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.