Post 15 (Sept. 6)-Windows, and Showers, and Doors, oh my!

The door is in permanently--sealed and everything!  The gothic window above it is also sealed.  AND, we put the hardware on the door and locked it for the first time!  We have house keys to our tiny house woot woot

This day has been a long time coming.  We first had the windows delivered in June and waited until today to finish the install due to a couple of imperfections from the factory.  Ron at ABS Building Supply helped us repair and replace the necessary parts, and today we put in the last two windows and permanently put in the front door!  And the handles on the door woo hoo!

On his day off this week, Kacey built a frame for our shower with the advice of Shane from Letts Plumbing (who, by the way, was awesome!).  I came home from work on Friday and Kacey was using this greenish, definitely moldy-looking wood to frame out the shower.  I didn't say anything, but I was thinking--shouldn't he use wood that's not going to mold since it's going to be so close to the shower??  Kacey then mentioned that he didn't want to waste any of it.  Before I could say, "Why??" Kacey said, "It's really expensive since it's been green-treated and is mold-resistant."  He is almost always one step ahead of me.

The frame is solid.  I mean, Shrek could shower in our tiny house and the trailer is likely to bust before the shower does.  Do me a favor and ignore the faulty logic there.

The inside of our 32 x 35 shower.  It's surprisingly roomy in there.

I already mentioned that Shane from Letts Plumbing advised Kacey on how to frame out the shower.  He did so much more!  We are always so nervous about inviting contractors over because we are so excited about this tiny house and to many, we are just another, very, very small project that is more complicated than it is exciting.  In preparation for the plumber's visit, Kacey had all of these questions in the event that he had to do all of the plumbing himself, that he was able to throw out the window when Shane arrived because Shane was so excited, so knowledgeable, and so creative.  We are so glad he's joined the team to help us bring this project to completion!

Pat at Ashby Lumber continues to help us out big time, too.  We ordered some rough cut cedar 2 x 4s and with rough cut wood, you pretty much just cross your fingers and hope that you get some good pieces.  We don't know what Pat did, but the 2 x 4s that we got are b-e-a-u-tiful!

Also on our team and knocking it out of the park is Kristen at Chic Interiors.  She is doing an amazing job helping us visualize what the interior will look like and make decisions!

 Every now and then, Kacey and I long to be back in Colorado.  We miss the community and the help-your-neighbor mentality and the strong safety net.  Right now, after a long, hot day, we are vegged out on the couch in the big house feeling very, very lucky.  Despite our somewhat hermitic tendencies, Kacey and I are building a community of professionals, friends, family, and neighbors who are on this tiny house journey with us.

A final thought before we're off to Grizzly Peak to watch the sunset (!!!)--I am the kind of person who, if left to her own devices, may interpret life as a series of touching sadnesses.  The kind where life is so heartbreakingly wonderful that it leaves me sighing with a gentle kind of sadness.  Kacey is the kind of person who, if left to his own devices, may interpret life as a series of irreverent comedies.  The kind where life is so strange, so absurdly hilarious that you can't help but throw your hands in the air and laugh.

So together, we meet in the middle.  The heartbreakingly wonderful and the absurdly hilarious become fun and joy.  For example, today we joked that a J-roller (a tool we've found to be practically useless, though was touted to us as the most important tool in putting the flashing on) is actually a gag-gift among general contractors or the absolutely least wanted present at white elephant gift exchanges.  The kind that get passed around year, after year, to one unlucky victim after the next.  They tell their buddies, "Yeah, man, this year I got stuck with the J-roller.  Dammit!"

Despite the hiccups, the frustrations, and the staple guns through the fingers, we are having fun.

Gus, still interested in his antler.  Much more so than flashing, silicone caulk, or even shims.   

I ALMOST FORGOT!!  THIS IS THE GOOGLE IMAGES STREET VIEW OF OUT HOUSE.  THE TINY HOUSE IS ON GOOGLE MAPS. HOLY BUCKETS!  MAKES IT SEEM REALLY QUITE OFFICIAL.

Post 14 (Aug. 30)-PEMDAS/Daring Greatly

Presumably, if you're reading this, you, at one point or another, learned about the order of operations in a math class.  You know, PEMDAS, or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (or perhaps Pretty Elephants May Die, Albeit Suddenly).  If I were to ask you this question:

3+2^2(1+8),

you would freak out a bit (let's be honest, it's been a while) and then respond with 39 (hopefully.  If not, let me know and I can help you out).

Turns out, there is a similarly defined order of operations when putting the trim on the roof and house.  Kacey and I must have been a bit late to class on the day that they taught that.  Here's what we did: measure and cut the trim to size, put it up to make sure it fits; take it down to stain it, and put it back up; realize that to paint the outriggers, we need to take the trim down; so, take the trim down, paint the outriggers, put it back up; realize that we need to put the furring on the exterior of the house before putting on the siding; take the trim down; put it back up.  WE PUT THE TRIM ON FOUR SEPARATE TIMES. Here's the actual* order of operations:

1. Measure and cut the trim to size.
2. Put it up to make sure it fits.  
3. Take it down.
4. Stain the trim.
5. Paint the outriggers.
6. Put up the furring.
7. Put the trim back up.

* subject to change--who knows what we'll have to take it down for next! :)

Today, we put in hardwood floors.  Once again, we are so thankful that we are building a TINY house.  Putting down hardwood floors in a space bigger than 190 square feet would be very tiring, indeed!  I am very excited about the hardwood floors because it is representative of visible progress.  And also, I was here to help!   

For the past two weeks, I'd been in Denver, and Kacey made HUGE progress on the front shed of the house that contains the air conditioning heat pump, tankless hot water heater, and propane tanks.  

The reverse "L-shaped" shed on the back of the house was built in two weeks!  

The inside of the shed on the back.

Kacey sent me texts as he progressed through the shed construction and revealed that he was frustrated that it was taking so long.  He and I must have different perceptions of time.  From where I sit, the shed came together phenomenally quickly and I am so impressed.

Also between the last post and this one, Kacey and I stumbled upon some very unsettling "don't-ever-build-a-tiny-house-what-are-you-thinking" articles.  In researching for this project, we'd read similar articles and were aware of the competing pros and cons of building tiny houses, but we hadn't read any since we'd started the build and were sobered by them.  What if we don't like living in this space?  What if we have to park it in a trailer park that is no more cost-effective than our current house?

A well-timed text from my friend Kimberly shook us out of our anxious stupor:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly..." -Teddy Roosevelt

Our tiny house project is a huge risk, full of uncertainty and doubt.  It is testing and strengthening our relationship in ways we couldn't really have predicted.  It is making our backs ache, our fingernails dirty, our Sundays less restful.  It is challenging our previously fairly defined sense of self, adding uncertainty where previously there had been little, and challenging us to wear a different set of lens as we interact with the world around us.  We are daring greatly.  And it's pretty amazing.

This one's for you, Kimberly!

Gus prefers chewing on his antler over the sound of the compressor.  

Hardwood floors woot woot

Here they are again! 

And again! For the detail-oriented among you, yes, that is a different washer/dryer unit.  We traded in the 4.2 cu.ft unit for the 2.3 cu. ft. unit.  It'll be plenty big for all of the clothes we won't have.  I jest.  See the picture below to marvel at the amount of closet space we'll have.

Oh, and our shower stall!  Kacey was adamant about finding a one-piece fiberglass shower stall.  Something about his shower in Denver leaking like a sieve.  After weeks of searching, we found one! 

See all that space there?!  That's our closet!  

Post 13 (July 28)-Build a tiny house, they said. It'll be fun, they said.

Our tiny house--with decorative lights from my friend Stephanie!  

Seems the posts are further and further apart--shame on me!

First, and most importantly, this project is totally overwhelming!  Kacey and I were joking the other day that we could teach one of the Do-It-Yourself classes about building tiny houses, and we would kick it off it, "Raise your hand if you want to have the most stressful year of your life!" "Make some noise if you want to watch money disappear!" "High-five the person next to if you, in the next year, want to contemplate throwing in the towel and living in the street!"  "For those of you who did not raise your hands to all three questions, please stand up and exit the building.  Tiny house construction is not for you."

In the past month, we've contemplated picking up side jobs as auctioneers (totally do-able, ask me if you're interested), math tutors, nannies, petroleum transfer engineers, novelists, automotive technician coaches, and even semi-professional dog walkers.  All to fuel our unfortunate habit of wanting to build a nice house with quality materials.

Before this project, I was sure about a couple of things:

1. My style is more "modern" than "rustic."
2. I would never want to own my own business.
3. I value having three full weeks of different outfits.
4. Construction work can't be that hard.
5. With Kacey's experience in remodeling his house in Denver, his knowledge of power tools, our teamwork, and my people skills, we can definitely build this tiny house together, without any help.

Five short months later, I am equally sure of five things:

1. I have no idea what my style is.  A fact that, bless his heart, is confusing and frustrating for Kacey.
2. I would definitely consider owning my own business.
3. I could pretty happily have one week's worth of outfits (provided that I wouldn't be judged too harshly by others).
4. Construction work is insanely complicated.  Now, I look around at cities and I think that it is a veritable miracle that we have any cities at all, let alone towering skyscrapers, mass transit, and beautiful architecture.  There are, indeed, many things to wonder at in this world.
5. We can't do this project ourselves.  It is totally overwhelming.

We have enlisted the help of many to get us to where we are now and to help us move forward.  Recently, we've leaned on Pat at Ashby Lumber, Zoran (an electrician referred to us by Kacey's friend Charlie), my Grandma Dee for financial advice and safety considerations, and most recently Kristen Gablenz of Chic Interiors.  Instead of spending countless hours obsessing over what type of shower unit we should install, we thought, "Why not enlist the help of someone who actually knows something?"

This is the most overwhelming project either one of us has ever undertaken.  I really didn't think it would be that hard.  I was sorely mistaken.  Don't mistake my recent realization for regret or trepidation.  I am thrilled to be tackling a project that is so far outside of my comfort zone.  I am proud of our relationship and now our partnership.  I am so much more knowledgeable about and respectful of the Herculean effort that goes in to modern-day structure construction.  We are so lucky.

This past month has not been without its progress, however.  We have appliances!  We have cedar trim on the outside!  We have purchased a composting toilet!  We are solidifying layout and floor plan and will soon start putting on the exterior siding.  

We joke that once the exterior is done, and we've taken pictures for the blog, we'll have no incentive to continue building.  I can just write a blog post every now and then and put a picture from Pinterest in.  You'd never know... :)  But seriously, knowing that you're out there, applying gentle pressure to keep us on task is wonderful.  Thank you.

It may not look all that different, but do you see the trim around the outrigger and the windows?  You're looking at 20 hours of work.  

Notice how the trim runs straight along the side of the house.  You're looking at 3 hours of work.  No biggie ;)

Look at how beautifully the trim on the side outrigger lines up with the trim on the back of the house!  Only 3 hours of work, no biggie ;)

Look at how pretty the trim is!  Only 2 hours of work.  No biggie ;)  Originally we wanted clear cedar, meaning that is has no knots.  It was prohibitively expensive, so we went with the cedar you see in the picture--so glad we did.  We love the richness of the knots in the wood.

Our stove and oven!

Gus admiring our new appliance.  Before we had the appliances in the tiny house, Gus did not like being in the tiny house.  Now that the appliances are in there, he can't get enough!  He's a strange dog.

Washer/dryer combo machine--so cool!

Our (almost) full-size fridge.  Because some of us are tall and eat a lot of food (*cough* Kacey), we wanted a fridge that could hold a week's worth of food :) 

Our french door and gothic window.  Do you look at the window and think, "Hmmm, that's crooked!" You're not alone.  We are getting it replaced :) 

Post 12 (June 21)-At a Standstill/Choices

Kacey finishing the BirdBlock.  Happened a few weeks ago, but I hadn't shared the picture yet.  Look at his smile--it's great fun to work on this project together.

Spoiler Alert: much of this blog post will be unrelated to our tiny house build.  I'll let you know when so that you can stop reading if you'd like :)

Up until this point, we couldn't make progress fast enough--we had all of the framing materials delivered to the house, and we needed to get a deck on the trailer and put the tarp on it to keep the water out of the insulation.  We had to frame out the walls and put the sheathing on so that the framing materials didn't sit around and get moldy.  We had to get the roof on so that we didn't have to tarp the house to keep the rain out.  We had to get the house wrap on so that we were ready when the windows were delivered.  We were running as fast as we could to keep up with our own (albeit somewhat arbitrary) schedule.

Now, we wait.  We wait for a service call for a few defective windows.  We wait for the rabbited bevel cedar siding to be milled and delivered.  We wait for the metal roof to be quoted, made, and delivered.

In our waiting, we did a few important, extremely unimpressive, and dreadfully time-consuming things:

• To vent the house, we had to drill a series of holes in some of the supporting 2x4s.  I'd take a picture to show you, but I'd hate for you to fall asleep.  If, however, you are suffering from insomnia, let me know.  I'll send you a few pics and that should do the trick.
• One of the 6x6s on either side of the front door twisted so we had to jury-rig a few shims to keep the door in straight.  See the previous comment about insomnia and pictures.
• We bolted the top of the house to the bottom of the house.  Okay, this is less boring: remember the all-thread rods that connect the walls to the trailer?  Kacey thought it would be a shame for the roof to blow off while the walls were still secured to the trailer.  He bought all-thread rods which we used to secure the roof and dormer to the first-floor walls which, if you remember, are secured to the trailer.  A really good idea, a really boring thing to have to do on a Sunday.  See the previous comment about insomnia and pictures.

Earlier I wrote a blog about how frustrating if was for us to make invisible progress--the stuff that needs to be done but is not glamorous and not really photographable.  It's the tiny house build equivalent of the mandatory Saturday trip to Costco and Safeway.  Important and unremarkable.

I keep thinking about David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, nowadays referred to as "This is Water."  It's an invitation to change how we perceive traffic jams, errands, commutes, and perhaps the tiny house tasks that we completed today.  I must admit that I didn't completely escape the "default setting" he references, but at least now I know that it's my own attitude that's keeping me down.  I smiled as I wrote that last sentence.

That's all for the build, folks!

Non-build-related portion of the post

This week I've had many opportunities to think about the multiplicity of life.  Indeed, there are many ways to live a successful life, and we are often quick to judge and discredit those who make different choices than we do.  In fact, I used to be one of the worst offenders--I'd look around at the people who sat next to me on the 6:30 A.M. train into San Francisco and notice with a bit of disdain that the snoring gentleman beside me had dirt under his fingernails that he rested on his rising and falling beer belly, had holes in his work pants, wore a dirty jacket with a construction company logo embroidered on the left chest pocket, and had haphazardly placed a 10-year-old cooler in the aisle.  Why doesn't he take better care of himself, I thought.  As I type today, I look down at my own fingernails--two of them are cracked and all of them are dirty, my work pants are covered in glue, and I guarantee that when I work a hole in the knee of these pants, I will be proud, I'd love to have a cooler next to me to offer a bit of relief from the heat, and man, I'd love to be able to chat with that sleeping gentleman.  What should we do before we put the siding on?  Any tips for putting on a metal roof? Any advice for a novice builder?

From where I sit, there seems to be a great deal of social pressure to live a life within the constrains of a pretty narrow lane.  Make more money, work longer hours, wear more makeup, get your nails professionally done, wear expensive clothes, stay out late at night, meet and date rich young software engineers.  Maybe where you're sitting, the set of social pressures is completely different--find a husband already! buy a house already! trade in that BMW for a more practical vehicle! give me grandchildren already!  And maybe someplace else, you take a look at the various expectations of you that society has, and you think that they are perfectly aligned with your expectations of yourself.

The point is not that social pressures are bad and you should disregard all advice you ever receive, nor that all social pressures are good and you should jump out of your skin to live up them, but rather, that the set of social pressures that we live within are one option.  And, just like in your favorite Mexican restaurant with 7,000 items on the menu, you get to choose.  You might have to turn to the very last page of the 17-page menu to find the dish that you really want, and you may have to send a few dishes back to the kitchen in the process, but ultimately, you are in charge of your entree and you are in charge of the choices you make in life.

Post 11 (June 14)-Cops are excited about tiny houses, too.

The three of us hanging out in the loft B.R. (before roof)

A few weeks ago, I get a text message from Kacey, "Windows are going to be ready on Wednesday!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!"  A few minutes later, another text, "I was so excited I got pulled over for speeding."  A few minutes later, "Cop was so excited about our tiny house that he only gave me a warning."

The following week, I was working in Mexico City and on Wednesday, the windows were delivered and Kacey sent me the picture below, with this text message, "Windows are easy."

Later that evening, another text message rolls in, "Check out Tiny Nest on YouTube."  Tiny Nest is a vlog (video blog) that details a couple's tiny house construction--they include so much helpful stuff, and when it comes to getting the windows, dare I say, properly installed, they saved. our. bacon.  I was in the middle of watching a Tiny Nest when another text message rolls in, "Just kidding, windows are crazy."

To properly install windows, you must:

• Put house wrap on (waterproofs the house and acts as a membrane between the plywood and the exterior).  In fairness to Kacey, he did know that we would have to take the windows out to put the house wrap on--he was just eager to see what it looked like with windows.
• Put in an angled sill so that if water were to hit the sill, it would drip out of the house.
• Cover the sill with a waterproofing membrane.
• Put silicone caulk along the perimeter of the rough opening to seal the screw and nail holes.
• Put the window in (finally!).
• Screw the window in.
• Wait for the silicone caulking to dry.
• Line the window with more of the waterproofing membrane.  
• Cover the top of the waterproofing membrane with the house wrap.

Phew!  Today we worked on the windows.  The pictures below show all of the work we've done in the past month.  I've been remiss in blog posts because I was, well, trying to do good work at my day job.

Framing the outrigger along the back of the house.

Gus in the loft. 

The loft--with the roof done (notice the venting along the ridge beam) and most of the windows cut out.

Close up of the rough openings in the loft.

Roofing on the outrigger.

And I quote, "Windows are easy."

We must first, however, do the house wrap (to be said with a sigh).

All wrapped up!  Kacey worked in Monterey last week, so we wanted the house to be waterproof!

Our work today!  Half of the windows are in! (We put in the windows on the side of the house that we photograph for the blog so that we look really productive--you impressed?!)

Our french doors open.  Welcome to our home!

Oh yes, and we're already sleeping in the tiny house.  It is so cool to fall asleep and wake up in a house that we built!

Post 10 (May 17)-Do hard things...it is incredibly rewarding.

Our tiny house has half a roof.  A tiny roof for a tiny house, I suppose :)

So...remember how our very first blog post was titled "This is gonna be fun"?  The karmic gods must have thought we needed to be brought back down to earth so they threw a few (figurative) wrenches in the works.  The wrenches took the form of:

• two broken hammers
• a faulty nail-gun
• wind
• a torn tarp
• feeling "hangry" mid-afternoon
• decreased visibility (because of awesome progress) that made effective communication nearly impossible
• sunburns
• chills
• and last, but certainly not least, glue that spackles the entire interior (along with hair, paints, shoes, the dog, and favorite shirts) when hit with the nail-gun.

We woke up joyfully this morning, jumped out of bed and thought, "Another day to work on the tiny house together!"  Little did we know, the karmic gods were already chuckling.

In spite of it all, we had a very productive day.  We built an outrigger for the front of the house.  I will never look at building exteriors the same way again.  Everywhere I go, I see outriggers.  On Lowe's, on Safeway, on Costco, on...wow, I haven't gone very many places recently.

We then put 1/2 inch plywood on the rafters, a process that closely mirrored that of sheathing the walls.  Glue, stick, and nail.  Glue, stick, and nail.  Glue, stick, and nail.  At this point in our build, I'm more thankful than ever that we are building a tiny house.  Sheathing a full-size house would probably do me in.

It isn't always fun, but we are learning so much about diligence, resiliency, and patience.  And, while we might not be laughing the whole time, periodically we look over at each other, smile, and think to ourselves, "Wow."  It's a less feisty type of fun than I typically like to have, but a deep, contented satisfaction.  

So, it is very challenging indeed.  The most involved project we've ever undertaken.  It's also the most rewarding.

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Have you watched the show Tiny House Nation?  The carpenter, Zack Griffin, is an absolute genius, and the other lead on the show, John Weisbarth, helps people downsize like its his job.  I mean, it is...  Anyways, Kacey and I were catching up on back episodes and happened to see a couple in Pleasant Hill, California (where we live!!!!) as the featured couple on the show.  Their tiny house is so beautiful and we were so excited to know that there were kindred spirits in our neighborhood.  Their blog, Tiny House Basics, has already answered some of our pressing questions.  Thank you so much, Shelley and Josh!

___________________

Two weeks ago, on Kacey's day off and our construction day together, we built all of the rafters for the main part of the house and the dormers.  See pictures below.  I didn't get around to a blog post after those couple of days of exciting progress, so I am including the pictures below.

___________________

On Kacey's day off, he very precisely cut the rafters.

Each rafter is attached to the house with a hurricane tie.  Not common (except in Florida), these help the roof stay attached to the house in the event of high winds and while driving down the highway.

Gus looking nervous in the loft!  No, he didn't get up there by himself.

House with all rafters in place.

We absolutely love this picture!  It's a view of the interior of the house while sitting in the loft.

Gable (the part away from the front of the house) and roofing.

The gable up close.

Did you know that the roofing does not butt up to the ridge beam?? There is a 3/4" air gap so that the house can ventilate.

A view from the top.  You can see the space between the ridge beam and the roofing.  You can also see the Simpson Strong Ties that connect the rafters to the ridge beam.  This house is really strong. 

A view of the inside standing at the front door.  We still have to put roofing on the dormer and cut out the windows on the right (passenger) side.