Impending SIPs, Roofline Alterations, and the "Tool Shed"

I have my SIP completion date: May 22! That's this Friday! That's so soon! Woohoo! And I broke down and paid for delivery, so I don't even have to worry about driving to Puyallup and back (250 mile round trip, hurray) in a rented truck pulling a giant trailer in Friday-of-Memorial-Day-Weekend traffic.

Worth it.

The delivery is scheduled for 8 AM on Friday. They told me I need four to six people to unload the panels from the truck, although I assume they were imagining brawny construction-worker types, not wobbly-armed neophytes like me, so I'm mentally converting that to six to eight people... haha. I've had a few volunteers so far--thank you! And I get to catch up with a few people that I don't get to see very often, which is icing on the cake, the ketchup on the fries, the salsa on the chips, and all the rest!

We're also thinking that we'll move the construction to my parents' house, rather than my grandparents' house. Last week, Grandpa pulled me aside to quiz me (yet again) on my tiny house project, and eventually got around to telling me that he hears people walk by their house at night and he has begun to worry that having a big, interesting project in the front driveway will invite malicious sorts to wander onto his property to check it out and possibly cause trouble. I can't say how valid his concern is, but I don't want Grandpa to worry. Besides, if the house is at my parents' place (where I'm living), it and our tools will be much more accessible. Not to mention Wi-Fi--and I can tell you now, there is going to be a lot of urgent Googling and tutorial-watching in the next few weeks! So, although it would be nice to have a good, broad, concrete surface to work on, the signs add up to: move the project.

In addition to moving the trailer, I need to install the sill plates this week and buy... oh... just absolute googobs of materials. I won't even list them all here. But I will say, thank goodness the local building suppliers do free in-town deliveries!

Before the shopping spree commences, though, I'm making some (suddenly) last-minute changes.

First, the roof. I had been planning to have abbreviated eaves and rakes all the way around. I can't add more than a couple inches of eaves without exceeding the DOT's infamous 8' 6" width limit, but I can add more overhang at the gable ends of the house, that is, the lengthwise end. (The roof overhang at the sloped gable end is called the rake. I would have called all the overhangs "eaves" back in the day before tiny house construction...) My trusty Graphic Guide to Frame Construction, by Rob Thallon, indicates that it's awkward to pair an abbreviated eave with an overhanging rake, but I'm trying to figure out how to do it anyway, and it seems perfectly possible.

But why would I want an overhanging rake when the eaves will be little, stubby things?

 (Reminder: here's what my house's basic appearance will be. Imagine about a 18"-24" roof overhang on the short, sloped edge but not on the long, straight one.)

Well, to begin with, any roof overhang is better than none. The roof overhangs keep rain and sun off the walls, preserving them from weather damage. It also helps keep the weather off of stuff that might be stored on the outside of the wall underneath. Hmmm.

As you can see in my SketchUp drawings from a few months back, I had planned to have a fully enclosed storage area on the tongue end of my trailer, for storing the propane cylinders, tools, and other extras.

But when I looked at my trailer again, I realized that the tongue is way too short to build anything in front of the house. In particular, my planned "tool shed" would interfere with the little foot thing that you lower down to support the tongue weight when you disconnect the trailer from the tow vehicle. (What is that thing called...? Oh well...)

Either I could raise the shed up so it's clear of the tongue, or I could move the whole operation to the back of the house--where I'd been planning to hang my bike.

The problem with raising the shed is that I'm going to have a couple of propane cylinders to feed my water heater, and when they're full, they'll be quite heavy. Heavy loads higher up = strain on the building envelope and strain on me. (Note that this is coming from someone who hurt her back by coughing too hard last night... I'm not proud.)

The problem with moving the shed to the back is that leaves one heck of a blank expanse of front wall without anything to break it up, visually. Sure, I could do something cool with the siding or something, but as I've expressed before, I don't fully trust my artistic sensibilities.

However, I could do both!

The solution I've lit upon is to have a narrower, raised tool shed in front of the house for light items and visual interest. In the back of the house, under the bathroom window, I will build a shallow deck across the width of the structure at the base of the wall, which will support the heavier things like propane cylinders and my bike. They'll only be a couple feet off the ground, so that will be reasonable for lifting them on and off. As a bonus, the back of the house is where the propane will actually be utilized, so the gas plumbing just got easier, too. The only complication is that I couldn't think of an aesthetically acceptable way to shelter the back storage area from the weather, what with the bathroom window in the way and my taller-than-a-propane-cylinder bike needing protection, too.

Enter: the roof overhang.

Having an overhanging rake in the back of the house would mean that the storage area is covered from all but the stormiest of rain and snow. The window gets protected, too. And the water heater and exhaust fans will both vent to the back, too, and adding protection for those wall penetrations can't hurt.

So, see? Having a hiatus in the building process isn't all bad--it gave me time to work out solutions to problems I hadn't even realized I had!

I just hope it doesn't end up looking super weird!