One month and counting

Today I have been living in my house for exactly a month. A lot has happened in that time. After the first couple of warmish nights, it got bitterly cold again. For a while I didn't spend much time in my house except for when I was sleeping. I was warm in my bed, but waking up in sub 20 degree weather was always hard. As the days got warmer, the sun finally melted the snow. My front door is now 30 some inches from the ground because my snow-steps have vanished. As the ground thawed on the south side of the house, the whole thing started to list towards the sun as the wheels sank into the ground.

Setting up the new space!

The positive side of having a tarp for a roof is that I have been lucky enough to hear all of the sounds of spring. Spring snowmelt has created a river somewhere behind my house. I experienced the brightest moon in the past 18 years. There has been a progression of various birds chirping in the morning. Raccoons are chattering. Two nights ago the spring peepers started peeping! This year I am connected to Spring in a way that I have not been before.

On the construction front, not much has changed judging by looks of the house, but I have been working. At the Firehouse things have been moving in a more musical direction. The first floor was no longer a good spot for a woodshop. I would have to put my tools away constantly for shows, and people were getting sick of my mess and the dust. With perfect timing a new opportunity arose though. I am now sharing a 1,600 square foot shop with a group of people. It has heat, great light, a freight train that rattles the windows every hour and more space than I know what to do with! It will be a great place to finish up my house and work on some very exciting projects.

Roof panels ready for sheathing and paneling

A couple of weeks ago  finally buckled down and finished designing my roof. I planned out the remaining materials I would need, the size of the skylights and the layout of the framing and panel system. A trip to Larry for 2x4s, a trip to Howe lumber for shiplap pine, and I have what I need to finish the roof (minus some copper)! With the new shop, I have rediscovered the time of the day between 9pm and 2am, my most productive time. I don't really know what it is about the night that is so conducive to work for me. Maybe it is because I don't feel like I am wasting nice days working inside? It could be that it is easier to loose track of time and get lost in a project without the sun to judge time. Fewer distractions? Lots of coffee and loud music. No, it must just be that the freight train is more frequent. In any case, I spent many nights setting up the new shop and then over a couple of nights I framed up my roof panels. Last night I laid out all of the shiplap pine in preparation for painting. Like the siding, I am going to prime it on all sides before I install it. From the inside, my ceiling will be painted pine boards. I decided to paint it to brighten the interior and provide some contrast to all of the wood.

A day in the office

Now that the ground is thawed, I would like to put in some sort of footings and try to level and lower the house by removing the wheels from the trailer.

Woah.

I am still trying to figure out what happened two nights ago. It was a rainy sloppy evening. There were still piles of snow everywhere and puddles of lake sized proportions. I remember deciding to walk down to check on the tarp, just to make sure there were no leaks. The next thing I remember was carrying sheets of plywood down the snowy path. The extra weight of the plywood was just enough to make every step break the icy crust of the snow sending me 18 inches down to the frozen ground. After tossing the wet plywood onto the loft joists, I was suddenly wrestling a futon mattress down the hill. Before I knew it, I had vacated my old room in the warm house and was fairly well settled in my little house. It must have been the combination of the relatively work temperatures (about 55 degrees) and the enticing sound of the rain pattering on the tarped roof. I guess I'm committed now.

The first night was great! It was dry, although a bit humid inside. I was really wishing I had the stove hooked up. Going to sleep in my house gave me a strange sort of feeling of ownership that I have not felt before. For the past few years this has been a project, not a home. As I was lying in my bed listening to the rain, I realized that this is a place I will enjoy for a very long time in some way or another. Unlike past rental spaces, any work I do on this will not be lost. This house will travel with me if I decide to move. I am sure that some day I will be living in a bigger house, but I imagine that this will still be on the property as a guest house.

Yes. I own a house. In many senses this does not have the same meaning as when most people say that they own a house. I think of owing a house a a step towards being a responsible adult. It requires more taxes, expenses, a mortgage. I don't feel like an adult (nor do I really want to). I don't feel responsible in that sense. These things all feel more like weights to carry around. Some day I will probably have to give into these things, but for now I am happy reaping all of the satisfactions of owning a home without the responsibilities.

As always, I am excited!

Email mixup

Hey everyone,
Just a quick note- a friend just informed me that my email link on the right hand side of the page has been sending my emails to someone else. If you sent me an email and I didn't respond, I probably didn't get it. Everything is fixed now though!

A door

Salvaged hardware from the firehouse

I can't believe it has been a month since the last post. It has been a month full of snow. It seems that every weekend and mid week, we were getting slammed with a blizzard. The three feet of snow on the ground is beautiful but my back and shoulders have been sore from constantly shoveling paths, driveways and roofs. Roofs have been collapsing all over Massachusetts from the snow load but I have been watching the snow slide right off of my tarped roof with a smirk on my face. Who ever thought that flat roofs were a good idea? I am happy with my 16 in 12 pitch.

Filler piece with a sloped lap joint to keep the weather out 

Unfortunately I need to do some more work before I can buy the materials to finish my roof. In the meantime, I did work on my front door. You may remember that the door I am using was too wide and too short for the jamb. It was easy enough to cut the width down, but I didn't get a chance to build up the height. It was cut in half, with the plan to make it a dutch door. I ended up joining a piece to the top of the bottom half of the door, with a sloped top and rabbit to make a weather tight seal. Most of my time was spent patching holes from previous locks. Each hole had to be squared up with a chisel and then filed with  a plug cut out of similar wood. It was a time consuming process, but enjoyable work in the comfort of my shop.

Each hole is chiseled square

People ask if it would have been easier to start from scratch. It may have been. I love the character of the beat up old wood though. There are so many dings and holes that each have a story unknown to me. I will strip the inside face of the door and put a clear finish on it to show off the wood. The exterior will be painted for longevity.

A plug is glued in

There were so many...

I found a box of old hardware that came out of the firehouse. I want to incorporate as much of that into the house that I can. I even found the old brass house numbers from the front door- 126. They will go on my door as a homage to where the house was built.

The plugs are cut down then planed flush

Door installed, ready for stripping and painting

Snow!

I am happy to say that the house survived its first inclement weather. We moved it down there just in time! At the time I am writing this, we have had nearly two feet of snow and it is still coming down! I was worried last night that the wind and snow would rip the tarp I have over the roof, but it was steep enough that no snow collected on it. When I shoveled my way down to the house to check  on it this morning, it was dry and cozy inside even though the wind was blowing hard enough to shake the thing on its springs.  I will definitely have to put some sort of footings in the ground when the earth thaws this spring. I am excited that the space feels so comfortable and that I have  perfect scenery out of all my windows!

Short video of move

Tiny House Moving Day (Ode to teamwork) from pvander on Vimeo.


Thank you Paula for filming this!

House moving recap

It finally happened! I almost can't believe that I am saying it, but the house is nestled down in the woods, with the rafters installed and a tarp fixed over it, ready to ward off the noreaster forecasted to bring twenty inches of snow to Massachussets. The move ended up taking two days, even with well over twenty people helping.

Day One:

The first break I had was when the pending snow storm shied away from Worcester. We ended up having a gorgeous day, sunny and in the mid 20's. As people started to show up around nine, it seemed that everyone found something to do. I was amazed to look at my to do list and find that every single item was crossed off by ten. We were ready to go! At that point, more and more people were showing up and by the time the ramps and come-a-longs were in place we had the critical mass necessary to start the slide. The front end of the house was nestled into steel tracks attached to the trailer and the rear sat on dollies. Two of us slowly pulled the house along with the winches while others kept the rear end moving straight. Those who couldn't find a spot on the house monitored everything, looking for problems. All in all, it went very smoothly and in under an hour we had the house entirely on the trailer.

The next few hours were spent on details. We had to bolt the house to the trailer, strap it down, put the rear wheels back on (they were taken off to make the trailer lower to the ground) and make sure everything looked safe.

FInally we were ready to go! I cautiously pulled out of the driveway, house in tow, bracing for the worst. I knew that there was a hospital halfway down the hill if necessary, and a busy highway at the bottom to make sure that if there was a failure, it would be complete. Would the welds on the trailer hold? Would the bolts pull out? Hopefully the brakes would work. Would it just tip over at the first glimpse of the hill we had to descend? As I nervously looked in my rear view mirror, the house was sitting steady and level. There was no bouncing, tipping or catastrophic noise! With this fist test under my belt, myself with the house, two trucks with flashing lights, several cars and a moped carrying a wide load sign started down the hill.

In true Worcester style, someone pulled out on me at the hospital, with only inches to spare before a collision. I almost sent him right back to where he came from, but on less favorable terms. You would think that a truck towing a twelve foot high red house would be visible right? Oh well, at least we made it.

Besides the turned heads and outstretched fingers all along highland street, the next part of the trip was uneventful. However, in the next mile, I hit a pothole, heard some of those bad noises I was expecting earlier followed by lots of excited chattering through the walkie-talkie from the truck following me. I did a once over when I bought the trailer, fixing the brakes, repacking the bearings and looking for potential problems. What I missed however were a couple of rusted nuts on the U-bolts holding the rear axle to the springs. That pothole finally did them in, and I almost lost the rear axle with them. The caravan stopped, and we all surveyed the damage. Not bad, considering. We were in a convenient place to stop and the house was still upright.

Again, this a point where I cant thank my friends enough. A few of us stayed with the truck, braving the bitter cold as the sun dropped behind Airport Hill. A few others scattered to scour whatever stores were open on a sunday evening for the necessary parts. A couple of people went back to the firehouse to fabricate a replacement for the rusted out steel plate that the bolts clamp to. Somehow in all of this, a few more people manage to deliver hot lunch and cookies. All I had to do was sit and wait, and act as dispatch for a bit on the cell phone. When the parts arrived, we had the thing jacked up, repaired and back on the road within ten minutes. The rest of the drive was done at a very slow speed.

I cant tell you how relived I was when I finally pulled into the driveway! We fumbled with a tarp for a few minutes, but soon abandon it for the comfort of more food and a fire inside. What a day!

Day Two:
With the first part of the journey over, I woke up early thinking about the next step: getting it down into the woods. There is an old farm path that goes about half way to the site, but it has not been used for a while. I did some clearing of trees and debris a few weeks ago, but there were still many stumps, logs and rocks in the way. To make matters more difficult, they were all frozen into the ground. A digging bar and Peavey took care of most of the stuff, but for the bigger or more stubborn pieces I cinched a chain around them and mercilessly yanked them out with my truck. With the path satisfactorily cleared, all I had to worry about was the steep grade in one section, the snow and wether or not I could actually snake the thing around the curves in the path. I knew that backing the 8000 pound house and trailer up if it got stuck would not be an option.

I had to have another cup of coffee before I finally worked up the courage up to attempt the journey. With two spotters I started down the slippery first slope. Perfect. Next came the bottleneck between the barn and a big rock that would not budge. Not a problem. Then a little S-curve. Successful. Those were all of the tough spots I was worrying about. The rest was flat and straight, although a bit narrow and the final spot was in sight.

Just as I was letting out a huge sigh of relief, Drew shouted to stop. There was a tree leaning a little too far over the path. The truck made it by without trouble, but the house was too tall and wouldn't clear it. I was only about a foot away from it and as expected i could not back up. Nothing a chainsaw couldn't take care of though. Next the trailer encountered the very edge of a rock that was just too big for it to hop over. It took a lot of wiggling back and forth to get the trailer to clear it, but we finally made it. Now we were in the clearing about five feet from where the house needed to be and I ran up against a pallet that was frozen into the ground under the snow. So close yet so far... Finally we got if free, the house in place and the truck out of the way. I spent the rest of the evening with Anne and Drew putting the roof framing into place and enclosing the building with tarps before the snow comes.

There is still a lot of work to do before I am actually living in the place, but it feels so good to at least have it outside! Again, I can't thank all of the people enough who have helped me out with this project over the years, especially in the past few days. Because of people like this, I am still living in Worcester. Thanks!

A call for help:

Sunday is the day! The long awaited house moving! Bring your winches, rollers, pulleys, levers and cameras!

The day's plan is looking like this: I will have the trailer set and waiting by nine am, ready for the house. As people start showing up we will winch the house onto the trailer. (sounds so simple, right?) Once it is secured, we will start the journey across the city to its new home. There is a little more clearing that we will need to do on the path, and then we can attempt to drive it down into the woods. We will finish the day by dropping the rafters and purlins in place and throwing a tarp over the open roof.

So, I am inviting anyone interested over to help, observe or heckle. If you have been following the project but haven't actually seen it yet, this is a perfect time to check it out. Meet at the firehouse at 9am on Sunday, January 9th. If you need more info or directions, feel free to shoot me an email.

Thanks!
~Ian

Trailer is ready

I finished the trailer yesterday. Today I will bolt the steel runners onto the house and pick away at all of the other details in preparation for the move. I am very happy with how the design is working out for the trailer, but am a little concerned about the height of it. Again, the house only has about a foot of clearance between the top beams and the top of the Firehouse door. Therefore, it needs to slide out onto the trailer. Luckily the driveway does slope slightly away from the building, so the further out the trailer is the better. I will probably have to bleed the air from the tires and tip the front end up in the air as well: anything to lower the trailer.

It is Tuesday, and if you are following the blog, you are probably expecting to see pictures of the house being moved. If you know me better or have been following the blog for a little longer, you would probably check back in another week or two to see the house moving. So the trailer isn't ready yet, but I am making progress! Today I cut and welded the individual pieces for the trailer. Unfortunately, the 800 pound welder is in the basement wired to the back wall, the trailer is too wide to fit though the door and the cables are too short to reach outside: a complication like many of the others experienced during this project. I have done all the fabrication that I can do inside. The remaining pieces are going to have to be welded onto the trailer at my friend's blacksmithing shop, hopefully tomorrow.

Almost ready!

I finally finished all of the timber work! I had left the rafters until the end since they were not needed to complete the bulk of the frame. When I finally got back to cutting them,  it took longer than expected because I had designed some complicated joinery to cut. It looked great on paper (and looks good finished also) but didn't really make sense to for production. In any case, they are finally finished and oiled and the house is ready to go! Over the next few days I will be working on preparing the trailer for the move. Right now, I am planning on moving the house on Tuesday! Hopefully we don't get a big snow storm first.

This is just a quick update, but I am happy to say that I finally have a plan to load the house on the trailer and move it! I picked up about 300 pounds of square steel tube and C-channel from the steel yard today to start preparing the trailer. I am going to bolt the tube along the bottom of the frame of the house to act as skids. The C-channel will be welded across the trailer to bring the width out to 8 feet. Each cross beam will have another piece of the C-channel welded on top to act as a guide. When the time comes to do the move, I will line the trailer up with the house, hook up a winch and pull it up steel ramps, into the guides and onto the trailer. Picture one of those trucks that pick up dumpsters: it is a very similar design.

My goal is to prepare the trailer and move the house by the end of next week. I will put out a call for help when I know what day I am moving. Wish me luck!

Work and other distractions have kept me from my house for a little while, but I am finally back on track. A few days ago I finally finished all of the siding that I can do until the rafters and gable panels are in place. One more item to cross off the list!

It took another afternoon to clean up, move piles of wood out of the way and wrap my head around the plans for my rafters again. When I cut the rest of the timbers for the house, I had skipped the rafters since I couldn't assemble them in the Firehouse. Once again, I should have finished them when I was doing the rest of the timbers. It took a while to sort through my piles of drawings to find the relevant cut numbers. Once back in the mode, it didn't take too long to remember how to do the layout and cutting though. Stephanie came over to help me start cutting the rafters.

Stephanie giving me a few pointers

start with the power saw

finish with a hand saw

The first two rafters oiled and ready to go

This morning I started clearing brush and saplings out of the old path down which I will tow my house into the woods. The location is looking good! I think that once I am finished with the rafters, I will figure out how to get the house onto the trailer and tow it over! This is the last big hurdle and once it is out there I will finish up the roof and all of the other details.