All Tucked in for the Night

It’s supposed to rain for the next few days, but hopefully it doesn’t rain too much. There are way too many spots for water to pool, and the all-threaded rods have the potential to rip through the tarp.

I’ll have to check in the morning to see how it holds up 😛 Putting the tarp on is definitely something I’ll need to get better at, but so far I’m glad I have two smaller ones rather than one big one. I only need one of them to cover the trailer itself.

Trailer Delivery!

Looks like a lot of rods…

Hmmm.

Randy seems to have had the measurements swapped, so my porch was the wrong size. Between sending me pictures and delivery, he added a bar, more metal underneath, and two more rods to somewhat fix that. But he apparently forgot about the flange because the porch is 36″ without it; it’s 40″ wide including the flange. That might work out better for the front door, so oh well.

What dampened my excitement was the rods and the reality of where exactly they are. First, there are two missing that should be near the wheel wells. Then there’s the extra two that he never took off after fixing the size of the window seat. Plus I never asked for any in the middle a few feet in. Then the corner rods are too close to the corners. It’s partly my mistake. I told Randy that I needed the rods to be 1 3/4″ in from the edge (to go through the bottom of my framing) but I never clarified that they should be 6″ from the corners one way so as to not interfere with the corner studs. It was in my drawing, but I didn’t label it as well as I should have. So, probably about 3 of the rods are usable, 6 are in the way of studs, and 1 is going to come up through my floor.

*Deep breath.*

Let’s not think about the rods right now. They’re the easiest thing to fix out of all the things that could’ve been wrong, so that’s good at least. I’ll post more about them later.

I’m very happy with the trailer overall. The wiring is on the outside so it won’t be inaccessible, but it’s protected by tubing. The leveling jacks are exactly what I pictured. The corner porch is a great size; in my drawings it always seemed so tiny. My window seat is also a good size. The trailer seems so strong. The metal underneath already installed saves me tons of work. The wheel wells will barely extend into the house at all. The crossmembers aren’t at even intervals, but that just means I’ll have to cut some plywood, no big deal. And it’s so fabulous to come home and see that beautiful trailer sitting in my driveway.

Is that enough pictures? Also, see my pretty shed in the background? 🙂

It’s so nice out these days; it’s building season! I’m already a little burnt.

By the way, I bought a fifth patio stone for the tongue stand to rest on; I didn’t think of that until the trailer arrived.

Next up: talking to a welder, grinding off some all-threaded rods, figuring out how to screw through metal, finding screws meant for metal, finding the right tool to use, and cleaning the trailer.

This is Happening!

The trailer will be delivered tomorrow morning, it’s too late to go back now! Delivery cost me about $400, and the trailer itself was about $7000. Yesterday I bought some concrete stones for the leveling jacks to rest on. We’re going to set up the trailer parallel to the driveway until it has been spray foamed and has had time to off-gas. Then we’ll move it somehow to the build spot by our neighbour’s fence. Our neighbour is a flower shop with a huge greenhouse, so I couldn’t in good conscience let the insulators spray chemicals a few feet from their fence, their plants, and their staff. Since it’s open air, the off-gassing isn’t as big of a concern, but they still recommended 30′ of clearance all the way around.

There is a sale on a Dewalt table saw, so I’m going to go buy one of those on Sunday. It’s not the fancy $600-$700 one with a stand and wheels. The one I’m getting is $329 on sale and it’s the light-weight model but still has enough rip capacity to cut plywood in half. A stand just isn’t worth $300 to me; I don’t know why the stand is so expensive!

I called the insulation company today after Randy confirmed the trailer delivery, anxious to find out how long until I could get an appointment. “Wednesday, June 3rd?” Perfect! And it’s supposed to be sunny 🙂 I was so worried I’d have to wait weeks because I called at the last minute. Insulating the floor is the first step, so I want to get that done ASAP so I can move on. Plus, where the trailer will be blocks off our turn-around spot, which my family will definitely be annoyed by for the week it’ll be there.

After all this dreaming and planning, the build will be physically real. Tomorrow. Woah. Phase 3: The Shell is beginning! Onto less planning and more building!

P.S. Did you know that “an average room has over 2000 visible objects…”? (Source) It’s overstimulating and often overwhelming. Minimalism keeps looking better and better to me.

Trailer Pictures!!!

The tentative delivery date for my trailer is this Friday, but Randy sent me some pictures like I asked 🙂

I had a small freak-out because the angle of the pictures make my porch look way too big and my lovely window seat look way too small, but Randy assures me that the corner porch is the right size.

It’s so exciting! And terrifying!

Floor Plan #5 and I’m Already Behind

I made a few little changes to my floor plan. My trailer is 23′, so I had to add 6″ to the house, which allowed me to add a litter box to my teeny tiny bathroom. Other changes are:

– illustrating the thinner walls

– switching the cork board and window in the main room so I can potentially have a wall heater beside the table, without a window right above it

– moving the ladder to be lined up with the edge of the loft, and because of that, adding 6″ to the utility closet so the ends of my kitchen line up

Here is my current floor plan (that will probably change again before I start the interior):

Floor Plan 5

And since I’m posting about floor plans, I wanted to share my original floor plan. I finally got around to recreating it in black so it shows up on the scanner. I made this one two years ago, in April 2013:

Original Floor Plan

I think it’s interesting how it evolved 🙂

Building projects always have delays and they always take longer than you expect. And I’m procrastinating. Right now I’m waiting to find out when exactly my trailer will be delivered. I’m also working on drawing up complete plans to get okayed by an engineer (which I meant to have done weeks ago). I started with the floor plan and got stuck on how thick to make the bathroom wall because of the sliding door.

After looking at different sliding door mechanisms, I settled on a normal 2×4 wall with a thin door. I’ll probably build the door myself because I would like to inset a full-length mirror into it. The door is also a specific size, and I can’t just trim a ready-made door because most are hollow. I don’t know what I’ll do about my front door because an exterior door for Canadian winters needs to be a little sturdier than what I think I can make. Hopefully I’ll be able to order a custom-size one without it being too expensive. Am I rambling yet?

Now I’m trying to make another heights drawing because I’ve changed my insulation and I also want to make the house a little less than the legal maximum of 13’6″, just to be on the safe side. I spent hours trying to figure out how venting a roof works when you have no attic and you’re using spray foam insulation, because I needed to know how thick to make the rafters. I also wanted to avoid this.

I came to the conclusion that you can’t really do an air gap with spray foam because it expands. When using spray foam in a cathedral ceiling it seems you don’t need ventilation anyways. Just make sure your roof doesn’t leak 😛 I’m minimizing any potential leak spots by having a simple roof line all the way across the house. As well, since spray foam makes the house airtight, I’m going to have an air-exchanger and that will help keep the humidity down.

After deciding on no air gap, I went back to the drawing and got stumped on how the rafter ties attach to my walls. I have two sets of plans and they both showed different ways. I researched that for a while, learned about spans, and decided on 4x4s (which I’d planned to use anyway). I learned that what I’ve been calling rafter ties aren’t actually rafter ties in my house because of my roof line. Rafter ties are at the bottom of rafters. In my house, the 4x4s that support my lofts are more like floor joists. The terminology is still all new to me.

The $200 plans I bought – specifically for the roof line – are like pages of math questions. There are blanks where there should be numbers! I don’t even know if I have enough numbers to fill in the rest. Why so mysterious, plans? The $10 plans I bought for the corner porch have way more measurements. Right now I have a piece of graph paper with two lines on it because I had to keep researching. Next I need to find the roof slope and maybe then I’ll be able to fill in some ceiling heights. Then after that I’ll finally be able to start on the framing plans I need to draw.