Day 6: Tiny House Windows

Today Noah (a friend from Whitman College) and Aaron (a friend from my grad program) came out to help with the build. Together we finished tar papering the house and then helped put in the windows. All the windows are now in their rightful places and they look great! We covered the edges of the window flanges with a waterproofing flashing so the exterior of the house is now ready for siding.

It's such a joy to have the windows in. This was a big step for me since windows add so much character to a building. Now it's starting to feel like a house instead of a construction project! I loved walking through the house this afternoon to get a feel for what it will be like to lounge on the window seat or to look out the kitchen window.

Meanwhile the roofing framer put up all the trusses and added supports for the roof's overhangs. I helped by cutting a few pieces for him and admired -  from a safe vantage point - his fearlessness about clambering around on the roof while using a circular saw to cut notches into the top of the roof rafters. The builders had to leave the site mid-afternoon for another appointment, so I helped tarp the house and we wrapped up early. A quiet evening at home and early to bed for me!

We've already cut the sheets of OSB for the roof sheathing so we're ready to put it up first thing in the morning. We're all eager to get the house dried in since the Portland spring promises plenty of rain.

Day 5: Tiny House Takes Shape

The progress today is less visible, but we managed to accomplish quite a bit despite the rain. A roofing framer, came out this morning to figure out the plan for the tiny house roof. The tiny house is taking shape and it's not so tiny anymore. Now it's starting to look like a miniature barn!

Jane has wanted to maximize the usable space in the lofts because she feels like my sleeping loft is too claustrophobic. We considered creating dormers flush with the exterior wall by extending the walls higher on the half of the house with the sleeping loft. That would create two pitches to the roof, one steeper and one shallower. We decided to put the decision off until later but once we had sheathed the exterior we realized we would have a hinge point if we built a pony wall above the existing wall. One of the builders came up with the best idea yet when she suggested a gambrel roof. I'd considered one on another tiny house I'd dreamed up but for some reason it never occurred to me that Jane's tiny house would have a gambrel roof. Turns out, it does. The roofer mocked up the first set of rakes late this morning and Jane was delighted.

While the roofer figured out his measurements we built the sleeping loft so that we can stand on it while working on the roof. Just when we stopped for a quick lunch break we encountered the rainiest part of the day, so after lunch we set up our saws under the carport. Half of us spent the afternoon prepping gussets with jigsaws while the rest of us cut rakes on the miter saw so that we can get the roof framing up tomorrow. Meanwhile the doorman came to drill holes in the new door. Another friend will be picking it up tomorrow to finish the door. It's going to be really lovely! In the evening we stapled tar paper on the lower portion of the house to protect the OSB from the rain and put tarps over the whole house to protect it from the rain tonight.

Jane decided to celebrate a great fifth day by taking her builders to dinner at a German restaurant down the street. I asked what the most German thing on the menu was. They recommended the roulade which was beef and pork wrapped in a cabbage leaf, covered in a tomato sauce, and served with mashed potatoes. It was decidedly German and quite tasty! We toasted the tiny house and had a great time unwinding from a drizzly day.

It will be an early start tomorrow and I'm glad a couple more friends have agreed to come on out to help!

Day 4: Tiny House Plumbing & Wiring Begins

Today we did a walk around of the tiny house first thing so Jane could decide where she wanted all of her outlets and switches. One of the builders focused on the electrical and plumbing most of the day while the rest of us finished sheathing the house.

We continued with our method of measuring the area to cover, cutting the piece, holding it up to make sure it fit properly, then adding a bead of construction adhesive to each stud and header, and stapling the OSB to the studs. We have become pretty handy with Liquid Nails construction adhesive, a circular saw, and a staple gun. The trick of nailing a pieces of 2x4 to the top plate so that we can butt the sheet of OSB up to it is a great one!

Because the house is 8'6" wide and 20' long we aren't able to use full sheets of dimensional OSB so we have used full sheets as often as possible and placed our filler pieces strategically. The stud layouts I'd sketched out a couple weeks ago were useless since the layout of the house has been tweeked a bit. We also didn't have the trailer yet so we couldn't get precise measurements from it until just before we started building. We certainly added some weight by using extra studs, but hopefully the enhanced sheer strength will be worth it. As we covered it in sheathing the house started getting darker but we cut open the windows again with a sawzall.

The trickiest pieces we worked on were around the wheel wells. Since we are building out to the full width of the trailer we're bringing the wheel wells into the house. We needed to make sure we had a good connection between the walls and the trailer and we wanted to minimize the number of exterior wall surfaces. We all puzzled over it for a while and finally came up with a solution that involved capping the ends of our double joists with plywood, then placing a 2x4 at the bottom of the gap and gluing it into place with massive amounts of construction adhesive. We'll be sure to tape it well, too, with our handy aluminum tape. Then we had the fun task of bringing the OSB to the fenders. We ended up scribing the cuts from the inside with a long pencil and then cutting them out with a jigsaw. This allowed us to get a pretty close connection which we can seal up with spray foam and caulk.

We seem to have hit a snafu with our insulation that we'll be working on later this week. Tomorrow a roofing framer is going to come out to get started on the roof which we're all looking forward to since the house will really take shape then. It's been gorgeous the past four days but we got sprinkled on this evening so we wrapped things up early. Roofing in the rain is neither fun or safe so we're hoping for some good weather the next couple of days! Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Day 3: Tiny House Subfloor & Sheathing

Today I got to the site early to take pictures of construction details so that we can recall what we've done after we've closed everything in. Then I finished insulating the gap between the interior floor box and the exterior wall with rigid foam insulation so that we could get our subfloor into place. Meanwhile, everyone else finished up the fourth wall and cut blocks, cripples, and headers. A neighbor saved the day by loaning us his nail gun and staple gun, so the framing went much more quickly today!

Ricardo and Zef (two of my classmates) and John (a fellow tiny house dweller) came by to lend a hand today as well. John crawled around under the trailer to seal all the seams with aluminum tape. (We should have done this before we put the floorbox into the trailer frame, so we're very grateful John was up for the task!) Ricardo and I made a trip to Builders' City to pick up the door we found while Zef and John got the 3/4" tongue and groove subfloor into place (at least temporarily - we'll need to remove part of it again to do our plumbing). It was pretty impressive to see how far the house progressed just while I was away on this errand!

This afternoon we got several sheets of 1/2" OSB sheathing up. Most tiny houses use a glue and screw method: gluing all the sheathing to the studs and then screwing them into place. Since we don't anticipate this house traveling far or often we decided to go for liberal use of glue and 1 1/2" staples. We wrapped up a little earlier than usual since we were at a good stopping point and the sky was looking threatening. We hope to get the other sheets of sheathing hung in the morning so we can move on to roofing on Tuesday.

We have been brainstorming plumbing, electrical, and roofing details this evening. Lots of decisions to make tomorrow!

Day 2: Tiny House Wall Framing

Today we got started around 9:00 on a beautiful sunny morning. First off, half of us launched into measuring and cutting studs for the first wall. The rest of us added 3 1/2 inches of 23" wide fiberglass insulation to the floor boxes (the joists are 24" on center). Fortunately it was faced and there were only 10 bays to fill, so it went quickly and painlessly.

While Jane picked up a few more supplies at the hardware store, we added a layer of reflective bubble wrap to the floor. The reflective material was an idea borrowed from some friends. When they were building their house they discovered that the local pet store was throwing away reflective bubble wrap envelopes that were used to transport tropical fish, so these friends started collecting it. They used it in their solarium, but had lots left over so Jane bought some from them. The reflective material works by reflecting heat back into the house when the shiny side is towards the interior of the house. It requires an air gap between the bubble wrap and the interior wall or floor in order to work properly, so we stapled it about an inch below the top of the joists. By the time we were finished we felt like we'd created a solar people cooker. The bright sun reflecting off the surface was making us shed all the extra layers we were wearing when we arrived at the job site!

As her friends continued with the wall framing, Jane and I ran around town in her trusty truck, on the hunt for a narrow door and a shower pan (turns out the shower surround we found by the side of the road that we thought would be perfect wouldn't do). We managed to find a 34" x 34" shower pan at a local plumbing supply store and got a deal on it because of a minor blemish that we never would have noticed if they guy hadn't pointed it out.

Finding a narrow door with either full or half lites that we could cut down to 78" didn't prove as easy. We had known there was a pretty good chance that we wouldn't end up using the sliding glass door Jane had envisioned. But we were thwarted when our back up plan to use a 24" door fell apart, too. As the stud layout came together we discovered that a 78" door was the tallest we could accommodate. The 24" door is metal and can't be cut down to 78." So we visited the ReBuilding Center, Habitat Restore, Builder's City, and Home Depot and had to return to the site without a door. The new doors we looked at today were wider and taller than we wanted, most of them weren't pre-hung, and they were all pretty expensive considering that any of them would need some modification. We decided to plan for a 28" door since that's the size Jane wants. We'll keep investigating our options and perhaps the right door will come our way.

We returned to find that we were nearly ready for a wall raising. I put metal flashing onto the trailer frame on the outside of the internal floor box and covered it with a membrane material that's usually used to prevent wicking from concrete into framing. In our case we're hoping it will protect the wood framing from the metal framing. We settled the walls into place on the exterior edges and bolted them down through HTT tension ties. As we all worked on nailing the tension ties to the studs it started sounding a whole lot like a construction site!

At the end of the day half the team worked on securing the top plate to the long walls and tying the three walls together. Meanwhile the rest of us cut cripples for above and below the long window for the window seat. I discovered that there's a big difference between working with dry wood and working with wet wood. The wood we had salvaged has been drying for years so it's super hard. My poor little Makita impact driver that has served me well for home improvement projects a a chicken coop build wasn't up to the task. Fortunately, tomorrow we'll be able to borrow a nail gun and that should help speed up the rest of the framing.

We're eager to get the fourth wall up tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get some sheathing on as well. The weather has been splendid but we know we're unlikely to be so lucky for long.

Day 1: Tiny House Foundation

Today was the first day of our week-long tiny house build and we're relaxing after a productive day. We've just finished a splendid supper and we're making our shopping and to do lists for tomorrow.

We started out just before noon with a feasibility test of sorts as we described our plans to Jane's friends who are helping with the tiny house build. They have more construction experience than Jane and me, so we were anxious to make sure that our design is build-able. We knew there would be some figuring out and some troubleshooting, but it was a little nerve-wracking trying to explain the construction details we'd basically invented. Since we wanted to maximize the space of the trailer we had a custom trailer built so we weren't able to rely on many of the design details that many other tiny housers have already developed. Fortunately, a few moments playing with 2x4s and 2x6s enabled us come up with a plan to move forward.

Our goal for the day was to get the foundation finished and we're very pleased we succeeded. We started out by building the floor box for the central portion of the trailer. We screwed eleven 75" 2x6s to the two 20 ft 2x6 rim joists. (We was pretty exciting about using the impact driver - what a fun new toy!) Then we flipped the whole assembly over and tacked 6 mm plastic and rolled aluminum flashing to the frame. The moment of truth came when we flipped the frame over again and settled it into place inside the trailer. With a few whacks of the sledgehammer it fit snugly into place. Once it was settled, we bolted the central floor box and the 2x6s on the other side to the trailer frame with 6" long 1/2" bolts. We'd special requested 5/8" holes drilled horizontally through the sides of the custom trailer frame at the corners and on either side of the wheel wells. The extra $5 per hole seems to be worth the time saved drilling through the steel ourselves.

We cut 1" extruded polystyrene insulation to fit in the bays. (Unfortunately, Home Depot made a couple of errors in the order and delivered some of the wrong materials, so we actually ended up with mostly 3/4" foam. We decided to go with it anyhow since we were eager to get the insulation in.) Once we had the rigid foam insulation in place, we spray foamed all the edges. We decided to wait on adding any additional insulation till tomorrow morning. The weather report is for clear skies so keep your fingers crossed for us!

As evening approached we worked out a revised stud layout that is a compromise between the plentiful windows Jane wants and her builder friends' insistence that we have more wall surface for increased shear strength. We marked the stud layout onto the sill plates on the exterior walls so that we can tackle it in the morning.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day as we'll be laying the subfloor and framing up the first of the walls. Stay tuned!

Shrinky-Dink Porch

These rainy days get me thinking about porches...

When I build a tiny house I want it to have a functional porch. In order to accommodate it, the tiny house won't include a porch at all. At least, not within its footprint.

My friend Jacob calls Tumbleweed Tiny Houses shrinky-dink houses because they look like miniaturized versions of bigger houses. Jacob was looking at a photo of Jay Shafer's tiny front porch when he said, "It just doesn't make sense to try to fit everything that you'd have in a big house into a tiny house just by making everything smaller." I completely agree with him and I think Jay Shafer would, too. Jay is conscientious about subtractive design - keeping just the essentials. For Jay, a porch is essential and even a small porch is better than none. I disagree. I think that if it's not possible to accommodate a function well it shouldn't take up precious trailer space!

I understand the romance and the practicality of the porch. I think porches are a great way to transition between indoor and outdoor space. They offer a place to stand out of the rain while fumbling with keys and a bag of groceries. The shelter enables you to sit or stand outside for fresh air even when it's too wet or cold to go for a walk. A porch provides a spot to take off your boots before tracking mud or snow into the house (essential for a tiny space which can get dirty quickly, but is also, fortunately, quick to clean!).  Tiny House dwellers Tammy and Logan do most of their refrigerating by hanging their produce in a fruit basket out on the porch during the months of the year that the temperatures are right (which is most of the year, here in Portland!) Porches are the first encounter with the house so  a plant, a chair, and a piece of art enable the resident(s) to welcome and greet visitors and to share a little bit of their own personality.

Unfortunately, the porch of Britt's Bungalow (and many others built with Tumbleweed Tiny House plans) is too small to be functional in the rainy Pacific Northwest. A tiny front porch misses the mark because it's not able to serve its function of keeping me and my boots dry. It's not large enough for two people to get out of the rain while unlocking the door. My garden shoes left on the porch get soaked by driving rain, even if they're tucked at the inside edge. I could put a very small chair on my porch, but I would have to sit alone. A two foot by two foot porch is a functional failure.

Besides, one of the magical things about a tiny house is that it encourages its inhabitants to get outside more. When you can stand or sit in one place in a tiny house and see outside through several windows at once, you are more interested in getting out there. I imagine that if a tiny house is on the road most of the time having a porch (even a uselessly small porch) could be nice. And I'm sure that in warmer, drier climates without so much driving rain even a very small porch could be useful. But in the rainy Pacific Northwest a tiny porch is simply inapporpriate design.

So for a Tiny House which will be stationary most of the time, it makes sense to find another way to create a transition between the tiny house and the rest of the world. I've been imagining a porch that will consist of an awning that will drop down to protect the door during transit paired with a wooden platform that  can be tucked inside the house while it's being moved. It will be large enough for that potted plant, a piece of art, two chairs, and a spot to put a glass of ginger beer. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right! Cheers!

Tiny Life Cubed

Two months ago I met a man named Walt who is as excited about small simple spaces as I am. I interviewed Walt so that I could write a blog post on the Accessory Dwellings website about the ADU he built for his sister-in-law. It was a fun conversation about the challenges and benefits of scaling down our housing. You can read the post here.

During that first conversation, Walt told me that he's also been building garden cottages which are small spaces on wheels. So I was amused when I invited Walt to come check out my tiny house and he told me he'd never been in a tiny house before. To the best of his knowledge, the garden cottages he's built have been used as studios in people's backyards (massage therapists, counselors, artists, etc.), so no one has actually tried living in one of them.

So last Wednesday Walt came over for a mug of tea and a tiny house tour and he shared with me an idea he has been working on for a very small house called The Cube. It's a three-level house with a living room on the lower level, a sleeping loft above, and a mezzanine level with a kitchen and a bathroom. Its 12x12x12 and it's a fixed structure, so it's not mobile. It utilizes a flagpole design which includes 4 6x6 pressure treated posts in a 12’ square that are imbedded in concrete 3 feet below grade. It takes advantage of the level changes to provide cozy spaces for sitting and sleeping and a taller space for standing activities like chopping veggies.

Walt's eager to try out the design in real life, so here's his proposal:

Walt would like to provide the plans and labor (or supervision of whatever labor is available if someone is interested in DIY). In return he's looking for someone who would provide the property to site it and the cost of materials. He has a material list and has priced out new materials at approximately $6,000. (This does not include interior finishes but it does include insulation. As he noted, if someone shopped at the Rebuilding Center and Craigslist she could probably cut the cost of materials in half.) After it’s completed Walt would like to be able to take pictures for his portfolio and spend a week or so living inside as the first guest to get a feel for how it works and what changes would make it better.

Unfortunately I don't have a place in Portland to build a tiny house, so Walt asked me to put the word out to see if any of you are interested in a backyard guest house. If so, you can contact Walt directly or get in touch with me. If you are interested but don't live here, you can also buy the plans from his website.

Walt's company Small Home Oregon is focused on building simple and inexpensive accessory dwelling units and studio spaces on wheels. Check it out: http://smallhomeoregon.net.

Trailer Lust

A funny thing happens when you start scheming about building a tiny house on wheels. At first it's just an increased awareness. You start noticing trailers all around you: parked in alleys, in driveways, along back roads, hauling loads down the highway. You find yourself checking them out and you wonder why trailers are suddenly everywhere. Then you realize they've been there all along, you just didn't properly appreciate them for their beautiful powder coating, their smooth following, and their heavy duty hauling capacity.

You begin investigating and learn terminology to describe them: deckover, beaver tail, goose neck, flatbed, car hauler, tandem axle, triple axle, dropped axle, gross vehicle weight, C channel, frame tubing, angle irons, diamond plate, hitch ball size, tongue length. By now you're clearly trailer obsessed. Eventually you start fantasizing about trailers, imagining a tiny house on every trailer you see. At this point you have trailer lust.

So when you crawl underneath a flatbed utility trailer at Don Johnson Trailer Sales to check out the axles, you'll have a sense of what to look for. And when you scramble back out because you hear footsteps you'll straighten up just as the sales fella walks over, his thumbs hooked over his belt. He'll say "What's a pretty lady like you doin' looking at car haulers? You oughta check out these horse trailers I got here." Without batting an eye you can reply, "Actually, I'm not a horse person. I'm interested in a 16-18 foot tandem axle flatbed utility trailer with GVW rating of 7000. This one's a beaut, but I'm interested in checking out your used trailers." He'll blink a few times, then crack a smile, and hold out his hand to introduce himself as Tom before taking you to the back of the lot to see the used models. Before long you're telling him about the tiny house project and he'll think you're even crazier than the horse people he usually sells trailers to. But he's intrigued, so he'll start keeping an eye out for you.

Tom will give you a call a few months later to tell you he's found a good one. By then you'll be living in a tiny house in another city so you'll tell him you're not currently in the market, but you're so glad he thought to tell you. He'll be a little incredulous that you're actually living in a tiny house on wheels so you'll send him a link to your blog and he'll write back, with the following note:

Just love your house. Very cool... just neat! May have to get me one of those. Have been looking over your site and have to say you are the most interesting person I think I've met since I started working here. Again, I really like your home. Sincerely, Tom

You'll be delighted that you have a committed and knowledgable trailer scout on your side. And you'll be proud that, thanks to you, there's one more used trailer salesman who is going to know what's what when someone else comes along wanting to build a tiny house on wheels.

***

As you might imagine, I was thoroughly impressed when I went to Iron Eagle Trailers a couple weeks ago with a friend who is building a tiny house and met Rob who already knew what's what when it comes to building trailers for tiny houses. My friend had been scouting Craigslist for a used trailer, but since she wanted to maximize the interior width of her tiny house, and we knew it would require extensive modification if she purchased a used trailer, she decided to go for a new custom model. Since the trailer is the foundation of a tiny house on wheels it is worthwhile to start out with a good sturdy foundation.

When we began describing the project Rob caught on right away. Turns out he's built trailers for Dee Williams and Katy Anderson of Portland Alternative Dwellings. The trailer design my friend came up with is a new version that will hopefully be a little lighter and a little simpler (therefore less expensive) than the "fatty" trailers Eagle Iron has built for tiny houses in the past. We're excited to see how well it works. Meanwhile, we're relying on the expertise of Dee, Katy, and a few friends who are builders as we draft up our plans. We've been pouring over Dee William's book Go House Go.

After sketching up a trailer diagram we made a trip to Iron Eagle Trailers this morning and worked with Rob to write up the order. The trailer should be ready in about two weeks, just in time for the tiny house wall raising.

Advanced Fort Construction

I recently paid a visit to a tiny house built by a man named Ryan who says he loves building tiny structures out of salvaged materials because "it's like advanced tree fort construction!" Ryan wrinkles his brow when I ask when he started building. He grew up deconstructing and salvaging with his dad so he learned how buildings came apart and that got him curious about how they went together. He's been building glorified forts as long as he can remember.

The tiny house Ryan and his sweetheart are building right now is the fourth or fifth small structure he's built out of scavenged materials. (Counting gets a little tricky because one of the tiny houses he built had to be relocated, so he and some friends disassembled it in a day and then reassembled the sections in two more days.) The latest tiny house is constructed on a heavy-duty trailer he found on Craigslist and modified to account for its beaver tail and lack of fenders. It's located in the backyard of the house where he and his gal (his word, not mine, but I got a kick out of it) are renting a room. They look forward to having a space of their own out back, but they plan to take advantage of the community they have now: music and conversation around the fire pit, dinners with friends, and a short walk to Mississippi Avenue.

As Ryan gives a tour of his tiny house he mentions three or four different things that are going to happen in each nook of the already small space. I'm puzzled for a moment, but then realize he's all about multi-functionalism. He wants to be able to accommodate life in a tiny space with his partner as well as visits from friends and his mum (again, his word, and again, I grinned!)  When I ask how he settled on the layout of his tiny house Ryan explains that it's still evolving. He has that nice ability to transition between thinking ahead (layout out his studs so he'll have nailers for his finishes - whatever they might be based on whatever he might find) and letting things evolve organically. His confidence comes from experimentation and experience instead of theory and perfectionism: a willingness to give it a try, ask for advice, help someone else with their project, and use everything he learns to make the next version even cooler.

This tiny house has a shed roof with the high side to the south and the low side to the north so that it's oriented for passive solar gain. In Portland's long grey winters the plethora of southern windows bring welcome light into the space. When I ask about the tiny house getting too hot Ryan points out that the angle of the sun is so much higher in the summer that the sunpath will cross the roof and the house shouldn't receive too much direct sunlight on the longest days of the year. They can always add shading if they find they need to. The loft over the entry is large enough for a queen sized bed and the loft at the other end creates both a cozy nook below and a spacious perch above. Rather than fighting the awkward spaces created by the wheel wells and the tongue, Ryan plans to take advantage of them, running his kitchen plumbing through the wheel wells and putting his bathroom on the trailer's tongue.

Unlike many tiny housers who are all about zen simplicity, Ryan's not shy about accumulation. He loves books and plans to add bookshelves wherever possible. Things will shift, stuff will come and go. As an expert scavenger he's inspired by the possibilities of found objects. Ryan figures he hasn't spent more than a few hundred dollars on any of the structures he's built because he works with what he discovers. One of his favorite finds is industrial pallets which provide long 4 x4s he uses as studs and beams, as well as planks for the lofts that feature stamps that bely their past. He grins mischievously when I ask if he'll reveal his sources. "You just need to keep your eyes open. There's great stuff out there," he says vaguely.

Ryan has kept a blog of the project which you can check out here for more photos. The tiny house will also be on the Pedalpalooza Tiny House Bike Tour in June, so stay tuned for more info so you can check it out in real life. Ryan's keeping pretty busy these days with his small business, but also building bike sheds and food carts on the side, so if you're interested, get in touch.