Trim Work is Rewarding!

Sunday, August 7th, 2011:

Having finished up a great summer at Camp Ondessonk, we are once again able to invest more time in our Tiny House build. We’re approaching the one year mark on this project, and feel confident that we can realistically wrap up by September 25th.

From the beginning, folks said that the shell would go up quickly, but the interior detail work would be where we’d spend most of our time. Folks were right.

We were able to put in a few hours here and there over the summer addressing many of the small details, and have come to really enjoy the deliberate nature of trim work. Not many things are as satisfying as seeing corner trim tie together a wall that you built with friends…

Trim used: a LOT of 1″ corner (edge trim) and 1/2″ corner (quarter round) trim.

Many thanks to our good friends Amber Garvey, Natalie Hermanek, and Brooks Lechworth for their help in constructing the door jamb for the bathroom!

The Threshold.

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011:

Many thanks to Jim Shively for stopping by the tiny house at 6:00am a couple Saturdays ago to put in the threshold. Jim was instrumental in finding folks to build our custom front door, as well as teaching us how to properly install it. With the floor finally in place, he could return to finish this last detail awaiting the wrap-up of the door project.

The threshold needed to be cut down to fit the tiny opening, but other than that it went in quick and easy, sealing the door opening right up. Now we have a way to keep the house wrens from starting nests in our pantry shelves…

Sealing the front door.

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!

Prep for front siding!

Saturday, November 27th, 2010:

Spent some time getting the Tiny House ready for the front cedar siding. Finished out the last of the cedar porch decking that had been waiting for the door installation, put up the cedar 1×4 trim around the door, installed backing for the siding to be nailed into, and rounded out the day by putting up knotty pine trim along the loft Ridge Beam.

Loft Wall and Door Install!

Friday, November 26th, 2010:

Continued our work in the loft, and the knotty pine is going up much more quickly as we get the hang of it.

Jim Shively arrived mid-afternoon to install our front door. He made quick work of getting it in and shimmed just right. Made it look easy! It is starting to feel more and more like a tiny house. Having a front door is a HUGE improvement! A heartfelt THANK YOU to Jim for all of the time he’s put into researching, negotiating, ordering, advising, and installing this door for us. He singlehandedly solved one of the biggest challenges we ran into in this project. We are forever grateful!

THANKS JIM!!!

The Front Door!

Friday, November 19th, 2010:

We drove to Belleville, IL to pick up our custom built front door today!

The front door had proved to be one of the more challenging aspects of the project. A regular sized door (or even the smaller doors) that are readily available at home improvement stores are just too big for the needs of a Tiny House. We needed a very small, unconventionaly sized door that was made out of quality materials as it would be the the only barrier between the Tiny House and the elements.

Given the specialized knowledge required to build a quality door, and the unusual dimensions that a tiny house calls for, our limited construction skills were not going to lend themselves well to building the door ourselves. A friend and skilled finish carpenter, Jim Shively, recommended Liese Lumber in Belleville, IL for the job.

Jim gave them the dimensions and we had a custom built Birch door ready to pick up in under a week! This little door was fairly pricy, but Liese was able to do it for half the cost of the many places we looked into around the country, and in a fraction of the time…

A HUGE THANK YOU TO JIM SHIVELY for guiding us throughout the search for a custom built front door!