Floor Box - Day 6-7

(1.75 hrs, plus drying time)                                  

Painting makes for easy--and boring--work days. I rounded out the first week of work on my tiny house by applying two coats of pale green latex house paint to my undercarriage, all of which took under two hours--including set-up and clean-up--and barely broke a sweat.

I was going to stop with two coats, but I may add a third tomorrow. The paint had been sitting in a closet for nine and a half years, had separated, and I wasn't able to shake/stir it enough with my own muscle power--so the first coat was so thin I could still see the color of plywood through it! (Through it and the undercoat of primer...) If I'd had any experience with house paint, I might have known I had to mix it more thoroughly... but I hadn't, so I didn't.

I have a little more experience now, though:

The Going Green Home - Part 1: Introduction

The environment is important to me. Important enough that I earned two degrees in environmental science. Important enough that I will pursue a career in the environmental sector. And definitely important enough to shape my lifestyle around being green.

How will The Going Home fit in?

Tiny houses on wheels could be considered automatically eco-friendly simply because they are tiny, non-permanent structures. Compared to a normal house, they use and contain a tiny quantity of building materials. They are heated, cooled, and lit by a comparatively tiny quantity of energy. They can be towed away and the land returned to its original state in a matter of months. And by living in one, you can't help but live a less materialistic life--unless you're renting a storage unit in town or have outbuildings to house your toys!

The only necessarily anti-environmental aspect of tiny houses is that the vehicles required to tow them are greedy gas guzzlers. A newer Ford F250, for example, gets somewhere between 13 and 15 miles per gallon, and towing a big load like a tiny house will bump that figure way down; our Toyota Sienna normally gets 19-20 mpg, but while towing the empty trailer, it averaged just 9 mpg. Now, as long as you are parking your tiny house in one spot for a long period of time, the fossil fuel emissions associated with moving will be pretty minimal. Unless, of course, that big honkin' 13-mpg truck is also your daily driver! I hope to get away with just renting one when I need to move, while my daily driver will (fingers crossed...) be the 84-mpg Elio that I reserved as 25th birthday present to myself last year. (Heh, heh.)

But that's hardly the end of the tiny house environmental story. As I've mentioned before, one of the greatest things about designing and/or building your own tiny house is that you can customize it to match your personal tastes, preferences, priorities, and so forth. So beyond simply being tiny and not moving often, there are choices you may or may not make to reduce your tiny house's environmental footprint even more.

I'll be exploring those choices--and my approach to them--in a series of "The Going Green Home" blog posts. I'll post the links below as they come!

The Going Green Home - Part 2: Insulation

The Going Green Home - Part 3: Reclaimed Materials 

Floor Box - Day 5

(2.25 hrs)

Today I got into the paint closet, dug out our selection of exterior paints, and... realized that I should really put down a layer of primer, first.

So Dad and I went to Ace Hardware, got a gallon of Kilz-brand exterior water-based latex primer/sealer, and then set to work!

(Actually... Dad dropped me off at my grandparents' house and went home. Solo work day, womp wooomp.)

(Actually... it was fine.)

"Why not just...?"

I've seen it in online comments sections. I've heard it from friends and family. When some people first hear about tiny houses on wheels, their first reaction is to ask: "Why not just...?"

"Why not just buy an RV?"

"Why not just live in an Airstream, it's cheaper and lighter."

"Don't you mean, park model? Why not just buy one of those?"

So. Why not just? Different tiny housers will have different answers. It basically boils down to:

"Because tiny houses on wheels aren't RVs/Airstreams/park models--they are tiny. Houses. On wheels."

Floor Box - Day 4

(3.75 hrs of "real" work)

Ahhh--I am now sitting and relaxing with a bottle of hard cider and a cup of tea after the longest and most visibly productive work day so far. Today Mom and I picked up the insulation from Lowe's, and Dad and I installed the undercarriage. Good day!

FYI: Four packages (~160 square feet) of 5 1/2" Roxul insulation exactly fill a 2008 Toyota Sienna minivan from the middle seats back. Now you know!

Also: I discovered why we ran out of lumber and joist hangers yesterday. I had actually mistaken the number of joists needed in my drawn plans, not realizing that one of the spans in my drawing was greater than 24". When actually building the floor, I saw that the gap was too wide and corrected it with an additional joist, thereby adding two pieces for which I hadn't planned.

Floor Box - Day 3

(2 hrs)

Today we finished installing the floor joists, and I mashed a finger and discovered that I am not quite as good at counting as I had always imagined myself to be. So, a mixed day, but in the end, success!

...Yeah, we ran out of lumber and joist hangers with two pieces left to install. I don't know how I managed to match the number of joist hangers to the quantity of lumber, and yet miscount the number of joists... oh well. Dad made a run back down to the local building supply store for a 8' stick of 2x6 and four more joist hangers while I installed the last couple that we had on hand. No harm done or time lost.

Floor Box - Day 2

Sisterly assistance

(3.5 hrs)

Happy New Year! My sister helped Dad and me out today and we got the center rail and about half the joists installed in a couple of hours. Until we wore out because we were out late on New Year's Eve...