Moving in

Books are on the shelves, clothes are in the wardrobe, a single jar of cheerios and three onions are trying to fill out the kitchen cabinets. More to the point, I slept in the house for the first time on Sunday. I’m finally moving in.

Yesterday Mum waded into the bureaucracy of the DMV armed with pictures of the house proving it contains all the necessary elements for modern living. She returned victorious with our VIN and travel trailer designation in hand. It’s official, the tiny house is now suitable for human habitation.

Looking Like a Home?

So I was down in Texas again this weekend getting the house close to finished out. Big progress points include finally hanging my hammock and getting the sofa most of the way framed out so things are really starting to come together. In fact, Mum managed to pull off some careful camera angles to make the house look pretty much done!

The sliding door for the bathroom is up as is the shelving for my study. The shelving is held up by antique wrenches from Pops’ toolbox, I believe they used to belong to my great grandfather.

Final Countdown

This’ll be a short post with just one big update and a few small ones. Taking photos has kind of fallen back in priority in favor of actually getting sh** done… That said, we’re on the home stretch now so looking forward to getting y’all some finished interior pics soon! Current plan is to have it livable within the next two weeks and up to Seattle by the end of the month!

Anyway, big update number one is… wheel’s on!

Getting it down off the jack stands was a tad terrifying, but all went well and we took it on a very short test drive which also went smoothly. Whew!

Headed to Texas

Pops has been pushing ahead with a ton of progress in preparation for getting the house on the road early next month. Here’s one last quick update before I hop on a plane tomorrow to join him.

This might be a bit of a spot-the-difference exercise compared to the last exterior pic I posted, but that little bit of change means it’s finally fully sided! Except…

Brief update

I’m headed back down to Texas next weekend to get some more work done on the house. Plan is to get it ready for driving up to Seattle in early February which means I’ll be living in this thing pretty soon! In the meantime, here is a few update pics for where the house is at at the moment (recall that my last post was a few months out of date as we’d been taking pics using a camera with no SD card!).

Winds last night were up into the 20km/hr to 50km/hr range depending on which weatherman you trust. The roof’s on but not fully screwed down yet so Pops was out at midnight adding some extra screws and these tires to stop the whole lot blowing away. While I’m glad to see the roof still in place come morning, I’m even more glad that Pops’s still in one piece – crawling around the roof in the middle of the night in a wind storm feels like a recipe for disaster…

Not Dead Yet…

For those who have asked, no we haven’t stopped building! I’ve just been stuck up in Seattle most of the time doing my Masters of Public Health. Ok, not stuck, I’m loving it, but it is pulling me away from the build.

I’ve been back down a few times over the past few months and keep meaning to post about our progress. Given today’s the first of the year it seemed like a good time to break the habit of intending to and actually post. So, in somewhat chronological order:

My beautiful red door all painted and mounted. The fit was exact, meaning it was a massive pain to get in… But the end result is pretty perfect!

The Tiny House Needs a Home

With my date for moving to Seattle getting ever closer (arriving late September), I’ve been searching for a place to park my new house. Turns out such a place is pretty hard to find! So, if you’re reading this and you know someone in the Seattle area with a yard who might be interested in hosting a tiny house, please point them my way!

A Word on Moisture

I thought I’d done all the research I could possibly do on moisture control in construction but all this rain has me reconsidering. I had to go back out into the house to get a clamp and took the chance to recheck the status of the tarp and how it had fared with the ceaseless wind and rain overnight. It’s doing great – thanks Cindy and Rose for helping us not only get it up in record time last night but also do so pretty damn close to perfectly! But for all that there isn’t a drop of liquid water to be seen, everything still feels damp. Maybe it’s just the air, the humidity’s creeping up pretty close to 100%. But all the moisture in the air has to mean moisture in the wood and that’s got my jittery about closing in the floor and walls this week without giving them time to dry.

So I’ve just rechecked all my moisture control plans and thought I’d do a short intro post on the importance of paying really close attention to moisture control in a tiny house build and how complicated that can be.

The Tiny Becomes a House

In one moment, about 15 minutes ago, this tiny stack of wood and metal became a house. I’d run out through a lull in the storm to see how the tarp was holding up. After squeezing in between a roped down edge and the side of the trailer I checked, and double checked, every inch of the inside for leaks. The lull had passed, the thunder was right overhead, and the rain on the tarp made the house feel like the inside of a drum. But it was a dry drum, completely and utterly dry. And when I finally stood still, adequately convinced that the tarp was rain-proof, it suddenly felt like a house. Even as a stick frame covered in thin blue plastic, it was doing what all houses are meant to, providing shelter – and it was doing a mighty fine job of it. I lay down, right there on the sawdust covered subfloor and looked up at the roof of my very own (tiny) house.

So here’s what we’ve been doing over the past week to get here:

Days 55-61

All walls up and (almost) all studs in place. Just framing out all the windows (and door) today. Sheathing tomorrow with the help of the amazing folks from the Austin Tiny House Building MeetUp group. Thanks everyone!