What A Hump Day! (That's a good thing.)

Our version of a romantic date. :) 

We hope all you people that are moms and people that have moms (that covers everybody, right?) had a nice weekend! 


The work continues. Dan has been steadily collecting and dismantling more pallets. We have had a few runs of luck at the pallet place that takes them apart, but we are finding the wood is better quality from the ones we take apart. 

On Saturday, we were told it was going to rain- so rather than sit home twiddling thumbs, we decided we would do something we don't do all that much lately- go on a date! Naturally as we got ready to go the weather cleared up and became beautiful- but it didn't take much to convince each other to keep to the date. ;) Since it was so nice out, we improvised. Our romantic date consisted of take out in the back of the pickup, parked in the back mall lot. The lot is abutted by large chunks of granite and trees, so it is kind of nice back there. We enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine, then headed in to watch our movie. 

Of course, as soon as the movie was done the sun went away and the weather predictions started looking more accurate. We resolved to work anyway. After returning home and changing clothes, we jumped in. I started the disorienting job of organizing the wood pieces...somehow. Dan continued ripping things apart.

I finally decided on sorting out all of the wood, loosely, by width and thicknesses. We finished up just before the rains started. On Mother's Day, we put together a little pen for Wendy outside. Once we move to the farm, we plan to make a secure area for her outside. We figured it would be better to adjust her slowly, so we've started putting her outside while we are home for a few hours at a time. I don't think she's a big fan of it right now, but TOUGH! We aren't about to have her stay inside with her own personal fan blowing all day- not with solar power! 

Sorted....sort of..

Just yesterday, Dan started ripping all the pieces of wood down to a 3 inch width. The pallet pieces came in all different widths, but the vast majority were around 3 inches or could be cut to this. It definitely feels good to start seeing a stack of uniform pieces. Next up after ripping: filling in all the nail holes with putty, then planing the boards so they have a smooth face. 

It is certainly a lot of work, but it's free and it's recycled. Two factors that make it very much worth the effort!

Yesterday also held other exciting things! A lady from a prominent television network wanted to interview us via phone on Tuesday. She liked us so much that she wanted to do a Skype interview and consider us for a possible show!! Needless to say, it was exhilarating just talking with her! This might not turn out to be anything, but just sharing our story with someone and receiving such a positive response felt great. She really liked us! We will hear more next week on what her team thinks!



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Bun-bunnnns!!!

Our Spot On The Farm Is Ready!

Our cozy nook is ready- now if only we were too!

This past week and weekend, we have worked steadily on the pallets and we also cleaned out our spot on the farm. Dan was true to his word and worked on pallets every day last week-- that weather permitted-- and that was about two. Regardless, we are making headway. Mario, who I am beginning to think exceeds the term, "Wealth of Knowledge", has given us yet another gem of advice. 

Apparently, he worked in the pallet business for a time too! Could we have a more perfect neighbor for our project?! I doubt it. He explained some of the details to Dan about how pallets are put together, the types of nails, and so on. He then provided Dan with a much more effective crowbar and also gave us the name of a place that actually takes apart the pallets and gives away the wood. WHAT.

The catch here is that many people enjoy this free wood- especially when used for heat. We've made a few passes so far, but each time they were cleaned out. Hopefully as the weather continues to warm, we will have better luck. We still have access to the fully assembled free pallets, so either way, we will make it happen. 

Smudge fire to keep May flies away.

Cleaning out the spot on the farm was quite refreshing and fun. It was a beautiful breezy day, and the smell of sweet grass filled the air. We worked cheerfully as we grunted and heaved and hauled large dead tree trunks and broken cinder blocks from the space. Just the day before, Michael, one of the owners of the farm, had pulled the old trailer out of the space. Now that this was out of the way, we could do the fine tune clean up. 

 

We envision a cool outdoor patio.
"Envision" is the key- haha.

Once we had cleaned up the majority of debris, we assessed the ground. It was a bit sloped and uneven in several places. It needed to be leveled out and I quietly groaned at what that meant in terms of two people doing this by hand. That thought was interrupted, however, as I heard a tractor engine come rumbling up the knoll. Michael came through and in about 10 minutes time we had a nice even piece of land! Woohoo!

Some of these logs were huge! Luckily Michael had a
chainsaw on hand too!

Just spending that one day out there filled us with a heightened level of appreciation for the farm, how beautiful it is, and how lucky we are that we get to stay there for a time. 

We ordered our solar power system yesterday, too. It kind of hurt a little- $6200- after getting used to no credit card payments. But, looking at the bigger picture, this gives us mobility, independence, and brings us one step closer to a more sustainable lifestyle. With very few other bills to cover at this point, we will pay that off at a much faster rate. 

Hooray for tractors! -Check the goat on the wall in the back...

The spot's open, the solar power system is purchased and on it's way, now it's up to us to get that siding on in the next few weeks!! Thanks to the rain we've had, the ground is still pretty soft. We probably won't be able to move The Pod until it's closer to June. I guess that's a good thing since we need the time!

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All clean!

Called On Account Of Rain

We got rained out this weekend. Boo.

There was a wonderful flurry of activity last week as we dug in and got the strapping up. Now, there's just the one.... thing... left... pallet siding. We had planned to get started on prepping the pallet pieces that have already been dismantled, and also tear apart a whole lot more pallets. Well, rainy weather makes that hard work to accomplish. I even had a friend all lined up to come help!! Let's hope her gusto remains until better weather. ;) 

With Dan's classes coming to a close, he's been quite busy studiously studying, writing, and all those other things I'm so glad I don't have to do anymore. Heehee! I, on the other hand, have been just as busy hashing out our solar needs. I've been in near constant communication with a great representative from the AltE store. From the get go, customer service with this company has been phenomenal. I've had some recent customer service horror stories, so it really made me appreciate how these folks handled my inquiry. 

While many tiny houses feature panels on the roof- we plan to
use a ground mount like this couple did.
www.chrisandmalissa.com

These folks are very happy to discuss solar power needs with any person, regardless of their level of knowledge. They have endless online education articles, calculators to help you figure out your power load, and much more. I would highly recommend this company to others! They are no strangers to creating systems for folks with tiny houses. I heard of AltE through Laura LaVoie of Life In 120 Square Feet. 

I had a nice chat with Greg, a rep, after perusing the sight and fiddling with the calculators. I had a rough idea of our daily watt-hours, but that number really didn't mean much to me as far as how that translates to COST of system. haha I knew the bigger the power load, the bigger- and hence- more expensive the solar power system. I got off the phone feeling pretty good about my knowledge and knowing we would have everything we need to put together a good system. Greg said he would email me a quote once he worked up the numbers. 

WELL- that quote came back and I about fell out of my chair. With the power load I described, our system would have been almost $13,000. Wooooooooooh. After I picked up my jaw, and rubbed the huge slap of reality off my face, I immediately went back to the drawing board. I laughed at myself several times as I reworked our numbers- here I was thinking it was conservative use! HA! Not conservative enough! Our HOUSE didn't even cost that much. It's amazing how much you can take power for granted when you're enjoying life on the grid.

One small thing I did this week that has brought
me much joy every day since! Hanging pots!
It's the little things.. :)

I drastically cut our numbers, but we would still be able to run a laptop several hours a day, run lights, the cooler, a clock, a window fan, and a few other little things. With those numbers widdled down, our quote came to a much more palatable $3700. I also asked for a quote to include the use of a mini-air conditioner for the summer. That power system would be around $6500. Still manageable...and as I think back to the summer in my apartment when I thought I could live without an AC, I'm really considering the higher price tag. I was trying to play guitar totally naked, covered in sweat, and after the instrument slicked off my legs and I slid right off my faux leather couch, I threw some loose clothes on, marched right out to the store, and bought myself the magical cold box.

I'm remembering this and imagining those details PLUS being in barely 130 square feet. The more I think of it, the more I feel the price is worth it. Not to mention this will also allow additional power in the winter to run the eco-heater. What do you think? Would it be worth it to you?

Now, a quick story from life in The Pod.__________________________________



I woke up one day last week, and to my surprise discovered the front door locked and bolted. I found this strange since we typically don't. I asked Dan why he had locked the door.

"You know how you can just freak yourself out about something?" He asked, "Well, I went out last night to pee and I felt like something was out there. Like someone was watching me." 

I started to roll my eyes and say something about the wind when some movement out the big window caught my eye. There was a turkey, quietly tip-toeing around the yard. "There WAS someone out there," I smirked, "it was Tom."

"Tom who?"

"Tom the turkey!"

"Well he's a peeping Tom too! Pervert!" Dan joked.
_______________________________________________________________

Since I'm in the rhythm of quoting Dan right now, I'd like to put the following in writing:
"Every afternoon this week, except Thursday, I'm just gonna be collecting and ripping apart pallets."

I'll let you know next week what happened. ;)

Oh Hey! One more thing! I'm published!! Okay, it's just one article in Tiny House Magazine, but I feel pretty fantastic about it! Check out Issue 16 of Tiny House Magazine! You will find my article on Passive Cooling. 

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Strapping Is Complete!

It's almost time to put pallets on! ..Guess we better get collecting!

Throughout the past week and on Saturday (no work on Easter) we took a big chunk out of the siding prep stage. Then, last night, Dan pushed through and completed all the strapping! We are now ready to slap on some siding- YEEHAW!

Last week, I came home from work to a wonderful sight- things getting done on the house by someone other than myself. ;)  Sure, in the beginning I reverted back to my toddler days of, " I CAN DO IT MYSELF!" And insisted on carrying out every last task, but a solid year later, I'm MORE than happy to step down and watch someone else work on our pet project/home. haha So, Dan and Adam were cheerfully pounding away at the roof line of the house when I arrived. We had installed EPDM rubber roofing, but we didn't fully complete the work. The rubber still needed to be tucked and secured around the perimeter. 

The guys put a solid edge around the roof using 2x4s. The hanging rubber was tucked tightly around that edge and then secured with termination bars- the little metal strips. It's looking like our roof edge won't come out much further than the siding, which isn't ideal, but if we have to get gutters to catch the water and keep it from slipping down the house wrap- we will. In fact, for water collection purposes that will be happening anyway! 

On Saturday, Dan and I completed the right end wall and the remaining pieces needed on the front wall of the house. We started the left end wall, but the sun was starting to sink and we were ready for some food and a little bit of time to make it feel like a weekend. We cooked on the grill and enjoyed our first outdoor meal around a fire. :)

Yesterday, Dan finished up the left end wall and cruised through the back wall. Without any windows or other interruptions, that wall is always the easiest to handle. Now, we start putting up the pallet siding! We are a little nervous, but I am confident we will make this work!

We just need to collect A LOT more pallets. Break them down, fill the holes with putty- rip them, plane them, and then put them up. This is yet another situation in which I am exceedingly thankful that our house is so small and manageable. I couldn't imagine applying this concept to a 2000 square foot house!

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Exterior Work Begins!

What a couple of weeks it has been!

I'm a little embarrassed to explain why I have been blog-silent during perhaps one of the most exciting times in our journey thus far! The weekend before last, we began work on the siding. I set up my tri-pod and took shots all throughout the day with plans for a sweet little time lapse. I love all kinds of media and I know you all do too- so I was hoping to bring another video into the mix!

Well, my Windows Movie Maker program decided that it would happily let me spend over an hour editing and getting the video just right, only to crash any time I tried to save. I have spent the last WEEK researching, trouble-shooting, installing/uninstalling, looking at other programs, etc. I now know what programs NOT to use. Alas, my senses came to me. I can't hold back sharing our progress and work just because I can't make the cool video I wanted. BUT I PICKED THE BEST SONG EVER! The pictures changed with the beat and everything....sigh. Oh well.

ANYWHO- back to the progress made. On Saturday- while Dan was in class, I took the time to give The Pod a good cleaning so I could take some decent pictures. So many people have asked to see the interior! Go check them out if you haven't- they can be found under the "Photo Tour" tab of our blog.

On that Sunday, we started with the front wall, considering it's the one we stare at most. We are putting strapping at roughly one foot on center so that regardless of the length (hopefully) of the pallet pieces, we should be able to secure each one properly. 

It was a decent day out and we worked happily and steadily. That morning we got the supplies we needed to apply the trim as well. So while Dan worked on cutting and putting up strapping I painted the trim pieces. 

We haven't even put one piece of pallet siding up, but we both remarked more than once that it looked great. I think it's just that we've stared at that ugly house wrap for so damn long that even some skinny pieces of strapping and a few trim boards makes it look great....because it looks like PROGRESS.

This sudden flurry of activity was inspired by two things- one, moving day is not getting any further away. And two, a reporter from Yahoo Finance contacted us for an interview. I spoke with her that Friday and the article was posted that night! Talk about overwhelming and motivating!

I remember when I used to geek out about getting 500 hits in one day and getting about 1 comment every month. We were also ecstatic about nearing the 300 likes mark on our FB page. With the publishing of this Yahoo Finance article our numbers, our traffic, our SUPPORT, has boomed. 

I almost fell out of the loft when I checked our blog stats the next day. OVER 35,000 HITS! And blog comments up the wazoo! Within 48 hours, that 300 like mark was blown out of the water. We are at 598 likes now! So amazing! THANK YOU EVERYONE!

BUT-
Along with the awesomeness does come some not-so-awesomeness. This world is full of people with opinions and some opinions are offered, some shared, and some spat at you...or on you. I had just read a post by Macy over at minimotives talking about how she handled all the insensitive comments, judgments, and intrusive "you should be living your life THIS way" declarations. It couldn't have been more timely- and I decided that I would not read any comments on the Yahoo article- I would only respond to comments on our page or our blog. 

This advice has served me well- as I suspected, cantankerous negativity-spewing trolls will gladly shart out (that's right I said shart- I like the random messiness it implies) their hastily formed opinions after a 45 second read into an article that covers maybe 4% of the whole story. Then they move on with their day, leaving behind a trail of spotty smeared remarks until they manage to feel a bit better about themselves. 

I have a secret for you trolls- it will never make you feel better.

 You'll get back what you put out there. 

So maybe try some positivity?

  I digress! Clearly preaching to the choir!

We have received so much love and support on the blog and page from all over the world. Being a source of inspiration for others has always been a continuous life goal of mine. It's amazing knowing we have this platform to reach out and touch so many others. I can't tell you all the people who have told us they wanted to do something like this and now have the courage to get started. MY HEART IS BURSTING!



Speaking of things that make your heart burst- this weekend I went back to the farm to get better acquainted with our future parking spot. Dan went to NYC for a birthday weekend with his brother, so siding work was put on hold. When I visited the farm, I got to meet several new arrivals! Baby goats! And the one that stole my heart was this guy right here.... he keeps escaping simply to follow you around. His little tail started wagging like crazy when I met him. I think I will name him Wiley...even if I'm the only one who calls him that. ;) 

I am quite pumped about our future location. Not only will we be obscured from the road, we have an amazing view! I can't wait to see what it looks like once all the trees have their leaves!
 

Since we plan to move at the beginning of May - it's definitly crunch time. We will be starting work on weeknights again...I can feel it. Considering the siding is really all that's left, I think we can manage.

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The Utility Closet- FINALLY

We got a taste of the old days this weekend. :)

I'm happy to report that we made some decent headway this weekend. Post worthy headway! The ground is still deciding whether to be muck or frozen solid, but the snow is slowly leaving the yard. At this point, we are wondering if we will be able to move the tiny house before May! It's hard to believe it's almost April, and we are looking to get another few inches of snow here in Rhode Island. But, we are keeping positive and looking at this as some time given back for all the procrastination of the winter- since we can't move, let's get caught up on projects!

If you plan to use pallets for creating something
cool or just as firewood- always look for
the "HT" stamp, meaning heat treated.
Avoid "MB" - noxious poisons. Don't use
and certainly don't burn those ones!

We finally located a steady supply of free pallets, and conveniently, it's about 10 minutes from us! Woohoo! Dan is going to be stopping by and grabbing a load of pallets pretty much every other day or so until we have enough. It's going to take A LOT of pallets to create our siding, but we are excited. 

The only thing about pallets is that they are made to haul things, and as a result, made to withstand serious abuse. Those babies are some well put-together units. They also use special fasteners that are a cross between a nail and a screw. The little barbs make it near impossible to pull apart a pallet and have any usable wood left.  

I was able to learn some pretty nifty tricks for taking apart pallets- thanks to Macy at minimotives. She has been one of my leading and longest standing inspirations and resources for our tiny house adventure. I also had visions of reclaimed siding, and to see her make it happen was great. We plan to use the same methods for disassembling our pallets. 

Typically a pallet has three "spines" if you will, and boards are nailed across them. We plan to cut inside the spine of either end with a circular saw, leaving just the middle set of nails to deal with. For those, simply use a drill bit that will eat right down through the heads of the nails, making it very easy to pop the boards off after. Next we would fill the holes with putty, plane the boards for smooth and consistent thickness, and then run them all through a table saw so they are the same widths as well. 

It's definitely going to take a fair amount of time and effort, but I think it will look great on The Pod, it will be re-claimed, and it will be FREE!

On Sunday we also whipped up the utility closet. We kept it a simple box like the rest of The Pod. We've seen so many people build them to fit the semi-triangular shape of the trailer tungue, but we like to keep it simple. Plus, it will provide ample room for solar power system storage. We plan to keep the batteries, charge control, and inverter in the utility closet. 

Pre-utility closet

We saved scraps of house wrap from all the way back in May. At times, I wanted to just toss them because they were in the way, looking messy- but we stuck it out. We were determined not to buy another 100 ft roll of house wrap just for a dinky box. When Sunday came around, we sure were pleased that we had kept those scraps all this time...and thanks to the mondo-clean-and-organize-garage over haul, it didn't take that long to locate them either!

We used some scrap treated plywood from
our original "foundation" build. We drilled
holes in the steel lip of the trailer, bolting
the base down.

When it came time to cover the "roof" of the utility closet, we pulled out yet another material we had saved. Leftover ice and rain protective barrier. This was the same stuff we used as a kind of flashing for our trailer bed. It worked out nicely for our mini roof cover. We then used door and window tape to seal all the seams and keep water out. 

We plan to get a piece of corrugated steel to give it a more finished look once the siding is on. Even though the weather was still in the mid-thirties, we worked as if it were April of 2013 again. We were excited to be handling rough building materials, familiar ground by now, and seeing substantial progress within just a few hours. 

We finished the utility shed in about 2.5 hours time. It's quite a relief to have that off our backs. Now the only major lingering pieces are the pallet siding, the kitchen drawers, and getting a solar power system in place. Then we are officially ready to move!!

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Ample air flow for the batteries.

Nothin' Like A Swift Kick

A shot for the article in Issue 16 of Tiny House Magazine

When it rains it pours!

It seemed like things were slowing down here for a bit- how foolish I was to think it would last! Suddenly it's March and we are still locked in thick ice and snow. We need to be able to build the utility closet and install the siding. Oh, and we need to start the whole assess/design/order a solar power system. We had hoped to move The Pod in early April. It's looking like late April now. 

Despite the slowing of physical progress and ergo lack of things to report- a sudden flush of networking and writing opportunities have come my way. I am over-joyed! Dan and I will be featured as one of the success stories on the new TinyHouseDating website! It will be up soon, check the site out! It's such a perfect service for us tiny folk and our...unusual ways. :)

I was also asked to submit an article for Tiny House Magazine! (Issue 16!) So keep an eye out in the upcoming issue. I did a short piece on passive refrigeration (from my post) and what route we chose for our tiny house. Oh, oh and that's not even the end of it! My good friend, Desirae, is a very experienced, driven, environmentally conscious person that's been around these parts for many years. She even runs a local green festival every year! As a result she has quite a network of like minded people including farmers, farmers market coordinators, ecoNewsletter authors...yep! 

I wrote up a small piece about our adventure and what we are looking for in a place to park. She sent it along to people she knew that might be interested. From that email came a possible farmer that will consider us, and Frank from ecoRI News asked to interview us! We meet with both of them on Sunday. I am ecstatic about the thought of being on a farm- some moments I feel I could just float out of my chair!!

Two down, two to go! Then the back cushions...

I have this new found energy and enthusiasm thanks to these wonderful opportunities! I hope to contribute more to the tiny house world in the future. Not to mention, it brought along a healthy amount of "foot to ass". I am now VERY motivated to complete the cushions for the love seat. I want to have decent seating for the interview! 

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