Finished framing and building paper cladding

Putting up the purlins with dad

The tarpaulin roof survived the past week of crap weather, but only due to the fact I had to poke the water pockets with a stick. The tiny amount of moisture that got in was dry the same day so no worries there. The forecast was for worse though so I made it a mission to get the roof ready for cladding. It rained very very hard the whole weekend, but thankfully I had it parked in the factory - for the last time, now the roof is watertight!!

fence pails and random purlins

The roof has 2x2, 3x2, and mainly 4x2 purlins. Half is exterior grade but hey wood is wood to me, as long as I’m recycling as much as possible. I strengthened with strap bracing, not very strongly, but it’s mainly for the paper anyway. I used fence pails for screw points for 3mm MDF - the kitchen place next door gets a couple of sheets per delivery so dad and I worked out a cheap and lightweight way to get lots of nogging for it - otherwise it warps like a piece of cardboard. So the $10 spent on fencing materials saves me $50 worth of ply done.

The loft bed was pretty easy to install since it was resting on top of the back plate, with 790mm on each side. It also meant we had a platform to use when installing the purlins.

It has 6mm ply as a temp flooring, free from the side of the road.

the loft bed platform - the square is a fixing for an opening window

I also nailed off a whole heap of boxes - 23 so far and probably another for good luck - which will become the stairs to the loft. I got these all free, as industrial waste. Pretty awesome storage, and the area directly underneath the loft bed will become a bookshelf. I bought some little woven baskets to put my clothes in, and whatever else I use them for, as all my clothes take up a whopping five boxes. At least everything will have a place!

I just have to pick up some ply for the stairs and something to use for the bookshelf, which my dad probably has hoarded somewhere.  So now I'm just waiting to have all the ply in one place (eg inside the tiny home) and then I can get cracking with my pink batts. I got all the batts for free, minus $5 worth of offcuts (which ultimately I didn't need) and half a bag of pink batts squares which came with my long run roofing with the building paper. I had JUST enough building paper.. if it were anyone else they probably would have bought more, but I managed to scrounge enough to fix it up - hopefully. It isn't very professional looking!! But so long as it keeps the water out it's doing its job. Better get some rest now, it's been a very long weekend.

Almost finished building!

Trying to get the pup to pose

The loft framework and windows all packed up, as well as the skeletal structural view of inside

All papered up and ready to tarp

Tarp finally up - used nails on sticks to get the height, sounded more fun than it was..

Latest progress report

(Onsite at the build, everyone was in the parking lot when I finally had enough manpower to lift the walls. That just meant we had to carry them an extra 10 or so metres, which is okay with four people per wall - two people is a shuffle dance at a distance of 1-2m only.

So the walls went up, the 150mm galv coach screws went into the sills to the subfloor, and a few nails gunned into the sides of the walls for good luck.
I still have the make the cantilevered 2nd floor but that's another mission for another day.

Here you can see the strap bracing in most of it's glory (forgot a progress report pic as I was too busy entertaining friends (read: talking too much) and getting them to help move the 6m lengths of 2x4s I had "resting" on my stairs. Unfortunately this was the only place I could 'hide' them and they got a bit warped over the two weeks they sat there. Really annoying but hey it's my fault, and I hope I learn from my mistakes! The 2x4s that are visible in the doorway are half my roof purlins - leftovers put to good use - and I'm sourcing 2x2s for the rest of them.

I also got the loft bed subfloor cut and my friend came over to help me try and put it together. Well, we did put it together. But it is seriously warped. So to fix it I'm borrowing two of my flatmate's 5kg dumbbells and weighing down the high ends.. Hopefully it rains overnight and it will start looking to be a better shape, but I can put it in the trailer like that tomorrow to flatten it further. I also spent $30 buying more galv brackets and screws so the bed is fully supported both sides.

I'm a bit interested to see how much extra work the loft area will be.. I have a strange angled window I can put near my head - I did get the angle close enough to fit it accurately without it looking odd, but the amount of extra work might make it not worth it. Especially since there is a 600mm square opening window on the loft bit above the massive window pictured. Once the loft floor is installed it will probably be easier to tell. But my biggest concern is that as the back plate is made, the floor may need to be notched. Mildly disturbing but I don't have the manpower to find out just yet.

My next main mission is to start cutting the plasterboard for the stairs - which are to be made out of those boxes on the bottom left of the picture just above. Got them free from the neighbours' wood pile, enough to make all my stairs and then a couple of 6x9 holders to boot.

All my window flashing arrived this week too. Turns out the roofing place are worse with a tape measure than me, and NONE of their measurements are correct. Thankfully there is more than I need, not less, so just another annoying tin snip and angle grinder with cut off blade exercise. Took it in to get them to fix one (it was 1220mm, meant to be 605mm..!) and it took them forever and they were cutting by hand so I gave up before they could cut the rest.

Better go finish putting up this building paper so I can put the tarp on the roof. My flatmate's dad is coming over in a few weeks and has offered to install my roof - yay! Already at 4.2m, the walls are too high for me to work on easily so I'm glad to have some professional help from someone who knows what they are doing!! Okay better get back to work. JAYA JAGANNATHA!

Third wall mostly finished

I got sunburnt laying out the framing. I also got very very frustrated, given that my roof pitch was calculated off a miscalculation.. But anyway, the wall was finally nailed - with all the parts, some of which are still missing from this pic.

So one wall to go, which will be easier now I have this one to copy - I'm even using the same window framing just to make it easier, I gave up on the original configuration after I realised how mental the framing was to scale. I also forgot that my pricing still has to include 16 sheets of ply (of which I bought two 6mm sheets today and have some free 4mm sheets but I think maybe only three?) and paint. I got 8L of undercoat for $36 and 4L topcoat for $25 - mistints are awesome bargains when they are 50% off also! So adding those costs, I'm at $2808, and so approximately $3200 for the total build - flashing will be about 100 and the ply sheets will be about 200 max.

WHAT A CATASTROPHE!

I'm glad I started with the easy walls first. My measurements were pretty okay. I mismeasured the jack studs as I had considered using 2x4 lintels and door headers, but I used 2x ceiling battens. So that meant they were about 30mm too short!! Since I had some spare offcuts (and my king studs measured okay) we butted the offcuts down the bottom to make up the length.

Both the front and back walls are together so this pic isn't great. The random offcuts nailed in is just to keep it square before it's moved up on the trailer. The problems started when I went from theoretical to practical with the left and right walls. First, I screwed up the roof pitch by measuring the full 4m instead of only 3.2m. That meant that not only were all my angles completely off, but the wall studs were all about 150mm off also.

Having the windows handy meant I could place them, double check jack and cripple heights, check the stud horizontal placement and then start trying to fix my bung measurements. Currently I'm waiting for my dad to appear with the skill saw so I can cut everything (again) and place them, nail what I can then measure what I don't have. Which is only a few studs, and now I realise why having surplus wood is better than having less. I'll probably end up with enough spare to make a deluxe chicken coop - maybe to match my house as I will have spare metal cladding also!

I haven't even begun cutting anything for the loft floor, I have probably enough 300x50s I could use, or 100x50 if I get desperate - it's only $2.90/lineal metre. But if I can use the 300x50 cut down to 150x50, I may not have to spend the extra $30 - it depends on my rafters. I have about 3 6m lengths of 100x50 to cut to roof width - but width is 2130... meaning I can only get two lengths per total length. Oooh but then I will have just enough to do the loft floor. Okay sounds like I will need extra 100x50.. Maybe I can talk dad into ripping down the 300x50 into 100x50... I have a feeling he will say no. Anyway I will jump that hurdle when it is in front of me.

I've also realised I can use the space above the large desk window (I'm talking king studs and jacks here, not that the window headers are load bearing more than my bed!) to support some more supporting 100x50s for the loft cantilever - where the bed sticks out it currently has uhh no support at all. It will have side support from the wall studs but my plans don't allow for anything underneath (!!) as I figured the back wall will support it enough. I don't think that it won't, but more I can take a couple of extra precautions - galv angle brackets and the 100x50 angled bracing. It also means my wall cladding will take on a more spaceship kind of feel. Which is awesome, I love spaceships.

Yesterday I spent $108 buying strap bracing and wire dogs so I'm waiting to hear when I can pick that up, can't really cover the walls with builders paper until I strap it. I also spent $120 on the 6m lengths of 100x50 and some window seal - $25 for 25m, that's half the price of the cheapest 150mm width rolls!

That means my total build cost is $2708, not including any interior furnishings (except the kitchen sink!) and thats also not including solar panel, deep cycle battery and small inverter. So long as I don't need any more timber, that's all I've got left to buy. Better go cut some wood now.

Collecting, collecting, what more could I need?

I went shopping!! Two sheet sets, a duvet set, a shade roller blind thingy ( 40% off!!) a tumbler - which is my new bathroom tool kit - and an electric toothbrush for starters. None of these are in the shelves in the pic (which are going to be built into stairs) but I've started filling them to see what is useable and what isn't. 

So far I have issues with all my tees rolled up in one shelf as it looks a bit messy, but believe it or not, you are viewing 70% of my wardrobe right there.

 

Then I collected all my framing, put it on the trailer (now it has dried out properly) and went to work organising every piece to be cut - I'm using ceiling battens I got for $80 though there is some untreated there (..that cost $120 for less lineal metres!! My only regret so far budgetwise though). I'm missing the 2x4 framing I need for the back but I've decided to road trip and get it tomorrow so all the saw work can be done at once.

So all the lengths have been measured and marked, ticked off on the plans, then laid out to dry properly.  This is probably the hugest upside of living in a factory, being able to take over the large space in the weekend - though it won't be wide enough to make my framing in, so hopefully it's not raining when I get to that part. 

I've also just ordered some strap bracing and wire dogs - now I'm on the hunt for some tin snips. Every time I think of the metal wall cladding I think, "HOW LONG WILL THIS TAKE!?" as all my sheets are different lengths and will have to be handcut with snips or nibbler. The hire place up the road are charging the nibbler at $50 a day, and I can buy about four pairs of tin snips for that! Though I have a few angle grinder blades spare - I don't like using angle grinders as much since doing the trailer and the shards kept attacking pretty much everything around me, including my eyes - I wear glasses and safety glasses don't fit over the top... I'm also having a field day about flashing as I have to order it by next month and I have to measure the ribs in the cladding so I get the overhang correct. 

Time for bed, if tomorrow goes to plan I will have all my wood cut!

Reading gives one superpowers..

I made good use of the library online book request capabilities and got some books to help the build. First I got (and read) two books on basic framing. Then I read a book on natural house structures that utilized round beams as opposed to sawn lengths but that wasn't so helpful for a tiny home build.

I checked out Michael Janzen's Tiny House Floor Plans, but that wasn't so useful since I'd already come up with my working draft! His youtube tuturials did teach me how to use sketch up though!

I then read Tiny Houses, or at least browsed pictures for inspiration, and I found Tiny House Living super helpful for ideas and double checking what I've already done - ie make sure everything has a home!

I also found a few websites and pinterest collections which gave me great inspiration for using the small space that I have.. I have been collecting jars to nail under the kitchen shelf, and last week filled them with things I would generally use - couscous, cashews, nutritional yeast, pumpkin seeds, etc. Basically I will put everything that will fit into one, and see how long the shelf needs to be to accommodate all of them!

One concern I had - for a while - was the toilet. I don't have any bathroom features in my tiny home, and even my kitchen is minimal. I have a wooden box with a 15L tin can with lid inside, and I have a potty lid to go on top. The idea is, once full - or half full, or whenever I'm cold - I will place the can with lid on inside a fire (outside my house, obviously!!) which will combust it by pyrolysis and create BIO CHAR. Which is keeping the nutrients intact but getting rid of bacteria and smell, and I can add gorse to it and keep the nitrogen available without the worries of reseeding or replanting it. I love bio char.

In terms of showering, I will source a 12v shower unit online and use that with either solar heated water or just boiled on the gas burner. I really don't need much water for a shower, plus the largest flexitubs are a snug fit to stand in which then means I can do that inside, but when the weather is warm enough I can also shower outside too!!

I managed to score a 12v car vacuum for $5 or something and a car stereo for $14 with a couple of pairs of 6x9s - I'm building custom boxes for them with the same units I'm using to build my storage stairs.

There are lots of minor details I haven't got into yet, but I'll get to them when I build them - which is hopefully one at a time!! In the meantime I still have to wire up the lights. Maybe I'll do that today.

Finished Floor

Kitchen bench in place with chalked design showing window and door spacing.

Collecting Parts

This has been probably my favourite part so far: finding and re-purposing wood, junk and waste. I was lucky to have the inorganics do the rounds just after I'd finished my first draft design (on the first post) and picked up a LOT of insulation. Mostly used pink batts but a lot of polystyrene sheets also. I bought 6 1060x440 aluminium framed windows for $26 and two 1800x1200 windows for $11 - I'm only using one but I'm keeping the other in case one breaks. The boat building place down the road chucked out a heap of 260x330 wooden boxes, which I'm using to build my stairs. I picked up a free desk top and kitchen bench top, and a sink (about 300x400x180) for only $30 new. 

I found the door search online was harder than I thought - exterior doors were too heavy and interior too light. I ended up buying a thin and narrow backdoor for $1 - complete with three frosted windows and a cat flap and working lock and key!!

I scored $80 worth of ceiling battens which will do the majority of the internal framing, and $60 got me a bunch of 12mm ply sheets (270x2440) which does the floor plus loft area! 

For exterior cladding I wanted something like shadowclad but it was too far out of my budget - and I wanted to use as much reclaimed materials as possible. I did manage to score a 9mm treated ply sheet for $27 though. I ended up buying a few bulk lots of roofing to use for both roof and walls, both trimline and corrugated iron. Cost me about $240 for all of it and I can get a good price ($10 plm NEW) up the road if I need any more. 

I got two rolls of self supporting building paper with one of the roof lots, and the builder I'm currently working with has given me foil building paper and angle brackets. Someone dumped wood at the reserve near my house so I reclaimed some 6x2 H4 lengths and built my subfloor for free. Well okay it cost me $4 in extra bolts. This weekend dad helped me build the subfloor, pictured, and we added some extra battens for ply support. 

I've used 8x106 coach screws pretty much everywhere, and a couple of 8x75 bolts to join it to the metal uprights left at 150mm from the side rails, which meant I didn't weaken the integrity of the metal chassis. I got pretty excited after finishing the

subfloor and had all the equipment to do the floor so I managed to talk dad into a full weekend of work.. and now the floor has been wrapped and fitted with ply. Some people had told me to glue the ply down but I'm using 38mm square drive screws every 400mm, so it seemed overkill. 

Foil wrapped and ready for ply.

Starting at the beginning..

I need to have a tiny house, and I am glad I also want one. Tiny means I don't take up too much space, and can't make too much mess. I have more room for gardens and pastures for moos, which is my ultimate goal. But to own land ASAP? That's why I need this. No rent costs, no house build or renovation costs once I buy land, and of course no debt.

I started by working out what I wanted in a trailer and what I could afford. Basically, I was looking at a second hand tandem. I didn't want single axle as the max weight loads are so different, and usually they are quite narrow. I found a new galvanized box tandem trailer would set me back $2500 so I wanted to spend about half that, and found one for $1200 on TradeMe with current WOF and rego. HOWEVER the guy that sold it to me had swapped the wof and rego from a decent condition trailer and put them onto this one.. After spending the morning chopping his tree down to get the trailer out we drove off hurriedly to get some cleaning work done on a roof before it started pouring down. It wasn't until dad and I were back home  we thought to get the WOF a second opinion.

It failed on a number of things - the worst being the structural rust on the chassis and dead leaf springs, as well as four dead tyres. This was turning into a nightmare already. Anyway we contacted the guy I bought it off - I'd only paid $900 so far and said I wasn't willing to pay the extra due to the condition, but this email was a lot less friendly. He'd moved away and wasn't answering phone calls or emails by this stage, unsurprisingly.. We did luck out when looking into legal options .. small claims would cost $45 but would give me a better outcome than owning a dud trailer. I got in touch with the guy who had originally passed its WOF. He looked at the trailer and said he'd never seen it before, and the guy is pretty dodgy so small claims wouldn't end up as fruitful as initially hoped.  He also explained he didn't want to be dragged through the court, living rurally it's a pain in the ass. So he'd help by sourcing trade prices for suspension and fitting, and get a cheap welder on board.

Two weeks and $600 later I picked up the trailer and took it to town to fit truck tyres. This cost $200 for tyres AND fitting. Then I ripped off the decking while dad used up a couple of angle grinder blades ripping down the side rails and taking off the back tailgate. I bought an awesome wire brush attachment for the angle grinder and went to work, though it was harder than anticipated as I kept getting rust flakes flying full speed at my face and eyes. Then I painted it with galv paint ($50 worth eventually, but it was spare from dad) then a solid coat of matte black epoxy enamel - the same as my car! Now she literally turns heads.

So I pretty much have an idea of design - the windows are a bit subject to change but the placement is set. I've had to learn 3D sketch up from scratch, which was harder than I expected but I've been using these as plans pretty much ever since. The only thing I haven't worked out is the placement of the toilet box.. which could possibly go under my desk? And I have yet to work out solar panel and battery / inverter placement. I've got a 60 LED worklight as a temporary light for indoor or outdoor use, which is 12v charged. Also have two blue neons which I'm not sure where they're going either.. And from previous experience in a shack without power I found the 240 LED solar fairy lights are AWESOME strung around the room for lighting before bed!