When I wrote about tiny-house decision making, I forgot to include something critical to the process: time. And time wasn't on our side (or siding!) for this phase.
We had hoped to find reclaimed barn wood to side the house with. For months, we posted "wood wanted" ads on Craigslist, we talked to neighbors, we checked out prices at a local mill that specializes in restoring old wood...and each day we looked around for affordable old wood the weather got colder, and the house continued to double as a TYVEK advertisement.
Finally, we decided we needed to buy siding to get things moving. We found a good deal on 7-inch, unfinished pine boards we could special order through Home Depot. Things got a little crazy, though, once they arrived at the store. Short version: they couldn't find the boards at first; then they couldn't find anyone who knew how to drive the mini-truck to move them; consequently, they dropped the boards, damaging some of them; they drove the boards to a door they couldn't open; once they got the door open, they drove the boards right up to a mountain of stacked mulch before realizing the stack was there; and to top things off, they sold us the wrong color stain, which we used on some of the boards before realizing the mistake....
But they did graciously refund money for the broken and mis-stained boards, and eventually we spent a happy day affixing correctly stained boards to one side of the tiny house. One solid-wood side down...the other three sides will be finished with a combination of boards and corrugated metal. We hope to be able to show you progress on this as soon as the current sub-arctic weather lets up.
We had hoped to find reclaimed barn wood to side the house with. For months, we posted "wood wanted" ads on Craigslist, we talked to neighbors, we checked out prices at a local mill that specializes in restoring old wood...and each day we looked around for affordable old wood the weather got colder, and the house continued to double as a TYVEK advertisement.
Finally, we decided we needed to buy siding to get things moving. We found a good deal on 7-inch, unfinished pine boards we could special order through Home Depot. Things got a little crazy, though, once they arrived at the store. Short version: they couldn't find the boards at first; then they couldn't find anyone who knew how to drive the mini-truck to move them; consequently, they dropped the boards, damaging some of them; they drove the boards to a door they couldn't open; once they got the door open, they drove the boards right up to a mountain of stacked mulch before realizing the stack was there; and to top things off, they sold us the wrong color stain, which we used on some of the boards before realizing the mistake....
But they did graciously refund money for the broken and mis-stained boards, and eventually we spent a happy day affixing correctly stained boards to one side of the tiny house. One solid-wood side down...the other three sides will be finished with a combination of boards and corrugated metal. We hope to be able to show you progress on this as soon as the current sub-arctic weather lets up.
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