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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Re-Thinking Our Seating

We are still struggling to get the pace back up! The winter crazies have set in!

Hey readers, I'm not sure where you all live, but if you are in my area, then you can relate- it's a mess out there! After the consecutive snow storms, then blasts of warm and cold, with some rain sprinkled on top- the outdoors is one slick lumpy crusty mess.

Dan and I are definitely reaching our winter limits. We've both expressed feelings of stir-craziness. GAH! I JUST WANT TO BE OUTSIDE! In the winter, unless there are endless acres of woods to snow shoe or a mountain to board on- my activities remain pretty much indoors. Unfortunately, no such woods near me, and after last year's accident, snow boarding isn't high up on my "YEAH LET'S DO IT AGAIN!" List. 

It especially stinks when you require open space to work! There are just a few projects left for the house and we are slowly clawing our way to the finish line.  Being stuck indoors makes you notice a lot of things that could have slipped by before....and in my case, it's the love seat.

Oh, my love hate relationship with our love seat. 

Frump zone.

First, I like the set up, I think it's cute and cozy centered under the window, and I like that bun-buns' pen is neatly tucked away underneath. What I have grown to NOT like are the big lumpy mismatched pillows, the hapless way they are skewed about the love seat each day, the ugly old blanket used as a "bottom cushion" and the great big long board that would have been the table.



On Valentine's Day, we discovered a valuable fact: the table, which we had never really attempted to install, would definitely not be great in our space. We wanted to have a sit down experience for Valentine's Day, so we took our white folding table and placed it in between the booth seats. We immediately hated it. The length of the table, which we thought would be a good thing, completely cut into the big room, made the entry way an awkward space, and just plain looked too big.

This was actually good news to learn. I needed the motivation to make the change. See, before that, I was already hee-ing and haw-ing over design changes. I already didn't like that we had to lift up the entire bench to access the two booth seat storage spaces on either end. As a result, those spaces have gone un-used. Tisk tisk!  It seemed like any time I thought to put something there, I had to decide if I really wanted to dump everything off the love seat just to get to it. The answer was always no. 

Anyways, this past weekend we made those modifications to the love seat space. We cut the table down to a roughly 24x24 size which is much more manageable and makes sense for the space we have-- not to mention those are the dimensions needed for it to set down in between the two booth seats and make one flush surface all the way across. The result? I can now easily access the storage spaces!

The little terd! Trying desperately to gnaw her
mark into this pristine piece of wood!

It was rough getting started- neither of us wanted to work out in the lumpy ice rink that is the back yard, but April is coming and we need to be ready! So we chipped and scraped and cleared a small ice free zone just big enough for Dan to set up the table saw and work around it safely. 

The two front legs are remove-able to allow the rabbit pen to slide in and out.

Dan playing piano in the kitchen while I work. :)

I started working on the cushions as well! I've come up with a very simple design and for the cushions themselves. I made use of old bed sheets instead of buying material. Next I will make actual covers for each using a material we pick out. 

Holding up the rough beginnings of a cushion!

It's going to take some time, but I plan to work on the cushions here and there this week, and hopefully by the weekend I will have some finished products to show!

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Remote Update

Grumpy Dan, begrudgingly starting the weight calculations.

Greetings from Montana!



I'm currently out in the mid-west for a work trip, but I wanted to put up a post before too many more days go by! 

There hasn't been a whole lot of action on the house since the last post. Dan is in school full time with classes on Saturdays, and I just started a beekeeping class on Saturdays too! So excited!! The trade off is that it takes a huge chunk of our weekends away- and that's when we have done most of our work in the past. 

We also have some other....projects....going on (not related to the Pod) that are taking some of our time and attention at the moment. We are both super excited, and I will share more about it once more details have been figured out! Eeee!

Although we don't have any physical labors to report on, we have started some of those more "book keeping" type tasks that we have been avoiding for months. One of which is calculating the tiny house weight. We have talked about this quite a few times in the past. We don't really have a clue what the Pod weighs and we aren't about to take it on the road to go weigh it--especially if it might be too heavy.

Well, I'm happy to say that as we continue our figuring (still aren't done, it's quite a job) the numbers are adding up slowly, which is in our favor. So far, we have calculated the weight of the tiny house skeleton- meaning the framing, plywood and insulation. With all four walls and the roof-- plus a smattering of other things that we have found weights for- like the doors, flooring, etc and we still haven't broken 2000 pounds. 

I'd say we are in good shape! I can't imagine the remaining ship lap on the walls and the various pine cabinets/storage adding up to 6000 pounds so I'd say we are good. haha (We have a 10,000 lb capacity and we are leaving a conservative 2000 lbs to the trailer) That's exciting because it's looking like we can choose whatever we like for siding. As mentioned in the last post, we will be making use of recycled pallets. I've been cruising craigslist yet again and have already found a promising supplier of FREE pallets. 

In other news, the little heater I ordered FINALLY came in. It was supposed to be delivered about 10 days earlier than it was, NOT SO conveniently leaving us to face another cold snap with just our electric heaters. Since I pay the electric bill for my Dad's place and what we use in the Pod- I'm very aware of how much energy that stupid oil/electric heater sucks up. I don't want to be depending on that thing if I can help it!

This little heater has been a pure JOY. It comes from the Mr Heater line and operates off a 1 lb can of propane. The Little Buddy was perfect for us because we were looking for something that would heat our home- not make it into a sauna. Before I found the Little Buddy, the smallest indoor propane heater I found was designed for 200+ square feet. We would have been roasted out of our tiny house in minutes. This tiny heater is designed for 100 square feet and it has been perfect! 

It has it's own igniter- no matches needed. After running for just a few seconds, it's completely silent. It also has a bump/tip sensor and an oxygen sensor. (We already have a fire/carbon monoxide detector so we are doubled up!) The bump sensor works quite well. I was shuffling by it as I went into the kitchen and bumped it just a bit with my leg. It wasn't even enough of a brush to knock the thing over, but it promptly shut itself off. NICE.

For any truly tiny house people out there-- as in you live in 130 square feet or less -- we highly recommend this little guy. We like that we can move it around the house easily, and when summer comes, we can just pack it away or even take it along on hiking trips or other outings in the fall. 

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MEGA MILESTONE!!

SUPER AWESOME AMAZING NEWS PEOPLE!!

Friday was, as many co-workers (and I) call, the most wonderful workday of the year. It was simultaneously pay day (monthly at my company) and bonus day! AND as of Friday, The Pod is officially paid in full! We don't owe a penny anywhere for our home! 

Granted- we still need to put siding on the thing, but that is another expense I can tackle as it comes. If we find we can use whatever we like for the siding, then we are going to recycle pallets. That means FREE siding...with a little work of course. One of the blogs I've been following from the start, Mini Motives, used pallets and I was amazed at how great it came out. Here is a picture of her tiny house exterior.

It's a pretty amazing feeling to know you own your home out right within three months of living there. I aim to be very transparent about our costs because I want others to know what is possible. We just broke $10,000 with the last purchase of materials we made, which was a few weeks ago. I see so many tiny houses out there being made on a conveyer belt practically and being sold for $25,000 and up. It is truly rewarding to be able to stand here and say it can be done for much less. With enough planning ahead, searching for deals, being very organized and aware, and constantly monitoring costs- you'd be amazed what you can save. I finally feel like I'm headed in the direction I want to be going, and it's a surreal feeling. All the hard work and the diligence paid off. I believe a few key parts to our success were:

A) We started planning and purchasing materials 6 months leading up to the build start date. Meaning we could take on smaller expenses over time before dealing with the raw building material cost at the same time.
B) We planned around our supplies. I first bought the windows, door, and trailer before making the blue prints. By doing this, I was able to search for the best deal without any particular characteristics to fill. Once we knew our window and door dimensions, we designed around it. 
C) I forced myself to keep a spread sheet of all costs including what I got for a deal on craigslist versus what I would have paid at the box store. We saved over $7000 by searching for recycled, reused, reclaimed materials. Watching those numbers grow gave me more motivation to keep sniffing out the deals. (It can wear you out quickly!)
D) We bought supplies as we needed them. Some say we could have saved by buying in bulk, but to be honest, I don't even think we would hit the bulk minimum quota for the amount we needed. By getting the material in small lots and doing things so incrementally- we were able to keep a close eye on waste, and let me tell you- there wasn't much of that going on! For three of the four walls, we bought dead on the amount of 2x4s we needed. Being so attentive to small details can really pay off.


We celebrated in our modest tiny ways with some g-free pizza and a 6 pack of Strongbows. It was one of the most satisfying meals of my life. :) 

Of course there are still more expenses to come, the solar power system, rain water system, the land or renting of a space, garden expenses, etc. But we are enjoying this particular moment...as we should. :)

On Saturday we also started the ball slowly rolling again by putting in two different shelves. It was the first time we felt decent and the weather was decent enough at the same time. We cut and sanded the pieces for the shelves then put them in place in less than an hour. It felt good to get something done, and in such a short time frame.

Still riding Saturday's success, we finally got around to putting the new counter pieces in place for the stair storage. The paint washed boards got 3 coats of water based poly and now look fabulous as the counter surfaces. It looks so much better than the stain highlighting pine counter. The contrast in color looks great and will definitely cut down on the number of visible scuffs and stains. 

All in all, a great weekend! Plus there are a ton of new pics up on the facebook page! I posted all of July and August activity. PLENTY to peruse. So enjoy if you have some free time!

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Yay! More storage! More organization!

See ya later GROSS face!

One Solid Con...

Holy smokes we made it!!


Hello readers! It's been too long, I know!

After three months of living in the tiny house, I was still quietly boasting to myself, "And I don't see one single con to how much we have changed." WELL. I stand corrected. When living in about 100 square feet, there is one con I can think of: you get reeaalll close with your partner, and you share everything-- including colds.

Dan and I are both recovering from getting sick over the last two weeks. We both started out with head/chest colds, while Dan made a slow recovery, I graduated to severe dehydration and pneumonia. Let me tell you, I do not wish this combination on my worst enemy. I've never been this sick for this long- EVER. I lost 8 lbs within a week, and I'm a petite gal without a lot extra on my frame, now I'm down to the stickly little figure I had as a pre-pubescent high schooler. NOT OKAY.

Between the head splitting coughs, full body wretches, spine locked in pain, wheezing lungs, sleepless nights, and bone gripping weakness, it was a victory to bathe and dress myself. Let alone cook, or clean...and definitely not work on house projects. Dan and I struggled just to keep this place from looking like a college dorm most days. We even used every dish we had before finally getting up the gumption to wash them. Not a fun couple of weeks. 

One thing about a tiny place-- if you don't pick up and clean up after each activity- it looks like a bomb went off in no time.

So, I don't have much to report. :/ Just yesterday, Dan and I finally put up the beginnings of the kitchen drawers. We used brackets to mount each piece of plywood. Next comes the face trim over those rough boards, and after that- we build the boxes that will fit in as drawers. Even having those rough boards in place made us feel like we were finally getting a grip on life again- not to mention it's nice to have more spaces to organize the kitchen items.

Meanwhile- the new countertops are still up in my Dad's attic, awaiting another coat of poly. I think about 336 hours between coats is enough time, right? HA. The good thing is, the poly doesn't care. I just hope there isn't a layer of dust on the dang things! I'll be up there today applying the second coat.  

Well, I have about a million things to catch up on, so that's all for today folks! 
We are officially back on the wagon! Regular posting is back! In fact- I feel I owe all you loyal readers some serious content, so I'll be pushing to get up all the back dated photos of our build on our face book page. I created albums carefully chronicling each day we worked- I stopped mid-May. So expect to see a butt-load of pictures on the page soon!

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3 Tiny House Habits....Weird Ones

Sure we all do quirky stuff every now and again, but I've developed some new weird habits thanks to living in a tiny house.

Bein' weirdos.

Panorama eye candy :)

3 Weird Tiny House Habits

Number One: At least a couple mornings a week, I “lock” the house- as I'm leaving and walking through the yard. I casually throw my arm back, with a halfway glance, point my car keys at The Pod and hit the lock button. I have never in my life done this anywhere else.

….Maybe it's because the tiny house is on wheels?

Karate CHOP!

Number Two:On weekend mornings, Dan and I often amuse ourselves for a good half hour, by “dancing” on the ceiling. I first discovered this fun activity while attempting to stretch my legs in bed. I was laying on my back and swung my leg up for a straighten and stretch. I was delighted to find that my lower extremities are just the right length to “stand” flat footed on the ceiling. Well, simply “standing” there didn't last long and we soon graduated to river dancing and fake fighting/duels.

No surface goes unused here, my friends.

Number Three: Glitchy transitions- here's one that's two fold. Dan and I each have our own hiccups as we switch from being at home in the tiny house and being out, working in the day to day world. I seem to throw a wide array of unrelated assignments onto different areas of the house. Sometimes I sit on the floor in the kitchen and read- other times, when I'm talking passionately about something, I find myself standing on the counter in the great room. My soap box perhaps? ;) And Dan- well, he forgets where modern plumbing exists. Just the other day, he was helping out at his Dad's store and went outside to toss a few things in the dumpster. Without thinking, he sauntered to the back of the lot and wizzed all over. (all over...haha inside joke) Half way through, the realization struck him like lightning- "I'm not in the woods- there is a toilet inside- this probably isn't appropriate..."   HA!

So are we the only two tiny house nuts with quirky habits? We'd love to hear from other tiny house people!

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