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.

​Back from The Tiny House Conference (more on this in another blog), we came home to spring in all its glory. I've been reveling in the warmth as I wander our site—transplanting here, raking there; placing a few newly bought native plants, tearing out invasives. No-plan, no-goal puttering. But after a few wonderfully aimless days, I find myself asking the same question I was asked a few dozen times at the conference: What are you working on now? 

Our house is built, but that doesn't mean my itch to build has gone away. In no particular order, these building projects come to mind:

1. Treehouse: I've scaled down my initial fantasy. Before I think about building a mansion in the trees, I'd like to try a modest raised room. Roofed, half wall with screens (rather than windows). No insulation. A seasonal lounge (for us) and playhouse (for the grandkids).

2. Outhouse: I'm thinking of another DIY composting toilet, this one down near the gardens. We have a pile of shutters that could work for three sides. The fourth side, I'd like to leave open, facing out to the woods. 

3. Tool/garden shed: Currently, we haul tools up and down a slope everytime we work on a project. We have the good fortune of having space in our friend's garage, but building a shed on our site would not only move the shovel closer to the garden and the saw closer to the next build, it could give us a space to temporarily house our solar generator during the worst of storms.

4. Wood shed: We love the occasional campfire. Once we borrow the neighbor's splitter, the dying ash trees we had taken down will fire up many a campfire if we have a place to let the wood dry out. For this project, I'll love to salvage the materials.

5. Teeny, tiny house on wheels: I'm not looking to replace our house, or even to add more space for us. This would be a guest house and, ideally, a rental house. It would also be a great way to experiment with space-saving ideas. I'd also like to challenge ourselves by building it out of as many reclaimed materials as possible.

That should keep us busy, once we're done with our current gig—babysitting our wee granddaughter Margot for the first few months our daughter goes to work. Time to break out the graph paper and pencil and get sketching the plans...but which build to start first?

Last January, I told the tale of our water woes. The ground froze before we finished under grounding the water pipes leading from our friends' "big house" to our tiny house. We drained the pipes and carried in water for drinking and cooking the rest of the winter. We showered at rec centers and other peoples' houses. We often hauled our dishes over to our friend's house for washing.

A year later, with freezing temperatures day after day, I'm happy to report that we have running water in the house! We wash our dishes here! We shower here! When the temperature first dropped to the single digits, we did have an issue—which has since been resolved. All of this wasn't just a simple matter of digging trenches for the pipes....

• Step one: Finishing the water line to our house. We excavated rocks so that we could finish trenching to the tiny house. Then we used foam insulation around our hose and encased that in PVC pipe for protection before burying it underground.
• Step two: Setting up holding tanks. We were still worried that pipes might freeze because we couldn't get them below the freeze line (down 20 to 30 inches), given our rocky mountain terrain. We decided to create a holding tank up the hill from our house where we could keep water from freezing. Bill constructed an insulated box large enough to hold three, 78-gallon barrels (rated for drinking water). He connected the barrels and put a thermostat-controlled panel heater inside the box. We fill the barrels from spring fed water coming down the mountain, as needed. Our tiny house can now draw water from the climate-controlled tanks.
• Step three: Protecting the faucet. The first place to freeze last year was the short section of pipe above ground that leads to our outside faucet. Bill wrapped that section of hose in aluminum foil and then attached heat tape. He insulated the faucet where it connects with the house, and that connection hasn't (knock on wood) frozen since.
• Step four: Better insulating the pipe running under the house. We have a section of PEX piping that runs under the house, between two floor joists, from our bathroom to our kitchen sink. While that space is sealed and insulated, it was obviously too cold on frigid nights. Water ran from the outside tanks to our bathroom without a hitch, but we couldn't use the kitchen sink after the pipe under the house froze. So, Bill insulated the PEX pipe leading to the kitchen better and installed an incandescent light bulb in that space to provide a little heat to the area with the pipe. Only once has the pipe frozen since then, when we had a number of days of single-digit weather—but at least the pipe didn't burst! Our new plan is to replace that PEX pipe with a heated, potable water hose. 

With the temperature still below freezing outside, we're quite happy to have hot, running water. It's something I've taken for granted in the past—but no longer! 

You can read more about our plumbing, water pump and water heaters in old blog posts. Please click on the images below for more details about our winter water solution.

After living for years in traditionally scaled homes, we sold our last house and moved to an apartment to try  living in a smaller footprint. We didn't miss the space, we loved ditching our mortgage and we found ourselves firmly on the path to living more sustainably.

​We finished this house and moved in about 15 months ago. People late to our story have asked about our build, so I figure it's time for a retrospective. 

Site prep. We were fortunate enough to have a friend invite us to build on a corner of her 5-acre property in the Blue Ridge mountains. We cleared and leveled (or partially leveled) a site for our house, with enough room to build a separate screen house which went up first. (More on the screen house here.) We scavenged old boards and used them to build a retaining wall, then reinforced the wall with stones from the woods.

​The trailer. Zoning doesn't allow a second foundation-built house on the property, so we built on a trailer. Ours is  on a 24-foot equipment trailer from Tiny House Builders of Georgia. Our design runs the full 24' of the trailer and extends over the bed two feet on both sides. We used 10" joists to raise the floor over the wheel wells; it also left us plenty of room for insulation). Bill drilled holes through the trailer to attach the joists and bottom layer of plywood with 6" lag screws.

​Framing. We went with a "stick built" house on 24" centers (sometimes referred to as advanced framing). The technique saved us a little money (by using less wood) and reduced the house's overall weight. We designed the framing in about 8-foot sections so that it would be easy for the two of us to lift pieces into place and attach them. We put up four 4x4" posts to carry the weight of the roof, since we decided to go with a split roof design that incorporated clerestory windows.

​Roof. After a couple months of tarping the build site for rain, we were thrilled to roof the house. We installed a beam and framing for the row of clerestory windows between our two rooflines, then hung rafters and screwed down plywood decking. On top of the plywood, we went with a layer of WeatherWatch instead of roof felt for more leak resistance. On top of that went panels of corrugated steel fastened using screws with rubber washers. Bill bent the flashing out of strips of galvanized steel.

Sheathing and house wrap. Plywood installed on the exterior studs made our build look more like a home. After cutting out the spaces for our windows and doors, we swathed the house with Dupont Tyvek HomeWrap. We'd talked about adding a rain screen which would leave a gap of air between the house wrap and the siding yet to come...but we forgot. Rainscreen helps control moisture. (You can read more about it here, for more information.) So far, so good here without the rainscreen.

​Windows and doors. We knew we wanted a lot of light and cross ventilation (no air conditioning) in our house. We looked at second-hand windows, but finally decided we didn't want to take the time to scavenge the exact sizes we wanted. The best deal we found was for Jeld Wen windows and doors at a local lumber yard. We made a last-minute decision to swap out one window for a third door when we thought about building a deck. So, 11 windows and three glass doors it was.

​Siding. We wanted to break up the sides of the house by using wood and metal siding. Our final choices: corrugated steel (same as the roof) and wood clapboard (stained the same color as the screen house). Snow came before we could finish the siding, and eventually our progress crawled to a stop. We took a few months off and finished the last side and the eaves of the house in the spring. We started the eaves with super light-weight panels, but switched to thicker plywood by the end. 

Wiring. Our electrical plan got a little complicated when we decided to go solar as much as we could afford. We found a solar generator (the SolMan classic by Sol Solutions), and Bill designed the wiring to go to two boxes. All the lights and most outlets are wired to a box powered by our generator. The hot water heater, water pump, microwave and back-up heater—all items that need surges of power—use grid power drawn from our friend's house.

Plumbing. A mountain spring feeds the cistern that supplies water to our friend's house. We tap into that supply. We went with PEX water pipes because PEX is flexible, inexpensive and easy to work with. Bill watched YouTube videos to figure out the little he didn't already know. As far as waste pipes go, we're careful about everything that goes down our drains so it can be piped to a mulch pit. We're not on septic, so urine also goes to its own pit. We deal with solid waste by composting it.

Insulation, walls and floor. With the electrical and plumbing installed, we insulated between the ceiling rafters with rigid foam and between the wall joists with EcoTouch Fiberglas. The walls went up fairly quickly with standard drywall; the ceiling is light-weight (too light-weight) beadboard panels. We painted the walls and ceiling white, knowing we would have dark wood floor and trim For the floors we found a good deal on pine boards at Lumber Liquidators, then stained them with the same color as the exterior house. 

Kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. We built interior walls to divide our space for a bathroom on one end of the house and sleeping space on the other. The interior bathroom wall also houses the water heater, plumbing, electrical, a medicine cabinet and the pantry. Both walls stop short of the ceiling for air flow and light. We went with a big sink, undercounter fridge, alcohol-burning stove, butcher block counters and IKEA cabinets in the kitchen. Besides the DIY composting toilet, the bathroom houses a mini sink and a metal-lined shower.

Deck. Most of the deck went up after we moved in. It wraps around three sides and makes it much easier to walk around the house, especially important given our sloped mountain site. The deck also gives us plenty of room for grilling and dining, growing herbs and having friends over. We've planted  grapes and hope they'll grow up the lattice that hides the trailer from view. Still to come: planters outside the big glass sliding door.

Recently I posted pictures of the barnwood wall behind our sofa and mentioned it was 90% complete. We ran out of steam before we got around to measuring, cutting and installing trim along the edges and top.

And there were the two posts that support the clerestory windows: they were also missing a decorative sheath.  Ditto for the bathroom doorway.

​I'm happy to report the trim is (finally!) in place. It's amazing how much more finished a look it gives our space.

(Now if I could only remember to install the two feet of missing floor trim—already painted and ready to go!—then I could say we've finished off our space.)


​Please click on the pictures below for more details.