Post 23 (Sept.18)-Are We There Yet?

Did you ever go on road trips as a kid? On a 5-hour trip, it was always the last 30 minutes that were pure agony as the magic of the final destination seemed, at once, close enough to touch and asymptotically, perpetually, just out of reach.  That's about the time the backseat starts ringing with rounds of "are we there yet?" The first 4 hours of that same trip, funnily enough, weren't at all challenging because the adventure, the first 50 plays of "On the Road Again," and the changing scenery were enough to fill the tank.

If our tiny house build were a long road trip, we'd be in the final stage.  The part where any objective outsider would say, "You've made a ton of progress, you're nearly there!" The part where the people in the car are not so sure... This morning, after we worked for a few hours in the 95-degree California summer, Kacey walked into the spare bedroom of our actual house to find me curled up in a semi-fetal position.  I whimpered, "Are we ever going to be able to move in?" He laughed.  A moment later he replied sarcastically, "No, Cat, never.  It's all one big dream."

Nevermind my Sunday-morning moment of weakness, we are making tremendous progress.  All of the interior paneling is up.* All of the interior paneling has two coats of paint.  The air conditioning unit is installed.** The skeleton of the cabinets are installed.  Measurements for the counter top have been made.  Staircase/pantry is finished.  Solar panel trailer is complete.  Electrical work is one 8-hour day away from 100% complete.

• *All of the interior paneling is up, except for the paneling around the inverter.  Once the electrical work is done, we will finish that wall.  The other day, I worked on the house by myself for the first time ever!  I put up the paneling on the triangle wall just above the front door.  What a feeling of accomplishment.
• **The HVAC pipes are run and the unit is installed, but we still have to build a chase so tat you can't see the pipes and have Boris from GB Heating and Air Conditioning charge the unit.  Some air conditioning would have been nice on this brutally hot day!
• This morning, we screwed the cabinets to the floor.  It's strange, but I felt so nervous just before we began anchoring the cabinets to the floor.  It was a 'well, now we're committed' kind of nervousness.  I wonder why the butterflies in my stomach chose that moment to take flight, for the gears in my mind have known for almost two years now that 'we're committed'!
• Ismael from the Tile and Marble Master came to take measurements for a black leathered granite counter top.  I can't wait to see how the place will transform with a counter top.
• Our staircase, which will double as pantry and kitchen storage is complete!  It's such a luxury to climb a wooden staircase to go to bed instead of a ladder.
• The solar panel trailer is complete--functional when the panels are open, and secure when we drive it down the road.  
• Zoran and his team will come back out for one (maybe two) days to complete the electrical work.  It will be totally surreal to walk in to our tiny house and turn on the lights.

This is where the toilet will be.  Bathroom storage is on the left.    

Shot of paneling around the shower stall.  We will put trim around the shower stall so that you will no longer see the space between the shower and the paneling.

Finished paneling where our closet will be.

A view of the paneling around the electrical box.

The inside of the inverter (and Kacey sporting a Colorado t-shirt) to the right of the picture.  

Our washer/dryer combo machine in place.

The window above the not-yet-installed kitchen sink.  Notice the light on the ceiling, as well!

Our kitchen before the counter top is installed.  You can also see the sofa in the upper right corner of the picture.  We found that sofa on deep discount, and it fit perfectly in the space available.  We have a large, deep sink that will be installed in the counter top in the lower left corner.

A view of the house from the foot of our bed.

A view of our bed while standing on the cabinets in the kitchen. 

Our solar panel trailer open and just outside the house.  Don't let the optics fool you--the panel array, while very very large, is not, in fact, larger than the whole house.  Perspective is a tricky thing.

Post 22 (July 18)-Never Ready/Just Begin

A view from the inside--the interior paneling, the front door, the dog. The white boards you see just have primer and will get two coats of white paint.  We're debating whether to stain the vertical boards a darkish color or give them just a coat of clear.  We think we like the more natural look.

In life, are we ever really ready? I mean for the big stuff, all the firsts--first kiss, first prom, first year away from home, first job, first kid, first home... Perhaps it's only in the attempting of a thing for the first time that we learn what we need to feel ready.  And maybe, even more importantly, we develop enough confidence in ourselves that even in future moments of I'm-not-ready-yet, we manage to pull through.

When I left home for college in 2005, I don't really think I was ready to live away from home just yet.  I remember being terrified that I might accidentally fall in to some kind of drug ring and be absolutely powerless to control my own fate.  If you don't know me, at 18 there was zero indication that a drug ring would be part of my future, but at the time I had so little faith in my own ability to self-determine or get myself out of sticky situations that it seemed a legitimate worry to me.  It was only in successfully living through the first and second years of college that I proved to myself that I could, in fact, exert a fair amount of control over what my life would become.  That little bit of confidence took me to China and back home, Argentina and back home, Peru and back home, and now home in California.  I simply had to begin before I was ready, because there's no preparing for life's firsts.

When we began our build in February 2015, we were nowhere near ready.  We had no idea what was in store for us.  Sitting here tonight, though, I believe that if we'd waited until we were ready to tackle every aspect of this build before we began, we'd never have embarked on a project like this at all.

I was working in Mexico in early June when Kacey called and said, "I've figured out how we store, move, and operate the solar panels." (Backstory: Up until that point, we'd had one row of 5 panels and one row of 4 panels and they were big and heavy.  They wouldn't easily fit in the tiny house so anytime we moved, we'd have to rent a U-Haul.  A definite flaw in our "smooth" off-grid strategy.) Kacey went on to explain that he'd put 3 panels on the ATV trailer and was designing hinges that would allow the second and third set of 3 panels to rest atop the ATV trailer in transit and unfold when in use.  What an exciting development!  That night I slept poorly--far too excited about the solar panel development to slip into peaceful rest.  Kacey remarked that he was excited to have an opportunity to do so much welding--his opportunities in the past were limited and so his skill level wasn't as high as he'd like.  Not ready.  Did it anyway. Phenomenal results.

We opted to have spray insulation professionally installed.  We were sure that we'd make a mess of it and would expose ourselves to chemicals for which we didn't have adequate personal protective equipment.  Not all tiny house builders opt for spray foam insulation.  We did because of the additional structural stability it provides, the higher R-value (insulating effectiveness), and the lighter weight.  It's much quieter in there, now.  Really feels like a sanctuary.

The next step is interior paneling.  For months we'd thought about having white horizontal tongue and groove boards throughout the interior of the house.  Our thinking changed when, on a rainy evening in our current house, we looked at the bottom two feet of our light-colored walls.  With a mostly black dog, foot traffic, car grease and rain splatters, the bottom two feet of our walls were... not clean. In the tiny house, where life (and therefore dirt) is in a much smaller space, we'd have to scrub the walls down once a week.  Again, if you don't know me, weekly wall scrubbing is not my idea of a good time.

With visible dirt-management in mind, we've installed vertical tongue and groove boards up to the height of the windows (think wainscoting or chair rail).  Bottom of the windows up, we'll use the horizontal white tongue and groove boards.  We weren't ready to do interior paneling either.  The night we had set aside to begin installation, we stood in the tiny house for about 20 minutes, our anxiety growing exponentially as we pondered the gravity of the first vertical tongue and groove board.  If the first one were even a bit slanted to one side, the whole house would feel like a fun house with warped mirrors.  We very nearly abandoned the paneling that evening.  Somehow, though, we managed to set our anxieties aside and begin even as we confronted our non-readiness.  That night we installed 10 or so boards.

We are getting smarter in our beginnings, though.  Months ago, on our first day installing exterior siding, we thought the job would be tremendously easy and that we'd have a whole wall done before lunchtime.  We were hopelessly disappointed when 6:30 rolled around and we'd done three rows.  A case of expectations that were wildly out of alignment with reality.  We fell into the same trap the night we assembled the solar racks.  We thought it would be a piece of cake so we began too late and too hungry.  Another night of disappointment caused by unrealistic expectations.

When we started the interior paneling, we committed to getting five boards up.  Quite realistic and we were twice as productive as we'd prepared to be!

The quote of the month? Kacey said, "If it weren't for learning things the hard way, I wouldn't know a damn thing."  We've learned a lot the hard way.  Fruit doesn't ripen when you microwave it; it blows up.  Soap doesn't melt and re-mold in a saucepan on the stove; it burns.  House trim isn't complete when it goes up; it's complete when everything else is done.  When we first started our build, any time we learned the hard way, we were defeated for hours.  Now, we laugh it off in about two minutes.  A welcome development indeed.

Post 21 (June 9)-We Took Our House to the Dump...

Our house hooked up to Rich's truck.  A match made in heaven, huh?!

We took our house to the dump.  Not because we fell out of love with it.  Not because it had suddenly become hideously ugly (quite the opposite).  Not because we suddenly adopted an "out with the old, in with the new" mentality.  No, the truth is that it was becoming a burden.  A real burden.  A burden that needed to be reckoned with.  A burden that needed to be measured.  And so, last Sunday, we carefully drove our house over the scales at the dump, took it off the truck, stood back, and let the scales do the talking.  Our tiny house weighed in at the 98th percentile--a very healthy house indeed :)

Okay, okay, enough with the jokes.  We've had a tremendously busy month.  In reverse chronological order:

• Ordered lumber for the interior paneling (!!!!!!)
• Made an appointment for insulation installation
• Weighed our tiny house
• Showed our tiny house at the Tumbleweed Tiny House workshop in Berkeley, CA
• Finished the interior electrical work (connections between panels and inverter not yet complete)
• Assembled solar panels

Now some more details.

Showed our tiny house in Berkeley at the Tumbleweed Tiny House workshop.  This was the adventure of a lifetime.  Early that morning, Kacey and I popped out of bed and made the final preparations.  Our friend Rich came over and the three of us scurried around getting the house ready to be hooked up to the trailer for its first ever road test.  After a few struggles and a whole lot of innovation, we had the house hooked up to the truck and we were ready to hit the road.  As Kacey and Rich pulled out, I quickly closed the gate behind them, hopped in to our Honda Fit and followed them down the road.  With tears streaming down my face and my shaking hands gripping the steering wheel, I watched our house move smoothly down the road.  No boards came off, no windows flew open.  In fact, if it weren't for the gentle creaking and the trees whizzing by, it might have been possible to miss that it was even moving at all.  Outside of our backyard, the house was at once much larger, and much smaller.  A mile down the road, we pulled over to make sure that everything was fine.  Kacey stepped out of the truck and gazed up at the tiny house.  With hands on his hips and a  half-smile on his face he let out a big sigh.  If I didn't know better, I might say that he'd had tears streaming down his face, as well, taken aback by the potent mixture of anxiety, worry, excitement, and pride.  Indeed, it was a day of deep-colored emotions, no pastels or shades.  No, it wasn't contentment that we felt, but elation; elated that our work had paid off.  Not slight worry, but terror; terrified that the trip would somehow jeopardize the integrity of our house.

Showing our house was surreal.  We fielded many questions about the choices we'd made, the things we'd chosen to include and exclude, the functionality of this all-thread rod or that empty space in that corner. Somehow, we'd been catapulted from first-time do-it-yourselfers on a steep learning curve to near-royalty with unparalleled expertise.  I imagine the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Assembled Solar Panels.  When Kacey and I decided to build an off-grid tiny house, we imagined those cute little suitcase-size set of three solar panels and maybe a tiny generator the size of a kitten that purred gently when the sun wasn't out enough to power the 4 AA batteries we would need.  While that's a bit of an exaggeration, we did grossly underestimate the size system we would need.  As we were building the racks that would hold our solar panels, we were struck by the scale.  Solar panels are big.  And, as you can imagine, rows of 4 and 5 big solar panels make for really long rows.  The assembly process was not without its challenges.  We didn't realize that we needed to cut one of the longer racks in half and splice it to two other racks, a misconception that caused us just under 24 hours of stress.  Once again, it was Jeremy C. from Wholesale Solar to the rescue.

Interior Electrical Work. Zoran and his team spent almost a full day in our tiny house doing the electrical work.  Zoran was recommended to us by one of Kacey's colleagues who said, "You have never seen an electrical panel so beautiful as one of Zoran's."  I wasn't really sure what that meant.  ...Until I saw our electrical panel.  Look for the precision and the attention to detail.  I hadn't realized how complex electrical work is.  I find myself being really grateful when I plug something in to an outlet, something I had previously taken for granted.

So, what have we learned since the last entry?

• Lower expectations and increase patience when doing anything for the first time.  This is a lesson that Kacey and I learned the hard way our first day installing the exterior siding where expectations were high and patience was low.  We got disappointed and frustrated quickly when our progress was slow and imperfect.  We were reminded of this lesson again when assembling the racks for the solar panels.  We thought it would be an extremely easy task so we started on empty stomachs and poor lighting thinking we'd have it done within an hour.  We were wrong.  Had our expectations been more realistic and our patience higher, we would have been more successful the first night.
• I continue to be astonished by the many layers beneath the surface.  In the framing, plumbing, and electrical work of a house--indeed what many of us define as necessities for any kind of suitable structure, there is so much more than what meets the eye.  That's true, I think, for the people we meet, too.  What we see is a sliver, a tiny, tiny sliver, of who they are.  We see the finished exterior, and all the work, all the tears, accomplishments, disappointments, successes, failures, and hopes that give form to the exterior remain, for the majority of the people we meet, invisible.  It becomes so easy to judge the exterior, to criticize it, idolize it, envy it, or disparage it.  I reckon though, that it's the work of understanding how and why someone is built that make relationships strong and meaningful.  Imagine if we lived in a world where people asked the same kinds of questions of each other that they did of our house that day.  Instead of just saying, "Why is your fridge so big?" we'd also ask each other, "What's so important to you that you would sacrifice other things in your life to make room for it?" In this world, we'd also listen to the answer. We'd hang on every word the way you would if you were in the presence of an expert.  Might our world be kinder? 

Notice anything different? Hint hint - Kacey painted the all-thread rods and the unistrut.  Makes it disappear? Definitely not as obvious. 

Is this, or is this not, the most beautiful fuse panel you've ever seen?  Zoran and his crew are excellent!

A close-up of the (now practically invisible) unistrut and all-thread rods.

You can just barely see the speakers peeking over the mattress. That's right, folks, our tiny house has surround sound.  Inside and outside. 

Kacey got the batteries all hooked up.  What you're seeing is an innovative use of available resources to accomplish a seemingly impossible task.  This cable goes from the batteries halfway to the inverter in the house.  We used the trailer as a ground side buss.  In layman's terms, we were two feet short with the cables provided, so we used the trailer as a wire extender.  Kacey also painted the terminal ends to resist corrosion.  Questions?  Kacey will be around all week to answer 'em :)

Cable box.  Kacey and I go back and forth about TVs.  Mostly I say one TV is (more than) enough, and he's thinking a second TV in the loft would be pretty sweet.  I'll keep you posted, don't worry.

There is a lot going on in this wall.  Here you see refrigerant lines (white), a junction box, electrical work, and plumbing.

Wall for TV.  Complete with its own electrical outlet and cable. 

Kacey built this box for the LED inverters and remote controllers.

Notice the labeling of the wires.  

Post 20 (April 28)-Butt Connectors

The front of our house, complete with trim around the tiny window, porch lights, and a mailbox that doubles as an illuminated license plate mount.

One of the challenging things about writing a blog is that I want to provide you with the most updated pictures and updates, but the moment I sit down to write the blog, inevitably the pictures are already outdated and we have more, really exciting things happening soon.  That very thought process, however, is what's kept me from writing a post for the past few months, and it's time to interrupt the thought train, and let you know about our progress!

Major Accomplishments:

• Plumbing is complete--thanks Shane Letts! He even installed a very high-tech shower head for us (see picture below). Shane was able to retrofit a way to fill our 95 gallon on-board water tank using our city water hook-up and the easy operation of a couple ball-valves. He also had a great idea during early construction to use a water tank/system "dump" that is easily operated with a ball valve that can drain the entire system in case of contamination or freeze prevention, which he installed during the final wrap-up. 
• Exterior siding is done (well, except for a tiny strip along the bottom.  In the picture above, you can see the tiny sliver of white house wrap that is still visible) See story below.* 
• Batteries are installed in the battery tray that's nestled underneath the trailer and held together with unistrut.  Thanks to our neighbor Rich, we moved the tiny house back about 10 feet so that the tires sat on top of a mound of dirt, giving the three of us (Rich, Kacey, me) enough room to shimmy under the trailer and slide each of the 120 lb. batteries into the battery tray.
• Electrical work will be completed next week.  Our electrician Zoran is an expert and we enjoy learning from him.  We have such confidence in his expertise and are so lucky to have found him.
• Trailer lights are installed.  High priority because Kacey and I are going to show our tiny house at a Tumbleweed Tiny House workshop in Berkeley! 
• Inverter is installed.  Special thanks to Jeremy C. at Wholesale Solar for his patience and expertise.
• Mailbox, doubling as a license plate, is installed! 

*A Story About Our Exterior Siding: In Chinese literature, there's a story written by 胡適 called 差不多先生 (loosely translated "Mr. Good-Enough").  This story exposes the dangers of never doing a job to perfection.  Indeed, some of 差不多先生's last words are, "The living and the dead are just about the same." Philosophical reactions to this statement aside, 胡適 makes the point that living with a "good-enough" mentality is not likely to produce extraordinary results.  This tiny house project has opened our eyes to the areas in our lives in which we are "Mr. and Ms. Good-Enough," and the areas in which we are "Mr. and Ms. It's not good enough until it's perfect." Wonderfully (and frustratingly, at first), our areas of good-enough and never-good-enough don't really overlap.  Kacey is particular about every cut, the grain of every piece of wood, the location of every exterior screw.  I... am not.  When we first started our build, I found myself getting frustrated with his excruciating attention to detail.  I'm much smarter now.  As I look out at our tiny house from the kitchen sink of our big house, I'm so appreciative.  His attention to detail is creating a breathtaking masterpiece.

I'm that particular about different things--meals I prepare, in-person sessions I design, formatting of course materials, the tupperware drawer.  Just like me, Kacey found some of my "not-good-enough-until-it's-perfect" tendencies frustrating at first.  He's smarter now, too :)

I'm sure by now you're wondering, "Why on Earth is this post titled 'Butt Connectors'?!" As we were installing the trailer lights, we used butt connectors to connect the original trailer wiring to our more stylish LED trailer lights.  We wanted to get away from the traditional square trailer lights and opted for a sleeker look that uses less power.  Prior to this project, the thought that wires could be cut and spliced together with a $0.25 metal cylinder was unfathomable to me.  But, there I was, watching Kacey cut, connect, shorten and lengthen wire without blinking an eye.  It occurred to me that before the tiny house project, I approached life with a "if you cut a wire, there's no way to salvage it" attitude.  A year into our build, I'm learning that Kacey and I are connecting pieces of our lives together, trimming out the things and thoughts that no longer serve us, and working to lengthen this pretty special time in our lives.  If butt connectors could make our days just a little bit longer than they are, we'd buy them in bulk to preserve and cherish the home stretch of the biggest project either one of us has ever undertaken.  Thanks for supporting us along this journey.

Trailer lights.

Notice the trailer lights and the electrical box.

A good view of the hardware on the door here that 1) keeps the doors open and 2) prevents them from running into the porch lights and mailbox when they swing open.

The center view of the battery tray.  Hard to see, but batteries are connected (in series).

A bit easier to see the connections between batteries.

Now you can see the connection.  Connecting the + of one battery to the - of the next is called a series circuit.  It adds voltage -- for example, two 6-volt batteries connected in series results in a 12-volt circuit.  In our instance, we are connecting 8 6-volt batteries in series to provide us 48-volts to our inverter.  This is the ONLY way you would ever want to connect the + to the - .

Our installed shower head.  

Check our the sleek nozzle.

This little knob allows us to turn the water off right at the nozzle.  When we're working to conserve our on-board water during showers, this will come in very handy!

A shot of the pluming underneath.  On the right is the water tank.

This is the water pump box, the tube you see is the water out of the pump.

Another shot of the plumbing underneath the trailer.  

Kacey primed and painted the cover for the intake and exhaust for the hot water heater and bathroom exhaust fan vent.  Looks much more polished. 

The cover above will go here.  Kacey even pained the inside of the pipe on the left so that you didn't see white pipe inside of a painted vent.

The box that Kacey built around the water pump.  The bolts you see in the picture fasten directly to the trailer.

Another shot of the water pump.  The holes are for incoming (from the right) and outgoing water (to the left). There's also a serviceable particulate filter to keep dirt and sand out of the water pump. 

Installed inverter.

Zoomed-out view.  As you can see, it's installed just above the washer/dryer.

A profile view.  You can see it extends slightly past the 2 x 8, but not by much!

Exterior siding done except for a tiny sliver along the bottom.  You can still see a bit of white house wrap sticking out at the very bottom.

A close-up.

A view of the back, AND of the side that almost never gets pictured in the blog.  Proof that we're actually finishing the other side, too :)

I look at this photo with a smile.  You?