A Door and a Ridge!

My short lil front door.

I think doors and windows are their own category of difficulty. Installing a door feels more over my head than any other part of the build so far. Even though the door is in and seems correct, I still worry I’ve done it wrong. It’s continuously mind-boggling to build something or cut a hole, learn how to install a door or a skylight, install it, and then boom, it’s done. It’s there, and I put it there.

The door is a little tight at one corner and not as tight as it maybe should be in another corner. But it seems square and level and plumb, according to all the ways I could think of to check it. It doesn’t swing on its own, so the frame isn’t tilted. The gap between the door and the frame is even, although it’s wide on the strike side. And even though the holes on the door are lower than the holes in the frame on the strike side, the door and deadbolt still latch. I don’t know if something’s wrong with my installation, because I have no idea what would be. It swings and closes beautifully every time though, so maybe I should just stop worrying.

Oh, my one mistake: I installed the door flush with the outside walls, like you’re supposed to. But I failed to take into account the fact that there was no sheathing around the frame because it’s a weird spot. Soo, the door is a half inch deeper into the house than it should be, and creative trimming will definitely be required.

I ordered my door without brickmold because of how small the spot is. This way, I’ll be able to custom make and install my own trim to fit properly. As you can see, I added more wood to fill in the frame and give the trim a place to land. It took three or four days to prepare the opening, buy everything I needed, do more research, add more wood to the frame, and finally install the door, then the doorknob and deadbolt. It was a process and a whole bunch of things I had never done before! I’m glad I had my dad’s help. 🙂

We installed the doorknob, and it was too low to latch at first, but Dad tapped the strike plate slightly lower, and now it latches no problem. We installed it without a plate on the door side, because the instructions give you the option of chiseling a rectangle out for the plate or simply using a circle of metal, so I chose the circle. But that allows way too much play in the latch, as you can see here:

The metal circle doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to.

So I decided to chisel the rectangle for the plate. Due to the doorknob being on the low side, the rectangle I chiseled out held the latch too low and it wouldn’t latch. So I had to make the rectangle bigger at the top, and now there’s some exposed wood at the bottom of the plate. Sigh. I’ll have to cover that up. But now the latch stays where it’s supposed to.

As for the deadbolt, I thought I was going to have to return the whole set because the deadbolt didn’t fit the hole in my door! Why in the world would a standard deadbolt not fit a factory-cut hole? Who decided on this teeny hole for the deadbolt? Do they sell smaller deadbolts? After a trip to the hardware store, I went back and read through the instructions again, and the large metal ring was, in fact, removable:

This was stopping the deadbolt from fitting.

This set is exactly what I wanted. 🙂

Phew! That was all way too complicated and annoying. Unlike my ridge caps! A few hours on the roof, and I had them all on, with their foam closures underneath!

My baby’s now fully protected on top and no longer needs a blankie (aka a tarp :P)

So that’s what I’ve been up to, and now I have to make a new to-do list, because I’ve finished so many things!

The biggest task up next is windows! Oh goody, more shimming! 😛

Skylight Update

I have my new skylights! Phew. I got an email on Thursday saying they were in, but didn’t have time to pick them up before work. Then Friday was Canada Day so everything was closed. So this morning, with the too-big skylights in the back, I went straight to the hardware store, even forgetting to eat breakfast. The window guy gave me a sheet with the skylights and flashing kits listed and the total price, which was over $1400! I asked him how much each item was, thinking in my head that there was no way they could be this expensive. I only paid $1264 for the first set of skylights! I did get a discount on those because they were so late, but even still, the new skylights were 12″ smaller! He looked up the prices and dropped the price of the big one for me by $35, and made the flashing kits $20 cheaper each, bringing the total to $1345. I didn’t fight him anymore on that. He always looks cranky when he sees me now, which I think is unprofessional, but since it was my mistake this time choosing the bigger skylights, I wasn’t going to argue more about the price. I went into the store willing to pay a restocking fee or pay for the ripped boxes or whatever it took so long as I left with the right skylights – and they didn’t say anything about the boxes. I had been looking forward to the new ones being cheaper, but I guess nothing ever is. 😛 And I did save myself $75 just by asking (which goes to show how much they can manipulate prices). But anyways, here they are!

$80 more expensive yet way smaller, but oh well.

Skylight Stress

You can’t make detailed plans too far ahead with building projects, because things are constantly changing. You plan to do one thing, but don’t have something for it and the hardware store is closed, so you do something else instead. Things take longer, and you don’t always have extra people around to help. Things don’t go as you expected. But if you don’t make plans and deadlines, you won’t get anything done!

For the beginning of June, I had a list of things to do, and a rough outline of what I would do on each of my days off for two weeks. I didn’t plan the whole month though, because I knew plans would change too much by then. But by the time I finished that list and the middle of the month rolled around, I was busy with other parts of my life. I went zip-lining, hung out in my hammock reading, caught up with friends, spent time with my dad who’s home from Ottawa, and spent a day hiking and swimming with a friend at a local waterfall. 😀 It’s finally summer! 😀

I also needed to do some research after finishing the sheathing. New steps = learning as I go. I researched how to install skylights, ice and water shield, drip edges, house wrap, and more. You could spend forever reading forums of carpenters arguing about the correct way to do something and there’s no clear answer. Dylan’s also been working more now that it’s summer, so I often don’t have his help during the day.

After he got home from work one day, I was ready to work on the house and get my skylights installed, which seemed like the next step. Better to seal up the roof as soon as possible, while the walls could wait. So I got up in the loft to measure to cut the rough opening for my first skylight, and discovered that it would take up almost the entire width of the ceiling! When I ordered the skylights, I was more focused on getting my custom little windows all sorted out, and simply picked the middle size of 3 standard size skylights. It technically could fit, but I am not going to cut a hole in my roof that big. The way it is, yes the width of the roof is big enough on the top, but when you take away the overhang, the width of the wall, and the ridge board, you get less than 2″ on the top and bottom of the skylight. (Never mind that the instructions say to leave 24″ on the top and bottom of a skylight, which would be entirely impossible on my roof.) To frame it and trim it properly, to flash it and fit the roofing around it… there’s just not enough space. This was a horrible realization on the day I had planned to install the skylights, and worse because it was minutes after the hardware store had closed, so I couldn’t even call about returning them.

Discouraged, I didn’t bother trying to get anything else done on the house, and anxiously waited until morning thinking about the skylight boxes I’d ripped to get the instructions out.

The next morning, Dylan and I loaded the skylights and matching flashing kits into the car and went to the hardware store. They are stock sizes, so they should be returnable, but I was stressing that they were going to tell me no. It was my mistake this time, not theirs. Could nothing go right with the windows?!?!

I walked up to the window guy and clearly stated what I wanted. At first he hesitated, saying that he couldn’t really send them back to Ontario, but I insisted that they’re stock windows, that I needed to return them and get the smaller size, and that I wanted them next week. He said he’d call up the place to see if the flashing kits would be usable with smaller skylights, and told me he would give me a call later in the day. I told him, “I’ll wait.” So he called right away and ordered new skylights and new flashing kits. He told me they’d be in in 3-5 days and that I could return the other skylights then. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected, but I still walked away worrying that he’d screw me over when the new ones arrived by refusing to take the old ones with ripped boxes.

Since then, I’ve been busy working and attending my sister’s high school graduation! And of course, it’s been raining.

To be continued…

Working On It

On my days off, Dylan and I put up the 4 end rafters:

Getting the front two up was aggravating because I didn’t plan ahead and ended up having less than a foot of space to hammer the L brackets:

See all the dents?

But it’s so satisfying when you get a nail in! There are about 250 nails in the rafters, all hammered in by hand, each nail taking 3-20+ hits at all the weird angles.

Then we pulled out all the plywood out of the trailer, where it had been stored on my not-fully-dry subfloor all winter…

Not looking good…

But! Those were the only two pieces that were that bad, one meant for the walls and one meant for the roof. The rest are fine and usable, with only a few barely damp spots. And I believe I ordered one extra of each, so I should still be able to sheath the house without buying more plywood. Phew.

With help, I cut 12 identical pieces for along the top of the walls:

I measured, cut notches out for the rafters, and tested each piece by myself, some of them taking 7 or 8 trips up the ladder to get exactly right. When I got to the 3rd last piece,  I noticed the spot where the final piece would go:

Oops, I needed a bigger piece than what I had already cut. I had forgotten about that. 😛 So I finished 11/12 pieces for around the top and called it a day.

These pieces took hours!

I was done in time to see sunset from the loft:

❤

 

 

The Long Update

A lot has happened since the end of October. I haven’t been blogging because I was more focused on getting as much physical work done as I could before winter.

I, with help from friends, got the last few sheets of the first level of plywood up:

This is the far side.

Even though I’m not anywhere near where I’d hoped I would be by now, it’s still amazing to see the progress that I’m making. I imagined this and now I’m making it real! It used to be just a drawing, then it was a custom trailer, then I had it insulated, added a sub-floor, designed and built my own walls, and then added sheets of wood that are bigger than me onto the outside! It might be a tiny house, but it’s a pretty big deal to me.

One of the main reasons I haven’t been blogging or working on the house recently is because I got a second job at the end of October, so I’ve been busy making money.

I did manage to get out a couple of times, to add the plywood in the pictures above, and to work on my rafters some more:

I only made 4 pairs of rafters to support the ridge board when it first goes up. That way, if I made them a little off, then I can make an improved template to make the rest from, rather than having every single rafter be less than ideal.

I bought a fancy ladder and a sander, both on sale 🙂

My very own sander 🙂

The revised plan was to sand my beams for the loft, get those in, get some rafters and the ridge board up, get some plywood on the roof, and tarp the house really well for winter. But the temperature was dropping fast, and with me working 6 days a week and having it rain on my only day off, things weren’t looking good…

Then I found a warehouse to store my house for the winter! That took a thousand pounds of stress off my chest. For $75 a month, I’ll have peace of mind knowing that winter won’t be destroying my little house, and I’ll be able to take a much-needed break.

But there was still work to be done. I had my siding delivered:

Then I finally got an email saying my windows were in, 5 weeks after they had told me it would take 3 or less. I was not impressed, and neither were any of my friends. So Dylan, his brother Dan, his brother’s girlfriend Tasha, and I all went up to the building store with the van and the truck, ready to pick up my windows and maybe do some yelling.

The whole window order has been stressing me out since I found out they weren’t ordered in August like I wanted. It means that despite spending thousands of dollars at their store on lumber and plywood, I wasn’t taken seriously. Altogether I’ve waited 11 weeks for my windows. They wouldn’t have made a contractor wait that long, and they would’ve been much more accommodating. Other tiny house builders, usually couples, talk about how they’ve made friends at the building stores and how everyone knows them there so that’s what I expected. Despite some warning signs on my first few trips to hardware stores, I wasn’t prepared for how I’ve been treated. It’s frustrating and I dread going to the building store. People were telling me to take Dylan or his dad or someone with me, and it makes me angry that I don’t get taken seriously on my own. I’m a paying customer and I should be taken seriously regardless of being young and female. So I won’t be spending my money at that building store anymore.

But I had to get my windows, so we all went in, and found out that my skylights weren’t in. That was part of my window order and I was not happy. Then Dan piped up and asked where the hell our discount was, and the guy totally tried to get out of it. Then I stepped up and reminded him that I waited 6 weeks the first time, which he also tried to get out by saying I never actually confirmed the order, but I know I told him I wanted them ordered and wanted to pay for them. But I waved him off and continued, telling him that then he told me they would be three weeks or less FIVE weeks ago. He was quick to deny that, saying it had only been four, and I told him they were still late and he had messed up my timeline. I couldn’t have siding put up so I was losing out on a deal on that, and I was having to store my project because I didn’t have windows in. He grumbled and gave me a teeny 5% off, saying there’s not much he can do on custom windows, which I can understand. I saved about $100 and I was happy to get anything off. Plus he offered to store the windows, which made things easier for me.

As for the skylights, he had to “check on those”. He mumbled something about a plant closing for two weeks, but I couldn’t care less if a plant closed, my skylights are stock windows, not custom, and they were only supposed to take 3-4 days. He told me they’d be ready in 3-4 days, implying to me that he hadn’t even ordered them at all. I was at a loss for words I was so angry.

Then a different guy, who I ordered my door from, came around the corner and said my door was in. I ordered the door around the same time I re-ordered my windows, but he told me it would take 6 weeks, so I was happily surprised to get it a week early. That’s how you should do business. Don’t tell people it’s going to take 3 weeks when it will take more, ’cause they’ll be mad. Anyways, here are the pictures:

They look so tiny! But at least they’re proportional.

I’m a little disappointed with my entrance window, because it was supposed to be 6″ taller, but it was my mistake. I framed it wrong and since I had to re-order my windows, I decided to stick with the mistake and changed the window size on the order instead of cutting apart my wall. But I’m sure I’ll like it when I’m done. Maybe I’ll put a cute little shelf over the window where that extra six inches of glass was supposed to be.

A custom tiny door!

I was worried about the door, because I wanted a window but I also wanted the paneling. This is what they made and I’m happy with it 🙂 It’s a really short door to fit under the loft, but it’s a standard width.

Then we had to get ready to get the house on the road. I’d already arranged for a friend of a friend who’s a professional at towing trailers to move the house on my one day off. Dylan and I moved all of my materials into the house for storage to free up the garage for the winter:

Then the guy tried to back out at the last minute saying he was busy, despite the fact that I’m paying him, but we put pressure on him and he showed up.

I had the ridge board and rafters ready to go, but left them off. They would’ve added more height and it wouldn’t have been that strong without all of the rafters in.

Getting the trailer onto the hitch was a little upsetting to watch, especially since there was water pouring out the end of the trailer somehow (the sub-floor plus rain is a whole ‘nother story):

Tiny house on the move!

Tiny house on the road!

I didn’t plan on moving the house until it was done, but here it is!

Tiny house in a warehouse 🙂

The professional driver – who I paid $100 to move the house safely – pinched the wire on the light harness while jack-knifing into the warehouse, so I’m not very happy about that. The lights still work though.

It’s a good thing the ridge board wasn’t up, because it might not have made it through the warehouse door! Thankfully everything worked out.

All tucked in for winter.

So after six months of stress and learning, I’m going to snuggle in and enjoy my winter. I’ll still be doing some research, working on my steps list, and posting on here occasionally, but I’ll also be taking the time to get back to my little personal projects and hobbies that got pushed aside this summer.

Oh, and we got the tiny house stored just in time. We had a rainstorm and over 50mm of rainfall the weekend after moving the house, then right after that, it snowed and the ground stayed white for a little while. The temperature went up again, but winter is coming…

Here are some pictures of the emptiness the house left behind:

Ta ta for now.