Addition número 2

The time has come for the tiny house to yet again grow. This time we will be adding a little indoor bathroom set up, bedroom, and creative studio. Three days into the build and the roof is on. The hour after we finished, the rain started. It has been a relaxing project as I have been off work for Winter break. The downstairs will be 10x12. Upstairs our door to nowhere now leads to 10x6 studio space for Donnelly. 

Tiny house connected

Why the 4x4s are protruding: The 4x4s are part of the floor support for the second story of the house. We purposefully designed then to protrude from the house. This is not some kind of adobe stick roof design throwback attempt but rather a structural idea. By leaving the 4x4s extended we will be able to tie our roofing beams into them. We will through bolt the beams and the 4x4s thus creating a fully connected house. This could either make the house a stalwartly solid unit or be a terrible idea the causes the house, particularly the floor, to creek when the wind blow agains the porch roof. 

update October week one

So, we have been busy at work. Actually busy at work. We have not had the time to put toward the tiny timber house that we would have liked. The start of October has seen a slowing in the construction of the house. Though thanks to a friend for letting us borrow a floor stapler the wood flooring is almost done.

Yesterday we framed the shower walls. We help to do a concrete shower with a little help from of friends at Set in Stone. We are also almost ready to template out countertops. We plan to do the countertops in concrete as well, also with some help from Set in Stone. The bathroom wall, our only interior wall, is framed.

We bought a bathroom sink this week. This brings our secured amenity total to: bathroom sink, shower head, kitchen sink, propane cooktop, and propane hot water heater. We chose cast iron sinks for both of our sinks and the hot water heater is an outdoor model that we are retrofitting to supply the house. More on that concept to follow, when we install.

This week is Fall break at the school I work at. Meaning, we will have additional time to work on the house. Yesterday we framed a door on the second floor and that takes us one step closer to being fully dried in. By the end of this upcoming week we will be. We are then ready for our radiant barrier insulation. Check out the stuff we use at our friends blog: tiny revolution.

Yesterday was a big day. We framed a door, built piers for the front porch. Laid timbers level on the piers and nailed in deck joists. We also took care of framing the entire bathroom/ shower.

This is the update for now. I will try to get some photos soon.

tinyrevolution.us/http://tinyrevolution.us/2012/10/05/special-radiant-barrier-and-insulation-offer-from-ecofoil/

update

This past week I have been sick. We have done little work and thus the lack of posts. Sorry for the unexplained stop in posting flow. I am starting to feel much better and plan to have a weekend full of house work.

Though I have been sick we have done a little work on the house. We have almost finished laying the maple flooring on the second floor. This has been a chore considering that our generator is on its last leg. It was bought used two years ago. Apparently it had lived a full life before me and I made sure to provide it with plenty of heavy lifting to finish it off. I can get it to run for up to two minutes at a time which allows us to fill the air compressor, nail a few tongue and groove planks with the stapler, and then run back down the ladder to adjust the carburetor/ begin the process again. Needless to say it has been an endeavor.  Today I plan for us to finish the flooring and frame in a door as well as a window.

Roof work

     Looking up throughout the "vent" where the chimney will go you can see the roof is coming nicely. We used radiant bubble insulation under the metal roof. The bubble insulation is placed under the purlins so as to create an air space that allows the radiant barrier to do its job. We did not place insulation under the overhang outside the house as we did not feel it was essential to protect the air below the roof.
       The bubble insulation is rated to R-11. Considering that most 2x4 walls are filled with R-13, I feel R-11 is a great value for such a thin layer of insulation. We do still plan to put standard insulation in-between the roof trusses. The standard insulation will be rated R-30. This will bring our combined roof insulation to R-41 plus the radiant barrier that reflects heat. All together it should be a well insulated roof, keeping out heat in the Summer and keeping in heat in the Winter.

second floor update

 The second floor is almost done. We have to a few windows to install and the stud work to support said windows. The roof is coming along nicely. We have all of the roof trusses up as of this past weekend. The pictures hearer show all but two trusses up. The photos also show the house before the North wall was built. More photos are to come. I often get distracted with building and forget to stop and take photos of the progress. We are using metal roofing and a radiant barrier on the roof. We nailed wide purlins in place to stabilize the trusses before placing the radiant barrier down. Once the radiant insulation was in place we nailed purlins on top of our wide purlins. These top purlins will allow us to screw the metal down while still maintaining an air space between the radiant insulation and the metal roof. This air gap is important in order for the radiant barrier to work properly, according to my reading.
The main floor is wrapped in tyvek. The windows are in and it is starting to feel like a real house. My next post will have the first photos of inside.

square thoughtage

The average American household is now over 2000 square feet. The average American individual has around 1000 square feet of personal living space. These statistics vary slightly depending on the source but hold reasonably close regardless. As the modern family has morphed and shrunk the homes in which we sleep, spend weekends, holidays, and special events has expanded. The expansion is something to the tune of doubling within one lifetime. This is an extreme reality of modern American life, we own larger homes have smaller families. Paradoxical? I think yes. 

There is a movement, a currently chic and trendy movement, toward small homes. Homes that are minimalistic in size. Homes that are even tiny. This movement is rooted in diverse beginnings, as diverse as the owners of such homes. Some build a tiny home because they want to create something unique. They want something that they themselves crafted and a tiny home is no so daunting as a two story colonial. Others buy tiny homes as a way to avoid debt. The smaller home carries a smaller price tag and allows the owner a freedom from debt. A smaller home with the smaller price tag afford these individuals the ability to fill their small space with quality over quantity. Still others, own tiny homes because the life they live are conducive to a small home. We sleep at home but we live in our cars. We cook breakfast at home but we eat lunch and diner in town. We work all day and spend the evening in the shops. Despite the regional and cultural differences across the county we spend less time at home today than ever before. It is time our house design reflect our culture and not that of our parents, or the aristocracy of past centuries. 

We are building a tiny home for all of these reasons. A tiny home is not limited by size. It is designed to evolve. It should be fluid as our lives are fluid. Our house will be 400 square feet. We will have outdoor living areas; covered porch areas, garden paths, rows of fruit trees. The design accounts for future additions. We may enclose a section of porch, converting a screened room to an extra bedroom if the need arises. If the need moves out it can always be converted back to a screen roof. It is fluid. We are accounting for desires such as creative work space. This may enlarge our house but not without reason, for thought and consideration for design. A tiny house is about creative use of space, multi purposing, quality over quantity. A tiny house is about purpose and freedom. It is not limited by size but empowered by it. We have chosen to build a tiny house.

Second floor

       This past week has proved to be productive. Partly due to the threat of impending rain and partly because we made a conscious effort to build on multiple days. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the camera for a daily snap shot. The photo to the left is our progress as of the end of the week.  The sub floor is done, save a small strip that will allow access to the crawl space. The second floor has half of the studs done. Yes, we are building the second floor with traditional framing as opposed to timber framing. Building the timber ribs was fun and interesting but there is no way we can safely raise ribs on a second floor. Not to mention we ran out of cured oak for the process. So, standard stud walls it is. We are using saw mill cut pine from the mill five miles away. 2x4x8s are 2.40 a board and that beats Lowes by a mile, not to mention it is locally sourced, cut and milled. Additionally, the wood from the mill is true cut as opposed to the "standard" lumber from the store that is labeled 2x4 but is really smaller.
      We were able to build a jig and finish half of our roof trusses this week. We lifted them into place with a reasonable amount of grunting and ladder climbing. The metal roofing and reflective bubble insulation was picked up this week and we will hopefully install it in the next couple days.
     Yesterday, amidst the rain, we burned four large piles of brush. Most of the brush was from clearing the site for the house. We also burned a large amount of brush from our recent clearing in the forest surrounding the house. The burning really helped to clean up the surrounding area and removing the downed brush from the forest will make room for our hazelnut planting this Fall.
    Below are several more pictures of the house in its current state, taken from different angles. The second to bottom photo is taken from the lower field and gives good perspective on how the house sits up on the hill.

Final rib

The final rib is upright and secured to the others with 4x4 beams. The 4x4 beams will serve as floor supports. They are lag screwed into the main 6x6 beams and extend out of the house. The extension of these beams will allow for connection the ceiling rafters to the front porch. The interconnection of all beams in the house help with stability and structure of the design. 

Stepping back to look at the structure. It is so rewarding to see the house with the actual end walls in place. It gives a real sense of the size and shape of the house. Standing up on the second floor joices gives an idea of the view and how the house is built into the edge of the forest. 

Third Rib

The third rib is up, square and level. We have begun "mocking up" the future porch by laying a beam out to a pier. It is shaping up as planned and we will be ready for the second story soon. 

It is nice to see the lumber pile migrating into use as portions of the house. We are most of the way through the pile and will be in need of another run to the lumber mill soon. Considering the lumber mill is 4.8 miles away this should not be too much of a time suck. 

The sub floor is in in the bathroom as well as in part of the main house. We have left a access door into the crawl space so as to allow under house adventures and plumbing/ electric work as needed or when. It was nice to stand up on the future second floor and look down. It was also nice to catch a glimpse of what the view will be from the bedroom. 

The above photo shows our shameless use of lag bolts to hold the timber frame together. We did use angle bracing ( cherry in this case) to help keep the frame in square. While mortis and tenon would have been beautiful and is an honorable craft. It is not a craft I possess and so in the interest of stability the lag screws are countersunk into the frames, hidden but there. 

beginning: tiny timber house

Construction has begun on the timber framed tiny house. We have tucked the house onto a terrace in the woods and most all the supplies have been hand carried to the spot due to limited access via vehicles. We are using 6x6 oak beams. The photos to the left show the bathroom area up and framed. The footprint is 200 square foot. The total will be a 400 square foot house with kitchen and bathroom on the main level and laundry, bedroom, closet and sitting are upstairs.