So Long Tyvek, Hello Siding!

Time to upgrade that Tyvek house wrap! Siding weekend is finally here... and we couldn't have asked for better weather. You may recall in a previous post that we liked the cedar lap and gap for the siding, but we also wanted something to break up the boxy feel. After installing the roof, we really liked the look of the roofing material and wanted more people to see the pretty "Deep River Blue." So we decided to use it as siding as well. The cedar will cover the two short sides of the trailer, the driver side of the trailer (back of the house) will be all metal siding, and the passenger side of the trailer (the front of the house) will be both metal siding and cedar. The metal will be centered on the door and stretch to the center of the windows beside it.

In case you don't know, putting the siding up is a fairly big job (depending on who you ask) and we were hoping to get it all done in a three day weekend (Friday to Sunday). So we enlisted some help. Drew's Dad, Rick, flew down Thursday evening and Drew had Friday off. So they would be ready to pick up the material Friday morning (thanks Ray for letting us use your trailer!) and get started on the siding the same day.

We also had a family friend, Craig, volunteer his weekend to come down and help. Craig and his van full of tools arrived just as Drew and his dad returned with the siding material.

So after a half day of work on Friday we finished the forward short side of the trailer and the cedar just around the corner from it as you can see from the pictures below.

Friday we also placed some of the trim for the metal siding on the driver side of the trailer (back of the house). We quickly learned that the cedar goes up faster than the metal. It was also interesting that with the metal you had to put the trim up first before the panels. Below aren't the best pictures of the metal trim, but it's there (look around the windows). Also the wheel wells made for some interesting trim angles.

Friday night we had even more help arrive. Drew's brother, Nathan, was able to make it down to "help" (aka sling drinks) for the weekend.

Abbie and her sisters, Statia and Grace, also made it in Friday night. Abbie had to work Friday and Statia and Grace were coming home for spring break after class.

So Saturday, with all the extra help and minimal measurement errors, we were able to finish all the cedar siding and get all of the metal trim up on the driver's side of the trailer (back of the house).

We already said that the metal siding went a lot slower than the wood (and you can tell by the relative progress). This was because it was much more tedious to work with and required significantly more planning, illustrated by the picture below of us discussing how we were going to attack the cuts. We did break a little early Saturday to enjoy the great company and beautiful weather.

Which meant we hoped to finish on Sunday, but knew that Drew and Rick were able to work Monday if needed. We started and got into the zone on finally hanging the metal panels. It was all hands on deck, so no one was taking pictures of the progress until later in the day. Here are a few celebratory pictures of us hanging up the last bit of the driver's side siding.

If you are keeping count of the sides, then you've figured out that we didn't get the siding finished on Sunday. Going into Monday we still had to install most of the metal trim and all of the metal paneling on the passenger side of the trailer (the front of the house). Drew was able to take of work and Rick didn't fly back until Tuesday morning. With the team whittled down to two, they finally got the last of the siding up. Rosey Leigh is really looking pretty now!

At the end of fours days, all we lack are some touch ups, caulking on the metal siding and of course we still need to stain the cedar siding. All of which will wait for another weekend. Next up is finally finish the plumbing and starting the electrical. 

Exterior Electrical Boxes and Vents Part 2

It's been a while since we last posted, but we promise we are working! Admittedly, it has been a little slow going lately. The plumbing is proving slightly more difficult than anticipated, but nothing we can't handle! It just means Drew does more pensive wall staring than normal. 

On this blog post we are to address the exterior electrical boxes. After some back and forth we landed on installing 4 exterior electrical boxes. The first box is for a coax cable. This will allow us to install an antenna or a satellite dish near the roof with the coax cable running inside the walls (rather than the outside of the house) to our living room. The other three are for outlets. One on the back of the house for plugging in tools or a heater for the propane tank and water lines, and the other two are for outside lights. One near the roof for hanging patio lights and the other closer to the bottom of the trailer for any ground lights.

Installing the electrical boxes was pretty standard. First, you'll need a hole to install it in.

1. Cut a square out of the Tyvek wrap.
2. Trace the pattern they provided with the box on the OSB.
3. Drill a hole in one or more of the corners of the square so you can get the jigsaw blade started.
4. Use the jigsaw to make the hole.

Once the hole is cut you place the electrical box in it (we went with the Arlington DBHM1C box) and secure it with screws.

Once you have it secured, you finish it up just like you would a window.

Next up are the vent's for the bathroom exhaust fan and the range hood. As Abbie will tell you, Drew's favorite thing is cutting holes in poor Rosey Leigh. She suggested changing the name to the Swiss cheese house. Both of these vents are 4 inches in diameter, so we used a 4 1/8 inch hole saw to give us just little bit of "play". The little bit of play is nice because we have to go through the rim joist and the exterior OSB sheathing, and they are 3 1/2 inches apart. This makes lining up the holes challenging, but definitely doable.

Once both the holes were cut we placed the 4 inch duct through, to make sure they lined up with each other, and they did perfectly!

Above is a peek from the inside to the outside with the duct removed, but the louver vent in place.

And here is a close up of what it looks like on the outside with the louver vent on. The blue thing behind the vent is called Quick Flash and they come in all different sizes. We decided to use the Quick Flash because it makes it easier to set the louvers flush with the siding once it is installed. The Quick Flash product allows us to move the ducting back after the siding is installed, but still have an airtight seal.

If you look closely you can see both the bathroom exhaust fan and range hood louvers installed.

Above is a close up of the Quick Flashing all finished up and without the louver vent on.

We also redid the composting toilet vent with Quick Flashing. This will allow us to make adjustments in the future and it should make installing the siding easier.

Last, but not least, we placed the mounting block for the front door external light (we went with the Arlington 8082F for the mounting block). Once the placement was decided (centered over the door as low as we could go and avoid the door header), we needed to drill a hole to pass the electrical wiring through.

Like with all the other electrical boxes, it was screwed in place and finished up with the Tite Seal Tape. Below you can see what it looks like with the mounting block in place. We haven't picked the light out just yet, but I think it will look great on that block!

With the vents and exterior electrical boxes finished, it is time for siding! We have a long weekend planned with some special guests to, hopefully, finish the siding all at once. 

P.S. To be fully ready for siding we also needed to get the exterior water lines run through the sheathing, which we did, but we'll talk about in more detail in an upcoming plumbing post.

Covering the Line Set and Installing all the Vents Part 1

Last weekend we got the line set routed, but it wasn't fastened to the trailer underneath, and it definitely wasn't protected from anything that may jump up at it when going down the road. So this week we had to take care of that. Drew gleaned inspiration from this video on YouTube and decided that he could bend some thin galvanized steel to form a cover and something that held the line set up at the same time.

Below is the back corner piece being bent to fit into place. This piece was the only piece that was cut first and then bent.

The rest of the pieces were straight runs and it was easier to bend them and then cut them with the electric sheet metal shear that Drew's dad left when we worked on the metal roof. Below is what the piece looked like right as it was ready to be cut.

In the next picture, Drew had already worked his way up from the back of the trailer (working back to front so the overlap is favorable to the direction we will be going down the road) to in between the axles. The picture attempts to show how the metal is bent and installed. To the right of the white insulated line set in the picture is a 6 inch steel beam and above it are 4 inch beams with a sheet metal bottom. This makes roughly a 2 inch corner (since the beams are flush on the top of the trailer) that we used to hide the line set in, and only needed to bend the sheet metal to create the other two sides instead of three.

Some action shots of Drew putting in the last piece (photographs courtesy of Abbie).

There is a break in the sheet metal covering where the scissor jack juts out. That's why the corner piece was the last piece.

The finished product!

Now onto some vents! First up was the LUNOS e2. If you look at the linked brochure you'll notice that they come as pairs. So we had two ~6 1/4 inch diameter tubes that needed to be placed. One in the living room and the other in the sleeping loft. We made a frame inside the wall for each LUNOS e2 unit and transferred the center of the frame on the outside using a drill through the wall. Then used a jigsaw to cut the hole for the tube.

The outside of the LUNOS is supposed to be flush with the outside of the siding, so we used a sample piece of the cedar lap and gap to measure how far the tube needed to come out and then sealed it up in place.

Below is the finished product from the outside after it has been properly flashed and sealed.

And here is what it looks like from the inside. We will just put finish trim up around the part of the tube that protrudes inside the house.

Next up was the vent for the composting toilet. We are using a Nature's Head composting toilet and it has a fan that runs 24/7 to expel the smells from the toilet. So it needed a way to vent to the outside. The easiest way to do that was with 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe that the hose, supplied with the toilet, can connect to and that will vent to the back of the house. So we used a hole saw to make the correct sized hole for the PVC pipe and then used some 2x4s to hold it in place.

This is what the toilet vent looks like from the outside once it was sealed up.

Next up is plumbing, more vents, and exterior electrical boxes!

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.