Life in 120 Square Feet

This Round Goes to Mother Nature

2012-02-13T08:20:00.003-05:00

If there is on lesson we have learned over and over again throughout this process it is a lesson of patience. When you're building a little house half way up a mountain inaccessible by car and by hand, sometimes you just have to give in and decide that Mother Nature is bigger, stronger and more powerful than you are. This weekend, she won.

We were up in Asheville this weekend. We would have gone anyway because the first night of our trip we were celebrating our anniversary. It isn't actually until tomorrow, Valentine's day, but we'll be celebrating 17 years together. The forecast had predicted cold so we got a hotel for both nights and just figured we would go up to the mountain during the day on Saturday and do a few little projects. As Friday evening progressed, they began to predict snow. Possibly several inches in Asheville proper, and more in the mountains of course. This was just our luck because the weekend before (when we weren't in Asheville) had been 60 degrees and the following weekend was also predicted to be around 60. But this weekend - the weekend we were actually there - Snow.

When we woke up on Saturday, the snow was coming down around the hotel. We talked about our options and decided that we might at well head up to the mountain and at least drop off the stuff we had in the car and maybe do a couple little things inside the house like put together the kitchen organizers that go in the cabinets. We bundled up in our long-johns, hats and mittens and headed out to Mt. Matt.

As we drove toward our mountain we joked that it wouldn't be snowing anywhere else, just on Mt. Matt. It was a joke, but we got a little more nervous when we saw it was quite possible. We finally made it to our little up the mountain and you could tell no one else had been up or down since it started snowing. We've always been a bit head strong though, so we decided to forge ahead. This is a good thing, usually - if it weren't for our stubbornness we may have never built a little house in the mountains in the first place. But occasionally, the decision turns out more like this one. We made it up past our neighbors house and past the most difficult turn, but then as we got closer to our own land, the car wouldn't go any more. We were in Matt's Honda Crosstour, If we had my Element we might have made it up, but then we started to get worried about getting stuck. The main problem at this point was not being able to turn around. Both sides of the road have dips and if we backed in or pulled in, there was a good chance we weren't getting out again. The only thing we could do was back up down the mountain.

The aftermath of the snowpocalypse in 2009.

I walked slowly down the road in front of the car as Matt masterfully backed up down the most difficult curve. At this point, I should have gotten some photos of the snow covered mountain, but I was much more concerned about making sure that the Honda didn't go careening off the side of the mountain. It took a while, but slowly we made it down the mountain just past our neighbor's house. That's when they came out to see what was going on. "Guess where we can't go!" I joked. I told them we couldn't make it up the mountain and that we couldn't turn around either. They are used to our willingness to take on any challenge even if those challenges seem a little, well, dumb. The first time we met them was because we had managed to get a box truck into a ditch and we went to their house to ask for help. We didn't want to have to call a tow truck again this time for our own car, though. When Matt got to their driveway, they pulled their car out of the way and Matt was able to pull his car in and back it out so we were finally facing the right directly.

In hind sight, we figure we should have just left the car where it was on the mountain and at least taken the things we had in it up to the barn. But it was getting colder and snowing harder even as we were backing down, so maybe we made the right decision. We stood and chatted for a few minutes, laughing about how ridiculous Matt and I can be when we're determined to do something, but it was cold and we soon got back in the car and headed back to Asheville.

It was only noon on Saturday!

We had a hotel for Sunday night, too, so it seemed silly to waste the rest of the weekend. We warmed up in the hotel room for a little bit and then bundled up again and went out for a walk. We ended up at Barley's Tap Room for a late lunch/early dinner and then wandered over to the Greenman Brewery. It was still light out when we were there and we were only going to stay for a little bit but then we got to talking to a guy at the bar, which is one of my favorite activities. We very much enjoyed the conversation but finally, it was getting late and not any warmer so we decided to walk back to the hotel. We stopped off for a snack on the way back.

We're back in Atlanta now thinking about our next trip to the mountain and all the things we have to accomplish to get the tiny house done. We'll be back in a couple of weeks and we seriously hope it doesn't snow again.

Blogging the Tiny Life

2012-01-29T11:33:00.001-05:00

There are so many tiny house bloggers out there, it impossible to catalog them all. And on top of the people building their tiny houses, there are those who are dreaming, preparing and working toward building their own. I feel, in some way, we have a responsibility to share our stories. Living the tiny life can honestly change the world. It can change the way we think about our relationship to our homes, our place in the world, and our minds can open to opportunities we may not have otherwise had.

I've updated my blog roll to showcase some other tiny house writers on the web. I know I've missed some - I can keep up with everyone. But reading these stories is so inspiring. It makes me proud to be a part of this larger community of such tiny spaces. You can see the list of blogs to the right just under the information on the Zulu Orphan Alliance. The list is titled "Other Sites on Tiny Living".

When you have some time, check out some of the blogs I read that inspire me.

We'll be back up at the Tiny house the weekend before Valentine's Day (Valentine's Day also happens to be our 17th anniversary). Stay tuned for more updates as we get close to finishing the little house on Mt. Matt.

Beer Festivals and Brush Burning

2012-01-24T16:32:00.002-05:00

We were in Asheville this weekend. We went specifically because of the Winter Warmer Beer Festival, so we stayed in downtown and were only planning on a short time up at the tiny house.

We got to town about mid-day on Saturday and had some lunch before walking over to the civic center for the beer fest. Many of the beers there were the same as last year, so we just scouted out the place and just tried a few before leaving a couple hours later. My favorite of the day was the Pisgah Chocolate Stout. But perhaps I should save that info for my other blog. After the beer fest, we wandered over to our favorite pizza place in town, Barley's, and had some dinner. We were looking through the local alternative paper, the Mountain Express, when we came across an aticle about Sante Wine Bar. We discovered the wine bar several years ago shortly after they opened. We were in town in the winter, before we had decided to start building a tiny house. It was cold and we just wanted to get inside somewhere - and the first place we came across was Sante. We have loved it ever since. They are makeing some big changes, and it is fabulous. We chatted with the owner that day and we talked to her again on Saturday - it has been fun to see the things that have been going on there over the last several years. She just installed a brand new Wine Tap system, which is super cool.

On Sunday, we didn't rush to get going because it was cold in the morning. We went out for breakfast and then headed up to the land for the days work. We didn't really have anything to do inside the house. Well, I take that back - we have plenty to do inside the house but there were some things we wanted to do outside before spring makes everything overgrown again. I did take down the Christmas tree, but other than that we spent the day gathering fallen branches from the trails and burning them in the fire pit. When the last of the brush was burning down to coals, we made some soup for dinner and hung out. We started to wish that we were staying up at the tiny house for the weekend, but since we had been in town for the festival and were at the hotel, it was too late. When the coals were out and dinner was done, we packed up and headed back in to Asheville. Since we had already eaten dinner, we stopped for some dessert at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. Then we wandered by Jack of the Wood where there was a Celtic Session Jam going on, so we stopped in for a couple of beers to listen to the music. While there, we did a lot of talking about future plans. A lot of it I want to share - but I have to wait for a few reasons. All of the plans will be revealed soon.

I did take a few photos, but nothing really note worthy since the house looks the same this time as it did when we left it last time.

We'll be going back up to Asheville for our anniversary (17 years on Valentines day!). While we will spend an evening celebrating, we also plan to spend the rest of the weekend up at the house to work on things.

Community Supported Agriculture

2011-12-27T14:37:00.001-05:00

Since gift giving is such a persistent theme during the winter holidays, it becomes a topic of conversation among tiny house enthusiasts. I spent quite a bit of time deciding what to get for my partner this year. I wanted something creative and thoughtful, of course, but also something very practical for Life in 120 Square Feet.

Enter the CSA or Community Supported Agriculture.

CSA is a way to purchase a share of a farm's crops for the growing season. During your entire subscription period you receive a set amount of food each week. Vegetables are the most common, but meats and dairy products are also available through some CSAs. I thought to myself that this was perfect for a lot of reasons. First, it wasn't just another thing to add to our collective stuff. Second, because we have never lived this way before we don't automatically know how to grow and harvest our own food. We certainly want to do that, but considering we failed to grow tomatoes and peppers in containers on our balcony this year we figure we may not get the results we are hoping for immediately. The CSA offers that immediate gratification. For a small price we own part of the harvest from that farm.

If you're interested in Community Supported Agriculture, there are plenty of sites that can point you in the right direction to find one in your area. Such as here. We found a couple near our tiny house that seem like they will be a good fit for us. We picked one that sounded right, added our name to the information list and will purchase it. Then, just about the time we will be moving into our little house the subscription will begin and we can pick up fresh fruits and vegetables to enjoy.

Farewell Tiny House for 2011

2011-12-12T07:35:00.000-05:00

We just got back from our last trip to our Tiny House for this year. It was a really nice trip. We had just a few things to do - some additional trim. There are still a couple more pieces to install but nothing that will take a lot of time. This time we did the built in shelf boxes on the closet walls and framed out Piglet's litterbox door. We decided not to sleep at the tiny house this time, mostly because it was going to get down to 20 degrees over night. The little house would have been warm enough to sleep in, but we didn't want to have to go outside in that cold in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning.

In fact, speaking of temperature, I got a photo of our indoor/outdoor thermometer while it was still heating up. When we arrived at the house it was 27 outside and 33 inside. We turned on our little heater and it got up to 72. Here is a slightly blurry photo while it was still in the process of heating up.

Also, while we were there I put up the tiny stockings my sister bought us for Christmas last year.

But here is our real work. First we built the boxes to fit in the spaces we left for shelves on those two walls.

Then we trimmed them.

Eventually they will have small shelves inside.

Then we also framed and trimmed Piglet's litterbox door.

Here is the inside of the closet with the cedar wall.

Before we left for the day, I was up in the loft playing around with the camera and got this photo.

At dusk, we closed up the little house and wished it Happy Holidays and trekked back down the mountain. We stayed at a hotel in Biltmore Village and walked to a local bar the

re for dinner. Then the next day we went to see the Lions play the Vikings - oh thank goodness we pulled that one off. It was the definition of a nail-biter.

Big plans for next yet, as always. We have just a tad more interior trim to finish. Then put up the kitchen shelves. Then we have to finish the bathroom. Once all that is done inside, we'll work on the exterior trim (we are waiting until it is warmer to do that). Then there is just some accessorizing to make the place 100% done and livable.

We would like to wish all of our readers a safe and happy Holiday. And, if you find yourself in the mood to be charitable for the season please consider donating to the Zulu Orphan Alliance.

I hope your holiday season is wonderful, whatever it is that you celebrate.

wheezinggirl's photostream

2011-12-01T07:04:00.001-05:00

wheezinggirl's photostream on Flickr.

I finally updated the photos since the 4th of July. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Weekend and Trim

2011-11-28T07:26:00.000-05:00

It is hard to show the progress these days. Back when we just had a shell of a house, it was easy to see when we finished something new. Now, for all intents and purposes, the house is complete we are just finishing up the trim.

After our trip to South Africa, we stayed home for a quiet Thanksgiving with friends. On Friday we went out to see The Muppets. But that left us with a whole weekend free. We decided to go up to Asheville. There was some business that needed to be attended to. When we arrived we had a meeting with all the neighbors in our little mountain hollow to discuss road maintenance. Once that was done, we headed up to the tiny house to get some work done.

Saturday was beautiful in the mountains. The temperature was in the 60s all day (and didn't get below 50 overnight either). So we set out to complete two primary tasks. Matt cut and installed much of the last remaining trim and I put up our Holiday Decorations. It seems silly to decorate a small house that we might only see one more time before the end of the year, but it really made us feel good to get the house in the holiday spirit.

Here is Matt installing some of the trim around the kitchen archway.

Here is the finished trim on the cabinets.

Here is the little lime green tree up in the loft with a collection of glass ornaments.

Also while we were working, I had the brilliant idea of putting some of the left over FLOR on the ladder rungs. It brings some of the color of the FLOR down to the main living area and is nice and soft on your feet if you're coming down the ladder in the morning with no socks on.

At night, I wanted to get a picture of the tree in the loft from outside. It was really cool to see it all lit up like that. Makes the place feel really homey.

The next morning, we got up and took our time. We boiled some water and made coffee and hot cocoa.

One day soon we'll be able to move our real pots and pans and dishes into the house so we don't have to use the camping kettle.

We sat and enjoyed the beautiful mountain morning.

We got to work mid-morning and did the trim around the door, the closets and front archway.

We finished up around lunch time, had some sandwiches and then spent a little bit of time reorganizing our tools and wood, since we are almost done with the house as a whole. We took some things back down to the barn as we were leaving so they weren't in the way at the tiny house any more. It doesn't take much for the tiny house to get cluttered, it being tiny and all. Now that it is livable and nearly done, we don't need all the supplies inside any more.

On the way home we finally figured out the easiest way to do the built in shelves. If we had figured that out before we left we might have installed them. But otherwise, we only have a short list of things to be done. We have to install the kitchen shelves, finish the built ins, trim around Piglet's litterbox door, and finish the closets. I don't think any of that will take a ton of time. I am so excited to have this little place finished. We do still have to do the bathroom, but we were leaving that until last inside. Then we have to do the exterior trim, but we don't have to hurry on that either - plus we'd rather do that in the spring.

We'll probably be back up once more this year barring any major ice or snow storms preventing us from getting up to the house.

South Africa Trip, Part Four

2011-11-23T06:19:00.000-05:00

It is strange to me that the last two days in South Africa were more of a blur than the first five.

On Thursday (I think it was Thursday) we went out to Mildred's in the morning to drop off some things and to pick her up. We stopped to pick up things to make dinner, which Matt and I were planning to do. We picked up Priscilla's daughter after her exams at school and drove up to the mountains.We stopped at a little shopping village and walked around.

Then we stopped at the house of Priscilla's daughter's birth mom. That is a pretty incredible story, but really not mine to tell. But what I will say is that girl has so many women who love her and that is an incredible thing to see.

Eventually we ended up at the house of Margaret, a woman who had dedicated her life to helping children. She helps get them out of dangerous situations and brings them to live with her. On top of that, she also breeds dachshunds.

Here is another photo that Priscilla took.

She use to breed Sphynx Cats, like Piglet, and if she were still doing that Matt and I may have never left. We would have sat there covered in kittens. As it was, Matt and I started making dinner as soon as we got there. We made penne pasta, red sauce and home made meat balls. We enjoyed spending the afternoon making dinner and we fed about 15 people, maybe more. I kind of lost count.

I love this photo of Mildred and the cat.

Priscilla made the salad!

Our masterpiece in the making

Also, at some point that day, we were able to look at the soil test. We did the shake test that you'll see on page four of the PDF link. There were very interesting results. We expected to see a mixture of sand, silt and clay, but that wasn't what we got.

The black clay was really just entirely clay. The redder sand had no clay whatsoever, just silt and sand. What this means, though, is that the mixture of the two types of dirt should make pretty good filler for the earth bags.

Our last full day in South Africa has been a little more difficult to process. I have been contemplating exactly what I wanted to say about it since I got home, and I don't know that I can really articulate everything that happened. I am also not certain that I should articulate it in detail.

The morning started early. We left at 6am to drive out to a game park called Tala. Here are a couple of the cool things we saw driving around the park.

He was standing right next to the car, I didn't have to zoom in with the camera or anything.

While we were there, we got a couple of phone calls. The first was a pretty large NGO in the area that wanted to having a meeting with our group. The other was to set up a meeting with one of the Councilors from the Zulu community to get his blessing to build the shelter on the land next to Mildred's. So, after we ate a lovely breakfast at the park restaurant, we headed back to the city to get ready for those meetings.

The meeting with the Councilor went very well. We met him at Durban city hall and Mildred explained to him why we were there and what we were planning to do. She is very well respected and he told us that we had his blessing to do anything we could to help her and to help the children. We showed him the plans for the earthbag structure as well as a sketch of the long term vision which would include a separate boys and girls dorm, a kitchen and a community space.

After that meeting, we went to a bar on the pier over the harbor and had some snacks and drinks before heading back to the flats to get ready for the meeting with the other NGO.

Here is where things got a little crazy. I don't want to share a lot of information, but the meeting was pretty harrowing. All of us felt a little ambushed and caught up in the middle of a personal and political battle for which there appeared to be no solution. In the end, we were essentially told that our plans might not be able to happen as we expected. The upsetting part about that is our project and the mission of the other organization are quite complimentary and we don't understand why we couldn't work together for the children. It isn't my battle, and I feel a little helpless that there isn't more that I can do, but in the long run we will figure out a way to make this building happen and to help these kids.

We left for the airport on Saturday feeling a little kicked in the gut, but we've had a lot to talk about and a lot to process since getting home. As it stands now, the plan is to go back next year probably around August and get this project started one way or another.

Keep checking back here. If it weren't for us taking this step to build our own tiny house in the woods and live unconventionally, we would have never had the opportunity to help this community half a world away that has so much promise and potential.

My next update will be back to the tiny house. We'll be up in Asheville this weekend working on some more of the finishing trim. It is going to be a nice weekend to sleep in our cabin so I am looking forward to a rest.

Have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Don't forget to be thankful for everything.

South Africa Trip, Part Three

2011-11-22T07:16:00.001-05:00

Day 5.
By this time I had completely lost track of the date and day of the week. That day, we decided to go into Durban proper to walk along the waterfront, shop at the street vendors and eat at a restaurant out on the dock. On the way, Matt decided to practice driving on the opposite side of the road (since Priscilla and Austin asked us to take the rental car back to the airport when we left.) He had some experience driving in Ireland, but that was 6 years ago. I decided to go in Austin's car to let Matt practice without me. He did very well, though, following our car into the city.

The Durban waterfront is gorgeous. There are lots of parks and pools for the kids and the ocean was grand. We walked along the street and shopped at some of the street vendors. I picked up a couple of holiday gifts, but don't tell anyone.

We ended up at a restaurant called Moyo's that was on the pier over the Indian Ocean. It was a crazy fusion of Indian and African Tapas. The food was absolutely amazing. And we really enjoyed the afternoon watching the ocean.

This is Matt and me showing off our prawns. Delicious.

After lunch we went back to the flats. Priscilla and Tammy went out to visit someone else they knew who was taking care of a pregnant teenager. Matt, Ellen and I decided to stay back since we thought it might be overwhelming for the girl to have all these visitors. Ellen did some journaling and Matt played music for us. When Tammy, Priscilla and Austin returned, Tammy made nachos which were quite delicious. We also made sopapillas.

After dinner, Matt showed us his completed water heater for Mildred's house. It was made using two 2-litre bottles, a Y adapter, a hose and some random attachments. The first step was figuring out how hoses worked in South Africa. Apparently, you just buy a piece of hose and add the connectors yourself. You get a set with the hose, but you can also buy any number of additional adapters. Matt used marine silicone to attach the bottles permanently to pieces that are intended to be easily snapped on and off a hose or faucet. These then snap onto the Y adapter that is then connected to the hose itself. You can fill up each individual bottle by snapping them directly onto the water spigot or into the hose or Y. Then you put them up high in the sun so they get hot and you can snap them into the Y and onto the hose and use a spray adapter on the other end to wash the kids. Unfortunately we never got to use it because it rained quite a bit the rest of the week and was never sunny enough to give it a try. We left it with Austin to take to Mildred's.

This design would have quite a few applications in tiny house living, possibly in conjunction to the garden sprayer shower design.We did see a garden sprayer in the hardware store in Amanzimtoti, but we decided to start with this contraption and work our way up to that shower design for the kids.

I still have two more days to recap of the trip, but I have to go to work so stick around for updates. Also, be sure to come back next week because Matt and I will be going up to the Tiny House this weekend to do some more finish work.

South Africa Trip, Part Two

2011-11-21T05:55:00.000-05:00

Well, now it is just after 5am and I am wide awake. I have to go to work today, so I know I'll be pretty exhausted by this evening, But I'll survive. It is only a three day work week anyway and I can fake anything for three days.

Day three began with Ellen doing an Art Therapy workshop for about 30 people. Most of them were Zulu counselors who work with the children in the area, so there was a language barrier. Matt and I didn't go to the workshop, but I read Priscilla's recap and it sounded like it went very well. Ellen did a lot of hands on work and the experience superseded the communications challenges.

Matt and I spent the morning being somewhat lazy. We slept in until 10am, which was really our body clocks trying to readjust. We watched some TV shows we had loaded on our computer and went up onto the roof top deck at our flat to look at the ocean.

We also saw monkeys. There was even one on our patio, but I startled him at the same time he startled me and he ran off. I couldn't get a good photo of the troop, but if you squint you can see there are monkeys in this photo. They ranged in size from baby to really freaking huge.

At about 1:30, Austin came back from some appointments he had in the morning and picked us up to go to the hardware store. We wanted to get an idea of how much some things cost but we also wanted to get some supplies to make a small water heater that Matt had designed. Also, out at Mildred's the day before we noticed that some of the windows had been broke (little boys accidentally break windows in many cultures). Matt had an idea to get plexiglass to replace them since that wouldn't get broken so easily. When we got to the hardware store we talked to a guy there who said the would have to order plexiglass and he would call us back with the price. It turned out to be expensive, but with the size of the panel and the size of Mildred's windows we could get six replacement windows out of one sheet. We went ahead and ordered the plexi and Austin said he would install the windows when it came in.

We got all the things we needed for the water heater and we went to Mildred's to drop off some food that was left over from lunch at the training. Once we did that, we drove up to the hall where the training was finishing up to pick up our group.

It was still pretty early in the day, so when we got back to the flat we took another walk on the beach and enjoyed the sun. Then we went out to dinner where I enjoyed a fantastic braised lamb in a red wine sauce and some very delightful localish beers. When we got back from dinner, we went up on to the roof top deck and talked for hours. It was a gorgeous night as we watched the moon rise over the ocean.

The next day, Day 4, began early as we got up to go out to Mildred's to dig soil samples. Most of the kids were in school so we weren't able to teach them how to play NFL football, which had been in our original plan (Tammy is a Cowboys fan, and of course I am a Detroit Lions fan). We walked out on to the land that is being transferred over to the Zulu Orphan Alliance so we could dig some soil samples. The point of this exercise is to determine the make up of the soil in the area to see how well it would work in the earth bags. The best is a mix of soil and clay. We weren't expecting what we found. As we dug down in to the soil, we unearthed thick black solid clay.

We put the black clay into one jar and then jogged over to a small patch of someone else's land to get a sample of the red soil that we had seen around as well. Later you will see the results of these samples.

Mildred's house in in the townships, which are typically places that feel less safe than areas near the city. However, I felt very safe and secure at Mildred's house. I think this has everything to do with Mildred. She is very well respected in the community and I could instantly see why. She was so kind and so warm when she first met us and I learned throughout the week that she possesses a strength that I wish I could even carry a fraction of. The site where we will eventually build this shelter may be one of the most beautiful places on earth and that will be integral in creating a safe and comfortable space for the children. We will leave the tree and build the shelter nearby, eventually building several small buildings.

While we were digging in the dirt and talking photos of the eventual building site, Ellen and Tammy were in the house doing art with the littlest kids who weren't in school. There were also a couple of girls who didn't go to school and Ellen taught them to finger knit.

Also, while we were there we spray painted the two bottles black that would be used for the water heater. Then we let them dry before leaving.

It was still early in the day when we left Mildred's so we went back to the flat to get cleaned up (I was covered in black clay, after all) and then drove down the coast to a place called Croc World. I took a lot of pictures and I'll share a few. However, the one photo I didn't have was a Green Mamba we saw that was not in an enclosure. We just looked up into the trees and saw him climbing overhead. We quickly left that area.

Here is a mamba in an enclosure.

Here is Ellen the Bunny Whisperer at the children's farm. She rescues bunnies at home. They seemed to know she was a friend.

The meerkats were my favorites. They were so playful.

This little guy kept going for an itch by his tail and would fall off the rocks. Repeatedly. It was hilarious to watch.

We had lunch at the restaurant at Croc World and sat out on the deck to eat. There we got to see two whales in the ocean, close enough that we really didn't need binoculars. That was pretty awesome.

On the way home, we stopped to get dinner. Austin was going to braai for us. We got some boerewors sausage and a type of rashers which is like bacon but more like what wold happen if bacon and spare ribs had a delicious baby. These rashers had a sweet honey barbecue glaze on them and they were incredible. They also made an incredible garlic bread to go with them. We sat out on Austin and Priscilla's deck and ate them. I was so full, but I really wanted more.

After dinner, it started to rain so we went inside and talked about what we needed to do to make this building happen. And that really comes down to money. Money to help feed the kids and money to build this shelter. We need to generate a pretty large sum before we can even think about breaking ground.

There is a lot more. But, I have to start getting ready for my first day back at work now. Keep checking back for more installments.

South Africa Trip, Part One

2011-11-20T17:41:00.000-05:00

I am exhausted. It is just after 5pm as I write this but my body thinks it is 1am. Since I have to go to work in the morning, I need to push through as much as I can and stay up until at least 8 or 9. So, I thought I would take a break from tiny house updates to share a little about our first couple days in Durban KwaZulu-Natal South Africa.

We left Atlanta sometime on the 11th. After that, all dates and times were a bit of a blur. We arrived in Durban about 8pm on Saturday, the 12th so we lost a whole day due to traveling. When we arrived, our friends Priscilla and Austin picked us up and the airport and took us back to where they live in Amanzimtoti which is further down the coast of the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately we weren't terribly tired yet due to the time difference so we hung out for a while getting to know everyone. Two other friends were there as well - Tammy from New Mexico and Ellen from New York State. We sat up for a while on the patio over looking the ocean talking about the organization and challenges we would face. We finally turned in for the night.

We were most surprised to discover that the sun rises this time of year at about 4:45 in the morning. This was a bit of a shock to my system since I tend to wake up when the sun comes up on a regular day. But I forced myself to sleep in as late as I could. Tammy made breakfast burritos - because she has brought a suitcase full of Mexican food for Priscilla since no such thing exists in South Africa. We decided to take a walk on the beach. I have been to the Pacific Ocean in Oregon and the Atlantic Ocean from the state side and from Europe, but I never really thought I would be walking along the shores of the Indian ocean. Unfortunately, it was a little overcast that day but it was a gorgeous day for a nice walk.

We did get to see crabs on the beach.

We also had a chance to wade in the tide pools on the rocks and we found a starfish. Don't worry, we put him back where he came from just in case he had family there.

After we got back from the beach, we went out to the local grocery store to pick up food to take to the kids currently living in a two bedroom house under the care of an incredible woman named Mildred. This is the reason we're there. If we can build a place for these kids and more down the road to be able to live comfortably, we have done our job. When we arrived at Mildred's we learned that two brand new baby goats were born that morning. I didn't have my camera, but I pulled this photo of Priscilla's face book page - I hope she doesn't mind.

Then we played with the kids for a while. Tammy brought bubbles and the kids has a great time chasing and popping them. This is another of Priscilla's photos. This is a little girl named Busi who is going to be a force to be reckoned with one day.

We also got to see the land a bit and determine the approximate acreage and maybe some ideas about how to place the house. There were some little things like remembering that building something south facing isn't really useful in the southern hemisphere - we just have to turn everything backwards in our heads.

We eventually made is back to the flat and had dinner. Tammy made enchilada's. And Priscilla's daughter, Angel, showed us a video of South African comedian Trevor Noah.

Okay, I am drained just typing out what happened in day one. I will have to come back to the rest of the trip later. Stay tuned for more updates soon.

After you build cabinet doors, you can no longer see what is behind them

2011-11-07T07:14:00.000-05:00

This week's trip up to Mt. Matt involved the building of tiny doors for our tiny kitchen cabinets. This, once again, fell into the category of "Things We Have Never Done Before" so we needed to do a little research before we began. Luckily for us, there are a number of great people currently building tiny houses and blogging about it. Just like I would hope this blog would also provide great tips and ideas, other tiny house builders do the same. We liked the way Evan and Gabby built their cabinet doors so we did something similar.

Here are the finished doors as soon as we were done with the project.

And here is the finished kitchen after we added door pulls.

Here is a better view of them. We picked these out because they matched the design of the light fixtures.

Once we were done with the cabinet doors, we began to work on the remaining trim. We got all the the floor trim done, which is awesome. There is very limited trim left to do on the whole house. Then we need to finish the bathroom, put shelves in he front closets, and build the built in shelves and the interior will be done. Once it is warm again next spring, we will finish the exterior trim and the house will be 100% done.

On Friday we leave for our trip to South Africa. I will have limited internet access while there, but once I return I will be sure to share photos and updates on our building project. I plan to keep a journal the old fashioned way while we're there - with a pen and notebook - so I don't forget a thing. Thanks to everyone who has been following along with the building process and our upcoming trip. And thanks to everyone who has donated to the Zulu Orphan Alliance - ever dollar helps with the shelter or to feed the children. I can't wait to go and will be excited to share the experience when we return.

Let's Build A Shower

2011-10-16T09:21:00.002-04:00

Matt recently went out to New Mexico to meet with someone who is familiar with earth bag construction to get some ideas for the shelter in South Africa. He also met and stayed with two new friends, founders of the Zulu Orphan Alliance.

While there, he was given the idea of building a shower out of parts easily available at your local home improvement store. We wanted to build one for our tiny house, but also think it can be used for camping or even potentially for the ZOA project.

We started with trips to Home Depot and Lowe's to put together the parts. The main component was a garden sprayer.

We chose this particular one because the sprayer attachment screwed on and off and seemed to be a fairly standard size so we could put on a different type of sprayer. We were lucky enough to find an actual shower sprayer that would work

We were excited to be able to find this attachment and thought it would work well. But the attachment didn't exactly fit the sprayer, so we had to add a joiner from the plumbing department to make it work. This is what that configuration looks like.

The entire contraption looks like this

The best part about this sprayer is that it has an on off switch, which is essential for the pressurized system to work. If you have never used a garden sprayer, the main process is to fill it up, typically with something like weed killer, and use the pump handle to pressurize the contents. You can then use the sprayer attachment to apply to your garden. In our case, we fill up the brand new never before used sprayer (don't recycle an old garden sprayer) with water at whatever temperature water we're comfortable with. Pump the sprayer and then turn on the shower nozzle. Viola.

You can see the water has pretty decent pressure. This is a two gallon sprayer. We ran it continuously to see how long it would last. It lasted about three minutes. Truthfully, two people could take a reasonable camp shower with just 2 gallons. Typically, unlike your house shower, you wouldn't leave it running the whole time. Turn it on, get wet, turn it off, soap up, turn it on, rinse, repeat.Because the water is pressurized you also don't have to worry about where you hold the nozzle. With gravity fed systems, you have to make sure the water is always above the nozzle, but that you can hold this sprayer at any level and still get the same pressure.

We use a Coleman Hot Water On Demand at Mt. Matt. The sprayer will be much easier to fill than the solar shower bags we have been using most recently. Also, if you wanted to, you could easily paint the exterior of the sprayer black and make your own solar shower. Just set it in the sun and a few hours later you'll have great hot water.

I am just a House Carpenter

2011-09-27T07:32:00.001-04:00

And now for this musical break.

We just got back from Asheville. Matt spent the last week up there and really loved being in the Tiny House. He is adjusting well to being back in the city, though. I drove up on Saturday to see what he had finished during the week. He said he wasn't sure how things were going to go because he's never done finish carpentry. But then again, he never did rough carpentry before starting to build either, so that turned out fine.

While I was gone he did the trim on all the windows, around the counters and around the upper perimeter of the house including the loft fronts. It looks great. He also modified the ladder with new features. It is now a movable ladder. With the new movable ladder I got up into the storage loft for the first time ever! Yay me. I was only a little terrified.

On Saturday, I tung oiled all of the new wood in the house. Matt did some work on the front door. It is still a temporary door, but we just wanted it to look better than having a rough piece of plywood screwed to it. So we framed it out with some trim, cut the plywood to size and attached it in the opening. Then, on the front, we took some decorative trim, tung oiled it, and nailed it in to give it just a little pop. It'll be fine now until we get around to building a better door one day.

So, I know you are all here just for the photos. Without further ado...Photos!

The new feature on the ladders - Hooks!

And the ladder accessing the storage loft.

Loft window frame.

Working on the door.

Say Cheese!

Finished door...for now. Hi Chomsky.

A look at the trim.

A view from the inside

100% finished counters with trim. We coated the counters with salad bowl oil.

Dining room with window trim and the table folded down.

I promise I will be updating the flikr page one of these days. Keep an eye on that. The next trip up will be in the middle of October, so stay tuned for more updates.

We Have Carpet!

2011-09-19T19:36:00.000-04:00

Once the lofts were completed in the tiny house, we thought it would be a cool feature to put carpet tiles up there. Not just any carpet tiles, but a product called FLOR. It seemed like another way we could add a little pop of color to the house. We matched a color to the counter stain and I couldn't be more happy with the way it turned out. On Saturday, Matt and I got up to Asheville and I spend the day putting the FLOR down while Matt did some trim work.

This is the FLOR in the loft just after I finished installing it

And here is a weird angle shot to show the FLOR and the counter.

And here is the corner of the loft with the trim installed.

Once the FLOR was in place ansd the trim nailed in, we hoisted the bed back into position and set it back up for sleeping.

Matt is staying up at the tiny house this week. Mostly he is there to see how our current energy system can handle day to day use. He'll be doing his day job remotely as well as some work on the house in the evenings.

Also, we have a pet spider. So I was playing around with my cameras digital macro settings and got this photo of the orb weaver who set himself up by our porch light.

Ceiling trim, counter tops and an outlet

2011-08-28T18:28:00.000-04:00

Just a couple of photos and updates to share this week. We just got back from a weekend up at Mt. Matt and had a lovely weekend.

On Saturday, we got up early and left Atlanta a little before 7am. We drove straight to Lowe's where we bought a few supplies including stain (Fiddlehead) and the wood for the counter tops. We stopped and got some lunch and headed up to the mountain. When we got there, we took a few moment to eat our lunch before we loaded up the ATV trailer to cart up to the house. Once we unloaded our stuff we got to work determining just how we were going to do the ceiling ridge trim. We had to set up the table saw, which we're not as proficient with. We just had to figure out the angles to be able to fit the trim up in the ceiling to fill in the gap between the siding. I think we did a rather nice job of it myself. Though it was a little hard to get the picture looking straight up

Once the ceiling trim was in place, we installed the new light fixture. We picked this simple round ball to match the two fixtures in the living space.

Then, the last project for Saturday was to stain the counter tops. We decided a long time ago to make green the dominant accent color in our little cabin. This will just give a little contrast against all the light wood everywhere.

Then our neighbors up on the hill came to pick us up and we all went to dinner. It was a delightful time. They just moved to their own little cabin from Las Vegas and have only been here for a few weeks. They took us to Fig, an incredible restaurant in Biltmore Village.

Today, we slept in. The weather was beautiful for sleeping in the loft this weekend. It wasn't as hot as it has been the rest of this summer. After we got up, I put a second coat of stain on the counters and Matt installed an outlet in the storage loft (that way we can plug in a fan up there to provide some cross ventilation. I didn't take any pictures of that because installing an outlet is rather boring to watch.

We'll not be back for a couple of weeks. This coming weekend we will be immersing ourselves in one of our other favorite things, Dragon*Con. And the weekend after that we are staying in Atlanta to be able to go to our favorite bar to watch the first Detroit Lions game of the season. After that, though, it seems like the only thing we have left to do is trim. The finish line is so close!

Ask Matt: Finding Land

2011-08-24T08:11:00.001-04:00

I wanted to continue our semi-irregular feature with another commenter question. Reader Sarah wrote:

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences. My husband and I have giddily been reading your posts because we've been inspired to go the tiny home route as well, and are specifically interested in NC. Incidentally, we found you on the Tiny Life blog by googling "North Carolina small home"). :)

Right now we're in the process of trying to find land (beginners!), and I was wondering if you'd mind sharing how you went about searching for your land. We're not in NC now, so looking online remotely and getting in touch with brokers who actually have parcels available has been a bit challenging. I would greatly appreciate any advice you could offer.

Thank you so much

And Matt says:

We took our time with our search for land. Before we began, we did a lot of soul searching to make sure this was something we really wanted to do. We also tried to determine some of the specifics. We considered, in no particular order: privacy, distance from a town / city, road access, cost, size of the parcel, availability of water, and climate. Since we had already decided we wanted to be in the mountains, we also had to consider slope, sun exposure, accessibility and a host of other attributes. Our decision to be off the grid allowed us to look in places that conventional land buyers might not, which also meant that some lower cost options were available to us. We thought about our impact on our neighbors. It is very important to us that we take the people around us into consideration and do our best not to disturb those who, like us, are just looking for a little peace.

The actual search took about a year. We spent a great deal of time driving around different areas, talking to locals, reading everything we could, and keeping an eye on real estate listings (several real estate sites have free MLSsearches), classified ads, and for sale signs. Because of our jobs and the three hour drive to get to the mountains, most of this work took place on the weekends. A few months into our search we decided to talk to a few Realtors to see if it made sense to get some help, and we found one who was excited about what we were doing. Having a realtor accelerated our search, because he could do some of the preliminary searching and provide insights that saved us many hours and many gallons of gas. Each property we saw gave us a better idea of what we wanted and what we could afford. We learned what things we could be flexible on and what things were absolute requirements. It took us another several months of weekend trips, but the right piece of land finally came on the market at the right price and we made our purchase.


This is some other beautiful land we found but it didn't have the privacy we were looking for.


And this is from the day we found the land that would become Mt. Matt.


The view form our mountain.

We'll be back with more building updates after this weekend. Keep reading and please, keep commenting. We're happy to answer your questions.

Ask Matt

2011-08-22T21:26:00.000-04:00

Welcome to our new semi-regular feature called Ask Matt! From time to time, faithful readers will pose a question on the blog that I as your humble narrator cannot answer. Matt, who has full permissions to post here on the blog tends to defer the writing to me, but I have asked him to answer some of the questions that have asked in comments.

Our first question comes from fellow Tiny House blogger and enthusiast Andrew Odom.

“I am anxious to hear what you do with the solar. What are you setting up? What is the budget? What will it run? Do tell, do tell.”

And Matt says:

We designed the solar for our cabin by first minimizing our needs - energy hogs like electric stoves, fridges, washer / dryer, air conditioning, water heaters, microwaves and such were ruled out. Our system provides lights, small fans, and plugs for small appliances. When we need to run construction tools or other items with large power needs, we use a portable generator. The generator can also recharge the batteries if we need it to.

When selecting the actual components, we took a two phase approach. The system we have now is phase 1. It is a small system consisting of a 60 watt solar array, a 7 amp charge controller, and a 2000 watt- modified sine wave inverter and (2) 60 Amp/hr batteries. I put that together for about $900. The inverter connects directly to the breaker box on our cabin and we use standard electrical fixtures and outlets. The weakness of this system is that the small solar array limits the amount of power we can generate and the small batteries limit the amount of power we can store. Since we are only at the cabin on weekends, this has not been a problem. The batteries are full when we get there and the system runs everything we need it to (lights, laptops, cell phones, battery chargers) for the weekend.

Next year we plan to spend more time in the cabin. When we outgrow the current system, we'll move to phase 2. To do that, we will upgrade the solar panels to (2) 240 watt mono crystalline solar panels, a 30 amp charge controller, and 3 115 Amp/hr batteries. Originally we had planned to upgrade the inverter to a pure sine wave inverter, but the modified sine wave inverter we currently use has worked perfectly, so there is no need to spend the extra money. Based on current prices, the upgrade will cost approximately $2200. The phase 2 system should provide enough power to meet our needs on an ongoing basis. In case it falls short due to long periods of cloudy weather or unexpectedly high usage, the generator will continue to provide backup power and charging capability.

Please, feel free to ask any questions about anything we are doing at any time and I promise to pass them on to Matt to answer and will publish the answers here.

We'll be back up to the house this coming weekend to start some of the interior trim and finish work.

Minor Report; No Photos

2011-08-15T20:17:00.002-04:00

I'm afraid I don't have much to report this week after our trip to Asheville. We got a lot done, just not a lot that would be photo- or even noteworthy.

We left for Asheville early on Saturday morning to go directly to a U-Haul rental place to rent a cargo van. See, we had several hundred various trim pieces to buy from Lowe's and we realized that there was no way it would all fit in the Element. I love the Element, and it can do almost anything, but even it can't carry about 200 individual pieces of 8 foot lumber. It was almost entirely trim for both the interior and exterior. This is really the last materials run for the build. We do still need to go get the counter tops and the shelves, but that can all fit in the Element with no problem.

After we loaded all the wood into the cargo van, we had to take it up to Mt. Matt only to unload it again and put it in the barn room. Since we are no longer sleeping in the barn, we can use it to store a lot of materials now and only take what we need up to the Tiny House for each project.

After we organized all the wood, we went up to the house to take our stuff and knock out a couple of little projects. We put a light box up in the ceiling to install the light bar we got for that. Then we installed the light, but realized that it wasn't a good fit. We had bought a Tidig from Ikea and because of the way it installed with side screws, it just didn't work in the peak of the gabled roof. We had to take it down and we'll figure out something smaller.

We kept the van a little long, so we really needed to leave to get it back to the U-Haul place back in time. And after we did that, we decided to go to the Highland Brewery tasting room. I really enjoyed it and it quickly launched to nearly the top of the list for local Asheville breweries. After a couple of pints, we stopped for dinner and then went back up to Mt. Matt to call it a night. It was a cool and rainy night, so sleeping in the loft was terribly pleasant

On Sunday, we woke to a rainy morning so some of our plans had to be changed. We wanted to do the trim in the ceiling, but we couldn't set up the table saw outside. Instead, we put up the hall light one of the last plugs. Also, our neighbor walked up to the house and we visited with him for a while.

We cleaned up and were on our way home about 1:30. Once back in Atlanta, met up with some friends for our favorite pizza, Mellow Mushroom, for some fun and conversation.

Next trip up should have more photo opportunities. Stay tuned!

South Africa Build Project

2011-08-10T07:43:00.004-04:00

I have never monetized this blog. I don't have advertisements and I don't promote anything specific here (save for geeking over various gadgets we use in or around our tiny house). I have always figured this blog was about detailing the process of building our little house and then would transition into a exploration of living in it. I don't begrudge people who do advertise on their blog, I think it is wonderful that people can earn money for what they love to do.

That being said, I've added something to the sidebar here. I am not looking for donations to support the building of our tiny house in North Carolina, but I am suggesting that if you like what you read here you would consider donating money to the Zulu Orphan Alliance.

We will be traveling to South Africa in November to discuss the building, see the land, and meet the people we will be helping. We have selected a building method (Earth Bags) and have decided on plans for the building that will be started in the Spring of next year. Well, Spring for us here in the northern hemisphere. I suppose that would mean it will be Autumn in South Africa when we start. We have all these things as well as the people to help build, but the one thing we could always use is more money.

I'll continue to post updates of our own tiny house build here and I will be happy to share any and all information about the building in South Africa as well. I appreciate each and every one of you who read Life in 120 Square Feet. Thank you for supporting this project.

Living in 120 Square Feet

2011-08-02T19:53:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed the title of this blog is "Life in 120 Square Feet" not "How to Build a 120 Square Foot Cabin" even though I have yet to talk about actually living in the little house. I suppose it is natural - before you can live in a house you've built you have to build it. And it has been a long process for us since we are living and working in Atlanta during the week and coming up to Asheville about two weekends a month to build this damn thing. It has been as frustrating as it has been rewarding, and I wouldn't change a thing.

But the build has hit a major milestone. Probably the most major of all the potential milestones. We can stay in it. We had been camping on the land and sleeping in the little barn room as we built the house, but over our 4th of July campout, we stayed in the House for the very first time. On the first morning, when I made my way back down to the barn where all of our friends had pitched their tents, a friend was sitting at the campfire and he asked me, "So, how was it" and the only thing I could think of was that it was no longer camping, it was simply "living".

There is a lot of work to be done. And, in truth, the only thing we can really do in the house right now is sleep (and eat a pre-packed picnic meal). We have to finish the kitchen and the bathroom before it is truthfully livable. But it is a whole new reality when we are staying in the little house we built with our own two hands. To see it come together like this is mindblowing and humbling. We did this. Now that we are nearly finish, each trip up brings us closer to being able to do one more thing inside the house. We're getting the solar and electrical system set up. Soon the kitchen will be done and we do make coffee and hot chocolate inside. One step closer to living in it every time we finish a project.

As the rest of the peices fall into place, this blog will in fact transition from building this little house to living in it. Living off the grid on 15 acres on a mountain about 20 miles from the nearest city. Stay tuned for more revelations about our journey.

Floors!!!

2011-07-31T18:43:00.000-04:00

While there is a still a lot of little stuff to be done at the Tiny House, this weekend we tackled the last big project we had left: the floors.

We did a lot of research into types of floors and finally settled on one primarily for ease of use. We decided on the Allure flooring system from Home Depot in natural maple. It is a floating floor system made of durable materials.

As it turned out, even though this was the last big job for us, it only took us a day to install it. It was pretty easy to work with. Here are some photos:

We even had time this weekend to go into Asheville for their annual music festival Bele Chere. Got to see one of my favorite bands, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, which was pretty awesome.

Most everything else we need to do is some level of finish work. Lots of trim, cabinet doors, counters, shelves, and moving in furniture. I can't believe it is almost finished.

Rescuing a Turtle

2011-07-26T06:54:00.000-04:00

If you don't think that building a tiny house in the mountains is sometimes a little surreal, you would be mistaken. We got a bit of a late start on Saturday because we made the mistake of staying out a little too late with friends on Friday night. I thought that the drive up would be a little miserable, but we had a spirited conversation and the three hours zoomed right by. Except we did give in to temptation and stopped at Burger King, of all places, on our way. When we did get up to Mt. Matt, we stopped at the barn for just a moment and then loaded all of our stuff on our backs and trekked up to the tiny house.

On our way, we walked past our spring. A while back, we installed a hose to divert the spring to a more advantageous location on the land and that left the spring reservoir dry. But as we passed by it, we saw a little box turtle down at the bottom. The spring reservoir is about the size of a Labrador retriever, so we knew the little turtle wouldn't be able to get out. So, Matt unloaded all of his stuff and reached in to get the little guy. He pulled all his appendages into his shell and hissed at Matt. "I'm trying to help you, don't hiss at me!" He walked back down the path to set him down where he wouldn't necessarily go back into the empty spring. And we continued up to the house.

Once there, we were still feeling pretty tired but we fought off the urge for a nap and got down to work. The project for the weekend - finishing the siding for the closets and the cabinets. We decided the best way to tackle the task was to divide and conquer. Once we determined the measurements and how much material we needed, I was on the saw cutting the boards while Matt was installing. We finished the closets in short order. In the closet that is on the side of the "living room", we installed cedar planks on just the back wall. The material was awful to work with but it is pretty and smelled really nice. We're just glad we only did that one wall with it (we are doing the bathroom in cedar too, but a different type of cedar). That closet will house Piglet's litter box so we thought the cedar would be good for that. Though, Piglet's litter box is currently in our master bedroom closet (the door stays open) and we don't have any problem with smell or anything there. We finished up the closets by about 7pm and decided to go to a local watering hole for dinner. The owners are great people so we spent some time talking with them. They also just built a small hotel attached to the bar and they took us on a tour. Just two rooms but they are super nice.

After dinner, we went back up to the tiny house. The evening was starting to cool off and Matt sat out on the little front porch playing guitar while I climbed up in the loft, popped on my laptop and did some writing. It was cool because I could hear him from inside and it was very relaxing. After that we watched a movie and eventually fell asleep. I will admit, it was a little hot - heat rises after all - but we had a fan in the storage loft opposite our sleeping loft and that helped circulate the air. I slept no problem.

On Sunday, we didn't hurry to get up and we started work about 11am. The only projects to do were to side the entry way ceiling and the sides of the cabinets. I had a lot of cutting to do, especially small pieces (for example, 40 pieces of siding at 3.5 inches...) so I cut and Matt nailed and we were done pretty quickly. Earlier than we even anticipated, or planned for. Which was pretty cool and I think the first time in this whole project that we actually finished a part before we expected to. Don't let anyone fool you - building your own tiny house just two weekends a month at a time is hard work! We were able to pack up and get out of dodge about 3pm. To reward our hard work, once we got home we went to our favorite pizza joint.

Also, I mentioned our new futon bed but never got a photo of that, so here you go.

As it turns out, I happen to have this Friday off of work and the Asheville free music festival, Bele Chere, is going on. So, after just getting home Sunday we will be spending only 4 days in Atlanta and then head back up to Mt. Matt on Friday. The plan then - the Floors! I can't believe we are at that stage! It'll be incredible to see that part finished. Then when we look at the list of things we have left, it seems awfully short. What a crazy journey it has been.

And remember, we will be going to South Africa in November to begin a project for the Zulu Orphan Alliance. They have us to help with the building and lots of people who can help build, but what they really need is money to make this happen. If you are inclined, check out the ZOA website and make a contribution.

Newest Jay Shafer Design

2011-07-13T10:57:00.000-04:00

The folks over at Tiny House Blog have just posted a video of an interview with Jay Shafer and a tour of his newest house design. It is so inspiring to see this design. I love the new concept - building a 120 square foot shell of a house with the option for kitchen and bathroom spaces. Check out the interview.

I love the overall aesthetic of the Box Bungalow. I love the take on the craftsman style which I think works really well with the overall concept of the tiny house. I do also, of course, love the idea that this example is built without a trailer.

I could have never imagined...

2011-07-11T19:46:00.000-04:00

Almost three years ago when this journey began, I would have never imagined all of the places a Tiny House could take me. I'm not even talking about building a little house on wheels and driving it around. Most specifically because we have not built our tiny house on wheels. No, our journey has taken an even more surreal turn. And all because Matt and I took the leap to build our little cabin in the mountains, we have been asked to do something that is so awesome it is almost beyond words. Let me try to share.

Just over a year ago, Matt reconnected to an old friend. Unfortunately, it came about because his cousin died of pancreatic cancer. I had a hard time with that - it was very difficult. His cousin had been my age and at various times I had been very close to him. We had a love hate relationship but I always regretting not keeping in touch with him. But because of it, Matt and his brother went on a road trip to the memorial service in Reno, NV and their old friend Priscilla met them there. Since that time, Priscilla moved to South Africa and be came involved in several organizations, including Operation Bobbi Bear.

A few months ago, Priscilla began talking with Matt about an upcoming project. They are planning to buy some land to build a shelter. Since Matt and I have some cursory experience with sustainable building she wanted to know more information. This blossomed into more than just advising them, but to truly helping them.

This is the land where the shelter will be built.

We have an opportunity to go to South Africa to help them build. We are going for an exploratory mission in November of this year to learn more about the land and the materials, develop plans, help the locals get started with any sort of legal permitting process and all of the other minutia that goes into building something like this. We will share with them information about types of buildings that will work best for the location and we can teach them some basic skills to get started. Then, the current plan is for us to be able to go back for some time in the spring of next year for the building to begin.

I've been talking with Priscilla and another member of their organization, Tammy, about the things they need and, like all non-profits, they need money. They are only a few hundred dollars short of the money needed to buy the land. And I said, "well, I think I can help?". I offered to get the word out there - through the tiny house community, through sustainable living enthusiasts, through members of my religious community. Here is the best part - the money isn't going to some faceless organization. This money will help them directly. I know these people. I know this project. I will be personally involved. You can keep up with the project and really see how your donations are being used. Check out the website for their organization, the Zulu Orphan Alliance.

We may also need some other help down the line. Certainly we wouldn't ask anyone to buy a ticket and travel to South Africa, but we could use some expert advice and information from time to time. We could use information about sustainable living, permaculture and building techniques. Any help is appreciated.

If you're able to donate any amount of money to this cause, please go to their donation page. Even a few dollars can make a difference. Feel free to spread the news far and wide.

I am incredibly honored and humbled to be asked to help with this. I can't believe I have this type of opportunity just because I decided to build a tiny house in the woods.

Independence Day at Mt. Matt

2011-07-05T09:11:00.000-04:00

Even before we began building the tiny house, we started hosting a 4th of July party at our mountain. This year marked the 4th Annual Independence Day at Mt. Matt and I think it was a wild success. We got a lot of little projects accomplished but I believe we also had a lot of fun.

The weekend started for me and Matt on Thursday. He took me to work that morning and then came to pick me up at the end of the day so we could head right up to North Carolina. We arrived about 9pm and just tucked in, watched True Blood on HBO Go, and went to bed. As I write this, it feels like forever ago because we got so much done in the following days.

On Friday, I didn't set any sort of alarm and just got up whenever I was ready. I think it was about 9am. I spent the morning setting up a kitchen area and getting the camping areas ready for folks to arrive. We took the futon mattress up to the tiny house, launched it into the loft and made it up so we could sleep in there the rest of the week. This was a huge milestone - this Independence would be our first in the tiny house. However, since we don't have a ladder built, we simply leaned the A-frame ladder against the loft to get up and down. Well, I know it seems crazy but I'm afraid of heights and the though of having to climb back down an unsecured ladder led to a full on panic attack. I cried for a while and it took me about 15 minutes to even be able to climb down. I finally did, though.

Around 3pm, our first guest arrived - our friend Andrew. Once he got there, he and I went out to the grocery store to get all of the food for the weekend. While we were gone, Matt built a temporary ladder for me! I was so happy - and it rocked.

When Andrew and I got back from the store, we organized the food and other items in the kitchen. Not long after that, our next pair of guests arrived - Bill and Susan. All of our guests set up their tents near the barn and since it was just the five of us on the first night, we decided to go into Asheville. We went to Pack's Tavern for dinner. We got back to Mt. Matt about midnight and Matt and I headed up to the tiny house for our first night of sleep. I climbed up that ladder and settled into the bed. For just a few moments I had some anxiety about what would happen if the foundation collapsed - but that was ridiculous, the house isn't going anywhere. But eventually I processed my fear of heights and fell asleep. I slept quite well. It wasn't camping any more - it was just "living".

More people were set to arrive on Saturday, so we didn't want to get too involved with projects. We started the morning by making cinnamon rolls in the camp oven. They were quite yummy. After breakfast was over and people were ready for the day, we took the table up to the house to install. We bought the table over a year ago and were very excited to be able to install it. It is from Ikea called the Norbo. It works perfectly for the small space because it can fold down when we don't need to use it and want more space. We also took two directors chairs that we had and removed the arms to make stools which work perfectly, plus we can use them as foot rests when we are sitting in the "living room". As we were in the process of getting the table installed, our next ~~victims~~...I mean, guests were arriving. Andy and Emily came up to the tiny house to say hi, but then I went with them back down to the barn to help them get their camp site set up. As we were doing that, our friend Jill arrived. Once everyone was set up we headed back up to the house to see the progress on the table. As you can see, it looked great once it was installed.

At some point, we retired to the barn for some lunch and snacks and we put up the shade canopy so we had some reprieve from the hot sun. After lunch, Matt took some folks up to a tree that was leaning over the main path to help cut it down. With some people on ropes, he was able to take the tree down without any injury. It worked smashingly.

Dinner time was about 6:30 and I made two different kinds of stuffed shells in the camp oven along with some Italian sausage on the grill. Our friend Chad arrived as we were eating. Dinner seemed well received by all. I really love using the camp oven. I had made the stuffed shells at home and froze them. They had been in a cooler since and were able to thaw out enough to pop in the oven. There were shells with ground beef and spinach mixture with a red sauce and shells with a ricotta cheese mixture with a white sauce. Yum.

The after dinner entertainment was music. Matt and Chad were debuting their new set with our friends to prepare for really playing out. I think it was quite a success. They started by playing the set they would play out. Then we invited everyone else to participate. Susan brought her hammer dulcimer and Bill had his mountain dulcimer. The rest of us had shakers, tambourines, drums and other instruments. Matt played the drum for a little bit then went back to the guitar for a full on sing along set.

After the music was done, we hung out at the camp fire for a while. Andrew mused that we should build a new fire pit, so a project was born for Sunday.

On Sunday morning, we gathered again at the barn. Some folks took showers and I made some breakfast. The morning fare - scrambled eggs, biscuits and pork sausage patties. It was yummy and the perfect brunch. After breakfast, some folks went out to Lowe's to get the stuff to build a new fire pit. When they got back and got unloaded, there was discussion among some to take a drive out to Mt. Mitchell. I stayed behind with a couple other campers and we had a lovely afternoon hanging out by the barn and enjoying some beer. When the rest of the group got back we were regaled with stories of the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi.

On Sunday night I made some more dinner - this time, nachos in the camp oven and chipotle lime marinated chicken legs on the grill. Andy and Emily packed up to head out and took some dinner with them and the rest of us built a fire in the new fire pit and enjoyed the evening and conversation. I was informed via facebook the next morning that the nachos made "The Best Breakfast Ever". Yay.

On Monday morning, I made breakfast by wrapping turkey sausage links in crescent rolls. It was my only real culinary experiment (as I had tried everything else I served before). They were very yummy.

After breakfast, folks started breaking down their campsites and getting ready to take off. Interestingly enough, the weather report had indicated about a 30-40% chance of rain throughout the weekend, but it held off - until noon on Monday. Thunder started rolling and the sky looked dark and it just started raining as everyone finished packing their cars and heading down the mountain. Matt and I waited out the the heaviest of the rain and left at about 1:30. We had taken today off as well, but we are spending it at home in Atlanta instead.

We won't be back again for a couple of weeks, but the next projects include the floor, finishing the counters and cabinets, and siding the interior of the closets.

Seriously, rain....

2011-06-20T07:27:00.002-04:00

So, the weekend started out wonderfully. Before I even left Atlanta, I found out that the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company website was going to feature us on the blog. That was super exciting. Matt was already up in Asheville, so I made sure he knew it was posted as well. I left work on Friday afternoon and drove straight to Mt. Matt. When I got there, Matt was eager to show me what he had worked on while I was still in Atlanta. Behold - cabinets!

Needless to say, I was impressed. But that was the only building work we could get done that weekend because in preparation for an annual 4th of July camp out that we hold for a few friends, we needed to brush hog. Most of our 15 acres is wooded, but there are a couple of clear spots - the meadow behind the barn, the Tumbleweed Clearing, and another large clearing on way on the other side of the land. As well as a nice spot up near the ridge. Our day began by getting up early and heading to a local Home Depot that rented equipment. He asked if we had a truck and Matt said, "No, we have a very spirited Honda Element!" We have never lost the "What will fit in the Element" argument. We've put a brush mower in it before, so we were able to load it up easily and head back to Mt. Matt. We got back to the land about 10am and the sky was clear, the sun was shining. I left Matt to start mowing and went to a local grocery store to pick up some supplies for our 4th of July weekend - things like paper plates and cups and Deep Woods Off. I got back in about an hour and he was nearly done with the meadow. Here is an old photo from some brush hogging years ago.

That is our friend Chad back in 2008 helping us out clearing the meadow. So Matt kept mowing. He even commented that it was a beautiful day for it but he could use another cloud or two. We determined that I would make lunch around 2pm so in the mean time,I did some cleaning around the barn and getting some things ready for 4th of July. At about 2, Matt came back down to the barn and I was getting lunch ready. And the clouds started rolling in. I figured it was just a "pop up" thunder storm, which is normal in the mountains. The rain started pretty heavy, and it was blowing in the barn. We ate our lunch and there wasn't much else we could do so we decided to take a nap to wait for the rain to stop. Finally, at about 3 or 3:30 it has stopped so Matt headed back up the mountain to keep working. I was going to do some work in the house but we decided it was pretty late and it wasn't a project I could stop halfway through, so instead I hung out at the barn. At about 4pm, the rain started again. At first, lightly and then a little harder. I actually called Matt to see if he took shelter in the tiny house, but he didn't answer. As it turned out he simply pressed on. I continued to do some work at the barn and at about 6pm he came walking up from the road. We had talked about making a "North West Passage" from the lower clearing to the road so I asked if he had done so and he said no, that he thought he had better check it out manually first - and he was glad he did because he didn't find a flat or straight enough trail to make it work. He was already soaked to the bone but the rain had let up a little so he took a short break and headed back up - now he needed to get the mower back up the steep hill from the lower clearing. The plan was for me to have dinner ready by about 8pm. Right about 7:30 he came mowing back down the trail to the barn. I had already started dinner but he had about 45 minutes worth of work left which was fine. I had fired up the grill and put potatoes in foil in the coals so they could stay there forever. When he finally finished I threw some steaks on the grill. By the time we ate, it was just starting to get dark out. After dinner, Matt took a hot shower and collapsed immediately into bed. We were woken up in the middle of the night by some serious thunder storms! Huge thunder and lightening making the barn shake. Tons and tons of pouring rain. And it didn't stop. I fell asleep again while it was still night, but even when the morning came it was still raining. It broke briefly at about 8 am so I got up but by the time I was dressed, it started again, and didn't stop. We wanted to be ready to leap at a moments notice to load the brush hog and head back to Asheville but didn't want to do it in the pouring rain. At 10am we finally had a break so we put a tarp down in the element and loaded the mower. We drove into town and dropped it off. Of course, Asheville was gorgeous - bright and sunny and beautiful. We stopped for a leisurely lunch and then went into downtown to buy a futon mattress for the tiny house (a perfect fit into the loft). Well, as you might expect as we were inside the futon store, the sky opened up. An absolute downpour. And we had to get the futon into the Element! We were soaked. As we drove back to Mt. Matt we were really hoping we had some luck on our side. We knew we couldn't get the mattress up to the house in the mud even if it stopped raining, but we could at least get it into the barn. We did that and packed up the cars and it was time to head back to Atlanta. It was an exhausting weekend - more for Matt than for me. It was exhausting for me dealing with the rain and the schedule. All I can hope for now is that we don't have those kinds of storms over 4th of July.

Finally updated the Flickr page!

2011-06-16T14:13:00.002-04:00

Land Stuff

2011-06-14T20:18:00.000-04:00

When it comes to building a tiny house on 15 acres in the mountains of North Carolina, sometimes the work doesn't revolve around the tiny house itself. This past weekend was one of those weekends. We're planning for an annual Fourth of July camp out with some friends and so we needed to get some general maintenance tasks done.

I had Friday off of work so we went up to Asheville that day. On the way in, we stopped at a local futon store to check out some futon options since we decided that might be the best mattress option for the loft. We got some ideas and plan to go back soon to pick that up. Once we got to the land on Friday we did some little projects up at the house.

We started by installing the matching light on the other side of the house.

The only thing I can't manage to do is get a photo of the WHOLE house. Wouldn't think it would be took difficult to do such a thing in such a tiny house. But it is.

We also installed the outdoor porch light.

I was trying to get a photo of the house but the trees and the sun weren't making it easy. So I got this photo of Matt talking on the phone.

Once the little house stuff was done, it was time to do some other general land tending stuff. Some of it was done Friday afternoon and some on Saturday, but I lost track of what we did when. I did some work cleaning the barn and getting ready to set up a kitchen area for our party. Matt did some weed whacking around the barn. I filled up water jugs from the spring. We picked sticks up from the main pathways. And, most importantly, I spent a lot of time with Poison Ivy-geddon. That stuff is the bane to my existence. I so much as look at it and I get a reaction. I show no mercy.

We did some fun stuff. We went to a local music festival that was great fun.

We have more work to do before our annual party. Stay tuned for more details.

The Big Post of Huge Progress

2011-06-01T08:17:00.006-04:00

We aren't normally available over Memorial Day Weekend to go up to the land and work on the house. In years past, we attended a festival in North Georgia that weekend. This year, the festival was changed around and we were unable to attend on the new weekend, but we had already taken the vacation time for the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. There was only one thing we could do - go work on our tiny house.

I will warn you now, this post is photo heavy. I was so excited by our visible progress over the weekend that I couldn't help myself - I took a ton of photos.

The weekend was actually supposed to start on Thursday night. I was being chased by storms on my way home from work. No more than about 5 minutes after I pulled in to the drive to the apartment complex and into the garage, the wind and rain hit our building full force. Several of the Bradford Pear trees lining the driveway came down. People were packed into the lobby. Delivery people were stuck. There use to be two driveways to get out of our complex but there is major roadwork blocking the other exit right now. We went down to pack up the car and saw the trees down in the drive way. We decided to buy something to make for dinner at the store in the lobby and re-evaluate by 8pm. At 8pm we looked off our balcony and saw that traffic was packed in on the expressway. We checked the navigator website and there were problems all the way along our route to North Carolina. At that point we made the decision to go get our cooler and bags back out of the car and leave early in the morning.

The alarm went off at 5am and we were on the road by 5:45. We made great time that early in the morning and were just pulling in at Mt. Matt at 9:15. We unloaded the car, ate a breakfast bar and gathered our things to go up to the tiny house. After the prior trip where it rained much of the time, we decided to take our easy-up canopy to the clearing so we could keep working. There was rain in the forecast. We popped up the canopy and set it up over the work bench. It rained a couple of times on Friday, so we were glad we had it. The rest of the weekend was beautiful and the canopy provided much needed shade from the hot sun. The big project for the weekend: interior siding. In theory, this seems like an easy job. The house is only 120 square feet so how much work could it possibly be. We had already finished the ceiling siding so all that was left was the easy stuff, right? Well, it is a bigger job than it seems. Measuring, cutting, brad nailing...sometimes recutting and renailing.

This process took us the entire weekend with minor breaks for putting up some light fixtures just to see the semi-finished project. So, without further ado - here are the photos from the weekend:

The inaugural panels.

The first wall getting close

Continuing the span

Watching the cutting from the window

Air tools made this job much easier.

And...my view from the porch during a break

And...the first finished wall!

Matt is very proud of his work!

And so we move on to the back wall. The panel with the electrical was left open so we would have access to it from under the kitchen counters.

And more measuring...

While I took a photo of this wild daisy.

And then we had two finished walls. I believe this was still day one.

The first thing we did on the morning of Day 2 (Saturday) was put up our new Ikea light fixture - the Lillholmen. As described, it gives a good general light.

Then Chomsky took a coffee break.

After that, we did the ceiling in the kitchen area.

Then it was my turn to get down to work. My job: Tung Oil. This involves a lot of rubbing. Wax on, wax off. Like the Karate Kid.

While I did that, Matt worked on the "dining room" wall.

With that wall finished, I could swoop in and get that wall tung oiled as well. I believe that was the last thing we did on day two (Saturday). Though, by this point all the days were running together.

On Friday we had gone to a local restaurant to have pizza and while there we got to watch a local musician play, which was pretty cool. On Saturday, though, we built a fire and cooked in the camp oven while Matt played guitar. The meal for the evening: home made macaroni and cheese with chicken and apple sausage. I cut the sausage and mixed it in with the mac and cheese so it got nice and cheddary too. The apple and cheese was a great combination. Yum. I would do that again.

On Sunday, we got up and got started again with...more siding...

Actually, that isn't true. We wanted to get another look at another finished light fixture. For the kitchen, we had another fixture from Ikea, though I don't remember what one this was specifically.

Really liked the look of that one too.

Then we got to siding the tiny bathroom. Crazy to actually see a finished "room" in the tiny house.

More measuring...more cutting...more nailing.

And...a tiny finished room with real walls.

Last, but not at all least, were the two tiny closet walls at the front of the house. You may notice the interesting configuration of the studs. That is because between the two horizontal members, Matt is building an inset shelving system. They will be shallow shelves but perfect for things like phones and chargers and other small items.

On the other side, you will also see the custom built cat door which is the entry to Piglet's litter box. You remember Piglet, right?

This is our little hairless beast enjoying the sun at our high rise apartment in Atlanta.

And so, we have two finished closet walls.

I thought I took a final photo of the entire house all finished up, but I failed. By the end of the day on Sunday I couldn't remember what I had and had not taken photos of.

We didn't finish up too late on Sunday at all. We got ourselves cleaned up and drove into Asheville for dinner. We ate at Curate, which was completely Yum. While there, I also enjoyed a Pisgah Endless Summer. Pisgah is one of my favorite breweries. After dinner, we wanted to get a coffee and walk around but since it was Sunday night our usual coffee place was closed so we just started walking. We ended up at The French Broad Chocolate Lounge. There we discovered Cold Sipping Chocolate with Caramel. Also completely yum. We wandered around Asheville because it was gorgeous outside and eventually made our way back to the car and back to Mt. Matt.

On Monday, we decided we were going to tung oil the rest of the house. Matt went up in to the loft and I finished the bathroom and closet walls. That was actually the hardest thing we did all weekend. I finished up first so I went down to the barn to pack up while Matt finished tung oiling the ceiling and loft gables. Once he was done we just had to pack up the car and go. It was about 3:15 or so. We stopped at a place called Stony Knob for lunch. And, so we were back on the road by about 4:30 or so and got back to Asheville at about 8pm. It was a great weekend. It is so satisfying to have such a visually impactful project done on the house. We're back up in two weeks, but we have a lot of outside work to do to prepare for our annual Independence Day at Mt. Matt event. As much as we love working on the tiny house, it will be a nice break to do some work on the land for that weekend. There is also a music festival going on at one of our favorite local bars so we'll spend much of the day Saturday there. Stay tuned for more progress updates!

Ceiling, Siding, and Nachos

2011-05-18T20:31:00.000-04:00

We just got back from a long weekend at Mt. Matt. We drove up on Saturday and came home yesterday, taking two vacation days to work on the tiny house.

As I said, we started our weekend on Saturday getting up early and hitting the road by 7ish in the morning. Once we got to the Asheville area it was around 11 am so we stopped at Subway and picked up some lunch and headed up to the land. When we arrived, we unpacked the car and ate our lunches before deciding what to do next. Rain was in the forecast, so we decided the most responsible thing to do was to load the rest of the siding material onto the ATV trailer and get it up to the house so we were ready to go. While Matt did that, I organized our campsite, made the bed and set up the kitchen. We got up to the house and started right on the first project of the weekend; the ceiling.

This process involved measuring the span and determining the lengths for each alternating row since the intention was for the panels to be staggered. That was the easy part. The hard part was fitting the pieces up on the wall especially across the span between the two lofts. The first couple of runs were fine because I could stand up on a step stool and hold them while Matt stapled from the ladders, but as it climbed the wall, I couldn't reach. It involved a lot of up the ladder, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, down the ladder. We had intended to do the whole ceiling on the first day, but as many of the projects have turned out this one managed to take longer than we expected. We finished the first half of the ceiling not long before dark and so we decided to head to a favorite bar for dinner and a couple of beers. We returned to land and watched some TV on DVD and went to bed pretty early.

On Sunday, we slept in and woke up to a glorious mountain morning. We were energized and so we headed right up to the tiny house to finish the ceiling. Of course, it was with this second half that we hit our stride. After the first couple of runs where I could still reach from the step stool we realized that if I went up into the sleeping loft I could help hold the paneling in place and even though Matt still needed to climb up and down and up and down, it went a lot faster. We finally hit our stride - at the end of the project. Once we were done with that, we broke for lunch and then had to go up to Lowe's to get some things for the rest of the projects for the weekend. When we got back to the land, we had to do a lot of planning and measurements for the furring. We had a couple of supports we needed to put in to make sure we could install the folding table and the kitchen shelves. By the time we finished the plans, it was too late to start working so we decided to make dinner instead.

As part of my camp oven experiments this year, I tried a new recipe earlier in the week and froze it to bring with us. It thawed in the cooler and was ready to be popped in the oven. It was a pretty simple recipe and something I would make again in a heartbeat. I know this isn't a cooking blog, but in case you find yourself in the market for some nachos, try this sometime. We used a pound of ground chicken and cooked it up in a tablespoon of olive oil and a healthy dash of red pepper flakes and minced garlic. I cooked that up until the chicken was done and added in a packet of taco seasoning. Once that was all mixed in I added a can of black beans, drained, and a cup of salsa. Once it was all cooked up I let it cool and put it in a tinfoil pan to freeze. You can, of course, skip the freezing part. At the camp, I stuck it in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes and then added some shredded cheese and popped it in the oven again until it got all nice and melty. Then I served it over chips. It was amazing. While I was making dinner, Matt played some guitar and sang and after dinner we both hung out on the computer - he played a game for a little bit and I edited a short story that I wrote and need to get ready for submission to an anthology. We went to bed about 10:30 and slept soundly.

On Monday, we got up and started to work doing the furring in the main part of the house. While Matt was working on that, I got to work removing the labels from the windows with goo-gone. Seriously, who's idea was it to put labels on windows that are impossible to remove? It took me all day to remove stickers from just 5 of the windows (I still have three more to go!). It was the stupidest job I have ever done. It involved spraying repeatedly with goo-gone, wiping aggressively with a clean white cloth, and scraping it with a plastic putty knife. Stupid. The furring ended up taking longer than we had expected as well and we really wanted to go into Asheville on Monday night so we decided to finish working at about 4:30. We took some camp showers and headed into town. We ate at The Lobster Trap and it was yummy. We didn't stay out late and were back to Mt. Matt by about 9:30 and read for a bit before turning in.

We set an alarm to get up about 8am on Tuesday. The intention was to start the main level siding. However, the weather had other plans for us. It was raining, so we didn't rush to get out of bed. We finally made ourselves get up by 8:30. We gave it some time but it just kept steadily raining. We had to made a decision. We went up to the house and, in the rain, moved all the siding (that had been under a tarp on the ATV trailer all weekend) into the house and straightened up in general. Finally, at 10am we gave up and head back to Atlanta.

We're back up for Memorial Day weekend so we expect to be able to get the interior siding completed since we can just start with that. One of my jobs will be tung oil-ing the whole house. We decided on doing that finish when we read about it on Evan and Gabby's blog and really liked the idea. We also need to build the kitchen cabinet frames and do the flooring.

Think Big, Build Small: A Tiny House Community Update

2011-05-03T07:22:00.000-04:00

I am truly humbled. On April 15th, I posted about the Facebook community that I started so that folks building or planning to build a tiny house could come together to discuss the projects. I envisioned a place where folks could ask practical questions. Just 18 days ago, the community only had one member and that was my sister who is not building a tiny house in anyway, she just thought it was cool. Now, just over two weeks later the community has grown to 40 members and I don't see it slowing down. People are participating, asking questions. It is pretty cool. Thanks to everyone coming to check out Think Big Build Small over at Facebook. And if you're not there yet, we'd love to have you!

Closer and Closer Every Day

2011-04-25T07:27:00.000-04:00

It is hard to remember where we were with the house build a year ago. It seems like we have progressed so far to be able to do the finishing work inside. I'm not sure I ever thought we'd be ready for this part, even though I knew we had to be eventually.

We started out this weekend on Friday night. We left Atlanta right after work and cruised into the Asheville area around 11pm. Once we got to Mt. Matt I set up camp in our little barn room and by midnight, I was sound asleep. I don't know what it is about Western North Carolina but I always feel so at peace and comfortable when I am there. I sleep way better out in the mountain air than I ever do in the city. On Saturday morning we got up at 8am, hopped out of bed and drove into town for some coffee and breakfast. We were back to the mountain by about quarter after 9 and ready to get working. The project this weekend was to do the inside paneling on the gables. We began to cut the pieces and that was the part that took the longest, especially getting up and down from the loft to dry fit each piece or series of pieces as they were cut. Since only one person could go up and down the ladder into the loft at a time, I enjoy the mountain view from our tiny porch.

At about 1pm I went back down to the barn to prepare and pack up lunch picnic style. This was our first meal at the tumbleweed house so I decided to document it.

After lunch, we split up for a while. Matt continued measuring and cutting siding for the gables while I decided now was a fine time to spray for Poison Ivy. It was just sprouting on the path up to the house and I figured that would be a good time to nip it in the literal bud before it became an infestation. I am ridiculously allergic to the stuff and have at least one bad reaction to it each year. Matt named me minister in charge of poison ivy control and I take that job very seriously. I only sprayed up the path to the house, but I know there is more to be destroyed. When I got back up to the house, we were getting closer to being able to install the paneling, which after all the measuring and cutting would prove to be the simplest part of the job.

We used the pneumatic brad nailer, which made the job a breeze.

I absolutely love the finished product. I can't wait to get started on the rest of the house. After we finished the gables, I went down to the barn to make dinner (burritos in the camp oven) while Matt worked out just how to do the ceiling for the next trip.

On Sunday, we got up again about 8am but didn't rush. We were going to leave WNC about 11am to get home in time to get ready for Easter Dinner at a friend's house in Atlanta at 6pm. We didn't do any work per se, but we did go up to the house to take measurements for the cabinets in the kitchen. With very clear heads that morning we designed a very cool shelving unit for the kitchen and I can't wait to see it finished.

The next trip in a couple of weeks is a 4 day trip - we each took some vacation time. We are pretty ambitious but I think we can accomplish everything. The ceiling, the walls and building the cabinets are on the docket. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Think Big, Build Small: A Tiny House Community

2011-04-15T19:28:00.002-04:00

Since people seemed to be somewhat interested, I have started a Facebook Page for Tiny House Builders. Please, join in! I would love to see it become a place for tiny house builders from all over to come together and talk about the process, share ideas, etc. Spread the word!

80 Degrees, Fetch and Paneling

2011-04-12T19:16:00.000-04:00

We couldn't have asked for a better spring weekend than this one. We left Atlanta about 7am and arrived at Mt. Matt at 11. We unloaded the car and sat down for lunch before getting to work.

The first project of the day was to do the sleeping loft floors. I was really excited about this. I am afraid of heights, even lofts, so I wasn't willing to get up there when it was just rafters. with a solid floor beneath me it was still going to be a little scary but I'll have to get use to it eventually.

With me firmly on the floor of the tiny house, Matt bravely climbed up to the loft and began placing the floor boards. This process went much smoother than the storage loft floors that we did the last time since we knew what challenges we would have. I waited patiently until the loft floors were done before climbing shakily up the orange ladder into the loft. I'd have to do it eventually. Soon we will have a little ladder built into the house and I'll have to sleep up there anyway.

I sat up there for a while, mostly because I was a little scared to get down. But I found the loft comfortable. It will certainly be more so once there is a mattress up there.

I looked out the tiny loft window, too. I was most amused by the warning sticker on the window frame itself.

Good thing that won't be a problem for us. Just gotta watch for Piglet the cat, though.

Speaking of pets, while we were up working on the loft floor our neighbor dog, Hash Brown, came up to hang out with us. After some time playing fetch, which is his favorite game, he settled in and hung out with us while we worked on the house. I even have photographic evidence.

After the loft floors were done, we did a little more preliminary work before we were ready to install one section of ceiling the next day. At about 6pm we headed down to the barn to make dinner.

I have been very happy with a recent acquisition. I spoke briefly before about the Camp Chef Camp Oven we got for Christmas.I made our second meal in it this weekend and it was awesome. I brought the components in the cooler and assembled it at the site: cooked penne pasta, really good Italian sausage sauce, slices of chicken sausage and mozzarella cheese. I mixed all but the cheese together in a foil pan and popped it in the camp oven at 350 until it was heated through. Then I sprinkled the cheese on top and let it cook until the cheese was melty. Dinner was great. I am really looking forward to cooking more with it and for groups.

After dinner, we wandered back up to the house, hoping to escape an impending thunderstorm, and did some little finish work like caulking the floor in the bathroom. While we were up there the storm started and we finished up and ran back down to the barn before it really started pouring. The rest of the night, Matt played guitar with the lightening in the background and eventually we went to bed. It had been and unseasonably warm day for WNC at about 80 degrees and only got down to around the mid 50s overnight. It was a perfect night for camping.

Sunday morning we got up around 8:30, got ready and drove toward Asheville for some coffee and breakfast. We also stopped at Lowe's on the way back to get some additional supplies. When we got back to Mt. Matt we launched right into work. The project for the day - paneling the bathroom ceiling to see what it was like to use the product. We figured starting with a small room (well, smaller room since the whole house is pretty small) we would really get a feel for the wood paneling that we chose and could make sure we made the right decision. It was pretty easy to install and we were very happy with the results.

We only did the ceiling because we really needed to get back to Atlanta, but we are ready to tackle the rest of the house the next couple of trips up.

This is me on the floor of the bathroom looking up at the newly installed ceiling. We are doing the bathroom in cedar while the rest of the house will be done in white pine.

Once we were finished with that, we could put the bathroom back together. We popped the shower into place and installed the final interior wall. It is getting harder and harder to take photos of the place as the spaces are getting tinier by the moment.

The shower isn't plumbed or anything yet and it will be a little while until it is usable. We have to construct our gray water system first. The idea came from the book Healing Appalachia by Al Fritsch and Paul Gallimore. This site has some great information on both composting toilet systems and constructed wetlands to deal with gray water.

We'll return in a couple of weeks and spend the weekend installing more interior paneling. It seems like such a huge step. Two years ago we were just starting the foundation!

Tiny House Network

2011-04-05T19:52:00.001-04:00

So, I have this crazy idea. I suppose I have a lot of crazy ideas, not the least of which is building a tiny house in the mountains of North Carolina. I have been reading a lot of blogs from other tiny house builders. Several of them are in my blog roll. I just posted about a tiny house builder in Michigan today. I love reading new updates from Evan and Gabby. Andrew Odom is writing a blog about his tiny house and I've been following Will and his Tarleton since before we even started ours. I know there are countless others. What I am envisioning is a network of tiny house builders. A place where we can come together, share out experiences with the only other people in the world who can truly understand the process. We can share details of our build and ideas for improving things and reasons we chose for certain methods. I would love to create a Facebook or LinkedIn page (because those are free options) but not everyone is part of those networking sites. So what say you, Tiny Community Folks? Is there a place on this great big internet for us to get together and share our experiences with one another? Perhaps a place where all of our individual blogs can come together and inspire others to live the Tiny Life.

Tiny Houses Everywhere

2011-04-05T08:13:00.004-04:00

It is so encouraging to see other building their tiny houses. I've recently pointed you all toward Evan and Gabby's Blog. Today, I wanted to share another blog and most specifically, his videos. Jonathan is a tiny house builder from Michigan, which is where Matt and I are from originally. I was pleased to see that he recently took some videos of the house, which you can see on his blog. Here is a tour of the inside of the house for your viewing pleasure. You can check out more at Jonathan's live journal.

Building A Tiny House

2011-04-02T08:48:00.001-04:00

Building A Tiny House, a set on Flickr.

I finally updated our Flickr with the most recent photos. Check them out.

Another blog mentions us!

2011-03-29T19:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Alex from Tiny House Talk posted a response to my latest blog post. He mentioned his next post would be about our tiny house. Today, as promised, the post was live. And on my birthday, no less. Check out the post at Tiny House Talk. Matt even responded to him to thank him for his post. I like that he references Throreau's Walden when describing our little house. As cheesy as it sounds, it was an inspiration for us.

This led me to reading the rest of Alex's blog. I was most interested in this post from earlier this month. Apparently inspired by Evan and Gabby's blog as well as the folks who write this blog. Alex poses the question as to whether or not two people can live comfortably in one tiny house. It is actually one of the most frequently asked questions we get about this process, even from some of our closest friends. Honestly, many of the reasons he specifies are truly motivators to our decision to want to live in a tiny house. Of course, our house isn't mobile in any way, so we are fixed to one place on the planet. In our case that is 15 acres of our very own mountain in North Carolina. If we really don't want to be in the same space, we can find another part of the land for some alone time. But I think the real answer to the question as to why the to of us want to build a tiny house and then live in it is because the two of us actually like to spend time together. People are often surprised by this. We are, after all, a culture that seems to really appreciate copious amounts of personal space. I even had an acquaintance tell me that the reason we liked to spend time together was because we hadn't been together for very long. I laughed at this because Matt and I have been together for 16 years. One of the lessons we learned when we lived in the big house that we recently sold was that we realized we didn't use the whole house, we just spent time together in a couple of rooms - the kitchen, the entertainment room and the bedroom. Now the Tiny House really serves all those purposes in only 120 square feet.

What I am really saying is that I give a lot of credit to couples who are looking to live in a tiny space with one another.

Can you Imagine?

2011-03-28T07:29:00.000-04:00

As we were working on the Tiny House this weekend Matt reflected about people building cabins in mountains before power tools. And we aren't even using a lot of the big guns - mostly just rechargeable Ryobi tools. I just can't imagine.

I finally had my camera with me this weekend with a fully charged battery as well as a back up just in case. I tested it by taking a photo of the Tiny Gnome my sister got us for Christmas. Every tiny house needs a tiny gnome. His name is Chomsky.

This week, we decided to head up to Asheville on Friday night so we could get up early and get going. We stayed at a hotel because we knew if we camped and it was cold in the morning we would have a harder time getting out of bed and getting started. The main task of this week was the final (or nearly final) materials run. We rented a Uhaul cargo van and picked it up right about 8am. From there we went to The Home Depot and when they didn't have a large chunk of the materials that we needed we drive over to a nearby Lowe's. There we had to make a decision. They did not have the materials we wanted for our interior siding but they had something else that would not only "just do" but also be a good alternative and it was about half the price. Problem is, they didn't have enough of it so the Lowe's folks (all of whom were very helpful - Nick, Julius and Grant) called over to the Weaverville store (which is on our way to Mt. Matt) and they had a good chunk of the rest. We still need a few more, but we can get those in the element. While at lowes we also bought some other lumber we needed to finish the closets and the cabinets. We also bought the wood for the two loft floors.

We were also racing against the weather. Heavy rain and thunderstorms were predicted and it had already rained in the mountains as the roads were wet. We knew we needed to get the materials out of the van and into the barn room and were praying it wouldn't rain. We got up to Mt. Matt and we got right to work. Matt started the ATV with the intention of getting all the materials from the road to the barn in just two trips. I went into the barn room and made some space for all of the remaining wood. Thankfully, we did get the materials in without incident. But since the next step of the process involved getting the wood up to the house, we decided to postpone that part for the next day or later. Since the land was wet we didn't want to take the ATV all loaded down with materials up the muddy trails and make them worse. We had to take the van back anyway so we decided to go back to Asheville and enjoy the afternoon while making some plans for the remaining work. We ended up at the French Broad Brewery and Tasting Room. After a couple of beers and some conversation with the bar tender, we walked around Biltmore Village for a while before heading back to Mt. Matt.

When we were back at Mt. Matt we went up to the house to take some measurements so we could cut the smaller loft floors down in the barn out of the rain. It had rained while we were in the brewery and it was constantly threatening to again. Then we settled in around 6pm for some dinner which I made in our brand new Camp Chef camp oven! This thing was so cool!. We got it for Christmas from Matt's brother and his fiance. Works just like a camp stove - screw in the propane and ignite - but it is an oven. I had made some lasagna during the week and froze it. It thawed in the cooler and I popped it in the oven for about an hour and and then we enjoyed it. It was hot and evenly cooked and tasty. By the time we finished dinner it was dark and had started to rain again so we retired to the barn room, watched some Deadwood on DVD on the laptop and went to bed.

On Sunday morning it was kinda cold so it was hard to get out of the nice warm bed to get going, but we weren't in a hurry. There was still rain in the forecast so we didn't know what we would be able to get accomplished. We certainly didn't want to take the wood all up to the house and get the table saw set up to cut and then have to stop again. So, we started with the boards for the smaller loft and cut them in the barn with the circular saw. Then we took them up to the house to get them installed. And, I have pictures.

Here is the loft before with just plywood set up on the rafters.

Here is me standing below while the boards are being placed.

Matt screwing in the boards.

And the finished product. Well, finished floors without walls or trim. There were a few hiccups in the process so we are glad we didn't rush to do the sleeping loft floors right away since we would change a few things before moving forward. However, the storage loft over the door looked great once it was done.

Then we decided just to finish the second closet wall before calling it a day.

Once that was secure, we cleaned up and headed home.

The next trip in two weeks should be equally as productive. We can finish the sleeping loft floors and start on the interior siding. We are on track to being finished with the inside of the house - not including finish trim - by July. We hope to have the furniture moved in and be able to stay in it. It feels so good to be so close.

1 Year of 120 Square Feet

2011-03-20T17:22:00.000-04:00

I nearly let the anniversary pass me by. I started this blog last year on St. Patrick's Day. But that wasn't when we started the house. We had actually already been building for a year when I decided to dive into the tiny house blogosphere.

We will be back up to North Carolina this weekend and I am very excited about the interior projects that we are working on. I do promise to take my camera.

However, we did do something this weekend that is, after a fashion, really a part of the tiny house process. See, this blog isn't just for the process of building. The intention is that this will also be a journal about living in a 120 square foot house. Since today was the Spring Equinox, we decided to take on a project here in Atlanta - container gardening. We live in the 16th floor of a high rise apartment so we wanted to plant a few different vegetables on the balcony. We chose two different kinds of peppers - jalapeno and sweet banana peppers. We also planted tomatoes and potatoes. Neither of us have been gardeners before, but it will be an important part of the sustainable and self-sufficient living we envision on our mountain.

Wish us luck!

Walls Walls Walls

2011-03-16T07:21:00.000-04:00

I know, I fail at photo taking lately. This trip I did have my camera with me and after taking only a few photos of some newly blooming spring flowers, the camera battery died. I hadn't thought to bring the back up battery or the charger with me, so this building weekend once again came and went with out photos.

Photos would be good here because what we built were very tiny walls inside a very tiny house. Super cute little walls on either side of the front door that will eventually be tiny closets once they are finished.

Matt actually went up to Asheville on Thursday of last week. He spent most of his time up there working his real day job which he can do remotely. At other times, he was able to finish the interior insulation that we started as well as build an, um, attachment to be mounted on both gables inside to be able to attach the interior wall siding. It was a clever contraption and I really wish I had photos of it. Essentially, the inside of both gable ends were constructed on the last roof timbers so there wasn't anything that we could attach the interior paneling to. Matt constructed a device using angle cut 2x4s to mount to the inside of the gables which fit around the framing for the window and now will allow us to install the interior siding.

I drove up to Asheville early on Saturday morning (I left Atlanta at 6am and arrived at 9am). We took our time that morning because it was going to be cold. In fact, it had even snowed when Matt was there by himself. It was supposed to warm up, and it did. Saturday turned into a beautiful day. The day started when we took my Honda Element (which we could never have built this house without) to Lowe's to gather some additional supplies. Specifically, we needed 20 2x4s to construct the interior walls. We looked at some finishing items like lighting and tile, but we aren't ready to by that. Once we got up to the land, we spent that time finishing the very last insulation panels and the gable end contraptions. We finished up before dark, cleaned up the space and headed back to Asheville for the night as it was way too cold to camp. We are hoping that by the next trip we will be able to camp again. I miss it.

On Sunday, we got up to the land early and began work on the interior walls. We measured and built the second wall in the kitchen but didn't install it since we have some finish work to do before that can be permanently put in place. Then we measured and cut all the wood for the tiny closet doors. We were able to install one of them completely before I wanted to pack up and go home. Since I was driving by myself, I wanted to get back to Atlanta before dark. I left the mountain at 3pm and made it back to Atlanta, with a stop for dinner, by 7.

We'll be back in two weeks and this time I promise that a large part of my job that weekend will be to get photos of all the things that I have missed in so far. That trip will be a fun one as the intention is to rent a Home Depot truck and get all of the supplies we need to finish the interior of the house including the materials for the loft floors, for the interior siding and for the kitchen cabinets. Since we hope to camp and since the house is now able to be lit by plugging it into our generator (and soon, solar panels), we intend to be able to work past dark for the first time since we started this project. That is a good feeling, too.

Stay tuned for more adventures from Mt. Matt.

Check out Evan and Gabby's Blog!

2011-03-08T17:17:00.000-05:00

I just came across another blog about building a tiny house today. It is so inspiring to see others building these tiny houses and I am excited to read about their progress. It looks like they are just finishing the interior of the house, which is cool since we are just starting that part of the process now. It also looks like they are building a Tarleton, the same design we are building, but with some modifications.

Every day I hear news of the Tiny House Movement taking hold across the country. People are simplifying their lives and building these small spaces to move the mission forward.

Thankless but Necessary Work

2011-02-28T19:39:00.004-05:00

First of all, I will state up front that I forgot my camera on this trip to the Tiny House. There would not have been any time to take photos this weekend, however. This weekend, Matt and I decided to divide and conquer some of the more tedious jobs that were left. There are a lot of exciting and glamorous things when it comes to building a house. Then there are a lot of other things that are simply necessary.

My job this weekend was to cut the final pieces of interior insulation. We've been using expanded foam primarily for practical purposes. It is less likely to attract bugs who nest or feed on the foam and since the house is on a mountain, that was very important to us. I used a Ryobi skill saw to cut out 16 panels of 2 inch foam and 16 additional panels of one inch foam to insulate the ceiling. This process took me all afternoon on Saturday (we didn't actually start working until about 2pm that day). The cutting was not done yet. On Sunday, I spent all morning cutting other sized panels to install in the gable ends as well as couple of additional spots that had not yet been insulated in the main living area. These all had to be cut to exact measurements with variable sizes and labeled. I had wanted to get at least some of it installed, but after I took all the panels up to the house from the barn in 6 separate trips, there was no time left to start another project. The photograph here is actually from a prior day of insulation cutting.

While I was doing all of this, Matt was up at the house filling the soffits. Soffits, in case you have never built a tiny house before, are the open space that happens after you attach the rafters to the house beneath the overhang. In the tiny house, there were 16 total soffits along both sides of the house that needed to be sealed up so that bats could no longer use our tiny house for their very large bat mansion. We didn't really know the best solution to this problem and when we sought advice it was suggested we just plug some scrap wood up there. Matt, being somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to the work he does, did not find this a suitable suggestion and devised a method. With 1x4 lumber he ran it through the table saw to give the edge an angle to match the angle of the roof. Then, through a long day of trial and error, he would stick the pieces up in the soffit holes, devise a method of wedging scrap of 2x4 to hold it in place while he would then go back into the house and toenail the soffit filler in with screws. While I did not witness any of this process, I can imagine what it was like to do this for 16 soffits while going up and down a ladder outside, moving it over and doing it again alternating with going in the house, up and down a ladder and screwing them in. I am exhausted just thinking about it.

It was a long weekend of largely thankless work. There is just another round of these necessary jobs - installing the insulation and filling the gaps with expanding foam. Then the house is fully insulated. Matt is considering going up a couple of days early on our next trip to knock out that part so when I come up on the weekend we can go get the material to start the remaining interior walls. Once those are done we can start the kitchen cabinets and that makes me feel really accomplished. I am glad it is nearly spring and we can get back to regular building trips. Even though this weekend was tedious, it felt really good to be out and working at the mountain.

Insert cliche about light here...

2011-02-12T18:39:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'll say it... "Let there be light!"

Now that it's out of my system, allow me to provide you this tiny house update. This past week, Matt and I were on vacation throughout the South East. We met up with our friends Dann and Cindy from Michigan in Savannah Georgia. From there we went to Charleston South Carolina. Both of those cities were a lot of fun, but this blog isn't about vacations. The final leg of our journey brought the four of us to Asheville. We drove directly from Charleston to Mt. Matt and started some work on the house. Dann is the friend who wired the house last March and even though we were in Asheville on vacation he wanted to do some more work there.

On a recent trip, Matt and I built one interior wall specifically so Dann could wire it this week. We stopped at Lowe's on our way and picked up some things for him, including some cheap lighting fixtures just to test out the electricity. We had only expected him to wire that one interior wall, but he took some time and did some additional fixtures, switches, and plugs. This included a somewhat tricky three way switch that turns the light that will be mounted in the ceiling off from either the living area or the loft.

While Dann and Matt were working I took Cindy on a tour of the land since she had never been there before. We walked all the way down into the big clearing and then up to the ridge and back down to the barn and back up to the house. It was fun showing someone around who had never been there before.

After Dann completed the electrical work, it was time for us to plug the house in and see how everything was working. Essentially, the tiny house has an outdoor hook up like an RV would have. When you park your RV at the campground you just plug it into the camp ground's electricity and you're good to go. The tiny house has a plug on the under side of the house that we can plug into either a generator or a solar panel with an inverter and battery. We don't have our solar panels up to the house yet so we plugged the house into the generator. And, as you can see demonstrated by Matt and Dann, the electricity was a success!

This is an exciting advancement since we are about to start work on the interior of the house. The generator had barely any draw off these light bulbs plus it could easily power any tools or chargers that we need while working. Now, we can work past dark on the house! We have had several work days where we were racing against the sunset to get just one last thing done, so this is a huge step. These lights, of course, are not the finished product but just testers so we could make sure the wiring was working. Another bonus to this method is that when we are not at the house we can unplug it or simply turn off the breakers and not have any power going to the house.

The next trip up we have some minor work to do. These are just little things that need to get done to tie up any loose ends; like finishing the interior insulation and filling the soffits. Once that is done we can work on the remaining interior walls and start to build the kitchen cabinets. How exciting.

Atlanta Icepocalypse and Winterizing a Tiny House

2011-01-12T11:26:00.000-05:00

Atlanta is currently crippled for the third day in a row due to what is now being termed the Icepocalypse. I am getting antsy to get back up to the land and do some work on the house. North Carolina neighbors report that there is much snow but no trees a-fallin' since they all fell last year.

Being stuck in my apartment makes me personally grateful for a couple of things.

First, I am really glad that we were able to sell our larger home last year. The days home from work would have been filled with anxiety of what the snow could do to the house. Would the ice cause damage? Would it melt into the crawl space? I would need to shovel the drive, multiple times. The apartment has had some challenges but I am safe and warm with limited issues to deal with. Since our tiny house is in a remote area the changes of us being in the house during a snowpocalypse is slim, but I think once it is complete we could easily prepare to be there for an extended period of time. However, it did make me think of things we could or should do to winterize the tiny house once it is complete and we intend to stay there for longer periods of time.

Kent Griswold talked about wood and wood storage for his tiny house last February. We will not have a wood stove in our tiny house, but I think this is still good information.

But if you do want a wood stove in your tiny house, here is some information at the Farmers Almanac.

Of course, the most important aspect to winterizing a tiny house is to make sure it is insulated well. This blog post from 2009 has some options to consider. We have used the "Styrofoam Boards supplemented with spray foam" which has worked well for us. We used our Ryobi reciprocating saw to cut it and found it to be no problem. We have a total of 4 inches if foam in the walls.

Truth is, we did choose the mountains of Western North Carolina on purpose. Though we have had some pretty harsh winters there for two years in a row, it isn't terribly common and really doesn't last very long compared to a location north of the Mason Dixon line.

Enjoy your winter weather, where ever you are.

The Inspiration of Asheville

2011-01-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

There is more to Western North Carolina than tiny houses in the mountains. One of the things this area has done for me given me a real appreciation for the art of beer. Because of that, I have started a new blog project. If you're interested in reading about something other than tiny houses, I recommend checking it out. I will be recording my experience learning how to home brew as well as explore new and interesting beers from all around the country.

And stay tuned here for more building soon. We'll be heading up to Asheville in a couple of weeks to attend the Winter Warmer Beer Festival and then will be doing some work on the house in February.

Creative Loafing Charlotte Blog

2010-12-16T07:22:00.002-05:00

Hey look - we are linked in the Creative Loafing blog!

Major Milestone: Interior Wall

2010-12-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

In our last trip of 2010, Matt and I moved on to a pretty important milestone in the building process - our first interior wall!

It was one of the best weekends we've had in Asheville, though no weekend has been bad really. I took a half day off work so we got into town around 5pm on Friday. We stayed in Biltmore Village because the Warren Haynes Holiday Jam was going on downtown and all the hotels were booked up. Matt made reservations at a popular restaurant in Biltmore Village so we checked into the hotel and walked around that area of town before dinner, stopping at the new Village Wayside bar, which was very nice. While there, we discussed some of the next steps of our lives and what we wanted to do moving forward. There were some
interesting revelations that hopefully I'll be able to share.

Dinner at Fig was awesome right down to the bread pudding that tasted like Christmas. After dinner we went back to the hotel where I made Matt watch this week's episode of Fringe, which I loved.

Since it was predicted to be cold in the mountains, on Saturday Matt and I took our time getting up. We got ready and headed out first stopped at Lowe's to get the supplies for the interior wall. Some screws and two by fours later, we were back on the way to the mountain. We stopped in the little downtown area for lunch only to find a parade. We stopped and watched it for a moment before heading back to the main road to a deli for lunch instead. After lunch, we made it up to Mt. Matt to start work. It didn't take us very much time at all to construct the first interior wall. Thought it is small progress, it feels huge.

After the wall was built we cleaned up the area and headed back to Asheville for dinner. After dinner we stopped at Sante Wine Bar where we ran into the owner. She was off the clock, so she sat with us and
chatted for a while. We met her on what was pretty much our first trip to Asheville several years ago when we accidentally stumbled into the bar because it was cold outside. It was great to talk with her.

To top off a great weekend, on Sunday we woke up to snow in Asheville but not enough to be a problem. We went to a local sports bar to watch the Detroit Lions and in a Christmas style miracle, they managed
to beat the Green Bay Packers, who were playing for a wild card playoff spot.

A week at the Tiny House

2010-11-07T18:34:00.000-05:00

Truthfully, Matt should be the one to write this post but I'll do the best I can. Last week Tuesday he went up to Asheville. He spend the week there working remotely as well as working on the house. I joined him on Thursday night, but by then he had accomplished quite a bit of building.

Pictures might tell the story better than I can.

The trip prior, he and I had built the porch. In this trip, Matt finished the porch overhang along with the posts and lintel. He roofed the porch with the same metal roofing on the rest of the house.

On Friday when I was there we actually spent some time cleaning up the building area, taking some of the materials we were finished with back down to the barn and organizing all the tools inside the house (and some underneath the house). When that was done we used a piece of scrap plywood to cover up the door just for the winter. We plan to install some type of glass in the door in the future. That left us with all day Saturday where we actually started doing some work on the inside to prepare to build the internal walls on the next trip.

Here is our tiny house in the early Winter landscape.

It was really cold this weekend up in Asheville so we were happy to be doing some of the work inside and it gave us a chance to use the heater, which worked like a champ and kept us toasty.

We had some fun in Asheville, too. We ate at the Lexington Avenue Brewery and enjoyed that quite a bit. On Saturday we drove out to a place called Cinebarre. It is a movie theater that serves drinks and dinner during the movie. We had a lot of fun and I think more places like that should exist. We saw Inception and had tasty grilled cheese sandwiches. There is a similar place here in Roswell that we'll need to try soon.

The next trip will be in December and we'll be building the interior walls.

Tiny House Update: Porch Edition

2010-10-25T07:30:00.000-04:00

Another trip to North Carolina this weekend and I feel very pleased with what we accomplished.

We got up early on Saturday and hit the road. We made it up to Asheville around 9:30 or so. We stopped at Lowe's to get the materials we needed to built a porch/deck on the front of the tiny house. This included deck block, pressure treated lumber and all the assorted screws and fasteners required.

When we got up to Mt. Matt we found that the ATV, an integral part of the getting heavy items from barn to house system, did not start. The problem appeared to be the battery and without any way to actually jump start the ATV we hooked it up to the generator using a trickle charger. We set it up to charge and had lunch and then took some things up to the house by hand - including two 42 pound deck blocks. We started by getting the two deck blocks by the house level and then decided to see if we could get the ATV to start since it had been a couple of hours. Luckily, it started just fine and we could load the rest of the tools and materials on the ATV trailer and get them up to the site. We decided to get everything up to the house, arrange it all neatly so everything was ready for us to start first thing in the morning. Then, we went into Asheville for the night. We stayed at a hotel in town instead of camping. It got kind of cold, but we've camped in colder. But we just decided we wanted to stay in Asheville and not have to worry about driving back up to our place that night.

We got back up to Mt. Matt around 10am on Sunday and got to work. And the deck came together beautifully. We leveled and framed and decked it in no time.

We had built a deck before for the shower platform that we made by the barn so this one seemed extra easy. Plus, the dimensions were truly tiny considering it is the front porch of a 120 square foot house.

Just as we were fastening the last screw, our neighbors came up to say Hi. They couldn't have planned it better. We were able to give them a "tour" of the place and describe what it would look like when it was finished. They headed back out on their walk and we cleaned everything up before going to get dinner and heading back to Atlanta.

Matt is going back for a week soon and plans to finish the porch roof and beams. Then all we need to do with the outside is trim it. We think we will wait to do that until the spring and start working on the inside this winter by framing out the closet and bathroom walls.

Some Blog Links to Share

2010-10-03T08:52:00.001-04:00

A couple months ago, we found our tiny house featured on the blog The Tiny Life. It is very cool to see something you've worked so hard on to be featured in this way.

About a month ago, The Tiny life posted an update.

We still have a lot of work to, but we have some big plans for the end of the year. October is scheduled pretty heavily with non-building activities, but we'll be going up toward the end of the month for a weekend. Then in the beginning of November, Matt will be going up for a whole week and I'll join him on the weekend. We should be on track with getting the outside finished in 2010 and then we can move to the interior.

Our Tumbleweed House Design is the Tarleton, so I thought I would also share with you the link to another tiny house builder, Will, and his own Tarleton. Also, earlier this year Will took the car on a Trans-Canadian trip from British Columbia to New Brunswick. How cool is that? Our Tarlteon is stationary, so it won't be quite the world traveler.

Siding Complete

2010-09-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

Another trip to Asheville this weekend resulted in finishing the siding. As you can see, our cat Piglet was not to excited about us leaving her at home again.

We left Atlanta about 8am to arrive at Mt. Matt about 11:30. The intention was to get there in time for lunch and then start work in the afternoon. There wasn't much left to finish. I had to stain three more panels and then we had to measure and cut out the pieces for the gable ends and the front of the house. I got to staining and the panels were done in no time. Matt took the measurements for the back gable and traced it out and cut the peices. It was one of the hardest to install because of the hight and being up on the ladder,
but they were small peices so it didnt' take too long. Measuring the front of the house was a little more complex because we had already built a porch overhang and needed to install the panels around that.
It took a lot more math, but Matt diagramed it and we were able to cut the panels and install them without a problem. We were done around 7:30 so we got ourselves cleaned up and went into town for dinner.

With the siding complete we feel a whole new sense of accomplishment. The outside is nearly finished. The next task is building the porch and after that we can complete the trim on the outside of the house and then we can begin to focus on the inside. We expect to finish the outside this year and can start with the interior after the first of the year.

Feeling Accomplished: Siding

2010-08-30T07:55:00.000-04:00

Matt and I had a very specific goal in mind this weekend as we headed up to Asheville. That isn't to say we don't normally, but this time the goal was to have the house sided! We knew we couldn't do it all in the time we had available, but if we could just get three sides done we would feel accomplished. And that is exactly what we did.

We left Atlanta about 6am on Saturday morning and drove directly up to Mt. Matt. We packed sandwiches and water and evening entertainment to prevent ourselves from wanting to leave the mountain to go into Asheville. It worked perfectly. We arrived and set out immediately to work on the siding.

I began staining the panels. I have never stained before and it took me some time to get the hang of it. I learned quickly that staining is a completely different skill set than painting. I caught on quickly. The stain is from Lowe's and the color is called "Espresso". The intention was to mimic the appearance of the bar as much as we could. The barn has a metal roof and the outside is old weathered wood. So the house has the brown/black stain with the gray metal roof. We love the color combination.

After we started me staining panels, Matt would measure the house to determine where to cut the window openings. Once the stain was dry enough, he would cut those out and we could install the siding.

We completed the entire left side of the house on day one. We started there, of course, because it is the part of the house the faces the woods. The rest of it is really visible.

We rewarded our first day of hard work with dinner out at a local watering hole. Then we came back to the barn and Matt played some music while I did some other blogging.

On day two, we got up early and headed right back up to keep staining, cutting and siding.

We finished around 2pm and cleaned up, packed up and headed back to Atlanta.

As a side note, I mention here sometimes the wildlife that I love up at Mt. Matt. This weekend I had three insect run-ins that I loved.

There was the Yellow Jacket Hoverfly, also known as the Good News Bee:

And there was this little caterpillar that I saved from certain death as he had found himself on Matt's skill saw in the middle of the project.

And lastly, this spider. I haven't been able to identify it. I have googled "pointed spider" and I come up with nothing. Those little triangles on his back are actually points and black spot on his abdomen is also pointy.

The next trip up, in September, we should be able to finish the siding on the front of the house as well as on the gables. Then we have to trim it and put up the battens that will be simply cosmetic. Having the siding done seems like a real milestone. You can always check out the entirety of our progress here.

Shopping

2010-08-19T21:37:00.000-04:00

I am sorry for the delay in our update. We were in Asheville this past weekend - August 14th and 15th. But life has been awfully surreal. On August 9th, my email account was hacked and all associated accounts were taken over. That meant I didn't have access to Blogger. I have spent the 10 days trying to get it back, and it finally worked.

So, on with the update. This past weekend our trip to Asheville was mostly pleasure. There was a big storm in Atlanta on Friday night, so rather than trying to get out of this city in the traffic jam caused by rain and by, well, traffic we decided to go up on Saturday. We got up at 4:30 am and left Atlanta. When we got up to Asheville we went to Home Depot to rent a truck and get the plywood we needed for siding. When we arrived, about 10 after 8, we were told the truck had just been rented out for the whole weekend! The helpful rental guy called the other Home Depot and they had their truck and would hold it for us. We drove over there and rented it. But then, that Home Depot didn't have the plywood we were looking for! The horror. So, we took the Home Depot Truck and drove to the Lowe's that is nearest our land. We were, of course, made fun of for taking a Home Depot Truck to Lowe's but they had what we needed. We took it back to the land. We had to use the ATV and trailer to get it up to the tiny house, but when we tried to start the ATV it wouldn't. Matt spent some time trying to figure out the problem and eventually we decided to change the spark plug. The sucker started up as soon as we did that and we were able to load the plywood onto the trailer in two loads to take up to the house. It took us longer to do that than we wanted to and rain was threatening so we decided not to do any more work. The next step was to stain and cut the plywood and that all had to be done outside. So, we decided to spend the rest of the weekend enjoying ourselves. We drove back to the Home Depot, got our car and began our new adventure. We chose to check out the town of Hickory, about an hour or so away. We drove out there, stopped at a microbrewery. The town was small and it started to rain so we called up a hotel in Black Mountain (back on the way to Asheville) and headed back. In Black Mountain we went to the Pisgah Brewery and enjoyed a beer in the courtyard of the brewery. The rain had cleared and it was cool and lovely. We went to dinner and then to the hotel to sleep. The next morning we decided just to head back to Atlanta. So, it doesn't seem like we got a ton of work done but delivering the siding materials was pretty important and we enjoyed ourselves otherwise.

We are in Atlanta this weekend, but next weekend we will be back up to Asheville and will stain and cut the siding and begin installing it. I can't wait to get photos of that!

Block Party Weekend

2010-07-26T07:16:00.000-04:00

There was a lot of work and years of preparation that went into the decision to purchase the land on which we are building the Tumbleweed house. That being said, there is one factor that you just can't plan for. And that is neighbors. We had no idea on the day we closed on Mt. Matt that we would end up with a pretty darn cool group of neighbors living on our tiny mountain road.

This weekend was a little different for us. Usually, we go up to North Carolina with a clear plan of what would need to be accomplished. However, this weekend we were invited up for a block party and that was pretty much our only purpose for the weekend.

Because we can't stop ourselves, we did do some work on Saturday. We actually arrived late on Friday night in time for bed, like we usually do. On Saturday morning we got up around 9am and went to Zuma coffee for breakfast, which is one of our favorite weekend morning routines. We stopped and Ingles to get some food to take to the party that afternoon. We loaded up the cooler with ice and our purchases before heading back to the land. Then, we had a couple of hours of light work to do up at the tiny house. Just little loose ends, really, before we could be 100% ready to finish the outside. Matt stained the porch overhang that we built over 4th of July and I used Great Stuff Foam on the rest of the interior panels that we had already insulated but never foamed in. Great Stuff is a crazy product and trust me from experience, you don't want to over do it. When it says it expands to twice the size it is pretty serious about that. Unfortunately, that means I have to do some basic clean up with a razor knife before we do the interior walls. There are worse problems to have, so I am not too worried about it.

After finishing up at the house, we went down to the barn and enjoyed a Grove Park Inn Great Gatsby brewed by Highland Brewery. Yum (I liked it better than the reviewer did). While we relaxed before the party started, Matt practiced the guitar, a new hobby he has picked up and is really enjoying. Around 4pm we started to get cleaned up and ready for the party. At 5 we wheeled our cooler down to the road and met our top-of-the-hill neighbors on their way down. The four of us walked down to the other house. The neighbors hosting are the only ones who live there permanently and they have helped us out quite a bit in the time we've been working on the house. The six of us hung out on the screened porch and enjoyed a couple of drinks. Then the last group of neighbors arrived - a husband, wife and their 20 year old son. Like us, they live elsewhere and have this land near Asheville where they are renovating an old house with plans of building some other things on their land as well.

As I said, the one thing we couldn't plan for when we bought our place were cool neighbors. And I think really really hit the neighbor jackpot. Everyone on our road in Western North Carolina is fun, creative, and intelligent. The mountains drew us each there for various reasons so I suppose it was meant to be.

After dinner, we all went up to the house on the top of the mountain - the road dead-ends at their place. There, we could see the most amazing and unobstructed view of Mt. Matt. We intended to have some coffee, but it was still 90 some degrees when the sun went down, so we sat on the porch under the full moon and talked until late into the night. Eventually, we all called it an evening and went our separate ways.

Sunday, Matt and I got up early and went for breakfast at Green Sage in Asheville. We were going to walk around the Bele Chere festival that was going on downtown this weekend, but when we finished eating it was still only 10am to we decided to head back to Atlanta instead. We got home, took a shower and went out to a nice dinner before settling in back home and watching the season finale of Doctor Who.

It was a great weekend, and one of the only weekends in recent memory where we went up to Asheville but didn't have days and days of work to do. Believe me, I don't mind the work at all but it was a very nice break. And it is great to know all the folks on our mountain road and all the cool stuff we are each doing.

Jay Shafer Inspires People to Live Small

2010-07-21T07:52:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, Yahoo's front page featured this video about Jay Shafer and his tiny house. Funny part is, suddenly everyone was sending it to me with emails like, "Have you seen this guy? This is so cool! I thought you would like this."

Well, I certainly do like it. That is because we are currently building a tiny house designed by Jay Shafer.

The part that is most exciting to me (and probably to Jay) is that his Tumbleweed Tiny House company is getting so much national exposure. People all over the country are buzzing about tiny houses. Some people are beside themselves with excitement about wanting to build these small structures and others are wondering how anyone could possible live in a place so tiny. Whatever side of the discussion you're on, that is okay because at least it is a discussion.

Matt and I had the pleasure of meeting Jay about a year and a half ago, right before we took the plunge and bought the plans for the Tarleton that we are now building. He is a really good guy. On top of that, with the plans we got free consultation with him if we had any questions. Along the way we have had a couple of phone conversations about some alterations that we have made. We've also sent him photos of our progress along the way.

Keep watching for more details on our tiny house build and other interesting tiny house news.

Coolest New Tiny Building Since the Tumbleweed House

2010-07-19T07:18:00.000-04:00

This is honestly the coolest thing I have seen since I saw my first Tumbleweed Tiny House. And we all know what happened after I learned about those. (If you don't know, I recommend reading the rest of this blog).

I follow a few sites on tiny living in order to keep up on the latest tiny house news. I first saw this over at The Tiny House Blog by Kent Griswold. A small company in North Carolina has invented a new type of tiny house structure: The Yurtle.

I am excited by the innovation and creativity used by Laurel Nest Yurts. It is so awesome to see people taking tiny living and something like a Yurt to the next level.

Awesome work, Laurel Nest Yurts!

Slideshow

2010-07-16T07:24:00.002-04:00

Since starting this blog, I have had the bad habit of posting photos directly here and not updating my Flickr account. I have remedied this situation and all of the photos since April have been uploaded. Check out the most recent slide show to see progress from the beginning.

7 Days of Summer

2010-07-07T13:04:00.000-04:00

We just got back from our vacation up in North Carolina working on the Tumbleweed House. We had a great time. Here is a recap for anyone following along.

Wednesday, June 30th

Matt and I actually left Atlanta on Tuesday night after work, so we got to Mt. Matt late at night in time to head to bed. Considering it was the first day of vacation, we didn't really get our Wednesday started until about 11am. The main goals for the day were to get the camp site set up and finish the outdoor shower. We had a canopy malfunction during our last camping trip so we bought a new Coleman canopy that was beyond awesome. That thing would survive most rainstorms that might pop up while camping, unlike our old one. We also finished our outdoor shower. The shower was a deck that we had built into a small clearing tucked behind the trees, but after the winter storms it became quite exposed so we recently built walls and on Wednesday morning we covered the walls with rubberized canvas. We also got a gravity fed water bladder with a shower spigot on the bottom that worked very well for showers. We added a cross beam with hooks to hang it. Everyone said it was a very nice shower experience in the woods. Once we had the site pretty set up, Matt and I went into to town to go to Earth Fare. There, Eddie at the sandwich counter made us a super tasty sandwich that we ate at the cafe. It was a late lunch, so even though we bought ourselves some things for dinner, we didn't eat them on Wednesday. When we got back to the land we went up to the house to check on it and discovered a little bat sleeping on the ridge beam. When we walked back down to the barn, we passed a box turtle hanging out at the trail leading up to the ridge. That box turtle was actually there all weekend. We weren't hungry, so we decided to walk up to the ridge to see all the work that Matt did the last time we were up here brush hogging the trail. Gorgeous. We spent our first evening at Mt. Matt watching stars while Matt played some music on the guitar.

Thursday, July 1st

Day two was still just me and Matt, so we built the door jamb on the house and did some other little projects before just going into Asheville for the evening. We did get text from our friends Rob and Christy that they were leaving Michigan and would be at Mt. Matt around 10am in the morning.

Friday, July 2nd

Matt and I went into the little town of Marshall to have breakfast at Zuma Coffee. While we were on our way back, we got a text from the neighbors that Rob and Christy had pulled up the road, so we were right behind them. Unfortunately, Christy was coming down with a cold so we set up the bed in the barn room for them and she took a nap. Matt and I moved to our brand new Coleman tent. I love Coleman camping equipment - I think I need to buy their stock. We do a lot of camping and I found the tent quite comfortable. I went up to the grocery store to buy all of our supplies for the weekend. While I did that, Matt and Rob started on the door for the house. When I got back, our neighbors came up - mostly looking for their dog who had been hanging out with Matt and Rob. Their little cat also goes for walks with them which was super hilarious. They went up to the house with Matt while I sorted out the groceries. By the time I got there, they were starting to assemble the door, which turned out to be a great success. After we finished that, our neighbors went home and Rob, Matt, Christy and I decided to head out for dinner. We went out for barbecue, which was exactly what I was hoping for. We came back and built a fire and hung out for a while before going to bed.

Saturday, July 3rd
Saturday marked the arrival of the rest of our guests. Matt and I did some work up at the house in the morning, just basically getting things ready to do some priming of the door. Just after lunchtime, Matt went to Lowe's to get some supplies to build the porch overhang. About 2ish, the rest of our guests arrived pretty much at the same time - Bill and Susan from Atlanta and Matt's brother Jim from Michigan. We helped them set up camp and relaxed until Matt got back from Lowe's. Then we went up and primed the door. After the work was done, I made dinner for the group - bratwurst, macaroni and cheese, and coleslaw. Matt, Jim, Rob and Christy played some football toss. Christy was feeling much better. We all hung out by the fire and talked well into the night.

Sunday, July 4th

The big project for the 4th of July was building the overhang for the porch. Matt and Bill figured out the engineering of the project by determining the math and angles and constructing a temporary structure to hold it up before a porch and posts were built. Once the engineering was complete, the actual construction went quite smooth. Sunday night, we made steaks and camping potatoes for dinner and built a fire. Our neighbors came up to hang out by the fire. We played music and sang by the fire. After the neighbors went home, Jim suggested a starlight screening of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. A good time was had by all.

Monday, July 5th

On Monday, Rob and Christy left for Michigan early in the morning. Matt, Bill, Susan and I went up to the house and painted the door and all the windows. Jim took down his camp and was going to sleep in the barn room for the last night so he could just get up and go early on Tuesday morning. After the painting was done, we helped Bill and Susan take down their tent and pack up. Then everyone went into Asheville for dinner at Barley's Taproom. Bill and Susan left from there and Jim, Matt and I went back to the land and built a small fire and watched some episodes of The Guild before going to bed. Jim was going to leave around 4 or 5am so he said goodbye before we all went to bed.

Tuesday, July 6th

Matt and I made the decision to leave Mt. Matt on Tuesday instead of Wednesday because we had done a lot of work and really just wanted to go home for Piglet. So we decided to divide and conquer. Matt went up to the house and worked on finishing the home wrap taping and putting in the drip edge flashing over the windows. I took down the whole camp, packed and cleaned everything up at the barn. We were ready to leave Asheville about 5pm.

It was a great week, we did a lot of great work, but it is also good to be home.

Independence Day

2010-06-29T06:54:00.000-04:00

Hello 120-Square-Feet Followers. Matt and I are heading up to the mountains for a week's vacation to work on the house. We have some friends coming down from Michigan and up from Georgia again, like we did last year. A good time will be had by all.

I'll post a recap when we get back next week, but in the meantime feel free to follow me on twitter. I'll post real-time updates on the progress while we're there.

Thanks for coming along on this crazy adventure.

Tiny Houses on NPR Weekend Edition

2010-06-28T07:15:00.000-04:00

I love to see the tiny house movement get the national attention it deserves. Here is a link to the story from Weekend Edition.

Long Weekend in Asheville: Preparation

2010-06-21T07:33:00.001-04:00

Matt and I just got back from spending a long weekend up at Mt. Matt. We took Friday off, and headed up to the land after work on Thursday.

The main focus of this past weekend was to prepare for guests. We're having a few friends up over 4th of July again this year, so we needed to make sure that areas were cleared for camping.

On Friday, we got up early and drove over to a Home Depot across town that rents brush mowers. When we got there, the rental center guy was completely unconvinced that the brush hog would fit in the Element. We were sure it would. Matt even said to me "I have never lost the 'What Will Fit In The Element' argument with anyone". And sure enough, the brush hog fit neatly into the back of the element.

When we got back to Mt. Matt, we got to work. Matt's job was brush hogging the meadow by the barn, the camping areas, the area by the shower and up the trail.

My job was to go up to the tiny house and paint the outside of the window panes the same gray as the metal roof. We split up and went to work.

We were in the zone. Matt pushed himself, maybe a little to hard, and brush hogged all the way up the trail to the ridge. And I put on some music and painted the windows. I admit to not being the best painter in the world, so I knew after the first couple windows that I would need to do a second coat. That was fine, because it was only Friday after all.

Finally, toward the end of the day, Matt pushed the brush mower toward the Tumbleweed clearing. I could tell he was exhausted. His original plan was to take the brush hog all the way down into the lower clearing, but the path down is very steep and I was pretty sure he wasn't going to want to push the mower back up. He agreed, and instead just took the mower down behind the Tumbleweed clearing down the trail we cut last year toward the spring and called it a day.

Once the work for the day was done, we cleaned ourselves up and loaded up the brush hog to return to the Home Depot rental center. After dropping it off, we went into Asheville for dinner to celebrate. We went to the new Pack Tavern downtown. We sat at the bar and had a couple of tasty burgers and beers. Then we walked right next to tavern to the park and sat for a while before heading back to Mt. Matt.

Saturday involved more of the same for me - a second coat on the windows. They looked a lot better once I was done with that. Matt spent the day with the chainsaw cutting down some of the last trees that had fallen during the Snowmageddon back in December. There was one right next to the barn where people typically camp, but now it is nice and cleared out for 4th of July weekend.

Before starting work on Saturday, we went to Zuma Coffee for breakfast, which was delightful, and then to Ingles to buy stuff to make for dinner so we didn't have to go out again. After I finished painting the windows and Matt was finishing up the tree clearing, I set up the grill and made some Feta and Spinach stuffed chicken sausages that we ate with Greek feta pasta salad. Yum. After dinner, we got back to work and constructed the final shower wall. Our shower platform use to be secluded behind trees and with only a flimsy bi fold screen, guests were able to take a hot shower nestled in nature. After the trees were leveled in December, we needed to do something else, so we built a couple of walls. There was one more wall to go, and Matt and I put that together in about a half an hour before dark on Saturday. Now, we just have to cover it with canvas material and viola, a shower!

Sunday, I ran up to the tumbleweed house to put the newly painted windows back in. Then we cleaned up the barn, packed up the car and drove back to Atlanta.

We took a week off for the 4th of July - we will be up there from June 30th to July 7th. I can't wait.

Let there be light!

2010-06-15T11:26:00.028-04:00

I am the worst blogger in the world. Laura started this blog months ago with the idea that we’d both post about our experiences, but I’ve neglected to do so until now. Oh well, onward and upward!

At the end of May, I gave a workshop on alternative building. I may post more about that a bit later (let’s be honest, it took me 6 months to make my first post, so I wouldn’t bet on it), but for now I wanted to answer one of the more common questions I received.

Several people asked how we generate and store and use electrical power on our land. The short answer is “the sun”, whenever possible. For a slightly more useful explanation, I’ll break it up into a few different categories: power during the build, power for general use, and possible future expansion.

Building a house (especially one as small as ours) without power from the utility company is really not that hard. The key is to think about what you actually need and plan accordingly. In our case, I figured we’d only need a handful of power tools. Most of the smaller ones – drills, skill saw, reciprocating saw, etc. – were battery powered, so that meant I only needed to figure out a way to power the chargers. The miter saw, cement mixer, and compressor were the only things that needed to be plugged in while in use. I could have just bought a small generator and had the whole problem solved, but I set a goal to build a house using as little external power as reasonably possible (where I get to define “reasonably”, of course!), so I invested in a small solar setup at the beginning of the process.

Two other main goals were to keep the costs down and not overcomplicate things unnecessarily, so I looked to small commercially available solutions to get started. I could write all day about the options that are out there and all of the pros and cons, but I was a first time builder, so simplicity became the deciding factor. What I bought was a 60 watt solar array and a 60 amp hour battery pack with a built in inverter. With those, I have been able to charge all of my cordless tools, and run the smaller of my 2 miter saws. I could have run the larger miter saw, cement mixer, and compressor for limited amounts of time, but I did wind up buying a small generator for those to make sure we fit as much building as possible into our limited weekends. The generator I bought was the Honda EU2000. There are much cheaper options out there, but the Honda is incredibly versatile, reliable, and most importantly quiet. We are a couple of newcomers to our land, and the last thing in the world I want to do is disturb our neighbors just because we got the urge to build a house in the woods. The overall cost savings inherent in building such a small structure allowed us to spend a little more than we otherwise would to help keep our mountain quiet and beautiful.

The solar array, battery pack, and generator provided more than enough power for the build, but what about general power usage? I am very happy to say that the solar array has been our sole source of power for nearly two years of weekend build trips. Again, the key here is to determine what you really need and eliminate waste wherever possible. Our goal was not to replicate the conveniences we have in our home in Atlanta. On the other hand, we were not trying to be absolutely rustic in every aspect of life. We wanted to find a balance that worked for us, so we made a list of the things we’d like to have and how much power they used. In the end, our list turned out to be pretty small: a few CFL lights, the ability to charge our laptops and phones, and access to the Internet (for those of you who are wondering, we access the internet via an Verizon MiFi access point). Of those things, the only items that use a considerable amount of power are the laptops. We reduced that power draw by switching to an iPod touch for most Internet use. So far, the same small solar set up we purchased for the build has met all these needs admirably. I’ve even used it to power my electronic drums and a bass amplifier during our 4th of July party. Hurray sun!

When the cabin is finished I anticipate that we may need to add to our array and battery capacity. I won’t go into detail about this right now, but I believe I’ll still be able to keep it reasonable. All we’ll really be adding are a few more lights and fan or two. The cabin was wired to simply plug into the output of a generator or inverter, as an RV would in an RV park, so we have plenty of flexibility. I’ll try to post more about that as things progress.

Back to Work

2010-05-17T20:28:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Matt and I have been busy with major life changes in the Atlanta that have kept us from going up to North Carolina.

This past weekend, we finally made it back to do some work. The forcast was for thunder showers, so we arrived late on Friday night and slept in on Saturday. Saturday morning was clear and sunny, so we debated what we should do next but we decided to go to Lowe's and buy the stuff to construct our custom door. More on that once we have it constructed. When we got back to Mt. Matt, the sun was still out so we decided to take a chance and start the painting on the windows, but just do the outside frames so the inside panes were not sitting out in case it did rain. While Matt did the painting, I actually sprayed for Poison Ivy. I haven't had my yearly breakout yet, and it would be nice to keep it that way. That is the thing with building a tiny house - the work isn't just limited to the tiny house itself. There is always land to tend, trees to trim, and any number of other things to take care of, not to mention unforseen craziness. But I'll tell you, we are chosing to do this work so it is always satisfying. Even when it kinda sucks.

Well, not long after we started those two projects, we heard thunder in the distance. I walked the entire trail around to the tumbleweed house and back down the short way to spray all the poison ivy, and right when I got back to the barn it started raining. Great, I thought, all that for nothing. I'll have to do it again anyway. Matt got all of one window painted, but it was worth it. The paint looks awesome - we matched it to the gray of the metal roof.

In other interesting camping events - because there are always more interesting camping events - we had another over-night bat adventure. The ordeal lasted only a few minutes - so either this bat was smarter or we were smarter! We also had our air mattress deflate on us. I hate when that happens. It was two years old, however, so we just replaced it. We'll be in the Tumblweed House soon so we won't really need it anymore.

This coming weekend we will be moving from our house to our city apartment. Then the following weekend we are going on a long deserved camping trip and retreat. After that, it is back to work on the tiny house!

Tiny House Update.

2010-05-10T07:28:00.001-04:00

"All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers"

Henry David Thoreau

There has been a minor postponement on the progress of the tiny house. I wanted to share with you all the reason for that. In order for us to further our goals, we decided to sell our house in suburban Atlanta. We accepted an offer in the middle of April and things have been progressing quickly. We had to miss a trip up to Asheville earlier this month in order to find our next living space. We are downsizing in the city, just like we are in the country. We will be living in a two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise that overlooks the city of Atlanta. We are very excited. We will be moving in the next couple of weeks and that is forcing us to put off some of the work on the Tiny House until next month. Since all of our deadlines are self-imposed, we should be able to catch up in our own time.

We are very excited about moving on with this next phase of our lives.

National Spotlight!

2010-05-01T09:40:00.002-04:00

Watch your mail boxes and newspaper inserts for Parade magazine. Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company is being featured on the cover. This is huge for the tiny house movement! Congratulations to Jay Shafer and his tiny house designs!

Earth Day 2010 // Bloggers Unite

2010-04-22T07:27:00.000-04:00

In the process of building this tiny house, we are learning a lot about sustainability and eco-friendly living. Honestly, the primary goal for me wasn't about saving the environment; it was about living as self-sufficiently as possible. I have learned, however, that self-sufficiency and sustainable living really go hand in hand.

Living small lessens our impact on the planet. We can all do just a little bit.

Earth Day 2010 // Bloggers Unite

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Happy Earth Day!