Enduring craftsmanship: Building a tiny house with Yestermorrow

March 19, 2025  |  By Myla van Lynde  |  Community News Service

Instructor Jussi Silliman answers questions from Tiny House Design/Build Certificate students. The team has finished framing their tiny house, and they’re now moving on to sheathing, which helps keep the building strong and square. Photo by Myla van Lynde

Editor’s note: Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, in partnership with Vermont Public. We recommend listening to this story. Read the audio story transcript here

Yestermorrow Design/Build School is located in the heart of Vermont’s Mad River Valley. It’s been around for 45 years. They teach hands-on courses in design, construction, woodworking and architectural craft. 

Like the name — a portmanteau of “yesterday” and “tomorrow” — suggests, the school merges traditional building methods with the needs of the present and future.  

This winter, the school offered a Tiny House Design/Build Certificate program. Students and teachers spent a month building a tiny house on wheels inside an airplane hangar at Sugarbush Airport.

The hangar has a wide, domed ceiling. There are wood planks stacked on the ground, and clipboards, papers and cups of tea scattered across tables. 

The class splits their time between the hangar and Yestermorrow’s nearby main campus, which houses their dining room, studio spaces and library.  

This class has four students and three teachers.

Violeta Moran, a student from the south of Spain, described the teaching environment as “personalized” and said students can ask lots of questions. 

“I feel like I’m learning a lot, and it’s giving me motivation,” she said. “Because before I felt lost, but now here I feel more prepared to start building my own house.”

Moran plans to build her own tiny house on wheels when she returns to Spain.  

Instructor Jussi Silliman, who’s been teaching at Yestermorrow for almost a year, said they’re not necessarily trying to finish a building by the end of the course.  

“We’re trying to give the students the most well-rounded learning experience they can get,” he said. “And it’s sort of for us as a group to figure out what everyone wants.”

Silliman said he enjoys gathering as a group with a common goal in mind.  

“We’re a team of people trying to learn something together for a month, which is a really cool, unique thing.”

Through a combination of studio instruction, hands-on construction and offsite visits to nearby homes, the students experience many aspects of both the design and building processes. Integrating designing and building is central to Yestermorrow’s mission as a school.   

Lina Menard first came to Yestermorrow twelve years ago as a student. Now she’s a teacher in the tiny house program.

Menard said that usually, there’s a disconnect between designers and builders which can lead to less efficient and less creative building systems. At Yestermorrow, the two processes are taught in tandem.  

“Houses have always been my favorite thing in the world,” Menard said. “This idea that we could learn to both design and build the places that we call home was really a fascinating idea. There’s just something really cool about being able to do both of those things: to understand how to make things in the world, and how to create the things that you imagine.”  

Menard is drawn to tiny houses and Accessory Dwelling Units because of the role they might play in the future of housing. Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, are smaller, independent residential units located on the same lot as a standalone single-family home.  

Menard said tiny houses and ADUs aren’t the sole solution to the complex housing crisis, but by having them be options, we have more housing choice and flexibility. 

“I think that we need to be able to have these housing types because we simply need more good, safe, affordable housing in our country,” she said.  

Student Adinah Barnett also plans to put her skills to use to address the need she sees in her community. 

“Providing warm shelter for people who don’t have access is really important, obviously, and I know that there’s a lot of people working toward that, so if I can be a part of that, you know, that is extremely fulfilling to me,” she said.  

“It’s building something that’s going to have a life.”

Yestermorrow typically offers this tiny house course once a year. And while this session ended in late February, it’s clear these students will bring the lessons they’ve learned with them far into the future.  

For students and teachers alike, the lessons of yesterday become the tools for tomorrow.