Design (Exterior) | minimotives

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:

: The mechanical room, its filling up!

: The yellow line and copper line are the gas lines, one to the water heater one to the oven Yeah for gas stoves!

: The gas line connections under the trailer.

: The bathroom sink all installed, still needs to be caulked into place but it’s there and it works!

: Even the cupboard

: front view

: 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 :)

: The angels got cut to vent correctly

: and bending the the pieces to fit in in one and other

: Filing down the sharp edges from cutting

: 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…

: Two steps forward one step back, had to take a bit of the siding down to put in the vent.

: And the vent installed, we basically had to add one more angle and about 10 inches of pipe, should be A-O-K.

: 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!

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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…

: First the good stuff! This is Denny, my soon to be here Great Dane!

: 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!

: 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!

: 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 :)

: 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

: James spend his precious Friday evening helping me de-nail and plane down some pallet wood to be put up on Saturday

: Then Sunday we hit it hard again to plane down even more wood, it was ridiculous and got a little more in place.

: 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!

: 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.

: 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

: 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!

: A little sun-shiney…

: The shadows are getting long and it’s time to wrap up the weekend

: A couple more evenings (or another weekend) and it should get done

: 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

: The scrap pieces that probably aren’t worth saving, not bad for 80 or so pallets… I expected more

: James did most tof the dirty work of searching for those left-over nails that could hurt the planer blades

: I am very thankful for his help. VERY, this was NOT a fun job at all.

: 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)

: 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…

: 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 ;-)

Update 5.5.13

May 5, 2013 § 9 Comments

Here is this days progress. I started the pallet siding. Here are some pictures:

: The stove being reassembled, it looks gret, I can’t believe how much better it looks

: And installed

: Procrastinating the siding I decided instead to plan the seedlings I started a few weeks back

: Here they are, various flowery vines that should look pretty on the side of my house

: And planted

: With no more options I have to put siding up… I prepped a lot of pallet wood previously but I still had to do some, here I am planing down the wood in order to stain it in the end, one pass through

: Second pass

: Third pass

: and final fourth pass, every board has to go through about this many passes or more. Pallet wood is mostly free but ridiculously labor intensive

: I got a few rows up and needed a break.

: I was thinking about doing mitered edges at the corners but because they are all slightly different thicknesses and wood tends to shrink at different rates I thought it would be better to do finger joints like this

: This is as far as I got done today.

: The porch

: porch 2

: overall

: This is the reason to wear a mask when cutting this stuff, these pallets are all used and coated in various amounts of whatever, in an effort to not breath this cocktail of chemicals in you really should wear a mask, You don’t want this stuff floating around in you. I am using all of the pallet wood outdoors as well, you wouldn’t really want it installed indoors for the same reasons. I think for my rain-screen wall it will be ok.

: I am also making a lettuce tower.

: and the tower on the porch :)

: Another shot I guess

: this is the trellis which is rather saggy now that it has warmed up a bit. Not a huge fan but it should work and Im just going to cut it down at the end of the season.

: I also caulked all of the trim indoors

: My lovely kitchen minus some open shelving up above

: Much better color match, you can also see the brand of washer I got here.

: I had to epoxy on the oven handle, the screws fell apart

: The water heater JUST BARELY fits. I have like an 1/8 of an inch to spare with the vent

: I cut some boards for the bathroom sink, not complete but planed and ready to go.

: I cleaned up and showered then got ready to head out and came upon 9 people hanging out on my tiny house porch, my folks were showing their friends, Tobi also showed up, she seems to like the patio

: and his picture taken

: I forgot to include how we got the washer dryer in the house

: It’s handy to have a dad with a tractor.

Update 5.4.12

May 4, 2013 § 14 Comments

Lots of odds and ends today… really avoiding that siding … Soon.

Some pictures:

: My washer and dryer arrived from New York… the truck was pretty much empty, seems really inefficient…

: She’s a beauty!

: It looked too big to fit, I got worried

: I epoxied the reclaimed floor pieces onto the frames

: And this is is how i hold up the boards while it sets.

: Taking a rest while the epoxy sets

: The new couch in place, and James… doing something.

: It fits all stretched out, it desperately needs cleaned but is actually fairly comfy. The is about and inch to spare.

: Other direction. I feel like I have an awesome jump for jumping on the bed…

: I sealed the grout under the washer/dryer adn fridge so I can get them into place, I still have the rest of the floor to seal.

: James and I got the fridge in

: Fits just right in the nook! And there is room for a mop and broom on the side :)

: I like this fridge, there is WAY more than enough space for everything I need.

: It was a tight fit getting the washer/dryer in here is the right side

: Left side

: Squeeze!

: And once I got all these shiny new appliances in I realized how ‘off-white’ the oven was

: this was supposed to be a side by side comparison but it’s touch to tell, the image does it no justice, these are way different colors

: Starting in on the epoxy so I can get the counter frame situated before I take the stove out to paint it

: Part of the process

: We went through and painted the trim and touched up the walls from the grout and such

: View from the couch :)

: Repainting the stove with heat paint

: I’m not sure what I was picturing here other than the spot the stove USED to be

: Before paint

: After paint

: The oven door too

: I also painted the edge of the sink, it is an undermount sink so the enamel didnt wrap the edge, I didn’t want it to rust so I painted it with the same appliance paint

: I even repainted all the chrome pieces, i have to say the chrome paint was pretty awesome.

: another shot

: and another for some reason.

: The bugs love my house… whasp

: and a fly

: getting all the little pieces in in preparation for the sink getting dried

: I was a messy painter, I think I dropped as much on the floor as the wall, but it peeled up no proplems, all is well

: My vent for my water heater

: My water heater, in its new home below the kitchen sink

: shot into the house

: another

: And the counter all wrapped

: It looks purty, I like how it hits the floor and wall, its a neat detail

: The weather was so cool, dramatic lighting, thunderstorm. cool.

: An overall shot

: The couch

: The fridge, it will have a microwave on top

: The kitchen

: Overall

: I like it, it will have some shelving up above

: Bam

: The bathroom

: The shower, I have some cleaning to do in there still… uggg

: Kitchen window and sink area, with the water heater under it

: Another

: Mom and dad started their orchard today too, they planted 7 different fruit trees

Update 4.24.13

April 24, 2013 § 9 Comments

Tile! The horizontal surfaces ALL have tile! I have also cut all the baseboard tile and the door trim. Tomorrow I install that and hopefully start/finish cutting all the shower tiles. My next few days entail a lot of work… well I suppose the next few weeks really… Here is my short term plan. Tomorrow, I install the baseboard tile and cut the shower tiles. Friday, I grout. Saturday I can either stay inside and tile the shower and paint the trim OR I can start getting siding ready, possibly paint the trim, I suppose it will depend on the weather. Through the next week it will be focusing on those items as well… Push push push!

On a different note, I was considering some options… I am kicking around the idea of buying a property downtown to park my house behind. There are honestly some places that would be cheaper to buy than even to rent some space from a backyard… There is a whole tricky system to this, especially financing for me… I have a foreclosure fairly recently as far as banks are concerned… the idea though is that I could lease out the house, ideally covering the mortgage payment and living for free behind the place… I have a couple properties that I am going to look into further… what are your thoughts on this concept though? It seems like free equity so long as I carry the burden of the mortgage and upkeep… but especially when you compare mortgage to rent… it’s possible to be making money off of the deal… One of the properties I am looking at would have a 15 year mortgage payment of 383 and I could probably rent the house out for 675… Making a couple/few hundred bucks a month and parking for free… hmmm… seems like a fairly easy call…

Here are some images:

: James helped me tile by cutting almost ALL of my tiles for the floor, I think I cut like 6… he stayed ahead of me while I laid them in place. Worked awesome

: I’m pretty lucky!

: Finished up the floor!

: In the bathroom, it is a little crooked but had it been straight it would look off!

: Cutting up the trim for the doors inside

: I went with a simple 1×2 which I will paint white, should look similar to the window trim.

: I even got to use my router! I haven’t used that for years, I think Ill find other reasons to use it, its fun :)

: More routing

: I even got all the baseboard tiles cut. It’s sort of tought to cut my 2′ long tiles with the tile saw meant for a max of 12″, but we make it work!