Some assembly required

The tiny house has often felt like a large storage closet. Supplies and tools piled into the dry little house. boards leaned against walls in an effort to keep them out of the periodic rain. It is refreshing to complete a project or task and in the process slowly see one less board leaning or one fewer box shoved in a corner. It amazes me how the house seems to be like a children's toy or puzzle. We move one thing here and it makes a space there. We align these boards and it starts to display the picture of a wall where once was just a confusing mess of boards. You know the game with all the little squares and you must move them around in just the right order in an effort to complete the puzzle and display the picture. I move the sink to the right, nail box up, piping around, slide the sink back over and oh there it is I am starting to see the bathroom develop into its own space. Ironically, the pile of supplies seams to take up less space once they have been purposed. As a pile it is a mass of daunting tasks and takes up a sizable amount of the room. Once the supplies are placed into their permanent homes they actually makeup the room and seem to slim in appearance or maybe it is just that I am no longer overwhelmed with the project that they once represented. 

up stairs moving forward

Upstairs the wood floor is down and the house feels almost as if it is done. Where a week ago we stood on the deck of the second floor looking through the future walls into the woods or down into the field, now we feel sealed in. We have windows and doors, we have walls covered in Tyvek. A bed now adorns our second floor. A writing desk keeps the bed company. Slowly as the house takes shape we find ourselves bringing little things into the space to make it more than just a house. It is shaping up to be a fine little home. 

tucked in the wood

     This is a view of our house from the East North East. It is the view of our house from where we were married.  While right now the house stands out due to the while of the tyvek, it should blend nicely into the woods when it is clad in a beautiful wood siding. The rolling three pictures show varied zooms of the view. There is a deep dense thicket and regrowth forest between the house and the cliff from which the photo was taken. The final photo on this page is the view of thew cliff looking out of our window in the house. It allows a little perspective of the proximity of trees to the house and the density of trees.

roof: ON

    The roof is on. All but the final two panels where painstakingly put in place with a hammer and ratchet. Though we have a generator it would serve better as a massive paper weight or anchor. Thus, we put the panels in by hand. Tap, Tap, crank. I tried feverishly not to fall off the roof as I aimed to hit the purlins. Only once did I actually have a place picked out on the ground where I thought I was going to land.
     While the roof may not be perfect, it will not leak. It is going to be well insulated and it blends well with the surrounding forrest. Oh, and I did not die or break a bone while building it. All in all  I consider it a successful roofing experience.

other foundational thoughts

So, it is a terrible picture. This is a picture taken under the house. Here we are looking at the front Southeastern corner of the foundation. Visible,  aside from the glare of the sun, is the cinderblock and wood beams. Between the beams and block we placed tar paper to help mitigate the little bit of moisture that could wick up the block and into the wood. We also put a fair amount of sand under the house to act as additional thermal mass. We had the sand and it seemed like a reasonable place to put it. It also makes crawling under the house more comfortable than if it was bare gravel. We will place a vapor barrier over the sand. Lastly, We reinforced the concrete foundation with 2 inch tubular steel. We had an old carport that was destroyed in a tornado so we used the steel to angel brace the foundation and tie it all together. We also used rebar in the foundation but thought the added steel would be a nice addition.

Here is a picture of the house prior to the second floor being studded and roofed.

Inside

Here is a photo of the house in a stage of partial completion as seen from up the hill. It really is tucked into the wood nicely. We cleared the understory and fire ladder to allow for good air flow through the forest as well as excellent forest floor walking area. 

 And now for the first photos of the inside of the house. This photo to the left is taken from the corner of the living area where the wood stove will sit. The photo is looking into the kitchen area, South, The french doors will be just to the left of this photo and the stairs will ascend in the right of the photo frame, where the boards are leaning.

This photo looks out at the kitchen and living area as well. The window on the West wall denotes the location where the stairs will start. The wood stove will be placed just to the right of the red broom handle. The 4x4 beam in the foreground of this shot is a door post into the bathroom, which I am standing in. 

This photo is looking North. The air compressor ( which we have used for exactly 12  finish nails into the windows, all other nails where hand driven) is about there the wood stove will sit. The opening on the right of the shot is for the french doors. The 4x4 post denotes the entry into the bathroom. The bathroom will have a small step up which will help delineate the space. We used poplar for the subfloor and all of the sheeting on the outside of the house has been free oak and pine from the sawmill. The blue tarp hanging down from the second floor is hanging through the hole where the chimney pipe will go. I have left an area open in the floor for easy access as I am yet to get under the house and do plumbing. electrical, etc. . . 

foundation

      I thought I would take a moment and write a little about our foundation. Many tiny houses are built on trailers thus reducing the foundation issue and in most cases eliminating the need to have the structure inspected by a local code enforcer. In our location there are no building codes. We have a health inspector that would come out to inspect a septic or field lines. We also have an electrical inspector that would come out if we were connecting to the grid.
     Our little house is built on one course of cinder block sitting upon two slabs of four inch cement that is laid over gravel filled mountain stone. Half of the foundation is laid over undisturbed sandy loam and sandstone. The other half was about a foot lower and so we compacted soil and small rocks to bring it up level. All of the rock and mountain stone was pulled out of a low exposed area about fifty feet from the house. Inside the foundation we poured a thin coat of concrete in most of the area to act as a barrier. We will still lay a vapor barrier but felt the extra thermal mass of cement would be nice under the house. All of the block is cement filled and we placed threaded rods into some so as to connect to the wood of the house. Inside the block we placed ridged foam in a hope of insulating the foundation and holding temperature inside better.
     As you can see in the photos we had to shim the bottom boards of our house to make it all level. This is mostly due to my lack of experience with pouring a foundation and making it level. We will  have piers about eight feet out from the house on the East to allow for the deck beams to rest level.

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.