Sunday, March 6th, 2011:
Reworked one of the kitchen cabinet doors as well as built and installed another clothing closet door. Closet door was built out of 1X3’s and the knotty pine wall panelling that we’re using throughout the tiny house. Hung the door on three cabinet hinges, and capped the door off with pine corner trim. The trim really makes the doors look sharp, for sure.
This is the beginning of our busy months at Camp Ondessonk, and we’re finding that we are able to get out to work on the tiny house on average of about half a day per week, so progress has slowed quite a bit. We are still aiming to wrap up the bulk of the construction and finish-work by the start of summer camp (end of May), and even at a slower pace should be able to meet that deadline.
The yet-to-do list looks something like this:
Plumbing- finish running the copper water pipe, put in drainage system, hook up water tank and water pump.
Install stainless steel shower stall, hook up water to shower fixture.
Install composting toilet venting system.
Put up Eastern Red Cedar ceiling in bathroom.
Trim bathroom window.
Hang pine bathroom door.
Finish up knotty pine wall in kitchen.
Put up stainless steel splash guard behind kitchen stove.
Trim kitchen windows and counter edge.
Build kitchen wall cabinets.
Install washer/dryer combo and build cabinate around it.
Build sleeping loft closets and storage areas.
Build sleeping loft access ladder.
Trim storage loft window.
Finish storage loft ‘closets’.
Install flooring.
Install door threshold.
Put up door trim.
Build desk.
Build couch/futon/storage area.
Put up all corner trim.
Apply tung oil.
Put up exterior soffet along sides of house.
Water seal front porch surface.
Apply 3rd coat of exterior water seal on siding/porch.
Take tiny house to Belleville DMV for certification as a Recreational Vehicle, change title from ‘Trailer’ to ‘RV’!
Built By Friends: Evan & Gabby's Tiny House 
Comments on: "More Doors!" (24)
Just found your site. Love your home!! My partner Kai & I are building one of our own too (well, we WILL be once it stops snowing in Vermont!!). We’ve added your site to our bloglist on the tiny house section of our site.
Will look forward to following your site and getting the updates!
Sheila 🙂
Hi Sheila,
Thanks for your kind words. Good luck as you and Kai start your build. What an adventure! We look forward to following your project as well. The work is hard, and so incredibly worth it. To describe it as rewarding is just scratching the surface. We’re excited for you!
I love what you’re doing and I’m very excited for you both. I love Tumbleweed and I hope I can convince my wife one day to take on this endeavor of simple living.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Good luck Miguel! It is a wonderful project to be a part of, for sure.
YOU are amazing. Great to see the blog! My friends Tammy and Logan forwarded me the link. They are also building a tiny house this summer so your site is timely and awesome.
I’ve lived in my house for 6 plus years. I think you’ll find the whole experience expansive… what ever that may mean to each of you and together. I wish you the best, and will be sending you good juju from Olympia Washington. If you ever need a good city to settle into… let me know.
Be well! Have fun! Dee
Thanks so much Dee. You know, your story was one of the things that really caught our eye and encouraged us to pursue this adventure. As we researched the idea initially, we came across several news stories and an article in YES! magazine highlighting your experience. We both really related to many of the things you reflected on regarding life, needs, and simplifying as various reporters visited your tiny home.
It is fun to have an opportunity to tell you ‘Thanks’. Thanks for the positive feedback, and thanks for the inspiration. This experience has been such a blessing in our lives, and we haven’t even moved in yet!
Hi Evan & Gabby, I just found you through Tumbleweed’s newsletter and I’m so glad because Andrea and I are planning on building and living in our own little Tumbleweed too.
Our biggest obstacle is that I work from home and am currently fortunate enough to have an extra bedroom in our 600 square foot place to use as an office with a huge whiteboard and all… It’ll be challenging to squeeze into something so tiny but there are people doing it.
Anyways I’m looking forward to keeping up with your progress and can’t wait to see you move in!
Thanks Alex!
We sometimes joke about adding a guest room or an office- as a side car. You could make one whole wall a white board! Good luck with your build.
Love what you are doing. I am planning on building using the Fencel design and have many many questions from how well these structures actually travel to keeping warm or cool, condensation, etc.
You place is looking great!
Ed
c: 484.410.9888
Thanks Ed. We had originally planned on building a Fencel. It just looks so cool! We opted, literally at the very last minute (trailer and plans were already in hand!) to switch to the Tarleton because we ultimately decided that a good sittin’ porch was just too important in our relationship to do without…
Your questions are good ones, and we are curious about these things as well. We’ll just have to see as our adventure unfolds. We did address the condensation issue a bit in our choice of insulation, however. We went with natural sheep’s wool insulation from Oregon Shepherd. One of the many great qualities of wool is it’s moisture absorbing properties.
Howdy! I too learning of your house via the Tiny House News letter, and spent all of today reading all of your back log. Congratulations on all the work you did so far. Your house is a piece of art. I’ve added your blog to my feed reader and I’ll be following along with everything going forward.
Wow, Grant, thank you for taking the time. That’s a lot of reading! Your kind words are appreciated. Thanks for joining us on this journey!
Where are you parking it? That is the only problem I have with investing time and money into a build. I would not want to park in national park or anywhere I’d need to pay a monthly fee (need to move every so often or what have not). I would like to find land in Oregon or Washington where this type of home would be accepted. Anyone aware of anyplace?
Hi Rosemary,
This can be a real obstacle. We are willing to explore campgrounds that will offer a year-long site rentals, as our tiny house will be registered and taxed as an RV. Other wise it will take some responsible exploration of local codes in learning if it could be parked in a yard or on a lot in your area. Consider looking into this question on the Tumbleweed website, I’m sure they have come across this question many times and may have some ideas/resources available.
You might also want to look up Dee Williams. From what we understand, she has taken steps to get her tiny home approved in her area. She’s in Washington. A quick key-word search should bring her right up!
I took the time to review all of your information you provided in your blog – I’m very impressed on the quality of your work and attention to detail. I also enjoyed seeing you and your wife working along side each other – it reminds me of my wife and I – I hope you also have 40+ years together.
PS. We have several grandchildren and I think you may have to find another place in your tiny house for your “upto 5 years old” – I always told my kids when my mother-in-law came to visit if we ran out of room we could put her on a coat hook, Anyway – have fun and enjoy.
Hi Alan,
We really appreciate your kind words, and are honored to remind you of your relationship and partnership with your wife. That is certainly humbling, and we’ll strive to live up!
You may be right about the up-to-5 issue… We’ll see if that time ever comes for us!
Thanks for stopping by,
Evan & Gabby
WOW! 2000 hits one day… 75000 two days later!! I must admit that I visit your guys’ blog every day…. sometimes more than once a day! Heepwah-tastic job my friends!!!
Thanks Rob! That means a lot. Your bus project really was an inspiration to us. You’re the first person we knew that showed us that building your own small, mobile place could be possible. Thanks for the confidence!
I received an e-mail newsletter from Tumbleweed Tiny Houses yesterday. After I got home, I read through you blog, and had a couple of quick questions.
1. If your 30-gallon water tank sits on the floor, how are you going to get any water pressure to your sink and shower?
2. Do you plan on using a microwave oven, and if so where will you put it?
3. Do you plan on using a regular oven or toaster oven, and if so where will you put it?
4. Do you plan on using a built-in home safe for important records and valuables?
5. I was surprised that you didn’t run any coax/TV wire, telephone wire, Ethernet wire or speaker wire. Was this a deliberate decision or happy accident? (I was thinking outdoor speakers on the porch during a BBQ.)
6. What are your plans during extreme weather events such as tornadoes and thunderstorms? Do you plan to evacuate to a local hotel? (I live in Tulsa, OK – part of Tornado Alley.)
Thank-you in advance for your answers and insight.
Reece
Hello Reece,
Great questions! Please see below for our replies to each:
1) To provide for our water pressure we are using a Sureflo 110V RV water pump.
2) No microwave for us. Gabby is keen on weening our addiction on that convenience and we will be relying on our toaster oven instead.
3) Gabby found a really nice stainless steel Cuisinart toaster oven for our tiny place. We’ve actually been using it in our current house for all of our reheating and baking needs to get used to it being our only resource. She’s baked fantastic loaves of bread, made pizza, and even reheated left over tai food in the thing. It is working out GREAT! It will sit on the counter top on the stove-side of our tiny kitchen.
4) No built-in safe, as we will store these important documents, along with other valuables and cherished keep-sakes in a storage shed we are building on Gabby’s Mom’s property. This will serve as our home-base for things that we may want/need in the future and would regret getting rid of (like the red-pine log bed I made, or her family heirloom dresser).
5) No accident! We don’t watch much TV, and can readily get our information online. We will be utilizing a Wi-Fi mobile hot-spot device to provide our internet access. We have a great set of Bose computer speakers that will nestle up in our storage loft and fill out the tiny place with great sound very nicely. The speakers on the deck would be a pretty slick idea though…
6) GREAT point. We are going to be looking into some form of ‘mobile home tie down’ system. This will be some form of cable set that will attach to the trailer frame and tie down to screw-in ground stakes. This will help us keep the tiny place from blowing over in severe weather! As for storm shelter, yes, no basement to turn to. We’ll just have to play that one by ear!
Thanks for stopping by,
Evan & Gabby
Hello,
Just found your site via The Tumbleweed blog. I love your future home, it’s beautiful. I noticed one thing this is not the normal layout for the interior of the Tarleton. I see the restroom is at the back and kitchen in the middle; What was the inspiration for the change? Were these changes that you made to the plans? Any complications because of the change?
Just curious, I love the way it looks and can’t wait to see the finished home here on your blog.
Sean
Hey Sean, Before we made the leap and bought the plans and the trailer for our tiny house we were playing around with all kinds of floor-plans. I just did not like how narrow the kitchen seemed in most of the tumbleweed homes–so we played around with little paper images until we felt like it gave us the most space. So far there have not been any complications–but we did have to rearrange the window layout from the original plan–this had to be addresses in the initial framing. Thanks for your interest, Gabby
I previously left a comment so I won’t take much of your time. I was wondering if you were planning on weighing the unit after completion – I would be interested in knowing the weight of the right wheels, left wheels, tongue along total weight. I’m trying to determine if I need a one ton truck to safely pull one of these units.
PS. I still think you are doing an amazing job – can’t wait for your next update.
Yes, we do plan on finding a place to weight it when it is complete–although I think we are nervous to find out the results. Trying to avoid plastic in construction has most certainly upped our overall weight. However initially we did go with a beefier trailer– 10,000 pound Car Hauler instead of the recommend 7,000 utility. –gabby