Shelving in the Kitchen.

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011:

We had our first Ikea experience on our recent trip to Portland and the Oregon coast. Woah.

While there, we fell in love with some storage solutions for the Tiny House’s kitchen. We purchased and have now installed some items from their stainless steel Grundtal collection, including a dish rack/drainer, spice rack, and small stainless shelf.

What we like most about these pieces is how they take advantage of flat wall space for hanging things, creating a vertical storage solution. We think it is a great fit in the tiny house!

Interestingly, it appears that many items at Ikea are only available through in-store purchase. We had hoped to be able to order these items once home from our trip. Turned out we could not.

We did, however, discover an enterprising person who helps solve this problem for folks like us who don’t live anywhere near an Ikea store. EverythingIkea.com will take your list and do your Ikea shopping for you, then ship it directly to you for a reasonable mark-up. We did pay extra for our items, but found the service fair and a good alternative to making the 6 hour drive to our nearest Ikea store.

Gabby’s hand-crafted Throw Rug.

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011:

With her hand-made curtains in place, Gabby has turned her attention to crocheting a throw rug for the Great Room. She has re-purposed some white cotton rags that were to be thrown out, washed them, and cut them into thin strips for incorporating into the oval rug. To keep with the earth-toned theme that is taking shape in the tiny house, she has colored the cotton strips with a natural black-walnut dye.

She enjoyed a short bike ride up the 2 mile Camp Ondessonk entrance road collecting some of the black walnuts that are falling to the ground this time of year. Once home, she placed them in a large pot of water and simmered them for an evening. Next, she let them soak in the water for three days. The resulting liquid made quick work of the strips of white cotton, turning them a rich and pleasant brown hue.

Great Room Shelving.

Friday, October 21st, 2011:

Continuing to take a good look at how to best maximize space in the ‘Great Room’. A few walls lent themselves well to shelving, so we’ve tried out our hand at shelf-making.

While shelving is a great way to take advantage of limited but usable space we do have one unique challenge to address: Cats.

To add another layer of ‘crazy’ to this adventure we’re not just fitting two people into this tiny space, but will be bringing along two very active and curious cats.

As cat owners know, shelves -and all items on them- are fair game. So, with an open mind and some strategy, we’ve installed a set of 1X8 pine shelves in a few intentional locations. These shelves, as with many features in the place, will have multiple uses: portions will hold baskets for storage, while other portions will serve as a cat-tree system to allow our small companions autonomous access to the sleeping loft as well as a nook in the storage loft that will house a hidden ‘blanket-nest’ for when they are feeling less social.

We’re still having a blast with this project! Getting closer and closer…

A couple good articles.

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011:

We’ve recently seen a couple of on-line articles highlighting our project that we really like. We’d like to thank Christina Nellemann at the Tiny House Blog and Alex Pino at Tiny House Talk for both their interest in our project as well as their thoughtful and accurate depiction.

Both of these blogs provide some really great resources for folks interested in simple living. We are grateful to be included.

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Re-applying the weather seal.

Sunday, October 16th, 2011:

Took advantage of a warm and sunny autumn day to re-apply the Flood CWF-UV weather seal on the sides of the house that endured the mold/mildew scrubbing.

The product we have been using to seal the cedar siding has come consistently and highly recommended by every person we’ve asked about such matters. We like it, as well. It rolls on smoothly, dries quickly and gives a nice warm tone to the cedar.

Many thanks to Sami Reuter, Carly Crabtree, and Linda Scruggs for grabbing up a roller and helping us out! We appreciate you.