Christmas Elves at Work

'Twas the weekend before Christmas, when all 'round the tiny house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... Seriously though we were getting some work done. Saturday Abbie and Statia (Abbie's sister) worked on experimenting with Japanese wood burning (known as shō sugi ban) as Drew drank his beer.

Abbie used a propane torch to burn the wood and Statia used a brush to get rid of the charring. Statia would then seal the wood with linseed oil. We experimented with varying levels of charring with the torch and using either a plastic or a wire brush.

We came to the conclusion that it was going to be a lot of work if we wanted to do the whole house in the burnt wood. Also the wood seemed to cup up when it was burned which would make it much more difficult to install on the tiny. So we are going to look at other options for the siding such as staining, but we do like the look of the cedar lap and gap.

When Drew wasn't drinking his beer he was assisting Buddy (Abbie's dad) with building a deck on the side of the concrete pad. That way we could more easily get into and out of the tiny house. We plan on building a platform and a ramp/steps also. Working on the deck went into Sunday, but we got it finished up before the extra help was set to arrive.

Now we both had Christmas Eve and Christmas off, and Drew also had the rest of the week off from work. We hoped to get a lot done during that week! Especially since we were going to have some help from some Christmas elves (AKA the Rosecrans' crew). Drew's parents were able to fly down from Montana to spend the holiday with us and help on Rosey Leigh.

So starting off on Monday, Christmas Eve, we were hoping to pick up the roofing material from Mueller before we picked up Drew's parents at the airport, but unfortunately they were closed. This just meant that instead of working on Christmas day we were going to have to have family time... Lame, we know. The main reason we wanted to work on Christmas day was because rain was in the forecast for Boxing day (day after Christmas). Therefore the day after Christmas was mainly used to gather all our material. But during the breaks in the rain we also got the fascia installed, so Thursday we would be ready to start the roof first thing.

Thursday morning we started installing the roof and it went pretty well, but the last piece was a little off square. Just bad enough that we'll know about it, but no one else will ever notice without us pointing it out. We also got our windows and door delivered on Thursday around noon, so once we finished the roof we were able to jump right in to installing windows. By the end of Thursday we got all the roof panels installed minus some trim and a few of the windows.

Friday we finished up the roof trim and finished installing all the windows and also got the door installed! It's starting to look even more like a real house!

Friday evening we had even more help come in. Nathan (Drew's brother) came down from Oklahoma to lend a hand. Unfortunately though we didn't have too much work for him. All we lacked for the weekend was installing the loft joists and the bathroom wall with a pocket door.

For the loft joists we decided to go with rough cut Douglas Fir because they were going to be exposed (except in the bathroom). They were a little bit more expensive, but we really liked the look they were going to give the tiny. We didn't install the joist hangers yet for a couple reasons. One, we don't need all this help to install them and also we want to stain or seal (we haven't decided yet) the joists first.

On Saturday we took our time getting started, but eventually got some of the joists installed before we had to take a break and go check out Revolver Brewery down the road. We had a great time at Revolver, but once we got back from day drinking it was clear no more work was getting done that day.

With our last day of extra help we finished up the loft joists and the bathroom wall with the pocket door hardware. We don't have the door yet, but it is going to be a standard 24" by 6'8" door that matches the front door style as much as we can. Once we get it we will most likely have to sand/cut a little off of the bottom of the door because the bottom of the joists is going to be 6'8" from the finished floor, but we did flush the pocket door hardware with the bottom of the joists. As of now, if you don't count the stairs, all the framing is done!

Since we had so many helpers the weekend after Christmas and only so many people can work in a tiny house (we do hope to have that many people in the house at once when it's done though!), there was some planning going on in parallel.

Abbie, Statia, and Debi (Drew's mom) made a trip to Lowe's to look at flooring, paint, and stain (interior and exterior) colors. Debi and Statia helped out Abbie a lot by narrowing down the choices. Abbie was understandably getting some analysis paralysis with all the available options. Anyone who has looked at colors for anything on a house knows that there are definitely way way too many options. Stay tuned, we'll have a whole post just for colors and stains!

They returned with some samples and tested out some stains on the Douglas Fir for the joists, the lap and gap cedar for the siding, and for what is an option for our interior wall paneling seen below. Here is a link to it at Lowe's. It has a good price point and is a good lightweight option because it's only 1/4 inch thick. There are some reservations though that the 3 and a half inch boards making the walls look too busy. So we are exploring other options as well for the interior wall paneling.

So we got quite a bit finished on Rosey Leigh and had a great time over the holidays with family! Next will be foaming in all the windows and door and starting with all the routings (electrical, plumbing, refrigerant lines) that need to go in.

Mystery Water and Hurricane Ties

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in between all the planning and purchasing (outlined in our last blog post), we also did a small amount of work on Rosey Leigh.

Buddy (Abbie's Dad) really helped us out during the week. He was able to get some of the scrap OSB over the windows and door so the wind wouldn't tear up the house wrap or make a racket when the wind blew. He also installed some temporary lighting inside the tiny so we would be able to work inside until the windows get installed and at night.

The only other thing that we did was install the hurricane ties on the rafters. The hurricane ties make a more secure connection between the top plate and the roof rafters. That way we won't lose the roof when we are driving down the highway with the house.

We also found a little surprise waiting for us inside the tiny. After a hard rain in North Texas a few little water pools were standing on the subfloor.

They seemed a little odd and it wasn't immediately obvious where the water was coming in, but we think we narrowed it down. Either that it was coming in through the vent area for the rafters, that will be covered up after the roof is installed, or underneath the bottom plate, which we will be caulking before we move forward. So hopefully we don't see any more water inside Rosey Leigh after we get these two things done!

Ordering Windows, a Door, and a Roof

This was brushed over a little bit in the plans and purchasing post, but we wanted to make a post specifically for it. Because these are kind of big purchases.

Windows

We decided early on that we would go with Jeld-Wen builders vinyl because they are good windows, available at Lowe's, and in our budget. We also ended up ordering our windows after we had Rosey Leigh framed up so knew exactly what size frames we needed Normally you would want to order your windows so they would arrive right after you are finished framing, but it was a good thing we didn't do that. Because we changed one windows' size in the middle of framing, but we did at least know what the standard sizes were so we didn't have to pay extra for a custom window. The window that we changed was the breakfast nook window. We originally had it at 4 feet wide and a sliding window like all the other windows in the house (except the one picture window), but decided to down size it to 3 feet wide. Now a standard size casement window would be able to go there. We are really glad that we decided to downsize the window and go with the casement. It looks amazing and will be great when we are using the deck that we are going to have just outside that window.

Our original design had over 11 windows of different sizes, but after discussions with family and other tiny house owners, we reevaluated and removed 2 windows - one in the loft area and one in the kitchen. The concern with our original number of windows was that we would have a difficult time keeping the temperature regulated. The decision to go with sliding over single hung was purely aesthetic. Abbie really liked the contemporary look of this style and we wanted to have as much consistency as possible. 

Loft egresses are a very important topic for personal safety and coding. The purpose of a loft egress is entry or exit in the case of emergency. Appendix Q in the IRC states that tiny houses are not exempt from meeting Section R310 for emergency escape and rescue openings. This means to meet this standard we needed a minimum opening area of 5.7 square feet. Proportionally, for tiny houses, this is a very large ask. Originally we had thought about doing awning windows in the lofts, but they are not permissible because the clear opening isn't big enough. Unfortunately after reviewing all of our options, meeting this requirement was not feasible for us at this time. We have installed a very large sliding window that both of us are able to escape through if needed, but is not 5.7 square feet. In the future, if appendix Q is adopted in our jurisdiction, then we will likely reconsider  putting a casement window in the sleeping loft to satisfy the requirement. 

Door

The door was one of the easiest thing we have decided on for the tiny house thus far if you ask Drew. Abbie did a little looking online and knew exactly which one she wanted, and then we both walked into Lowe's and the door was front and center and Drew didn't even need to look at any other options. We knew that this one was the one. Then we quickly both agreed that we wanted the door to be an out-swing to not take up room inside the house when it is open. Also for the door to open away from the breakfast nook window so if we wanted to keep the door all the way open we could and not have it blocking our view.

Roof

According to Abbie the roof was the easiest thing we have decided on thus far. We knew we wanted a metal roof, so Drew did some research on it to see what companies were available locally and also what roofing style could be used on such a shallow roof (we have a 1.5:12 pitch roof). Drew's dad recommended Mueller Inc. because he had used them on their house in Oklahoma and they came with his recommendation. So Drew looked them up and they have a location in Fort Worth and Glen Rose (there Glen Rose location is closer to Granbury, where we are building). They also had 2 types of panels that were recommended for our low pitch, R Panel and MLK Standing Seam Panel. After Drew's dad called to ask them some questions (since he had installed two metal roofs before, he knew the questions to ask), we decided to go with the R Panel. We liked the look of it and more importantly it came in the color that Abbie had dreamt the color our roof would be (deep river blue).

Planning & Purchasing

Once the framing was completed and Rosey Leigh was dried in, we could took a step back to the drawing board. Now that we had a physical structure we could better visualize where to place counter tops, appliances, and lights. We made a few tweaks to our original intent, such as:

• raising the kitchen counter tops from the traditional 36" to 38" 
• switching the direction of the composting toilet to allow for more "leg room"
• decided where to place the sink basin and run the plumbing lines
• moved the tank-less water heater and mini split condenser to the back outside wall of the tiny house

Battle of the light switches
Up to this point we had not put extensive thought into our electrical design. We spent a few days, while we waited for our doors, windows and roof to be delivered (more on better project timeline management later), deciding where outlets, light switches and other electrical lines could be run. As it turns out, we have some very different philosophies about light switches and outlets. Abbie is firmly in the "less is more" camp. Drew and Buddy (Abbie's dad) are rooted in the "more the merrier" camp. The haggling over placement came to a head when a (superfluous - Abbie) light switch was proposed at the bottom of the stairs (in the middle of the line of sign from the front door - Abbie) to turn off the loft lights.

Retail Therapy
We also spend a substantial portion of the last few weeks researching and purchasing many of our appliances for the tiny. Fortunately for us, budget is less of a constriction. However, size and weight, something a conventional house worry less about, are major limiting factors and considerably restrict our options for basic household appliances. Take for instance our kitchen range hood, we have approximately 24" of space under the loft. There are 342 wall mounted range hoods on the Lowe's website. When you restrict this to 24" width, the options whittle down to 4.

Below is a list of the appliances and fixtures we have purchased in the last few weeks with links to the items.

• Bathroom vent and heater
• Tank-less water heater
• Mini split
• Kitchen range hood
• Kitchen sink faucet
• Breville Smart Oven
• TV wall mount
• Bedroom loft wall sconces 
• Bathroom mirror
• 1 million electrical boxes
• HRV (heat recovery ventilation) system

Future posts will go more in-depth with why we chose the items that we did, and here are some things that we still need to purchase, but are a little less critical at this time.

• Refrigerator
• Kitchen sink
• Bathroom sink
• Track lighting
• Ceiling fan
• Hot plates

While we have researched these things and have a good idea of what we are going to order, they really aren't needed at the moment and we are quickly running out of space to store everything.

Framing Weekend

In the span of 72 hours our Rosey Leigh morphed from a trailer into a house!

Thursday evening Drew's dad, Rick, flew in from Montana to help with framing. After Drew picked him up from the airport and we indulged in some ramen, Drew and Rick drove out to Granbury so they could get an early start Friday. Also during the day Thursday, Hensen's Lumber delivered our supplies for the weekend.

Unfortunately we weren't able to get started right away Friday morning, because we had to take the trailer to be inspected.We really should have done this earlier, but it definitely needed to be done before we put up walls and a roof. In the state of Texas if a trailer has a maximum gross weight (trailer weight plus payload) of over 7,500 lbs it is required to have a safety inspection and be titled and be registered. So we hooked it up to Abbie's parent's truck and once we fixed a minor issue with the left tail light of the trailer we took it for it's first spin. It passed with flying colors and we were ready to start framing.

After re-leveling the trailer, Rick began laying out the boards for framing and Drew cut the studs.

And pretty soon we had the first half of the first wall up!

If you don't count the missing cripple studs and sills, then the second half of the first wall was up by noon.

By the end of the day on Friday we had both long walls up and framed.