Update 5.23.13
May 23, 2013 § 2 Comments
I HAVE WATER!!! And gas! the list is getting so much shorter on things left to do. It consists of:
- Cabinet doors/drawers
- Build a bookshelf
- Fix tires
- Electrical closet doors
- Finish siding/stain siding
- Install toilet
- Move house
SO EXCITED!
Here are some pictures:
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- Hooked up to a long hose for my propane tank
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- And in the mechanical room, my drained, the top for the washer/dryer, the bottom for my kitchen sink
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- And there is power to my washer dryer!
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- Shut off valves for the washer/dryer
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- tightening the hoses to the washer dryer
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- Everything is tightened up and ready to test!
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- Testing the water in the shower, this is cold
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- And you can see the steam, this is HOT!
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- And I have a couple baskets in my sink
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- With the basket out
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- Bam, nearly fully functional kitchen!
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- I say nearly because the sink is having a little issue. It is a recycled faucet and as such has a minor issue, a part needs replaced to get rid of a leak.. There is an extra hole that I was going to put an instant hot water fixture in for my french press, I think the water heater will work for that though honestly, it gets HOT! Now I will just plug the hole.
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- This is where Denny’s crate will go, it will be a little large, kinda like him but it will work well!
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- View to the loft
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- And the other side, my bed may very well find it’s way up there this weekend :)
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- And the crate area again.
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- This is the settings of my water heater which seem to work very well I have to turn the shower on high to let the wather heater kick on, once it does I can turn it to whateer temperature I like. The knob on the left is the propane regulator, seems to work well lower, the one on the right is the water temperature, which I have on high.
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- The fridge is plugged in and making ice :)
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- Roomy enough for me!
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- This is the space to the side of the couch,
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- My bedroom! :)
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- And the wet floor, which STILL, really needs cleaned up!
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- My stove! :)
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- My sink!
Update 5.22.13
May 22, 2013 § 9 Comments
We (dad) got some more plumbing stuff done today, the water heater is vented! the bathroom sink is installed, the gas lines are run! The mechanical room is filling up! I forgot to take a picture of it but my great uncle Bill gave me an oversized propane tank to use, that will save me some runs to fill up the little ones! Pretty cool! It’s all getting so close to getting done!
I should also share, I had an offer in on a place downtown which had a house on it ad was a great lot layout, I was haggling on the price pretty hard and ALMOST got there but that offer fell through. I am still on the hunt for a good deal though. The plan is to buy a piece of property that will accommodate my house and provide a rental income at the same time. One of my favorite financial quotes is “Make your money on the buy, not the sell; this is true in any investment whether it’s real estate, business, or the stock market.” That is the motto here, I am not in a hurry to buy, I am not getting emotionally invested, I am looking for an investment opportunity. In the meantime I will be moving my house down town to James’s property where he as a double lot, I can live downtown while I keep looking for a place of my own and he can get some rental income too, win win. Wish me luck!
Here are some pictures:
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- The mechanical room, its filling up!
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- The yellow line and copper line are the gas lines, one to the water heater one to the oven Yeah for gas stoves!
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- The gas line connections under the trailer.
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- The bathroom sink all installed, still needs to be caulked into place but it’s there and it works!
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- Even the cupboard
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- front view
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- And the eccotemp pieces came in, I just barely needed the extender, both of these seem WAY overpriced but I needed them… so 40 bucks for a couple feet of pipe…that I cut in half and mutilated :)
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- The angels got cut to vent correctly
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- and bending the the pieces to fit in in one and other
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- Filing down the sharp edges from cutting
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- Drilling the hole out to vent this on the deck. Now, Eccotemp says don’t vent this unit out within 4 feet of a door or window, I don’t think there is a single place I could vent this in my house if that was necessary, instead I will be installing a carbon monoxide detector, since it’s not used that much I think I will be ok…
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- Two steps forward one step back, had to take a bit of the siding down to put in the vent.
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- And the vent installed, we basically had to add one more angle and about 10 inches of pipe, should be A-O-K.
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- From the outside, just to note, the vents that go to the outside should be angled downward at least 5 degrees so that any rain or condensation drains outside rather than inside, I would have done that wrong without careful reading and a reminder from pops!
Update 5.21.13
May 22, 2013 § Leave a Comment
Just a quick update today, but a BIG one! I have water! Dad worked on my plumbing while I was away at work yesterday, I come home to a hose hooked up 
. It’s not complete yet but plumbing my tiny house is a BIG job. There is the main water line which feeds to the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, the shower and the water heater and back around in a loop fashion . On top of that is the gas plumbing which will now come from a propane tank sitting under my trailer, up to the water heater inside and the stove.
Aside from that, James also came out and helped me with more siding… we only got a few more rows put up but every little bit helps! I seem to have broke my planer (not before cutting another finger 
), I need to figure that out and then I will get the barn door finished.
Thank you dad and James!
Here are some pictures:
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- This is what I came home too!
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- It’s leaking because the hose is a couple inches too short and is tweaking the connection a bit, it’s just for testing right now so it’s ok :)
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- Water on the floor, how exciting!
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- Here is the water heater set-up
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- My ‘mechanical room’ :) This is the cabinet under the kitchen sink, to the right is the water heater, center is the sink connections, left is the washer/dryer shut off
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- How many other tiny houses have a washer/dryer shut off? :) somehow it gets more ‘cute’ in a tiny house :)
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- This is the water hoses coming into the cabinet behind the washer as well as tha tgas pipe for the stove just popping its head through :)
Update 5.20.13
May 21, 2013 § 6 Comments
I was trying to get the barn-door done tonight, no such luck but I did get all the ‘hard’ parts done. Here are some pictures:
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- Welcome to Idaho, I was tempted to try to drive under this!
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- Tonight’s agenda was the barn door for the bathroom door. Nathan is a jewel, we measured up and cut the pieces
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- Laying all the pieces out on the ground to be welded
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- The beast that makes the magic happen
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- the REAL beast that makes the magic happen :)
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- Slightly off on one side so we had to take it off and re-weld it.
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- All right!
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- Then grinding the finish
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- and getting ready to cut off the bottom of the hooks
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- and the hooks all cut off, these will not be weight bearing, they are just hooked over a bar to make the door stand upright,
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- Tacking these in place, I just measured them out 6 inches from each end.
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- and the other
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- And placing the wheels, also 6 inches from each side, i wish i was able to find some skinnier wheels, these ones poke out on one side really bad, yet another issue to work through.
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- The are flush with the outside but the inside will need some craftiness to make them look intentional… hmmm
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- The pieces to the bar to hold it upright
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- And installed. I was hoping to get the wood in it too but it didn’t happen. Tonight I work on the wood pieces. And try to get ahead of some more siding.
Update 5.19.13 – with blood…
May 20, 2013 § 15 Comments
We (James and I) rocked it this weekend, we didn’t get as much as I idealistically wanted to get done but we got exactly what I realistically hoped to get done and a smidgen more! This was the big weekend for siding, it will take more and it will take longer because at this point it is all ladders but it is looking AWESOME. Pallets are a TON of work to re-use but personally I think it’s worth the look. At this point the wood is just decorative, the moisture barrier is behind that. It is a rain-screen wall designed to let water through and vented out the top and bottom. Do not use this same system without setting it up as a true rain-screen, it will rot out all your hard work!
Also, I would like to dedicate this post to Ms. Freeman’s class in Texas, I know how much you guys like to see me get hurt . Be warned, the last two pictures have blood, it did not hurt but it is gross… caused once again by, you guessed it, me being klutzy! (I will give a warning in the slideshow view to not look at the next picture if you don’t like blood)
And there is a Denver update, he’s getting big and even more handsome!
Thank you James for all of your help this weekend, I could not have got this far, this fast, without you!
Tonight, I (Nathan) work on the barn door for the bathroom…
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- First the good stuff! This is Denny, my soon to be here Great Dane!
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- I have wanted a Great Dane for like, over 20 years, seriously! One of the things this tiny house enables me to do is pick my priorities and focus on them. My living expenses are small so I don’t have to work so much and I get to spend my time doing the things I want to do instead of need to do, which includes lots of dog training and walks for me!
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- Hes three weeks old here and growing by the hour, I get him shortly after he turns 8 weeks old, there is a lot of prep-work left to do but he and I will both call this tiny house home, some people find that crazy but it has been designed completely with him in mind!
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- A separate note, my brother is back to the furniture making, this is a nightstand he’s made with steps for his little weiner dog Jack to be able to hop into bed, Jack is going to love it and I think it looks awesome! My brothers bad-ass furniture is my inspiration for my kitchen and dresser :)
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- So, to the work! We got some siding going! Made it up to the windows by the end of Saturday before we went to a birthday party
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- James spend his precious Friday evening helping me de-nail and plane down some pallet wood to be put up on Saturday
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- Then Sunday we hit it hard again to plane down even more wood, it was ridiculous and got a little more in place.
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- I think/hope we have enough wood on hand to just put up, it will be a big job with lots of ladder work for sure!
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- The overall, this will be stained darker to match the kitchen/loft area but each of the woods will look different so it should really bring out the variation.
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- I am not sure why I have never been photogenic and also why I make weird faces while I work… this was the best of several though… uggg
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- I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘free’ siding because there are a lot of man-hours put into it but really I didn’t do it soley because of the price-point, i thought this would turn out great and it definitely has to this point!
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- A little sun-shiney…
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- The shadows are getting long and it’s time to wrap up the weekend
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- A couple more evenings (or another weekend) and it should get done
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- This is nothing as far as the total amount of sawdust goes… there was at least four times this much, I thought I had a picture but I didn’t, this all came from the planer prepping the wood
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- The scrap pieces that probably aren’t worth saving, not bad for 80 or so pallets… I expected more
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- James did most tof the dirty work of searching for those left-over nails that could hurt the planer blades
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- I am very thankful for his help. VERY, this was NOT a fun job at all.
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- And the remaining wood left to put up, ready to go, just have to rip it to size and nail it up! (This is where you stop looking if you don’t want to see the blood)
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- I was trying to change the blade out in the planer and slipped trying to un-do one of the bolts… turns out I suck at reading directions, they turn the other way… I hate tricky bolts, I’m used to righty-tighty, Lefty-loosey…) I ended up punching the metal which happened to have a blade in it… the cut didn’t actually hurt near as much as the punching of the metal…
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- But it turns out if you keep working and don’t let an injury set just a bit it will just keep bleeding… I had to change a few bandages… This happend Saturday and it is pretty much all better today, biology is amazing! Sorry for the gross factor, I did it for the kids ;-)
