Exterior 98% Complete!

Big day yesterday, BIG DAY!  Ken and I finished cutting the last siding panel.  Holy Toledo I thought this moment would never come!  Last spring I was hustling to make progress on La Cabanita between rain showers, desperately trying not to get all my materials soaked.  Then came the heat and intense summer sun beating down on the thin tar paper that shielded the wooden frame.  In an effort to preserve the tar paper's water proofness from degrading in the sun, I temporarily affixed all the metal siding panels to the walls.  And now, all too soon, the fall rains have arrived and I have a renewed interest in sealing the building envelope from the elements.                                                                                                                      It would have been real nice to seal everything while materials were warm and dry.  The task of caulking around windows, door, and trim represents the remaining 2% of the work to be completed on the exterior.  Unfortunately caulking adhesives tend to rebel against cold, damp surfaces, so barring an unexpected dry spell, I'm not sure when I'll be able to claim "100% Complete."   But it's quite a load off of my mind to know that very little water should be penetrating the building envelope at this stage.  A quick inspection of the unfinished walls inside confirm this.   

It was necessary to complete the finish work under the eaves before the siding was installed on the front and back of the house.  I used 3/8" thick cedar tongue and groove to accomplish the task.  Ken had recently scored the material for cheap at a neighbor's garage sale.  Beautiful stuff, it's amazing how such a simple detail enhances the aesthetic!

I never contemplated the practical nature of the eaves that overhang our shelters.  Eaves are a first defense against water finding its way inside a structure by providing a shadow over window and door openings where falling rain cannot reach.  I have very short eaves on La Cabanita due to road width restrictions, but even so, I was entertained recently by watching La Cabanita's eaves deflect rain water just far enough beyond the sides of the building that the tops of the window openings were dry.  This gives me comfort that my secondary measures for keeping the bones of the structure dry (vapor barrier, flashing, siding, caulking) won't get tested too rigorously.  Wind blown water can easily get under my short eaves though, so hopefully I'm in the clear.  The longer eave that I designed over the door will play an instrumental role in keeping the entry dry.  I plan to put another roof above the door to protect the entry and small deck (check out my design drawings).  Properly-designed eaves can also play an important role in controlling passive solar gain.  Yay eaves!

Slow Siding, More Windows

Ken and I have been slowly and steadily cutting siding and moulding to fit the windows.  It's looking great but it's a long process of placing panels, marking, measuring, cutting, replacing, marking, measuring, and fastening.  The placing and replacing of panels has lead to an excess of tentative screw holes, which undermines the integrity of the vapor barrier.   The process leaves me wishing that I had somehow created a more standard, predictable design with more straightforward assembly.  Without Ken's remarkable mind for visualizing the process several steps in advance my progress would be unfortunately slow.  The challenge is that the ridges of the siding align differently with the moulding around each window opening.  Sometimes we have to flatten part of the ridge if it conflicts with the moulding.  Once we had to cut a panel, shorten the distance between the ribs, and make the moulding for that window wider than the rest of the trim pieces.  Each siding panel seems to present a unique problem to solve and require some jerry-rigging (poor jerry) to accomplish the task.

We also finished installing all the windows...and there are a lot of them!  But all the light inside feels great.  I hope the larger ones don't crack with road vibration during the moving process.  Eek!  The trimmed out windows with the barn siding look pretty slick.

With the completion of the siding within sight, my attention is beginning to turn to the overwhelming details of finishing the interior, and especially piping in utilities and appliances.  What method should I use to heat the space?  What sort of range/oven should I get?  How should I wire the house?  Do I plan for solar now?  How many lights and sockets should I have and where?  Shower?  Plumbing?  Refrigerator?  I will continue to strive for simplicity and flexibility as I answer these questions.  Function is most important now; Efficiency and aesthetics can come later when I have some experience in the space and more knowledge.

With a kick in the pants from Laurel, I installed a loft awhile ago.  Due to an error in my design, I had to compress the height of the loft a few inches, which increased the headroom of the living space below.  It's fun visiting the loft and looking out the window that I designed in, especially when it's raining.

I've also finished installing the earthquake tie downs in each corner of the building.  These engineered brackets bolt the 2x4 frame to the steel frame of the trailer.

A New Key Appears On My Ring

September 1, 2014:  What a productive day!  For weeks I have been stalling on buying three more windows and a door.  I went back and forth between new and used and kept checking craigslist.  I got a quote on new windows and the total was going to be about $800 for three windows.  Gah!  It seemed such a shame to spend that kind of green on my first handmade home when there are used windows popping up on craigslist daily (many of them in new condition).  Unfortunately I had gotten ahead of myself and framed the window openings before I had all the windows in hand.  This strategy may force me into buying a new window or painstakingly undoing framing to accommodate a more affordable used window.  Lesson:  If you are building a micro house on a budget, buy all your windows used before you finalize your design and framing.

I got lucky today and bought a door and a window that are perfect sizes for my rough openings.  And tomorrow I expect to buy my most exciting BIG window for $60 used instead of $400 plus dollars new (with a 2 week wait).  Hopefully by tomorrow I will only need to find one more window.

Also I'm excited to announce that as of today my home has a door!  With the instrumental help of Ken, we installed the door in less than an hour.  If you're interested in the process...read further:

First of all, I wasn't just searching for any old door.  Initially I had wanted to use a door from the Habitat Restore or Rebuilding Center, but many of these doors do not come "pre-hung," that is, attached to the door jamb.  I learned that one can purchase a jamb kit from a place like home depot, but that may not be as simple as it seems.  According to a few folks I called, "nothing is standard about doors," which was surprising to hear.  Each door can be pretty particular about how it hangs on the door frame.  Anyway, I decided to begin looking for a used door with its door jamb still intact.  Furthermore, I was seeking a 30" wide by 80" tall exterior door (a not-so-common size for an exterior door).  It also needed to swing inward to the left, so that I didn't block access to my "mudroom" on the right side of the entry.

Once I found the door, we first considered the total thickness of the wall. With 1/2" plywood sheathing on the outside of a 2x4 wall and 1/2" sheet rock on the inside, most doors built for 2x4 walls have a jamb that is 4.5" thick.  My finish material on the inside was going to be thinner, so we disassembled the jamb, ripped down the pieces on the table saw and then reassembled it.  The purpose of having the jamb the same thickness of the wall is so that the moulding (finish material) around the door lays flat against the wall. Then, we carefully hung the door on the hopelessly floppy frame and carefully placed the assembly in the rough opening of the doorway.   Next we placed shims between the door jamb and rough opening framing and adjusted so that the frame was plumb and also flush with the walls.  Using 16 penny, galvanized finish nails, we nailed through the jamb at the shimmed areas and into to the framing.  We wanted to ensure that the hinges were well secured to the framing for a sturdy, long-lasting installation.  Now we could open the door and verify that it was swinging properly on its hinges.  With the door in the right position, we set to making the gap between the door slab and jamb consistent around the whole perimeter using shims.  The threshold (sloping metal piece at the bottom of the door) and top piece of the door jamb do not get attached to the framing.  Retained!?!

This is not an incredibly attractive door for my house, but the price was right for now.  When I find the right door (left-swing, 30"x80", wood, window in the upper half), I'll just swap out the old one when I like!

The Show Must Go On! Roofing and Siding

Hi friends!  I haven't been able to make much progress on the micro house over the last few months.  The micro house wasn't in moveable condition by the time I had to report to work in Washington.  So I decided I would travel to Portland during my weekends to continue work on the project.  Two months later and I've barely spent any time on the project.  Fruit harvest and preservation season has been too compelling to ignore!

Before I moved to Washington, Ken and I placed tar paper over all surfaces to protect the plywood.  Then the vapor barrier also needed protection from the sun and rain for my unpredictable length of absence so we decided to temporarily place the siding panels. 

Quite a lot of figuring was involved in this seemingly simple step because we wanted to attach the panels in such a way that we could remove them a few at a time to cut window openings and then put them right back in place.  We cut a finish piece called a "bullnose" to cover

the tops of the panels and cut all panels to length using a tin snips and occasionally an angle grinder for trimming down the width of a panel.  We also predetermined how to cut the end panels so that corner moulding could be placed effectively.  The progress went quickly once we got started.  The down side is that I will have do the work twice, but I just didn't have all the windows, flashing, moulding, and door figured out in time for the hasty departure.

As predicted, all the metal was a bit overwhelming, but after Ken and I installed the first window with moulding, I was satisfied with the look.  Now...order a few more windows, buy barn siding flashing, build fenders, install windows, cut siding, install a door, screw down all the siding, earthquake and hurricane ties, put in a few more screws in pieces that might catch wind on the road, put on the tires, check lights and brakes, check weight, get a moving permit, and then it should be good to transport.  Easy, easy....uhg!



Raising The Roof

 I don't know where I would be without the assistance of Nate's Pa's help.  Ken has been very generously sharing his time and expertise in helping me place a bonafide roof on La Cabanita.  He's been showing me various methods of ironing out and/or cleverly concealing my mistakes.  For example, my roof framing wasn't quite plumb, so Ken showed me how to create a "kicker."  Essentially we attached one end of a long 2x4 to the ridge beam and braced the other end against the floor.  Ken pulled down on the center of the 2x4 to create a bow in the board while I screwed the floor end to the deck.  When Ken released the bow, the board attempted to straighten and pushed all the rafters into a more plumb alignment in the process.  You would have had to have been there...exciting stuff!  Afterward we had an easier time breaking the plywood seams on the rafters.  Throughout the process of finishing the roof, Ken was integral in breaking the material efficiently on the rafters and optimizing structural integrity.

We tackled the roof in this order:  soffit, fascia, sheeting, drip flashing, vapor barrier, metal roofing, ridge cap.  I hope my vapor barrier will stand the test of time.  My architect friend suggested I use Tyvek on the walls and a product called Shark Skin on the roof.  In the end I went "old school" and rolled out some 15 Lb tar paper that I'd already stockpiled.  Tar paper was standard construction at some point, but now some of these breathable vapor barriers are the norm.  I'll have to monitor the build up of moisture in my tiny house and make adjustments as needed.  One of the advantages of the micro house is that repairs/upgrades should be relatively cheap due to the small amount of materials required.  

I'm repurposing this old barn siding that I purchased on craigslist to clad La Cabanita.  It was in pretty good condition until I left it sitting in the yard for a couple months.  Ken called my attention to some badly rusted areas and we determined that the rust spots were due to a "galvanic corrosion."  Turns out that when two dissimilar metals touch, one metal begins eating away at the other.  In my case, the metal washers from the old fasteners adhered to the sheets after they were removed from the barn.  When the sheets were stacked in my yard for a couple months, the dissimilar metal of the washer began corroding my metal roofing, a serious bummer indeed.  It may take many years for these areas to rust through and create leaks however.

If you look closely at the picture to the left, you'll see the better side of my friend Laurel.  At this point Laurel has spent more nights in La Cabanita than I!  When she visited me in Portland she insisted on camping out in the cabin.  In the photo she was helping me drill holes for the earthquake ties.  More on that later.  Thanks Laurel!




Unfortunately, I've got to keep this update short.  There's a new sense of urgency in working on La Cabanita.  Summer is here and it's hay-making season.  It's true, I recently helped my Ma and Pa put some hay into their barn, but that's not what I'm talking
about.  Summer is a busy time for work and food production.  I will be moving to the San Juan Islands within the week to work on a farm.  I plan to come down to Portland during my time off to continue progress on La Cabanita, but for now,  the unfinished walls of the micro house must be somewhat protected from the elements in my absence.  This will probably mean temporarily placing my siding.  I'll use the metal barn siding because I already have it and because it will be relatively convenient to install and uninstall.  With the roof being clad with the same material, I'm hoping this won't make for an offensive aesthetic.  With any luck my house will be in transportable condition sometime mid-summer and I can begin living in it in the San Juan Islands.




Below is an example of a micro house clad from head to toe in metal siding.  This design, dubbed the "XS House" by Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., is no longer in production.  Thankfully, my siding isn't as reflective.

Ticking Away

She's really starting to come together.  The rafters are nicely lined up like so many ribs on a whale.  Notice the stubby rafter tails.  I'm not able to have much of an overhang running the length of the trailer due to the 8'6" road width restriction.  With the trailer being 14' in length, I decided to install a pair of fly rafters on either end to support a one foot overhang, which extends the trailer length to 16' overall.  By doing this I'll have a little overhang protecting the door opening and window above the loft and I'll be making use of the full length of plywood sheets.    

Now that the framing phase is more-or-less complete, there are dozens of details to tick away at.  I need to figure out how to cut plywood to sheet the triangle of space on the gable end walls.  I'll also have to figure out how to finish the rafter ends before I put plywood on the roof.  Should I cut bird blocking or make a soffit?  And then there are mysterious siding and window details that need to be determined to keep the home building progress rolling along.

Today I set to figuring out how to frame around the wheel wells.  I was worrying over it, but it actually went together pretty smoothly.  So far I'm glad I decided not to have fenders installed on my trailer.  In my opinion, the fender openings have been a weak point in the design of many micro houses that I've observed.  The factory-installed fenders appear to create conduits for moisture, vermin, insects, and air to work on the structure.  There are probably some clever solutions that I just haven't seen yet.  With my design, I will have to fabricate a fender at some point.  I'm still not clear on the details of that, but after Nate showed me how to work sheet metal into desirable shapes for the undercarriage, I feel confident that I can do something similar for the wheel wells.

I may be finding my stride with the construction process.  Whereas before I was obsessing over decisions and overly concerned about putting things together with perfection, these days I've been approaching building with a little more calm and acceptance of a certain amount of error in the process.  The solutions to the framing problems I've encountered have mostly been intuitive.  I hope this continues to be the case!

I've been steadily nailing off my sheeting when I feel like beating metal spikes into wood with a manly mallet.  Sinking nails can be a pretty satisfying activity.  These days the art of swingin' a hammer is giving way to the efficiency of pneumatic nail guns.  With the meager size of my mansion though, I could indulge my old school tendencies.  You can see by the photo, it isn't always smooth sailing.  Sometimes I was inexplicably off, leading me to pull mangled, half-sunken spikes with embarrassing frequency.  Look at that total airball that I imprinted into the plywood for all to see.  And look at that blood blister on my finger!  It was hot and I got sloppy.   Other times the pounding never stopped.  I was like a machine I tell you...a machine!  I thank middle school table tennis tournaments for the hand-eye coordination.  

I decided not to glue my sheeting to the studs at this point in time.  I'm using 8d galvanized nails at about 6" on the edges and 8" in the field.  If I feel like the walls need more rigidity in the future, I might run some sort of construction adhesive or thickened epoxy down the inside of the studs at a later date.  A lot of folks are "screwing and gluing" their walls.  I have a tough time with that because I like the notion that I can deconstruct the materials if I need to.  Maybe it won't pan out but I'm an idealist.  

The quality of fasteners seems to vary a lot.  Initially I bought my 8d nails from the hardware store in bulk.  I went with "common" rather than "box" nails because I reasoned the former were thicker and would both bend less going in and provide more shear strength.  It didn't work out so well for some reason.  I bent a lot of them, used them up, and returned for more.  The second time around I went contractor-style and purchased a 50lb box of 8d galvanized "box" nails, which I bicycled home with great difficulty (not recommended).  These went in easier and I wasted very few.  I felt manlier too!  I even took my shirt off at one point and got into it (that is until the neighbor complained of the glare coming off my chest).  Galvanized probably aren't necessary.  I was thinking holding power and rust protection.  

A shout out to the humble impact driver.  What a work horse!  I now sleep with mine under my pillow.  These little guys make a terrible noise but are capable of great torque with minimal effort.  Screws are much more expensive than nails and, as I understand, they provide better holding power than nails but less shear strength.  I decided to frame with a robust 3" coated deck screw.  I'm glad I did because with the number of mistakes I make, I can use my impact driver to quickly assemble and disassemble framing without inflicting the sort of damage that sinking and removing nails can cause.  For the lonely carpenter, an impact driver can also act as a third hand.  By starting a screw in the material, and then placing the piece with one hand and screwing it in with the other, I'm able to work through those awkward moments when another humanoid is unavailable to help.

Oh!...a final tip:  leave the Phillip's head screws on the shelf for Grandpa to use.  Go with star drive.  They strip out less and take much less energy to push into the material.  They are simply a joy to use, again and again and again.

Big Sticks Into Smaller Sticks

I've been framing my home in recent days.  Cutting big sticks into smaller sticks and attaching them is fairly straightforward and satisfying.  It's fun to see my Google Sketchup design pop into a tangible, 3-D shelter.  The wind is already being cut by my walls and the rain is diverted by my temporary roof leaving the area below dry and protected.  Shelter is a lovely thing!

Nate is examining my unconventional framing plan.  Studs are placed 24" on center and I avoided king and trimmer studs as much as possible to continue trimming weight.  I used Simpson Header Hangers to support window openings.  Nate's pa pointed out that I ended up sacrificing some lateral stability by not using full length studs around some of the window openings.  I'll get by, but if I did it again I probably wouldn't frame in this manner.  It took too long, and the measurements didn't even come out very accurate in the end, and I probably didn't save all that much weight.  This unknown question of weight is a bit of pain.  Perhaps it is worth it to get the 10,000 pound trailer or to build much smaller.  I'll let you know when I weigh this thing on a truck scale at some point.  My concern over weight could be all for not, though cutting weight also means shaving materials and cost.  

I also made the mistake of not starting with full length plates that spanned the wheel wells.  Full plates would have made measurements more consistent, accurate, and fast.  Cutting the unnecessary parts out later would have been a breeze.  

Even for the two of us (as meaty as we are) the walls were awkward and heavy to raise.  I assembled each frame on the leveled trailer deck with screws, sheeted it and tipped it up.  You can see the temporary bracing we employed to keep from being squished while we made adjustments.  A huge thank you to Nate for assisting me with the wall raising, leveling and plumbing everything.  How lucky I am to have such awesome friends!  

 The other three walls made the deck too crowded to tip up the final wall safely.  We each took a shot of whiskey (not) and heaved the frame onto the trailer and commenced sheeting it upright.

 In all its glory...maybe I'll just use these tarps as my permanent siding.  I need to keep the kiln dried lumber reasonably dry.  Getting it wet can mean pesky warping and cracking.  Plywood can de-laminate if it gets soaked and then cooked by the sun.  Also keeping water off the insulated floor is critical as it would be tough at this point to drive out moisture from the sealed space below the deck. 

Rafters intimidated me initially--with the angles, overhangs, and bird's mouth cuts--but they actually went pretty smoothly.  Perhaps I got lucky?  I used Google Sketchup to model them and transferred dimensions from screen to board using a carpenter's square.  My roof pitch is an odd 7.25:12, meaning 7.25" of rise for 12" of run.  This provides me with three feet of headroom off the mattress in the loft .  My success was probably mostly due to Nate, who helped demystify the process.  He was also instrumental in helping me square, plumb, and level the walls, which helps the whole structure come together tightly (well...mostly tight).  Looking forward to nice weather this weekend to unwrap everything to sheet the roof and nail off all the plywood.

My house is bloody tall!  If I did it again, I might go with a little longer trailer with a lowered storage/sleeping loft.  Also, Nate's pa showed off his truck bed camper to me recently and we discussed how campers, as well as boats, are engineered to be both strong and light.  I wish I knew more about the construction methods of these types of shelters.  Using traditional framing on a trailer seems a little excessive sometimes.  Framing with 2x3's instead of 2x4's may be a good compromise.  Lots of considerations for a mere mortal.  Building simple and cheaply is important for an amateur builder with little supervision such as myself.  I like the idea that I can keep modifying the structure as I learn more and improve my skills, all without too much monetary investment.  As it is, I think I've gotten a little carried away in the size and cost of the house, however, forward momentum is also good.