little halfacre.

Ethan Waldman 32:56

Nice, little mini tiny house community. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about something that's in your bio, your master's certificate in creative placemaking. What is creative placemaking.

Erin Maile O'Keefe 33:11

So creative placemaking is it's really kind of a title that was given by the last Director of the National Endowment for the Arts. And it's, it's a title to its to describe an approach to community development, arts engagement, and urban planning, or local planning of sorts. So it crosses over all three of those major fields. And it really is describing things that people have already been doing in a way that was so it was so exciting for me, because I was like, I've been working as an experiential educator for the last 30 years, and wanting to take that work that I do in the schools and in smaller communities traveled in a lot around the world teaching and bring them to whole municipalities. So that it isn't a either self selected or, or concentrated, already related group. But how do we bring disparate communities together within a municipality and really help them connect in an experiential way. So that when I heard about creative placemaking, I was like, oh, that's what I'm doing. And also studying architecture, I really realized that I was probably more drawn to planning than I was to architecture. I was much more interested interested in the spaces between the interstitial spaces between us then like the monolithic structure, so So we went and I studied that and it it you The validity a lot of the ideas I had been thinking about ideas I had put into action, but then it also gave me other skills around working with communities on the level of like real community development, which is can be a very sticky and juicy topic in communities, so But I tend to bring fun into it so that I don't ever hold meetings, I only hold events, and we get people to events. And then we get their ideas, their voices are heard, and then we create of that create something out of that. So a lot of creative placemaking is about what is emergent in a community. How do we reflect the actual demographic of the community today, not not just what happened before we want to honor history. And when we say history, this goes back to the indigenous people that lived on this land, that we make sure that our history is deep, it goes back to geological history, so that we really are building the whole history, but also really acknowledging the people that live here, right here and now. And then what are the needs? What are the places that we can cultivate, whether they're permanent, are temporal spaces, where we can come together that can be utilized in a multitude of ways. So sometimes, creative placemaking might be building a park, it might be creating a parklet, where you're pulling, you're using parking spaces as places of connection where people can have their lunch or they can play games. It could also be creating a festival. So the tiniest festival is very much a creative placemaking initiative. How do we engage the public in multitude of ways? How do we bring in local partnerships? We have so many great organizations doing wonderful things in all the communities here in Vermont and around the country? How do we help those organizations meet their mission, individually as individual organizations, but collectively do one project. So it's kind of taking an eagle view, and really considering all of the stakeholders and helping a community kind of buoy themselves with places and events and identity. I

Ethan Waldman 37:24

can see you doing this both on your own little one acre property, too. And also with the tiny house fast, so well done. Thank you. Do you have any favorite books or resources about design or even about tiny houses that helped you along the way that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Erin Maile O'Keefe 37:50

That's a good question. I've consulted a lot. The one that's coming to mind right now, which I I love, it's kind of been my go to, because it's really about how do you capture that? That one central idea for your design is rock the shack? You know, I don't know that book. It's a it's a really beautiful book. And they're generally small spaces. And they have just like, there's a powerful message coming through each of those designs. And I think that really helps. Rather than starting, you have to start with your program and all the things you want in there. But what's the overall like real statement you want to make? Is it an interior space? Is it cozy? Is it projecting out? Whatever it is? Yeah, he's got some clever ideas. And there's some spaces in there that could be built very affordably. And there's some that are on the other end of the spectrum, right. Yeah. $200,000 cabin. Yeah, definitely. And, but that's what they publish. Nice. Yeah. Oh, and then also Oh, before that Rural Studio, anything, any book by Rural Studio about Samuel mockbee. There, they have been working for decades. Down in the south at Auburn, and they have been focused on the $20,000 house. And last year at the festival, we brought somebody up from Rural Studio to talk about that initiative. So they have been really influential for me.

Ethan Waldman 39:22

That's awesome. Did they did do you think that that role studio influenced your own tiny house design?

Erin Maile O'Keefe 39:31

Probably in materials, yes. I and, you know, probably some of their their spaces also are they're modern and they are they use a lot of plywood. So you know, very straight up, easy to access material that is relatively inexpensive depending on what grade you use. So I have a lot of plywood in my house. You out.

Ethan Waldman 40:02

Well, Erin Maile O'Keefe, this has been so fun. And I feel like we could keep talking for hours. But we actually have a class to teach soon. We did last day. And I want to thank you so much for being a guest on the show. Thanks,

Erin Maile O'Keefe 40:15

Ethan. It's been a joy to spend the last couple days with you. And this has been a great conversation. Thanks a lot. Thanks for what you do.

Ethan Waldman 40:23

I highly recommend checking out the photos of Erin's paper boat tiny house at the tiny house.net/ 071. There you'll find the show notes from today's episode, including links to the resources that Erin mentioned, and lots of great photos. Again, that's the tiny house dotnet slash 071. Thank you so much to Erin Mailey O'Keefe for being a guest on our show. And thank you so much to our sponsor, Jamaica cottage shop. Well, that's all for this week. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman. And I'll be back next week with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.