Monday, May 16th, 2011:
Created doors for one of the ‘up stairs’ closets today giving a much more finished look and feel to the sleeping loft. Framed them with 1X2′s and covered with knotty pine paneling and pine corner trim.
Also enjoyed some wrap-up work on the plumbing project by completing the gray water drainage system as well as mounting and hooking up the 110V RV pump to the potable water storage tank and routing it into the copper water supply line.
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011:
Took a moment after work this afternoon to check a small “To-Do” off the list: Placing the weather stripping in the door jamb. This will help keep the warm air in and the cold air out in the coming winters by creating a seal around the edge of the front door.
As summer camp approaches and time to work on the project gets more and more sparse every little step counts!
Monday, May 9th, 2011:
For such a small space, this has been a big project! The choice to avoid PVC and pursue copper piping in our water supply lines proved to be a great learning opportunity. Many thanks to Eric Brennan and Dave Jones for teaching us how to sweat pipe! A bit of extra work, but a fantastic skill to now have.
Our potable water service consists of two systems: one that hooks directly up to a faucet for city water pressure at a campground or friend’s home, as well as one that allows us to fill a 30 gal. storage tank that utilizes a 110V RV pump for water pressure. The combined system is valve controlled, has pressure regulating capabilities, check valves, strainers, and provides water filtering.
The cold water line feeds the kitchen bar sink, the shower, the future washer/dryer combo unit, and the 7 gal. electric water heater. The hot water line then leaves the water heater and serves the kitchen sink and shower.
Next steps to complete the plumbing will be to hook the RV pump up to the water storage tank and copper piping system, hook up the shower controls (after we get the shower installed -big project!), and complete the gray-water drainage system.
We had a special treat! A good friend who currently resides in Norway stopped in for a brief visit, a tour of the Tiny House, and to lend a quick hand. Many thanks to Josh Sheehan, he’s been a HUGE supporter of this project from the very beginning.
Monday, May 2nd, 2011:
There is an aspect of this Tiny House adventure that we’ve been most excited about: the need to pare down our belongings and to be intentional in every decision we make regarding what goes into the house.
One ‘luxury item’ that has been very important to Gabby is her patchboard, highlighting patches collected from a life-time of trips. It had been hanging in a room in our current house that’s completely dedicated to our toys -a room that represents a lot of hard paring-down decisions.
These patches still hold an important place in her heart, so she got creative in how they could fit into our pared-down life. She found some cork tiles and hung them on the inside of her clothing closet door. Multi-purposing at its finest…
Saturday, April 30th, 2011:
Finished work on the sleeping loft and enjoyed our first ‘camp out’ in the Tiny House! To be honest, the sleeping area is really quite a bit more spacious than we’d imagined. At 3′ 8″ of head clearance at the peak of the roof, we’d been a bit apprehensive. Perhaps since we’ve spent so much time in the Tiny House we’re becoming accustomed to the space, but it really was comfortable and cozy up there. -That is, if you don’t take into consideration the climbing ‘crash pad’ that we put down for a temporary mattress. The thing is great for taking falls when out bouldering, but not as much fun for comfy sleeping…
The dimensions for the loft allow for a queen-size mattress. We have been sleeping on a full-size bed since getting married, and find it to be more than adequate for the comfort of two people and two cats. Given this, we’ll have some extra space on each side of the sleeping loft.
To maximize as much available storage space as possible, we’re following Jonathan’s lead and building in ‘foot lockers’ on each side of the bed. We found his blog early on in our planning phase and loved his foot locker idea.
We framed our foot lockers with 2X2′s and sheeted them with the knotty pine we’ve been using throughout the interior. We have also constructed small ‘closets’ for some clothing storage at the end of the sleeping loft. This has served two functions for us: Maximizing more storage space while closing off the sleeping loft for a touch of privacy from the ‘Great Room’.
We will be creating our full-size ‘bed’ in the sleeping loft by putting together two 3″ natural latex rubber mattress cores inside of a custom made organic cotton and wool mattress cover. Through a lot of research, Gabby found a great company, Purerest, that offers all-natural bedding products. This was important to us specifically due to the things we’d been learning about the fire-retardant chemicals found in mattresses and other furniture. Interested folks should check out these videos: Toxic Chemical Soup Part One. Toxic Chemical Soup Part Two. Dangerous Flame Retardant Chemicals. Pretty interesting stuff.
