Update 6.09.13 – Moving Day!

I apologize for being so late to update, it has been a BUSY couple of days!  I Moved!

I had a LONG weekend, picked up around my folks’ farm, I made three distinct messes as my house moved around… Packed up my tiny house and got it ready for moving.  Then Sunday was the big day.  Originally my friend Jed was planning on helping me move Sunday around noon.  He was right on time and came over only to find out his truck is TOO big :).  He has an extended flat bed which made it about a foot to big to be able to fit under my hitch.  It was a good effort but it just wouldn’t work.  I almost called off the whole thing but then I decided, hey, this is what its like when you don’t own a truck… try some other options.  I posted an ad on Craigslist but then was too impatient to even wait.  I instantly called a tow truck to see how much they would charge to move me the 21 miles I needed to go.  I called the first one and they said they could do it but instead gave me the name of a guy with a dually, just in case.  Turns out that was a great call on their part.  Called the guy, he did ‘want’ to help on a Sunday but said he would and it would cost between $100-$110 to move it.  That was actually cheaper than I thought he would say.  I didn’t want to surprise him when he came out so I was sure to tell him it was a ‘home-made RV’ (which is what they technically are generally).  He said it would be fine.   He came out, hooked everything up, we had to modify the light wire so that it would plug in but other than that it went pretty smooth.  We couldn’t get a good ground to the truck so the hazards didn’t work well but all the other lights worked great.  I followed close behind and took way too many pictures (I only posted maybe half of them and it’s still a lot for one trip… I was nervous!) as we nervously went down the road.

He said it traveled really well, it was HEAVY.  His guesstimate is between 15k-18k pounds.   I still think that is way too high knowing all the materials I put into it.  We were not able to swing by a scale unfortunately to get a weight :(.  Eventually that will happen but in the short-term I am going to add up the materials and get a rough estimate now that it’s pretty much complete.   He did say that it is the heaviest thing he’s ever pulled but also that it pulled very straight and well.

Dad and mom followed down to complete the caravan with their tractor so we could get the site ready.  I moved downtown and am renting an empty lot from James.   The tractor made extremely short work of leveling the place and even digging a hole where the remote composting bin will be located.   I am very fortunate to have the family I do, it would have been a whole weekend long project at least otherwise!

We had a little mishap while backing the trailer in place, the ground was so soft that the trailer sunk a good 6-8 inches so there was a point that the tractor was just plowing it back there.  Unfortunately after the trailer got a few miles on its new axles the leaf springs and U-bolts got a little better acquainted and loosened up.  two of the axle’s leaf springs had a little bump out that holds the U-bolt in place when tightened down, I remember now thinking ‘what’s that for and why doesn’t this axle have it?’  Well now I know. With the sideways pressure the middle axle actually slipped on the leaf spring and was touching the front wheel.  Not to self, if replacing axles get a few miles on them then tighten again.   At first I freaked a little and thanked someone that it happened at our final destination instead of on the road somewhere but it really wouldn’t have happened anywhere else or there either if we weren’t plowing through the lawn instead of rolling through it.  It was a slight snag, we had to jack up that side of the trailer and put it back in place on the leaf spring then we (James) tightened down all the others to be sure.  then BAM, dad moved it into place.

On the way over I only noticed a single person who was mouth open looking at whatever contraption that was rolling down the road.  James was nice enough to ride with the tow dude, Gary (I think), and he may be able to speak to whether they noticed others.  There were just a couple of people who walked by while we were placing it who made a comment about it being ‘neat’.  And ‘Oh, it’s a house, cool!’.  It actually fits really well in the neighborhood too, it’s hard to actually see unless you’re right next to it.

So that Sunday was followed but a 16 hour work day Monday to catch up for a deadline or I would have updated sooner.  This afternoon I go get the new title for my ‘brand new’ 2013 RV.  and then I will try to snap some more photos of where the house is at now, below are all the process photos of the move, sorry, I know there are a ton!

Things still left to do:

• Install water line at new location
• Install composting toilet
• Build media center/book shelf
• Build 10 drawers for kitchen/dresser
• Second coat of paint on the mill-work
• Recover couch
• Electrical closet doors
• Hook up radiant floor heat
• Build the fence for Denny

As you can see there are still plenty of project to keep me going before I can call this complete, I will be sticking around a little while longer on this topic at least and may start to post about my other projects I have going on too.  Just because you never say it enough though, thank you for sticking with me through this project, the encouragement you give me goes a LONG way!

Denny is 6 weeks old! Hes nearly the biggest dude in the litter right now and gained almost 4 pounds last week, he gained a Tobi! hes now 12 pounds and 12 ounces big 🙂

Hes stinkin adorable! I can't wait to pet him!

He got his first bath and lots of kiddo spoilings 🙂

This came in today! BIG thank you to Suzannah Kolbeck for the awesome hoewarming gift that I didn't even know you could send via Facebook! If you wanna see another cool project you definitely need to check out her 13 year old daughters place here, http://www.tinymaison.blogspot.com/

My porch roof 🙂 IDK why this is here...

Getting ready and securing the composting toilet on the deck for the move

Dad is getting ready in the background

I took the door down from the bathroom and laid it on the floor for the move

and took the lights down in the kitchen, the was pretty much the only prep work I did for the move

the lights drove with me in my car

dad took the gas valve off so it traveled better, the tank was just set on the floor in my bathroom and traveled well.

You can see that the gas conection was designed not to stick out at all once disconnected

This is Jed's truck, you may remember Jed from other things such as my awesome gas stove, he pioneered that find!

You can see here though how long his truck is, it wont fit under the trailer! Bummer! It was a solid effort and I appreciate it! Jed and Lacy are getting married this Saturday, good wishes their way!

as compared with this space

Dad is getting his ride all ready for the carivan - Panno 1

Panno 2

Panno 3 plus my car and that is the caravan

After Jed couldnt make it work with his truck I posted an ad on Craigslist and then ended up calling a tow truck anyway, they charged $110 to move it, I did end up getting 3 replies in the firs 20 minutes after posting but opted to go with a professional anyway, I probably could have done it cheaper through an individual but it was worth the peace of mind to have a professional doing it. and WAY cheaper than buying a truck or even just installing a hitch on dadss

He's got a nice truck

Lining up

The front view

we had to cut the plug in wire out of the trailer frame to make it able to plug in but then we were on the way

Tobi waited patiently in the truck, being sure not to miss out on the adventure

View from inside the moving truck

And we are off! If I wasn't so damn tired I would have been scared!

As it was it was a good trip

I tried to get some pictures of how tall the thing is compared to street lights, its well under them though james said they were worried for the first couple

Just another day in traffic

For those of youwho know what Scentsy wick-less candles are, they were developed in the little blue house to the left in this picture, now it is a multi billion dollar company, located just down the road, james actually got to draw their new headquarters.

You can kinda see the height here, it is 12'-7" tall total

You can definitely see here

other side

Just to prove, both lights were working, most of my pictures caught one on a blinker or something

chugga

chaggu

Choo Choo! I tried to ge te skyline, the baby skyline in the pictures

Way off in the distance you can see Boise's skyline

and here

and here

I'm not good at taking picture and driving on a windy road

Getting through some construction, I am officially 'downtown' here

and my first underpass

made it!

So close to the final destination!

two more turns!

And final turn, at the local market, ah Jerrys 🙂

few more hundred yards

The final spot for the tow-man!

Dad starts his tractor to leve out the parking spot

He made short work of it!

Not a bad parking spot!

I'm a pretty good supervisor 🙂

he even dug a hole for the composting toilet to sit down into.

The unit I was sent was not what I ordered and as such is a few inches taller. I opted to keep it rather than send it back to New York a little over a year ago when I bought it for a couple reasons, first, it will work, it's actually a 'better' unit but still... it is not what I ordered and I am not happy at all with the quality of the Sun-Mar dry toilet that goes along with it. It was shipped to me broken as well and has broken further since I have had it, not even in use. My feeling is that that will probably have to be replaced at some point not too far in the future... I expected more from a $300 part. I just hope that the composting unit performs better than everything else has. Very displeased with their customer service at Sun-Mar as well as their products at this point, given I haven't actually even used them yet... maybe it gets better???

A view the other direction

And moving the house into place

We took some extra pieces of wood to make 'ramps' over the curb

Action shot

And the other side

going... a couple more feet and the 'snap' was heard

right about here....

Here is a better picture for seeing what all I'm talking about, those three wheels should be spaced evenly

Dad is getting in there to check it out

Jack it up time, take the weight off the wheels so that the tire could move back

James did a good portion of this work, I was trying not to fall asleep while standing up (2.5 hours of sleep the night before)

And we're back in business!

It pretty much sits all the way behind that tree there from this direction

and is also fairly well hidden this way too

This was some morning complications that may have added to the squishy ground, there was an irrigation flooding issues the morning of the move

It all got covered up when it was graded

Finally wrapped up and went to get teh extra car and everythign trying to make it in time to take some photos but there was no such luck, it as pretty dark by the time we got back, I will get some good ones soon.

James took some night shots after we got it all set up