Okay.... I can't wait any longer. I have to bring this thing back to the present moment. This posting in the past just isn't working for me. I will still keep trucking along with previous posts so you can see the progress that has been made. But the present moment is all we have right now and we are so much further along then what this blog has been making you believe. So sit back, take in a few deep breaths and enjoy this present moment of the weekend
This whole process is going by so fast I'm having a very difficult time keeping up with it.
Fortunately though we are right on time with the building, even with the heavy rain that showered us the last few days. All the walls are up and covered with plywood sheathing. the roof beams and rafters are up and safely secured with hurricane straps. As I'm typing this Fionnbharre is on top of the roof nailing down the last bit of roof sheathing .
We ordered the roof, windows, and doors this past week and will be ready to install everything within the next week or two.
Framing the Flat roof ( over loft)
hurricane straps attached to steel beam to insure security and a solid foundation for the roof.
Hard work and precision has paid off.
Framing Peaked Roof
Don't forget to do your Yoga! One must stay fit and limber when building house.
Rain Rain Go Away Come Again Some Other Day!
It's a beautiful wet soggy summer day here in Northern Washington. I'm ready for some sunshine again. I think our tiny house is too. We did our best to cover things up and keep everything nice and dry, this weather wasn't supposed to come until next month. But leave it to mother nature to always throw in a few surprises at you just to see how well you do.
But despite the fact the weather is totally not in our favor. We did get a little gleam of sunshine into our day via a special delivery.
Our Wood cook stove arrived!!!!!! After 3 days in a row of failed delivery it has arrived safe and somewhat sound. There was minor damage on the face of the stove but fortunately they are all replaceable parts and won't be at our cost.
Our Wood Cook Stove stove right of the truck...and almost off the trailer YIKES!
Having a wood cook stove is not a common thing for a tiny house. At least I haven't heard of anyone installing one yet. Actually here in America a wood cook stove is uncommon in general. What can I say we leave in a world where people love their gas and electricity, which is great, unless you don't have any. Fionnbharre and I prefer the idea of living in a self sustainable way whenever possible. We are designing our house in such a way that we can be on the grid and off whenever needed or wanted. For us the wood cook stove is perfect. We can comfortably heat our home and cook and bake all at the same time with the same piece of equipment. We've heated our home with wood whenever possible. Living in the Pacific Northwest where the rain falls and cool air comes for a good 6-9 months out of the year the wood stove gets used a lot! For the summer months, where stove top cooking is rare (at least in our family) we will get a portable propane stove for when its just to darn hot to turn our house into a sauna.
We Ordered our cook stove from Obadiahs Woodstoves. Obadiah's is a small family run business located in Northwest Montana. They are an excellent company with a WIDE variety of stoves, fireplace and wood heat supplies. They have been great to work with, very knowledgeable and always willing to help. I should add, the stove arriving slightly damaged was not on behalf of Obadiah's this happened somewhere in transit.
The stove itself "Rosa"was imported from Italy, made by a company called La Nordica.
This is what Rosa will look like. Full assembled with all her parts.
The stove has barely come of out of the package.... actually there was barely a package to come with it. I think the people over at La Nordica could use a few lessons on packing fragile pieces of equipment... hence reason why there was some damage. But besides that the stove is a beauty. She's sitting in our unfinished humble home waiting soon find her permanent placement.
She'll hanging out there for a while. We don't really have anywhere else to put her except inside the trailer. She weighs about 400 lbs! So moving her around a lot is not a good idea and lifting her up only one time is preffered. Hopefully she won't be to much in the way during the rest of the building process. If anything she's going to help us learn to dance......dance around HER that is!
Correction in video: Obdahia's Woodstove Co. is in Montana.
Getting ready to load Rosa onto the trailer. A near impossible task without a forklift
Here's she is out of the packaging and in the tiny house, she is missing her bottom drawers. We'll get that taken care of.
Unlike many tiny homes we have decided for our exterior wall siding
we will be using Cedar Shingles/Shakes. Living here in the Pacific
Northwest there are many places one can find
good quality shingles. We found ours in the tiny town Forks, Washington, not to far from where we live. We decided to go for the #2 quality shingles these are cheaper in price and but still a good quality for our needs.
Unfortunately
at the current time writing this I cannot remember the name or company
where we got those but I will post that information as soon as I
find out, and post it on our Thank You page. As a company run by two gentlemen who together have 90 years
worth of experience we figured quality shingles would be produced
without concern. On a cold rainy rainy day in July we took a drive out to Forks
Washington to pick up our shingles. We loaded them up on our trusty
Mazda pick up and were off to head back home.
Loaded up and ready to go!
The shingles themselves were reasonably wet and were nowhere near
to being ready for permanent placement but fortunately that's still going to be a few more weeks before we are ready. We knew before we could move further with the shingles
we would have to dry and seal them. Now initially we
thought we would seal them individually with a paintbrush. That was
going to be my job! After single-handedly painting about 50 shingles I
quickly realized it was not going to work. Unless I wanted to make a career out of painting shingles. Typically one SPRAYS the
sealant on. At this point that seems like a far better option than
spending the next 10 years painting shingles! We decided to spray.
But that still leaves us with drying the shingles. How does one dry
their shingles? On the clothesline of course! Yes indeed we have
our shingles hanging out to dry in our backyard right along with the cows
grazing on the grass. But I do have to say with the hot sunny weather
we've been having this has been the perfect option, our shingles are quickly and should be ready right on time.
Hanging the shingles out to dry
We also came across a brand new type of sealer made completely from HEMP OIL! Made by Hemp Shield in Eugene Oregon, this high quality product is eco- friendly, non-toxic, and affordable. www.hempshield.net
with you through pictures! Check back here frequently (bottom of page) for updates.
If you have any questions about anything please feel free to ask.
Day 1
July 5th -
Our pretty green custom trailer arrives
2 weeks ahead of schedule our trailer was delivered. It survived it's first trip safe and sound.
We ordered a custom made trailer from Topnotch trailers www.topnotchtrailers.com in Washingon state. They have a lot of experience with trailers and were familiar with building tiny home trailers. We wanted something specific and very durable thus opted for the custom design. The quality has been really good for the most part. There have been a few points of poor craftsmanship that have caused us a little grief but it has been workable... And it IS STURDY
Signing off on the trailer and receiving our title
It took sometime getting the trailer leveled along with some creative use of wood shingles, cinder blocks, and scrap wood. But eventually everything was perfect! Fortunately we aren't building in the back yard like originally planned, I think come winter our house would start looking like the titanic sinking in the soft mud below. It may seem basic but It's sooo very important to have the trailer level and slightly lifted. If your foundation isn't set up properly that is only going to carry out through the rest or your foundation and you will likely end up with crooked walls. Having it lifted will help take all the weight off the wheels. Nobody wants to have a worn or flat tire before they even hit the road.
It didn't take long before Fionnbharre was fast at work. He was off to
work the same day of
delivery although the trailer got here one day the
project has been underway for months. This was first created in virtual form using Google Sketchup but the
project was now underway into reality. Because we live in the Pacific
Northwest and we are not building our home in a garage it's important
to keep Weather under consideration. They say
the rain is going to come early this year as early as September which
means our floor, roof, framing, siding all has to be done within a month and a
half. Needless to say we were off fast to work with little time to
spare.
Fionnbharre begins taking measurements, preparing for the subfloor
2x2 support beams for base of sub-floor, these were placed on the bottom of every steel beam of the trailer, to create a subframe. 5mm thick under layment treat
*tilt head to the right* 2x2s are set and ready in place
hmm. lets see how are we going to do this?
There's only one choice.... From underneath.....Probably Fionnbharre's least favorite part in this whole project
5mm underlayment sealed with Thompsons Water Seal to prevent from water damage
As of right now we are not using any Aluminum Flashing for the sub floor but that is likely to change.
Insulation Installed in between each sub-floor framing compartment *NOTE* THE INSULATION DOES NOT FACE THIS WAY. MAKE SURE THE PAPER IS ALWAYS FACING UP. as shown on the right. Hopefully this wont cause us any problems. We realized this error after sealing it off.
Sub-Floor Complete
Wheel Wells-
Working around the Wheel wells is one of the more trickier parts about building a tiny house. Building a square box is easy.... relatively speaking... but building a box with two big bumps in the middle is a different story... It's not impossible just a minor challenge to work around.
We've decided to simply build a box around it. Once we begin building the interior we will simply cover it and build into it with what ever furnishing we are using.
For the box we used 3/4 inch plywood on all 4 sides
in the past just isn't working for me. I will still keep trucking along with previous posts so you can see the progress that has been made. But the present moment is all we have right now and we are so much further along then what this blog has been making you believe. So sit back, take in a few deep breaths and enjoy this present moment of the weekend 
