The past 2-3 weeks has been focused on wall construction, with three wall segments now standing and one nearing completion. Before I began on the walls, I still had a few decisions to make. This ended up taking longer and being more stressful than I had anticipated. The main decision I faced was the interplay of the interior headroom, roof pitch, and wall height. My design (which I’ll show more of soon) features a roof that… View More

“Did you pump the water off the trailer?” “Did you put the tarp over the trailer?” “Did you bring the tools in from the trailer?” The questions above are the sort that Michael and I used to ask each other a few short weeks ago. Thinking about what to write for this post, it occurred to me that the phrase “the trailer” doesn’t get used much… View More

When we stand in the house now, the sensation is clearly one of being enclosed inside a structure - it even has a “roof” of sorts - the same huge full-length gray tarp that used to be draped over the subfloor and its insulation when that was in progress.  We have set up a very temporary “ridgepole” the full length of the house to make sure that the tarp sheds - rather than collects - rainwater, and so far the strategy… View More

On the eve of the great deluge.   We had an exciting tiny house adventure Sunday night.  It was raining just a few drops in early evening, then developed into real rain.  Around midnight, there was a waterfall-like sound and we were having a deluge nearly worthy of Noah himself.  Michael had gone to bed… View More

Although we had been very meticulous about checking the trailer and subfloor for squareness by measuring full-length diagonals across it, we didn’t - for whatever reasons - do likewise with the raised framing walls.  I think we were lulled into some complacency by several things: (1) the fact that the floor kept appearing to be… View More

After all framing was up, I started on two rows of blocking–pieces of 2x4 material fit between each stud and run horizontally along the length of each wall. Most codes specify that all edges of each panel of sheathing should land on solid blocking. This makes the structure much stronger. This will also give me solid backing to attach my interior plywood to. Because of the height of my walls, I determined that I would need two rows of… View More

This weekend I finished fastening the sheathing to the roof (doing much better with heights now!) and Dad and I completed the house wrap. I chose Hydro Gap from Benjamin Obdyke, which is a “drainable” housewrap. It has little spacers on the surface to allow water that gets behind your siding to drain out. Sort of a mini rain-screen. Useful tip: A belt sander with 36 grit sandpaper comes in real handy when you need to… View More

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The slow and rather erratic return of warmer weather is stirring the blood of us Tiny House builders!   Mikey first braved the chill outside starting on Sunday 3/19, beginning work on the exterior utility box which will rest on the trailer tongue frame and hold the house’s twin propane tanks and a storage compartment for batteries and assorted gear.  His first hours of building produced the internal framing for the box and the… View More

Today was a real milestone…   The Tiny House picture window (200-220 lbs) was carried out from the garage by a rag-tag team of good friends, who had cheerfully agreed to show up at 5 pm and assist.  My back was ailing, so I just served as photographer. They walked it around the east side of the garage and across the back yard to Tiny House Land, where they laid it flat on the ground near the taller end of the… View More