Our little ship

Our little ship has a figure head, and a name!

Nantucket has the tradition of naming houses. It's a nautical island with many of its original settlers finding work on the sea, and often supplies for their houses along the beaches. This closeness to ships, with a few washed up boat names thrown in, and naming your house just like a boat seems to have evolved quite naturally.

We decided to have a quarter board with 'Sweet Pea' made up, with a nod to its green roof and general cuteness. That's the name of our ship!

And this is our figure head, just installed today-

Can't wait for this ship to sail!

We're building a (love) house

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eru8DlHoOFM

First, go start this playing.


Ready?


Me too.


David and I are building a house. We are getting married. We are becoming us, and building the first step of our future, quite literally. Nail for nail, and board for board, we are watching our future come together.

Our kingdom.

A small one for now, with a garden and a wood stove. Lots of romance and hard work, and compromise. Lots of laughing at ourselves, a few swears and tears. Learning from each other, about ourselves, and about what we expect and need from one another to make our future work.

My man. The one who was so excited to use a saws all it made me smile, and the one who talked me so gracefully out of a meltdown that my family can't help but love him. And as much as sometimes I'd like to wave a wand and have this building done and live-able, this... this right here... this is part of it too. And part of us.

 

 

That  I wouldn't give up for all the mansions in the world.

 

 

 

 

A Labor of Love

I started up landscaping again for the season last week. It was a beautiful first week with lots of sun and the bulbs just starting to appear. I even found my first blooming daffodils!

Work on the house of course, has slowed. But we've been putting every minute we have on the weekends and evening towards the house, and progress is still being made. Friends and family have been out to help whenever they have time too, and the accomplishments are sweeter for the extra effort.




Here  I am after a day of tar papering and adding cheek spines (those lines of  tape you see between the two roof levels- keeping the seam moisture tight)




 

Next we started adding the trim. We needed to get the roof trim on before the metal roofing could be started. Roof trim is categorized into fascia and rakes. Fascia are the horizontal edge pieces- straight and therefore relatively easy. Rakes are the angled end edge of the sloped roof and require a lot of geometry. The trim was a challenge, especially for my mathematically challenged brain. It took two tries with the very expensive cedar trim to get it right, and I have to admit, some cursing and a few tears. Spollet came after work the day we had to restart the trim project, and revitalized a very depressed David and Rachel and we got the fascia on with his help.

               Here we are looking rather smug with our fascia and the dormer rake on.


Next came the gable rakes with so much geometry my head nearly exploded and my dad walking 5 miles in trips between the chop saw and the gables in question. An older chop saw, my inexperienced hand, and a half degree angle difference all lead to a simple looking project extending all day. But gosh darn it we got it right in the end, much in thanks to my dad's humor and energy. And that trim looks good. Its starting to look like a house, not just a box.

       Also, just look at that scaffolding. We were pretty proud of ourselves for that creation.


You can see David taking a photo in the shot, and he got some good ones, but his phone just went caput. Hopefully the phone company can recover the photos soon, he got some great shots of Andrew and Ani building us our first stack of shelves in the kitchen!

       

Here you can see the shelves all complete. Perfect for spices or mason jars! 

 

Jeremy and his family have been out to help too. Emma was Ani's helper in building the shelves, carrying wood over to the kitchen for her. This is what its all about. All that love into a stack of shelves. Jen if you got any shots of Emma that day, send them over so I can (further) document how darn cute she is.

And of course, my mom has been cooking us dinner when we are all too tired to cook, and bringing out lunch and snacks to the work site. We've been wonderfully supported in this venture.

 

My dad came over everyday after work last week and worked until we ran out of sunlight to get the electrical done. Here is the little box squeezed in between the studs.

 And me running thermostat wire for a LED puck light in the main room.

 

 

And stapling the wires to the studs so they don't get ripped out when the spray insulation is installed. I look sorta like I know what I'm doing here, but its really all I can do to keep the wires organized. Electrical work is complicated! Afternoon coffee is a must.

 

And look the roof went on! Paul, Lester and Pat helped with this, and I was so relieved. Paul has put on metal roofing before when he did carpentry in Jamaica, so we had the huge benefit of experience. Turns out its a kind of puzzle- once you get everything cut to the right length without gashing yourself on the metal first. The green looks nice. I was worried about the obviously unusual roof color for the island, but its pretty without being so standout once its on. We could have gone with a more traditional color for sure, maybe the town would have been more easily appeased with a gray roof. But we like it. The green reminds David of his forests back home in NY, the cedar trim reminds me of my home in Nantucket, and since this is our first home together what could be better than combining our loves? So cedar and evergreen it is!

We are working on plumbing now. Still waiting on windows to arrive for progress to continue on the exterior, and insulation on the inside before interior siding can go up. I'm looking for some siding if any one has any leads! Project scrapes, job site cast offs, tongue and groove, ship lap- I'll take em! I have about 300 feet of siding to put up in total, but there's no need for all of that to match. Eclectic is good! Imperfection is beautiful! and free is glorious!

In other news David and I have been going through our stuff in preparation for downsizing. It can be an overwhelming process, but also freeing. I do feel lighter without so much stuff. We still have a long ways to go, but we have reduced our clothes by half, I've gone through my craft stuff for the first time in years, and we are both starting to get excited about living more simply. This article on decluttering and our culture's need for "stuff" has been an inspiration. The best inspiration of course has been seeing the tiny house evolve, laying out our tiny itty bitty closet and the craft/tool/shoe storage we'll have under the couch. But to live in such freedom, I'd be willing to give up all my stuff to fit!

 

 

 

Its solid.

Sunset on a tiny house building day

 

All last week I've been working on the tiny house full time. I luckily have gotten leave to start landscaping in the middle of  March, and this week David got to take a few days off and lend a hand too. We've been moving right along and pictures really will tell the best story here...

Insulation was added to the sub floor frame and then sheathed with plywood.

Next day, the walls were framed and put up one by one. Here I am screwing in the frame.

Windows are framed out- final decision time! I decided to go ahead with the side door as opposed to the front door, and added bigger windows along that back wall, which will end up being our reading nook/couch area.

Kitchen window in the background, living room window center, door forefront.

Lester and Paul working to secure braces so our work stays level while we work

Bundled.

Look at the sky. Almost felt like spring!

Next Day, started the gable rafters. Lester and Paul are standing where our sleeping loft will be!

Ladders everywhere!

Back windows I was talking about! Imagine all that light!

Sleeping loft. David and I decided to add one more joust to the loft space to make the lost 16 inches longer. It went from being exactly the length of our mattress, to a foot and some longer- much more comfortable! I had visions of kicking our quilts to the floor and having to trudge down the ladder in the middle of the night to retrieve them, or worse kicking them on to the woodstove. O hey, yea, we bought a woodstove on Saturday! Its a Fisher Baby Bear. Pretty small, but still big for our space. Hopefully we can keep it stoked low enough to stay nice and toasty but not over heat!

 

Sheathed. It looks kind of plain all sheathed! Wish I had a more focused version of my mom and that jack back there, they look pretty elegant in a strange way.

Sweeping my home! Ladder is where the tub would be to orient you, I'm in the living room, awfully close to where the wood stove will be.

up among the rafters

 



and a drink with friends to celebrate our progress!







wooooweee! its been a whirlwind of nails, lumber, and screws! Everything has been nailed, screwed, glued, and tied in. This this is as solid and solid can be. And that my friend is what we call a solid start.

PROGRESS MUTHAH TRUCKAH!

Me and the jovial Lester and Paul just put on a sub sub floor (extra support and a layer to easily attach the sub floor frame).

Photo taken by my non smart phone- but you there it is!

The Creation. Sub floor framing on aluminum flashing all on 2x6 supports. o and plywood covers since Lester was concerned the deer would think we made them a playground. Man knows deer.

                                                             


 Now, having a brand new trailer is great- but it presented some logistical problems. Like how to attach the aluminum sheathing to a much stronger metal. A strong metal like the steel my trailer is made of needs a lot of torque to penetrate it. That amount of torque shreds the aluminum sheathing I need to use to moisture and mouse proof the insulation. Dilemma? Well yes. And a relatively undocumented one. Trailers made just for tiny houses are a relatively new thing, and tiny house resources are still catching up. I found a few posts similar but not relative for either reasons of a different made for purpose trailer or different moisture barrier requirements, but nothing exactly like I needed. So, since I had the space (and a height restriction is nerve racking, I had a mid project freak out that we'd added too much height) we just added 2x6's like the ones you would normally leave when deconstructing a utility trailer for a tiny house project. Honestly seems kind of odd and backwards, but the extra work in the beginning makes the work of  sub floor attachment much easier. Not having to center 30, 1/2"x 6" lag bolts on a 1" wide  3 " thick metal support beam easier. Nah, I need some 3 inches or so to attach some things. And Paul and Lester would tell you I'm all about attaching, just eh, not so all about the exact. 3 inches of give and take are for me.

          
                  Aren't we cute? Right after we leveled it. I'll give you some leveling photos too!

 

                    High and low, and down, and down again! Leveling. Hey look, 3 inches!

Geometry at work. And I thought I'd never use it in the real world. I had apparently never lived in the real world, or realized math could be so cool. This was the math class I should have taken.

 

 

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

BUILDING BITCHES!

O and happy Fat Tuesday! I'm giving up beer for my first ever lent. First because I'm feeling gluttonous after my winter of hibernating, and more fundamentally to acknowledge the hunger gap of early spring even in our on demand world. Even a pagan-quaker-catholic-jewish-congo can realize strength in less.

Good things take time. And so much patience, you might lose it once. Or twice.

Building a house take more time, more money, and more energy than you ever thought when beginning the project. This is a known fact, right?

Then why did I believe it didn't apply to this house? Just because it's tiny doesn't mean it can't encounter just as many problems. And I certainly have already. Here's to hoping my string of delays and stresses were just the world helping learn that lesson.

Remember that Uship guy I was politely complaining about last post? How weather this, and just one more week that was pushing the trailer arrival back and back and back? Well he got banned from Uship for doing that crappola to one too many people and then I was stuck exactly where I was THREE WEEKS AGO! I felt a fool for letting it go that long, but one more day plus one more day added up quicker than I thought. And there I was, 1/3 into the time I have off from work to concentrate on the tiny house, and nothing to show for it. That's just plain depressing.

But I have a Superdad. The kind that puts together a team of also awesome people and drives through the night to Florida, turns right around, and comes back with a trailer. That kind of dad. The one that deserves rewards. And lots of thank you cake.

                            There it is attached to my Dad's truck at the boat getting measured!

Our family friend and carpenter Pat is helping us out with the framing and we'll start next week. At first a part of me just wanted to do it all myself. But I very quickly realized that was just my pride speaking and only fools turn down help when offered. The other day we went over moving the bathroom to the left side of the house instead of in the back like my plans have laid out. He already pointed out some really obvious things I would have missed, like the fridge should go in the back since its so wide and would severely limit the working/ walking space in the kitchen. Of course! Thinking about that stuff is what he does all day, and I'm grateful to have his expertise.

Speaking of help, after next week framing should be complete and then I'll be enlisting all of you willing souls to help me put in windows, shingle, and figure out how to install a metal roof (that's a whole other post, that roofing thing). So put it on your calendars, the first week in March is Tiny House Big Party Time (Exterior Addition)! I'm so happy and excited to have this coming together. The more you wait, the sweeter it is right? Well this is pretty gosh darn sweet.

It snows in January.

The trailer was supposed to be here Saturday the 25th. Construction was supposed to start tomorrow, the 3rd. Materials were supposed to be gathered and ready to go.

O, supposed to. Its also supposed to snow, and blizzard, and storm in January. And February too.

First we had a storm up here. Snow day Settlers of Catan and pancakes are always great, but it did make travel unsafe for my uship driver, so the trip was postponed.

                     Laura Poole went adventuring and took this pretty picture on India St.

Then it  was freezing cold and the ice never left the roads and my uship guy took the time to travel home to Georgia. And then, guess what? Storm hit Georgia with a ferocity that the plow-less counties just hadn't seen before. He's still stuck. And the trailer is still stuck in Florida. And I'm stuck pushing everything back too.

After this second set back in just the first step, I was so frustrated. Its just so discouraging! I was ready to scream or cry. Or both. But thankfully I've got the best support system there ever was. My dad let me rant and rage. My mom ranted and raged with me. David reassured me this was only the first bump on a long and beautiful journey. And then I felt better. I can't control the weather, no matter how much I want the tiny house to begin.

Breathe in, breathe out.

And focus on things I can control.

Like streamlining our belongings. I've been culling my wardrobe weekly, cutting out what I don't use often, what doesn't fit, and what I'm just plain over, and bringing it all to the take it or leave it. How I love the take it or leave it. We just started going through our thing things- books, knickknacks, papers. That's where it gets difficult. David had a bonfire in the front yard of all his saved scraps of paper he's been carrying around for years.

 

                                    
I also ordered some seeds this week for a garden I'm very excited to grow! It's been a long time since I've planned on living in one place for more than a year. More than one spring to plant things. More than one fall to harvest. I'm excited at the prospect at putting in the energy and seeing my efforts come to fruit in a little, well loved garden. Who doesn't love a cottage garden? I got lupines to scatter, nasturtiums to climb, snap dragons because they're David's favorite, and kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate because its so pretty. I got the herbs we most use for tea- chamomile, echinacea, valerian,, hyssop, and yarrow- all which happen to be beautifully flowering. My herb garden is going to be a beautiful cluster of pink stocks, white bunches, purple bushes, and daisy dots. I'm so excited. As for veggies David is growing beets, purple peppers, dragon tongue beans, purple cauliflower, chocolate pear tomatoes, purple jalapenos, some really cool cucumbers, and some beautiful amaranth. I've got a lot of purple. Its going to be beautiful! Let me know if any of you want to seed swap!

Still waiting, but trying to stay positive, and with so many great things its not too hard.