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.

Subfloor and Bottom Plate Complete

Weekend #2 - we were able to finish our initial project. We installed all of the floor insulation, glued and screwed down the subfloor and cut the bottom plate to get ready for framing.

The insulation install went fairly smoothly, but it was a multi-step process and required a bit of math.

Step 1. We installed two 1" thick strips of foam insulation on the outside edges of the trailer. In this compartment the metal flashing on the bottom of the trailer is 6" deep.

Then we installed one layer of 1/2" thick insulation board over those strips of foam insulation on the edges of the trailer (for those keeping track, that is 2.5" of foam in the side compartments) and also in the center of the trailer where it was only 4" deep to the metal flashing on the bottom of the trailer.

Step 2. Then came time for the actual batts of insulation. Each batt is made for a 2x4 wall with studs 16" on center. We decided to go with Rockwool insulation, a mineral wool, for it's added R value and moisture and fire resistance. It cut like a loaf of bread and was easy manipulate into place. Just remember that unlike fiberglass, it does not have a vapor barrier attached. Side note: it is considered a greener alternative to fiberglass insulation. 

Step 3. Next we had to coordinate putting the adhesive on and screwing down the subfloor piece by piece. As mentioned in our previous post, we only had 15 minutes to get the board screwed down from when we started putting down the adhesive. On the bigger boards we pushed right up to the 15 minute mark, but managed the challenge with two people. Pre-drilling all of the holes was critical to getting each board secured within the allotted time.

On Sunday we took it a little easy and did a little pre-work for our big framing weekend. We just cut the bottom plate and the headers over the wheel wells.

Next we frame up, so it will actually start looking like a house! And we are so lucky that a few experienced out-of-towners are coming to lend a hand.

First Weekend Working on The Tiny House

It's official! We've finally started! Last weekend progress was made installing the subfloor. We went out to Abbie's parents Friday evening; stopping at Lowe's on the way (because the Granbury Lowe's didn't have what we needed in stock). Good thing we didn't bring the Fit, because the bundles of insulation were much bigger than we realized! We managed, with the help of some rope, to fit all 4 in and on Abbie's car. Luckily it made it the whole way!

Saturday morning was spent prepping the trailer for the subfloor. This involved:

• Cleaning out the branches and dust;
• Sanding down rust spots and then painting back over them;
• Caulking openings in the metal sheathing on the bottom of the trailer;
• Welding 4 metal plates over holes in the wheel well left open by the manufacturer.

After all of the trailer prep was complete we were able to start cutting the 3/4" OSB tongue & groove subfloor panels to fit on the trailer. We decided that we would cut all of the panels before we glued and screwed them down. This was to make sure everything fit and so we could hopefully get in a groove of cutting the panels.

We picked up where we left off cutting subfloor panels Sunday morning. Other than an impromptu Lowe's trip for the last OSB board, the panels fit together beautifully! Before we pulled the panels up to put the insulation in we elected to pre-drill all the screw holes on all the panels. This will allow us to quickly screw down the panels when we put the adhesive down. This is important because there is a 15 minute drying deadline for the adhesive, and not having to pre-drill holes will make it more likely that we will meet this deadline. As we learned, pre-drilling the holes through the 1/8" steel is time consuming and pretty physically tough. It would have been nearly impossible to complete all of these steps in the 15 minute time frame if we didn't do the pre-drill in advance. Abbie will tell you we drilled a million holes, but hopefully it was less than 500 or else we'll need to go get some more screws.

As the weekend came to a close, we were racing the setting sun to get all of the all of the holes pre-drilled before dark. So we kicked it into overdrive and finished strong. Meaning this coming weekend our Thanksgiving goals are to:

• lay in the insulation, 
• put down the subfloor adhesive, and 
• screw all of the panels in place. 

Then once all that's done it will be on to framing!

Trailer Delivery Scheduled!

Our finished trailer!

We are getting so excited!

After a loooong wait (Tiny House Basics said the manufacturing company had the axles on back order) the trailer is finally scheduled to arrive on August 7th. The pad at Abbie's parent's house in Granbury, where we will be parking it for the build, won't quite be ready, but a week after the trailer gets here the pad should be ready as well.

That's just in time for all the summer and fall trips we have planned... Yay! But that only leaves 4 weekends (two of which are half weekends) between trailer delivery and November to work on our new home. Therefore we have elected to wait until November to get started with the build :/ At that point we will hit it hard!  And according to Abbie, no more vacations until we finish!

Working on a SketchUp Model

We haven't posted in a while, so we thought we should post an update. As the title of this post states, Drew has been working on a SketchUp model of our tiny house. SketchUp is a free 3D modeling software that is very useful for planning out exactly how much space we have for everything, and it is very accurate. So we are going into as much detail as possible to make sure that we don't run into any issues during the build. Lots of other tiny house DIYers use SketchUp for the same reasons and it is turning out to be a very helpful tool. Here are a couple of screenshots from SketchUp to show our progress on the design (note that this is still a work in progress!).

Front of the house (passenger side of trailer) with a yellow door for Abbie :)

Front of the house with the sheathing, siding, and interior paneling off to show the framing

Back of the house (driver's side of trailer) with all the hookups down on the far end

Back of the house with sheathing and siding off (but the interior paneling on) to show the framing

View of livingroom from the kitchen

View of kitchen from the livingroom

View of the bathroom from the back of the house (it's hard to get it all in one pic)

View of the livingroom and secondary loft from the sleeping loft

View of the kitchen and sleeping loft from the secondary loft

As you can see we still have a little bit to do. None of the cabinets are finished, but we just wanted to put their outlines in the model to see how much room we had for our things. You may have noticed some brightly colored boxes with writing on them stuck in places around the house. Those are just place holders for our things. We are measuring everything that is going in the tiny house and making sure there is a place for it. At this point we really just want to make sure that we don't need to alter any of the framing. That way we can be super confident that our framing we've outlined here will be exactly what we need.

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what we are planning for our house and lets you know what we've been up to!