The End

As I was finishing up the bulk of the siding in mid-June, I should’ve been reading up on electrical and starting to buy materials for the interior. But I wasn’t. I told myself I was just focusing on finishing the exterior, and then I’d get to that. Then I told myself it was okay to take some time to enjoy my summer. That it was okay if the build took longer so long as I was enjoying my life.

There are so many reasons the build has taken as long as it has, and I can’t change the past. But I do have (some) control over my future, and I no longer imagine the tiny house in it. Somewhere along the line, the picture changed, and I hit a wall with the tiny house.

I have put all of the time and money into the tiny house that I’m willing to, and now it’s time to move on. I waited to write this post, because I wanted to be sure and because I had to figure out what I wanted to say.

I learned so much building The Lilac. I learned how to find information, teach myself, practice, work with my hands, manage large amounts of money, work hard, and be assertive. But I don’t feel the need to become an expert on electrical and plumbing, I don’t want to spend more time building, and I’m certainly not going to pay someone else. The tiny house is fully paid off, and I have no interest in going back into debt for it. I’d need thousands more for electrical, plumbing, insulation, flooring, interior siding, appliances, not to mention the time I’d spend building furniture and cabinets. I’m going to take a break from building for a while. I’ve had my fill for now.

When I first came across tiny houses, I was 16, and you could build one for less than $20,000 (I’ve spent that much on just the exterior). My plan was to build a tiny house in a year, maybe two, then pick a school, move the tiny house nearby, pay a small amount of rent, and live in it for at least four years while I went through university. I’d save money and I’d have my own custom-designed, private space. I could continue to live in the tiny house until I didn’t want to anymore, then I could keep it in the backyard of a bigger house and use it as an office or guest house.

But it’s already been over two years, and I’d need at least another year to finish the interior. I haven’t had the freedom or privacy of my own space this entire time, so it’s gotten to the point where it’s not worth it for me to continue. Tiny houses are still a legal grey area as well, so I wouldn’t have as much flexibility as I want either. I couldn’t live in a city, or close to town because the bylaws are stricter. I want to be able to live close to conveniences, and I want to be able to sell everything I own and go travel or live abroad. I can’t do that easily if I have a tiny house that needs a parking spot and rent paid.

I bought a nicer car, I make good money working six nights a week at a restaurant, and I moved into an apartment within walking distance of my job. I have a bedroom with a little balcony off it, I have my own kitchen and bathroom that I don’t have to share, and I finally have my own living/dining/office space that’s not two feet from my bed. The bedroom door has purple glass panels in it (oh how I love unique details) and the rent’s not too expensive. I have the freedom, flexibility, and privacy that I wanted.

Now I’m taking my free time and money back, and I’m moving on.

The tiny house was good for me, it gave me purpose when I needed it, but now it’s time to sell the shell. Anyone interested in buying a tiny house shell on wheels to finish can contact me through my About Me page.

P.S. Before I made any decisions, I was included in a tiny housers graphic that came out today! You can see it here.

P.P.S. I did finally get stamped drawings from the engineer, and it cost me $632.50.

 

Thanks for following along with me on this journey. ❤

 

As the Dream Grows

May 29th, 2015

September 12th, 2015

September 17th, 2016

December 6th, 2016

May 7th, 2017

May 19th, 2017

Sure, building this house is taking me a while, but I love it. I’ve learned and grown with it. Take a look at what I’ve been up to over the past two years (hours include my work and help from others):

2015

May 29th: Trailer arrives!

June 3rd: Insulation

June 10th-June 30th: Subfloor (82 hours)

~Waiting, consulting with the engineer~

August 14th-15th: First wall

~More back and forth with the engineer~

August 28th-Sept. 7th: Building the walls (50 hours)

Sept. 12th: Wall raising day! (11 hours)

Sept. 23rd-Sept. 25th: Adding blocking (31 hours)

Oct. 8th-Nov. 16th: Wall sheathing & cutting rafters (46.5 hours)

Nov. 19th: Moving the house into storage

~Winter & research~

2016

May 1st-6th: Sanding the loft beams (6 hours)

May 7th: Moving the house out of storage!

May 13th: Sleeping loft beams go up (8.5 hours)

May 15th-May 26th: Rafters & ridge board (21 hours)

May 28th-June 10th: Upper sheathing, storage loft beams, & fascia boards (60 hours)

June 11th-June 17th: Roof sheathing (37.5 hours)

June 26th: Collar ties (13.5 hours)

July 10th-July 23rd: Blocking, drip edge, ice + water shield, & fixing collar ties (22 hours)

August 4th-August 7th: Installed skylights! (4.5 hours)

August 21st-August 28th: Roofing! (23.5 hours)

Sept. 17th: Moving the tiny house

Sept. 25th-Oct. 6th: House wrap (18 hours)

Oct. 2nd: Fixing collar ties again, adding brackets (13 hours)

Oct. 7th-Oct. 15th: Door install! (23 hours)

Oct. 13th: Finishing roofing (6 hours)

Oct. 20th-Nov. 2nd: Windows! (17 hours)

Nov. 7th-Dec. 6th: Staining fascia & siding (59 hours)

Dec. 10th-Dec. 20th: Siding prep. & soffits (12.5 hours)

2017

Jan. 21st-Jan. 29th: Soffits (13 hours)

Feb. 5th-May 18th: Cutting, priming, painting, & putting up all trim (75 hours)

April 23rd-May 8th: Porch (17 hours)

May 12th-May 14th: Siding prep. (9 hours)

May 19th-June ?: Siding! (49 hours so far)

Here’s a peek of the siding:

Isn’t it cute! I love this little corner. 🙂

Stay tuned for more siding pictures!

 

 

 

 

Winter Blues

I realized I didn’t publish any posts in February. I’ve been picking away at tasks, barely. I cut all of the exterior trim, and started priming, but my morale has been low. I’ve been having a hard time doing anything on the house. It’s hard, doing this alone. I work six days a week. And there’s always tomorrow… Tomorrow I’ll make time, tomorrow I’ll get up early, tomorrow I’ll feel excited about the build again. But I have hit the low before the final stretch. There’s still so much work to do and not a lot of reward yet.

The weather warmed up a bit, but I got sick with another cold and then a stomach bug. 😦 Last night we got a little snow storm, but it’s back up to positive temps and the snow is melting away again. It’s been a weird, windy winter. Time is ticking away for my exposed house wrap, but it’s looking like I’ll get that covered mid-April. It should be covered by the end of March, but that’s not going to happen and then I’m going away for 10 days.

In January, I finished cutting and put up the soffits. In February, I cut all 50 pieces of trim for the exterior, for the corners and around the windows and wheel wells. I started priming, and after being sick, I’m back to priming. I’ve got a great little filtering mask that really helps with the smell, and I don’t have to worry about the weather thanks to the heated garage. 🙂 Soon I’ll be on to the purple paint, and I plan to have the trim up before I leave for my trip! When I get back I’ll be getting the siding on (finally) and then it’s on to interior work (finally).

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

I’ve been worried the trim is too wide, but once it’s all up I think it’ll look like it belongs.

Trim for the octagon! It took a couple extra cuts before I realized 45° was not going to work. 😛

This is the trim for the smallest window. I’m hoping it will look proportional once it’s on the house. All the trim for above the windows is anged so water won’t collect.

There are exactly 50 pieces.

Set up in the garage.

Ready to go. 🙂

Little pieces!

Because I Can

Back in December, work on the tiny house slowed to a halt – snow came early, I got sick, then it was Christmas and time to give myself a break from the tiny house build for the holidays. As a Christmas present to myself, I bought the queen-sized mattress that will go in the tiny house. I bought the thinnest one I could find, 5″ thick, and it was on sale! 🙂 The thinner the mattress, the more headroom I’ll have in the loft.

In the meantime, instead of putting the mattress on the floor, I decided to build a platform for it, because I can do that sort of thing. 🙂 I wasn’t going to spend several hundred dollars on a particle board bed frame when I won’t even need it in the tiny house. Besides, if I can build a house, a simple platform is an easy project. It only took me an afternoon (plus a lot of trips to different hardware stores to collect materials). It cost about $150 in materials, which is more than a cheap metal frame, but oh well! Plus I bought extra materials for a potential headboard, so the platform alone cost less than that. I’m pretty proud of it!

The finished frame: nice plywood, two support pieces underneath, and six bed legs supporting it.

You can’t even tell there’s a homemade frame underneath!

I purposely put the leg off to the side to keep me from stubbing my toe on the corner all the time. 🙂

My end table/nightstand fits nicely next to it. 🙂

I’ve been pretty down this month, disappointed in myself for not getting the siding up in time for winter and trying to figure out what to do next. It’s tough, being solely responsible for this massive project, with no one to kick me out of bed to work on it except myself. My bed is so comfy! As much as I enjoy having full control over how I spend my time, I don’t always spend it wisely. Watching TV is more immediately appealing than going out and getting work done on the house. I’m learning to balance everything, to motivate myself, to plan small specific steps, to get out there even if it’s snowing. 😛 By this fall, I intend to be sleeping in the loft of my finished tiny house, so I just have to keep working towards that. ❤

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

Up on Ladders

I have the week off work and my dad’s home from Ottawa! With his help, I’ve been working away at my (not-so) tiny to-do list.

Goals for the week:

• Fix the ridge
• Finish the house wrap
• Add the ridge caps (and foam closure strips)
• And at Dad’s suggestion: install the door!

Sunday:

The collar ties didn’t seem to be doing their job after all, as the walls were spread wider at the top than they should’ve been. The collar ties would theoretically stop us from being able to pull the walls in, so Dad yanked the nails out and took them down.

My dad, the happy camper

I made new, longer collar ties (and sanded them this time).

I had already bought 10′ 2x4s to jack up the ridge again (having used up all the long lumber I had) and Dad screwed two together in a “T” for strength. We used that and it was much sturdier than the previous time I did this. I shouldn’t have to do this again!

We jacked the roof up to just slightly higher than where I wanted it, and installed two collar ties, lower this time. This also pulled the walls in to where they were supposed to be. We added some hurricane ties to the four rafters, tying them to the walls. Then we moved the jack to raise the roof in a second spot for the last two collar ties. Those ties are difficult to put into the corners with the roof on, and it was getting dark, so we called it a day.

We brought out a light, a little stove, and had supper together in my little house! We had soup and hot chocolate in my future living room. 🙂

The lights are on, somebody must be home!

Monday:

I spent Monday doing a little shopping. I looked at flooring! I’m mostly decided on a dark brown hand-scraped engineered hardwood, but I’m nervous about picking something too dark. I like dark wood stains; I just don’t want a dark colour to make the tiny house seem small. I like the hand-scraped because it looks and feels a little worn in rather than shiny new, and when I inevitably dent or scratch it, it will blend in. I want engineered hardwood because it’s thinner (and lighter) than hardwood, and it expands/shrinks less than hardwood. But I don’t want laminate or anything cheap, because I enjoy walking around barefoot and I want something that feels real underfoot. It’s a small enough space so I can afford to get something that’s more expensive per square foot.

A sample of stained hickory on top of a popular colour of laminate.

A lighter colour might be the safer choice, but I want a flooring I love.

As for the bathroom, I was thinking of doing cork, because it’s warm and cushy on the feet, it doesn’t absorb water, and it’s a renewable material. But I hadn’t found a style of cork I liked, until…

White cork!?

The reason I went flooring shopping was to find out how thick of a flooring I’m going to get. I needed to know how much clearance I needed for the swing of my front door. I might not buy the flooring until after I’ve finished building my kitchen though.

Tuesday:

I got a massage as a treat to my poor shoulders, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day (after a nap) hammering to finish adding the brackets to the rafters. So that might’ve defeated the purpose of the massage. Dad and I also went for a hike and had hot chocolate again, this time by a waterfall! Tiny houses, to me, are partly meant to encourage you to go outside more, and it’s already working! 😛

Because the brackets had to go in tight corners, it was such a pain to get the nails in. I’d guess each bracket with its eight nails took about 100 hits, making that 2200 swings of a hammer to get all the brackets in. Oww.

Wednesday:

I spent Wednesday working on the top strips of house wrap, so more hammering and more shin bruises from ladders.

I’m enjoying just getting out there and getting to work. It’s not often we single task these days. Focusing on one physical task and doing only that thing makes me feel a lot less scattered and stressed. So did the yoga class Dad and I went to in the evening. 🙂 It’s shaped up to be a great week!

Thursday:

I had a lot of little things on my to-do list for Thursday, including several trips to different hardware stores for buying and returning. And I managed to check everything off my list by the end of the day!

I finished the last piece of house wrap, took the support beam out – the collar ties are holding, and did some measuring especially for the door.

I bought wood to frame the door (the rough opening is a lil bit big), shims, caulking, and a doorknob! I also returned some extra brackets. I brought back half of the plastic capped nails for a refund of $46! I don’t know what happened with numbers there, but I did not need them all!

I’ve been keeping my tiny house Excel document up to date with my spending and time log.

Then I spent my evening with friends. 🙂

I’m taking the build one day at a time and trying to keep some balance.

Friday:

A source of stress (and nightmares) for me has been rain and my subfloor. I know that before the roof was up, water got below my subfloor. Water can be very bad for a house!

I tested the floor by cutting out a small puck of wood to see the underside:

Dry, with no rot or mold! PHEW.

I will test another spot or two later. There is some water sitting on top of the insulation, unfortunately. Once the house in sealed for the winter, I’ll be able to heavily de-humidify the space. I’m very glad I chose spray foam and not wool or Roxul insulation, and plywood instead of OSB. It’s worth the money to not have your materials disintegrate or turn to mush!

With that little piece of mind, I worked on getting the door opening ready! I also added house wrap to my porch ceiling, which will get covered later by some art hopefully. 🙂

All taped up. I cut open the entrance window so I’ll be able to hop in and out when we’re installing the door.

I’ve worked after dark a few times, a consequence of sleeping in, but it gets dark earlier and earlier…

Cheers!

P.S. This is my 200th post!