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!