Rain, rain, go away...

Saturday was a difficult workday--it was absolutely pouring with rain. That was not very conducive to finishing the siding that we've been working on (and are SO close to completing!), so we were working inside for a good part of the day. We started the day at the store buying a few more nails, the vent we needed, and two decorative pieces for the gables on the outside of the house.

Sadly the morning started with an accident. Right after I painted the spindle wheels and set them inside the house to dry, the sawsall fell and smashed one of them! I was not a happy camper. But, nothing a little woodglue and some zipties can't fix! (we hope)

We built the framing for the shelves and bench on the back side of the house. In this picture I'm carefully placing my damaged spindle wheel decorations high up out of harm's way.

 All our supplies, tools, etc. were inside because it was way too rainy to work outside.

Hard to tell, but this is a picture of the plywood added to the top of the small loft.

Just above the small loft, we installed the vent to the outside. This will pull air in when it is opened, while the bathroom fan and loft window at the opposite end of the house will pull air out, creating an air tunnel of sorts to increase air circulation and decrease risk of condensation.

Outside view.

At the end of the afternoon, the rain started to let up, allowing us to finish a bit of siding on the front.

It's getting there...

This is the shelter we created for cutting when the rain continued to pour. Of course the moment we finished building it, the rain let up...

Close up of spindle wheel. Don't worry, it's getting another coat of paint, and yes we still have to add the soffit.

We also had the chance to meet a fellow Tiny House enthusiast. Vanessa came out to visit our house along with her boyfriend, Cory. Great to meet you both!

-M.

Work during the week

So, we need to put in more hours if we are going to make it by our deadline.  Its at the point in the project where we are getting tired... We are motivated because the picture that we had of our home is actually starting to take shape (esthetically), but building your own house, although it is "tiny", from scratch is a lot of work.  Definitely worth it though, just need to generate more steam!

This week I went on my days off and Margo pitched in after work a couple of days.  We were able to do some more of the trim on the other side of the house, finish up the tongue box (except the doors) and put up some more siding.  

This is my version of ice and water shield... used some left over window tape and wrapped it around the front of the tongue box.  Turned out pretty well!

Thank you Mike, Ben, and Luke for helping me with the siding on this wall!  I really appreciated and needed the help!

This bathroom window is becoming better and better looking the more we do to it.  I am glad we decided to put this Door sidelight as the bathroom window.  

The roofing on the tongue box

more siding...

Margo went after work today and did more work on the tongue siding while I was still working, it looks great!

Tomorrow we are hoping to complete the siding and trim.  So, after a short stop at home depot to get more triple dipped siding nails, we will be off to work!

We will give another update at the end of the weekend!

Some trim and a few visitors...

One thing we've enjoyed as we've gone through our building process has been all of the other tiny house enthusiasts we've connected with through this blog, conventions, and other random connections via friends and family. Today, we had a couple from Portland drive up to check out the house and visit with Jeff for a bit. They're just beginning to dream about building tiny. We also had a fellow from Austin, TX visit who we met at the Mother Earth News fair a few weeks ago. Thanks for the visits, guys!

Jeff was out there almost the whole day, showing the place to visitors and sneaking a little work in here and there. He almost completely finished the trim on the final two sides of the house.

We really love the purple now!

He created little notches below the window drains to be extra sure we won't encourage leaks. I'll repaint the purple over those later.

More siding to come tomorrow!

-M.

Siding has begun!

Today was a very long and productive day. Since we're very tired, I'll just summarize and then post photos. Jeff and I got out to the build site early in the morning and started by breaking the lock on the door so that we could get in (long story). We then started trimming the edges, corners, and windows/doors on the long side of the house with the front door, as well as the back side of the house.
As we put our trim into place, we used clear-drying silicone caulk for all of the seams. We then added a starter pierce of 3/8" wood ripped down from 2x4's at the bottom of the wall right atop the trim pieces. From this we started our siding, which is 6" clear grade bevel cedar siding, and we are SO glad we chose the siding we did because it looks gorgeous! There are a few tricky cuts around the top of the window trim due to the decorative edges we chose, but they've all come out ok so far!

Thank you SO much to Margo's brother Cassius, and our friends Arrie, Cheryl, and Kyle for all of your help today! It was much appreciated! :) Our house could not be so wonderful without you!

We're headed out again tomorrow to get some more siding and trim done. We're loving the exterior finished look so far!!

-M & J

Holy Purple trim, Batman!

Friday was a Margo-solo work day after work, as Jeff was working until late. I made a shopping trip to the home depot, and then spent a few hours painting the trim to go around the windows and door.

The wood we got for the Trim is milled by a local mill owner named Lyle here in Tacoma. We got 1x4" finger-jointed cedar. We chose finger-jointed as we will be painting over it.

Original unpainted trim

WOW!!!!! SO purple! (That was my reaction after painting it--didn't quite look like the paint chip.)

A few finished pieces.

BOY, was I surprised at the brightness of the purple paint after it first went on. I finished all the boards up, but the hope is that they dry darker than they look wet.

We'll see how they look once they're up on the house!! :)

-M.

Lots of little things....

We worked a loooong day today and we're waking up early to head out there again in the morning before going to my brother's graduation ceremony. So, this update will be short and sweet. The highlights are, we finished caulking and taping all seams in the sheathing, around the ridgeline, any gaps, etc. The taping is a new technique Jeff learned about at the sustainable building techniques booth at the Mother Earth News fair last weekend. It is normally supposed to be done on the outside, underneath the tyvek, but it was too late for that since we already had our Tyvek up so we just did it on the inside. It is supposed to prevent any extra airflow, assisting with reducing condensation problems, etc.

Jeff also got really close to finishing the interior plumbing, but still has to create the hookups to the filtration system and water heater on the outside of the house.

 Plumbing behind the shower 1/2 done.

Sooooo much caulking...Every single crack!

Tape after caulking the roof.

Tape after caulking the wall under the end gable.

Shower Plumbing so close to done!

Jeff adding the switch for the "porch" light.

We installed the Fascia boards on the sides, which had to stay super tight to the walls due to keeping an eye on our road width. This wouldn't have been my first choice aesthetically, but allowed us to have more room to move around on the inside. With a space this small everything is a tradeoff. No pictures of this today--we'll try to take some tomorrow.

We bought metal drip edges to go over the fascia boards and underneath the edges of our metal roofing, which we will install once we seal off the fascia boards.

We also leveled out the trailer, installed a drip edge flashing over the top of the front door, ran more electrical for the exterior "porch" light, installed our plywood flooring for the loft, taped off the large picture window at the back of the trailer, and a bunch of other small miscellaneous things.

Siding boards stacked up in the loft.

We had hoped to get to some insulation today, but it wasn't in the cards. If we don't have time for it tomorrow, Jeff will definitely work on it during his days off next week.

View from kitchen up to bottom of loft flooring.

A good day, but an exhausting day, today.