We have dual energy sources—grid electric and solar—here at the house. When the sun's out and all is good with the solar, our Solman Classic powers all our plugs, lights and ceiling fans.  When we don't get enough sun (and/or when our batteries are dying, as they are now), we unplug the solar and use grid power for everything.

Until this week, that entailed climbing under the deck to get to the plugs. The process became even harder when we put lattice up under the deck. Bill had a brainstorm about the plug situation a while back, and we finally got around to turning his idea into reality. We cut a hole through one of the deck boards and relocated the plugs up on the deck. 

Now, what looks like a table on the deck, actually houses the plugs—and there's room enough to store our portable Goal Zero solar charger there, as well. The top of the "table" flips up to give us easy access to the plugs. It looks great, and it's functional. Why did it take us four years to make life easier? That's the only mystery!

This post was going to be "Winter Is Coming" if I had gotten around to writing it as planned in October. The good news is that we actually started winterizing ahead of the first frost this year, even if we didn't get around to writing about it. We may have finally learned our lesson—that winter comes whether we've insulated our water pipes or not, etc.

So, what did "winterizing" mean this year?

Protecting pipes. We doubled up on the insulation that protects the water intake on the house--a winter weak spot in the past. We also put a new light bulb to heat the cavity between the joists where a water pipe crosses under the floor to the kitchen sink.

Anti-freeze measures. When it's not freezing, we love having hoses by the deck and the garden. They have to be shut off and drained when the temps dip. We also empty the big Berkey water filter we use as our water supply in the screen house, and we empty the cooler we use as a back-up refrigerator much of the year. Clay pots of flowers look great on the deck for half the year; leaving them outside in the winter filled with soil means cracked pots. Now, they all get emptied and stored away till spring. All of this has become more routine as we live in the house longer.

Loading up on firewood. This one seems obvious, but we've gotten caught under-prepared in the past. To fuel our Kimberly wood stove, we have one box inside the house, four small cans at the ready outside the door and one big trashcan of pre-cut, kiln-dried wood in our friend's garage. This also means walking around and picking up sticks, breaking them to size and loading up the wood boxes outside the house.

"Glassing" the screen house. Last year, we tested out installing seasonal Lexan over some of the windows of our screen house. It's expensive but it worked. We invested $2500 in Lexan sheets and cut them to size to cover all the windows and doors. Our thinking? We'll keep snow out, and we'll drastically extend the season we can enjoy the screen house. Sunny days heat up the space, greenhouse-style. We're even experimenting to see if more plants can winter over inside there.

Clearing the deck. We designed our deck so that we can push snow under the railing. But you can't do that if there are things in the way. Besides putting away the pots, we moved the rocking chairs and dining table and chairs into covered space (that same garage) for the winter. In the future, they'll be able to go right under the deck, once we set up covered storage there.

Topping off the tanks. For the winter we fill three 78-gallon tanks with water, as needed, so that the pipe from our water source doesn't freeze again. We turn on the super-efficient heater set to go on when the temps drop to 35 degrees and turn off when the space reaches 40 degrees.

Bill and I have been fortunate enough to agree on at least 90 percent of our design and build decisions. We both wanted a light-filled space, a ground-floor bedroom, solar power. energy-efficient appliances, a mix of metal and wood exteriors...and so much more.

One thing we don't always agree on: climate control. Bill appreciates air conditioning; I don't. He would have been happy using a mini-split to heat and cool our house. In the end, we opted out of the mini-split, but made certain we have excellent cross ventilation with 11 windows and screens for our three doors. Plus, we put up three ceiling fans in the tiny house, one directed at each of the kitchen, living room and bedroom areas. 

Compromise—that's what keeps us on the same page. Our latest negotiation was over running electricity to the screen house. My vision was to keep it primitive: candles for lighting, a water tank as the only plumbing, a cooler as the refrigerator, etc. Bill wanted a fan to cool things off on the hottest days, and, as we approached our fifth summer in the screen house, he only wanted the fan more.

Guess what? We now have a fan. It only took one near-100-degree day this summer for me to know Bill should get his fan. So, we ran wiring from the house (just a few yards away), put in a GFI box (rain can come in the porch) and ran wire though metal conduit up to our new fan. Bill found an industrial-inspired, damp-rated model (Plaza) on lampsplus.com. The free shipping and returns came in handy, because we returned our first fan: it was too small for the space and the extension rod too short. Things looked up when we installed the 52-inch model with a foot-long rod.

The difference the fan makes on a hot day is amazing. So amazing, we've decided to install a second fan over the kitchen/dining area. Turns out, adding electricity to the screen house doesn't feel like a compromise to me, after all. 

Our little house has been tested this winter. Not by snow (we haven't had much of that), but by single-digit temps. It's been the coldest weather since we moved in a couple years ago, and it's supplied us with more than a few lessons learned:

Floor insulation. The cold that seeps into the house comes up from the floor. We thought the few inches of rigid insulation we put between the floor joists was enough, but we probably should have doubled it. It would have been worth the additional $$. We're thinking we might add insulation underneath the trailer.

Skirting the trailer. We would also benefit from skirting around the trailer, to cut down on the wind running under the house and chilling our floors.

Water pipe insulation. A year ago we happily reported that we'd completed enough upgrades to our system to have flowing water all year, which is something you learn to be happy about when you don't have any running water your first winter. We were wrong. Though they didn't burst (yay!), our pipes froze in a couple places, temporarily cutting off our water supply. The hose from our friend's house to our water tanks should have been deeper in the ground, to get below the freeze line. (If it ever bursts, that's just what we'll do when we replace the hose.) The pipe that runs through the floor joist under our insulation needs heat tape and more insulation, so it won't freeze. 

Cut-off valve. Adding a water cut-off inside the house means we can drain the pipe under the floor when we go into a deep freeze. Hopefully, this will keep the pipe from freezing until we get the chance to add heat tape and insulate it better.

Electric loads. We came home to a 36-degree house when the breaker popped while we were away. We had someone visiting and hadn't warned our guest about issues we've been having with the space heater, water heater and pump drawing power on the same line. If they all go on at the same time, they flip the breaker. We need to take a long look at what we have on each line, what we have on solar (we could move the refrigerator to solar, as it turns out) and how to better manage our electrical draw. (This is Bill's domain; if you have questions, let me know and I'll ask him!)

Wood. We're trying to get better about staying ahead on the log supply for the wood stove. When you need it, you need it—and a cold, winter night is not the time to be out in the dark splitting and sawing. We have one, big metal trashcan full of right-sized logs up in the garage now, and four small cans that sit outside the door on the deck, so we can grab more wood without going anywhere.
 
Backup bucket. We finally remembered to buy a spare 5-gallon plastic bucket, so that we don't have to walk up to the compost barrels in the middle of a snow storm or single-digit temps when the bucket in the toilet gets full. We can just snap a lid on the full bucket and leave it outside the door until a convenient time to bring it up the hill to the barrels.

Air exchanger. The past two winters, we've had to open windows (despite the prevailing temps) if the carbon monoxide alarm goes off, signalling the need for fresh air in the house. Now, with our  exchanger, air is efficiently coming in and going out all the time—with the windows sealed tight.

Building this house was hard work--wonderful hard work involving structural considerations, design elements, troubleshooting, big dreams, hard realities, sudden inspirations and a lot of sweat equity. I look back on our year of building nostalgically now. We had a purpose then, and it was a giant leap forward for our shared dream to live more intentionally and sustainably.
 
More than two years have passed since we moved into our house. We love it here, but with each passing day, the itch to design and build another structure grows. It may be hard for some people to believe, but, at 250-square-feet, we know this house is a much larger space than what we could comfortably live in. Don't get me wrong: We are keeping this house, and we will continue to live here.

I want to puzzle out a smaller living space, and I want to learn a few new skills along the way. When finished, it could serve as a guest room, a writing studio, a rental or as temporary lodging for us somewhere down the road. (Our current house, with its wide profile and especially its wrap-around deck isn't going anywhere!)

For some reason, I got fixated on the teeny tiny house being 8' x 12'. At less than half the size of this house, that seemed as small as we might want to go. I drew up a number of floor plans—some with lofts, some with full bathrooms, some with dining tables and/or desks. No one plan seemed the right one.

I had to dream it up. Literally. I woke one morning having just taken a dream tour of our tiny house. I knew just about everything about it. Dimensions: 8 x 8. No loft. Solar power. No plumbing. Etc. I jumped up, got out the graph paper and started drawing.

Here's a rough sketch of the exterior. On the towing end of the house, a outside shed would hold batteries for the solar setup, water tanks, tools and anything we don't need inside the house on a regular basis. The roof of the house on this end is 7 feet and there's no window (to get broken by rocks or other debris on the road). The roof slopes up to eight feet on the kitchen end of the house.

Inside, the door faces a window for cross ventilation. Another window lets in light and air in the kitchenette. Seating is a sofa that converts into the bed. Even when pulled out in bed mode, there's still enough room to access the kitchen and "the loo." Beside the sofa are two narrow side tables on wheels at coffee table height. They can be pulled out to form a coffee table or for use at ottomans. They'll also be storage. There will be more storage over the sofa/bed on a high shelf and additional storage under it.

The kitchen area has a sink and counter space over cabinets and drawers for trash, silverware, dishes, pots, etc. Water comes from a mounted tank and grey water drains to a container below the house. Cooking is on alcohol burners (like the Origo model we use in this house.) The ice chest is a real dream item; I'm not sure it exists in the real world (but it should). About the size of an ice chest but front opening (not drawn correctly here), it runs off the 12-volt solar. The "loo" is a lined bucket with a toilet seat (a primitive variation of what we use here) that just gets pulled out for use, then cover is added and it gets pushed back into a cabinet. The idea is that showers and most loo trips are to public bathrooms or someone else's house (like ours, when it's parked here).

That's it. My dream house. This is the one I want to build. No doubt there will be tweaking along the way to take care of all the things that make sense in dream world but no so much when awake. First step: find a good deal on a solid trailer, whether new or used. In my dream, we used a lot of reclaimed materials. Collecting that is something to get started on, too. Time to dream on.

​Houses, just like us, need to breath. We (the houses and us) need ways to bring in oxygen and to expel carbon monoxide. Houses (even more than us) need ways to keep humidity down. After all, warm, moist air inside a house breeds mold. And none of us (house or human) wants mold.

A well-sealed tiny house keeps rain out, but it can also trap moisture inside—moisture from showers cooking, laundry and life in general. Some of these same activities suck oxygen from the home environment. In the summer, open windows are the simplest way to keep our indoor air refreshed. But come winter, it's nice to keep our double-paned windows snugly shut.

That's where our new energy recovery ventilator comes in. We'll get fresh air all winter, but it will be warmed a bit by the air going out. Since our house is only 250-square-feet, a single-room ventilator is plenty big. (It works up to 350-square feet). Here's what the company, VENTS-US, has to say about it:

"TwinFresh RA1-50-2 single room Energy Recovery Ventilator is designed for extract and supply ventilation with Energy Recovery mode. It is an efficient, healthy way of exchanging the polluted, stale air in your home with fresh outdoor air year round while reducing your heating and cooling bills. Whisper quiet operation, wall-through installation design, and various operation modes ensure convenience and comfort....[It also] decreases or increases indoor humidity levels to maintain a comfortable environment for you."

But don't be like us: Plan ahead and install ventilation during your initial construction, and you'll save a lot of headaches. We didn't do that. So we had to do some re-wiring and head scratching to remember where studs and wiring were in the walls. Also, know that your walls have to be a minimum of 4.5" thick. 

Good news: The kit includes a good template, instructions and remote. And it really is "whisper quiet." I have to be listening for it to hear it.

Mixed news: The outside of the unit has a big profile. We minimized its appearance by spray painting it the same silver as our exterior wall. You'll also want to make sure you're not drawing external air from near a propane source or grill.

Make sure you do a test run on the ventilator before installation. Bill remembered to do this, and it saved us a lot of time and trouble. The electronics weren't functioning when he plugged in the first ventilator we bought, and we were able to swap the malfunctioning unit out for one that worked before installation.

P.S. Wood stoves can also suck oxygen out of your house. But not our Kimberly Wood Stove by Unforgettable Fire, which is designed with its own external air intake system. That's critical to look for in a wood stove. Also critical: a carbon monoxide detector to monitor air quality and a thermometer/hygrometer that tells us how much water vapor is in our air.  Plus, we love our mini-dehumifier for those days (like wet, soggy today) when the ventilator alone can't get our humidity under 60 percent.

Moving the clippers and shovels nearer the garden, having our tools close at hand, making room for a second toilet (with a view of the woods!), building a storm shelter for the solar unit...we decided to build one, wee structure to accomplish all that.

​So, we picked a spot on the slope beneath the house and built a platform beside our solar setup as the base for our  shed/outhouse-to-be.

We translated our graph paper sketch into a blue-tape layout to see how best to use the 8' x 8' space. We needed a door big enough to roll the solar generator through (with the side panels removed), shelves for the tools, hanging space for shovels and rakes, a workbench for projects...and, of course, a spot for the potty facing out to the woods. We had already scavenged old windows, so part of the drill was figuring out where they'd work best.

(The funny thing was that the longer I thought about the workbench, the more I thought about using it as a spot to write...)

We hauled in some wood and set to cutting and assembling the front wall. All went well, at first...

We lifted the assembled wall and braced it in place. Before we started on the next section, we decided to see what the first wall looked like from the deck. It didn't take more than a few seconds to realize the location was a mistake. The shed would be too close and too tall, partially blocking our view into the forest.

​What was most surprising was that we'd gotten so far on the project without realizing the right spot for a shed was right under our feet. If we built the shed under the deck, we'd only see it when we wanted something in it. And maybe we'd just keep putting plywood over the solar unit on the few occasions we get a big storm.

Still, I found myself reluctant to dismantle the wall we'd put together. I'd started seeing it as part of a place I could go to write. And it could be a guest house, now that we didn't need to fill it with tools. There would be room for both a sofa bed and a writing desk. And the outhouse.

Could we build it in the woods? We tromped around a little and sadly came to the realization that the spot I'd eyed across the creek was too rocky and we didn't have the right trees to make it a treehouse. Right when I was about to give up on the idea, we realized we wanted to build it on a trailer. Long ago, we'd talked about having something smaller and easier to tow that we could potentially relocate, if we ever wanted a temporary change of scenery. 

So that's the plan for now: find a used trailer (if possible), draw up a revised sketch and build our studio/guesthouse/outhouse/glamper. And we'll try to remember our lesson learned: Unless you build on wheels, the site has to be just right.

We've gotten a few questions recently about cooking in our tiny house kitchen. Actually, the questions are more about whether there's room for kitchen sundries and dishes and silverware, etc. than actual cooking.

I'm happy to say that we have more than enough room for every pot and pan, every dish, every can and cereal box we want. After two years of full-time living in the house, we continue to shed things we don't use—not because we don't have space, but because living is easier when the excess get cleared out.

Below are some of our kitchen storage solutions. We'd love you to add questions/comments below to keep the conversation going.

Our pantry, with full pull-out drawers holds all our non-perishable food, our dishes, our biggest pot, water bottles, and even cleaning supplies. It's part of the wall that separates the bathroom from the kitchen and living area.

Four deep drawers hold silverware, utensils, dish towels and napkins, storage containers, pot lids, cutting boards and serving pieces. Ours, from IKEA, pull out all the way and close softly. The drawer with silverware has an inner drawer to make use of the full height of the drawer.

The counter behind the oven isn't attached. We can lift it to reach a space where we have room to store big items like the pizza stone and peel, baking pans and the countertop sections that cover the sink.

We have a giant sink in the tiny house, and it's a great place to store drying dishes (or dirty dishes!). We cut our butcher block countertop carefully when it was time to install the kitchen, then drilled a hole in the center and sliced the cutout in two. When we need more counter space, we pull out one or both of the inserts and hide away anything we don't want out.

The sink is big, but there's still enough room under the sink to house a point-of-use water heater, a dish towel and cleaning rag, plus  two bins—one for trash, the other for recycling. (The handy bins, complete with fold-down handles, are another IKEA find.)

Open shelves make accessing glasses, the coffee press, and bowls a cinch. (Anything that doesn't look good on an open shelf finds its home in one of the pantry drawers.) A 10-foot-long shelf running between the windows and the ceiling holds china we don't need every day (plus some pretty heirloom silver). We have a step ladder that slides under the kitchen table to access the top shelf.

We make up for any square-footage deficit by maximizing vertical space. Our knives, spices, most-used pots and pans, wooden spoons, water filter and more hang on the wall. Once again, IKEA was both inspiration and supplier for much of this hardware.

​Our refrigerator is big enough to hold all the perishable food we need for a party and/or a week's worth of meals. We went with an Energy Star, space-saving, under-the-counter model from GE that offered the most bang for the buck. What we don't have in our kitchen: a freezer. But that was a strategic decision. Our friend, on whose land we live, already had an under-used freezer in her basement. It takes just a minute or two to walk over and pick up something from her freezer. 

I've written a few blogs about "using every inch." That's nowhere more important than the kitchen. When I realized I had an extra six inches between the refrigerator and where I planned to put the kitchen table, I tried to think of the best way to use the space; a glass of wine helped the thinking. Voila! A wine rack, made from one of my favorite materials: a shipping pallet.

In the last post, we were considering a number of build projects, and the winner is...a combo shed/outhouse. Right now, we're lucky enough to have a place to store tools, but it's up the slope from our homesite, in our friend's garage. With a shed just below the house, we'll have shovels near the garden, the toolbox close at hand and a workbench to start new projects.

On top of that, we'll have a place to shelter the solar generator when we're away for extended periods or when a big storm heads our way. (We'll be able to detach the side panels of the generator and roll it under cover.) And, as it that isn't enough, we're going to build an outhouse into one corner of the structure for a second bathroom, one with a beautiful view into the forest.

After a little clearing and leveling, Bill undergrounded our graywater pipes so they run under the new platform. (Yay...we don't have to look down at them any more from the deck). He built an 8' by 8' platform for the outbuilding; then we realized we wanted a little extra deck on the end—that way we could walk across it to an out-facing door on the outhouse. So, he added another 4 feet of deck.

We're going to attempt to NOT overbuild. This isn't a home, just a shelter from the elements and a fair-weather bathroom. It's easy to run a wire to have lights and a charging station for the tools, but we won't be plumbing the bathroom. Water for the sink will be gravity fed from a tank. We also decided to wait on the final design until we found used windows to save money on the project. Now that we have the windows, we'll sketch out our ideas and come up with a final plan.

I've been in town babysitting our sweet little granddaughter, so the shed has been a one-man project for Bill at this point. But as soon I'm home more, I'll be lending a hand.  I can't wait to get building again.