Interior Siding

Huzzah! Interior siding has not only begun but is proceeding with speed thanks to a bona-fide nail gun. A couple quick pictures here as we head out for a full workday -- the 6-mil-thick vapor barrier covers the insulation.

It was a bit of a hassle to install nailers everywhere the siding would need to be secured around outlets -- but this is mostly done now. We started at the bottom of the wall -- instead of having the tongues rest completely in the grooves we're creating a small space (about the width of a matchstick -- approx 1/8") to allow for future expansion of the siding (say, during warmer/more humid summer weather). Off to the races!

Stepping Forward in Time: The Front Steps

The front steps to the tiny house are now complete! A tear in the fabric of the space time continuum led to an absence of recent blog posts but this post has just now spontaneously arrived -- for your reading enjoyment -- to remedy the situation. A set of four steps -- indeed built from one of the spare planks which was torn from the trailer bed during the first week of construction -- has now been assembled and painted. They were painted at dusk last night. It's interesting to paint in low light conditions because the question arises, what will this look like in the morning sun? Will these colors be real? Is this yellow as bright as the paint can lid leads me to believe? Will this red stand the test of time? Is anything real at all? One possible answer is here (and you can even click on it to zoom in):

Rock climbing wall test section

Today we created a small test section of the rock climbing wall with plywood in a friend's dining room (where else would you put a test section of a rock climbing wall?) just to see how things work. Here's the photographic evidence:
The house itself is currently covered with snow but work will proceed next week.

More cedar siding

Just wanted to post another pic or two of what the house looks like. We covered up the last of the Tyvek house wrap before the blizzard hit about two weeks ago. In the image above you can see the 1/4" furring strips being used to maintain the air gap behind the siding. In view, from left to right, are the external outlet, the external plug (electrical input for the house), and a piece of plywood where we may mount a second input (to connect solar panels in the future).

Cedar siding, first two days

In the span of two afternoons, one exterior wall is officially on its way to being covered with cedar siding. Thank you, forests! Thank you, power tools! Thank you, people who helped out! Thank you, weather gods for not releasing any rainstorms! (and, thank you, exclamation points)

Here is the photographic evidence:



First we put up the 1/4"-thick furring strips to create an airgap between the side of the house and the cedar. This is needed so that if any moisture gets trapped it can escape.






We then used an extra piece of roofing material to make a skirt over the front lip of the trailer.

And, many hours later (probably ~12 person-hours, to be precise), it's a win! We're using 7d 2-1/4" stainless steel ringshank nails and, in so doing, realizing that a pneumatic nail gun would make this go a lot faster.

The cedar (aka Western Red Cedar shake) was ordered from a lumberyard up the street. It's "clear" cedar meaning not primed with paint. It's 5-1/2" in width. A useful tip: put a brand new blade in the chopsaw if you want super amazing cuts.

In this image, a lone house builder, having completed the day's goal of getting the siding done up to the top of the window, looking for something else to do aims the hammer at, logically, a box of nails.

Representative Wall Section

Yesterday we put up a "test section" of the knotty pine interior siding (5/16"-thick T&G) to see how it works. It seems doable (well, we ARE superheroes, after all). Here are some pictures to illustrate what the walls are like:
First you cut the insulation to size; if you're a perfectionist, you will spend waaay too long on this step making sure there are no gaps anywhere. Then you put the plastic sheeting over it (6 mils thick) and follow that with the siding itself. Alright! Now we know what a wall is going to look like.




Rather than using finishing nails we used some ribbed nails just in case. It is probably fine to use normal nails everywhere for the siding since if one is vibrating out you can just pound it back in. The rationale for using screws everywhere in the framing/sheathing is that those won't be accessible later and you don't want the house falling apart while driving/vibrating down the road/etc. For the interior siding we plan to use nails.

The area in the photo is directly above the porch. The thought was that this area will be much easier to access now (prior to installing porch roof) than later.

Roofing Part II

Per-panel installation time today was fabulous; two of us completed the entire other straight run of panels in less than 3 hours. All that remains is the front portion (aka complicated parallelogram fanciness) and then the roof will be water, snow, and weather resistant (not to mention resistant to alien lasers from outer space).

In the following image, the finished Side 2 of the roof is illuminated by a victoriously lofted work light. The raised arm symbolizes victory over difficult odds (the early time of sunset) while the scattered light (there are billions of photons) represents the infiniteness of human potential (there are billions of people). Fine art photography at its finest.

We will not reveal that this picture was taken with a camera phone.


Special thanks is owed to our generous friend who delivered tubes of 100% silicone to our doorstep just in time for us to install the final two panels, completing our goal of installing all of the long panels before the end of the day. Additional thanks to the Talking Heads for providing our inspiring soundtrack. This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around. This is a tiny house coming together little by little -- and with a nearly-completed roof, to boot!