Running Water, Trim and Other Shenanigans

First thing's first, my beautiful God Daughter turned 1!

Check out the compost bin. Soon it will be full of food scraps and other delightful waste products!

The cabinets are coming together very nicely. We were able to repurpose Christian's uncle's old barn board for the cabinet panels and it came out really good.

And my Dad was on TV! He was promoting Relay For Life on Mass Appeal.

Kombucha production is chugging along. This batch of dry-hopped blueberry booch was delicious.

Sourdough bread recipe is ever-evolving. Currently trying to get more sourness out of it. Slowly making progress there.

Saturn Jr. has had seriously sticky breaks for many months and it's been getting worse. Replacing one of the calipers didn't fix it. Next culprit was the brake hose. Due to a sale at NAPA and a little convincing from Christian, we went ahead and replaced both hoses, calipers, pads and rotors and flushed the brake fluid. The brakes now work better than they ever have.

And more plumbing work...

But guess what?!? Tiny McBoatface now has running water! Another step towards feeling like a home. Since the shower has a thick coating of RedGuard on it, I actually took a shower the other day. Felt real nice.

The house looks good as a backdrop behind campfire shenanigans.

I've begun the process of patching up gaps in the trim. Hopefully once it's complete you won't be able to tell that they're just painted 2x4s.

Christian has been working on the trim this week. It will all be made out of reclaimed douglas fir beams, same as the ridge beam, loft supports, stair tread and cabinet frame.

I decided to install the range hood. Was supposed to be an easy job until I noticed a stud going straight through the area where the vent is supposed to go. The stud is supporting the right side of one of my loft windows so we wanted to make sure it got proper support.

So after much fussing and hacking I was able to add additional support as well as studs onto which I could mount the hood.

It looks a little out of place, but at least it's installed. We'll add some nice wooden shelving on top to help blend it in a little more.

Milling up some more trim boards.

 Loft trim looks good!

More good looking trim!

Bathroom exhaust van looks a little silly there, but it was the only place I could put it as the shower is pretty close to the window and I wanted the fan as close to the shower as possible.

And last but not least, Relay was a huge success. At the last minute my Dad hit the $10,000 mark for money raised. Very fitting since it's his 10th year participating and volunteering. Amazing!

So that's plenty of updates! I guess the trick is to wait a couple weeks as the updates trickle in. Next steps are finish the trim and installed the copper lines for the propane so that I have a working stovetop. 

Tiny McBoatFace, Where Art Thou?

It's funny how quickly I forget to update this blog as soon as I start working full time... 

C'est la vie !

Probably a good idea to mention again that you can subscribe to email notifications so that you don't need to try and remember to check this silly blog for updates. You already have enough to worry about (also, I really appreciate all of you that have kept up with my travels and projects and musings for this long, so thank you!).

You can subscribe to updates here

Anywho! Easter was nice with the whole family. Of course Jude and Chloe were the center of attention.

My Dad hosted his 7th annual golf tournament. Despite some cold and rainy weather, he still had a great turnout and raised a ton of money for cancer research and patient care. And once again Jude stole the stage...

Also, my sister graduated with her Masters from Quinnipiac! So proud of her! Anyone looking to hire someone in the field of Forensic Science??

And back to the tiny house. It feels like I've accomplished nothing since I've started working. But since I've neglected this blog for weeks, I guess I've got some updates...

SOLAR!!

Do you remember back to last Fall when Christian and I purchased the contents of that storage unit? Well these 3 beauties were in there and now they are finally generating some electricity for me. 

And my brother stopped by again to help with more electrical mumbo jumbo. He wired up the solar charge controller to the battery bank. I was happy to let him do that because that charge controller is way too expensive and I would definitely break it.

I also put my fridge in the house. It looks kind of silly in that big compartment. A shelf will be added at some point.

 Then I decided that a temporary outhouse would be nice to have until the bathroom is finished. This was built entirely out of scrap wood and provides a nice "plein air" experience which I absolutely love.

As I get closer to moving into the house, I've begun working here part time to experience life in Tiny McBoatface. It allows me to continue working on the house as well as test out the layout and see if there are any design changes that could be made to the furniture that still needs to be build.

Painted the stair risers too. Looking pretty good.

Christian has been helping a bunch with the kitchen counter. It's being built out of some pine slabs that I pulled out of a barn last Fall. Pine isn't an ideal wood for kitchen counters, but it looks pretty good and it was free!

After a few coats of poly (that Christian did with his sprayer... I didn't trust myself to do it properly), here it is being test fitted. I think it's going to look pretty damn slick!

Progress has definitely slowed down a bit as I try to balance work and house work, but we'll get there! I'll probably even finish the exterior siding within the next month or 2...

Shower Work and a Week Climbing in Kentucky

Long time no update!

Well, here's more tiny house pictures.

Interior walls are completely installed and painted with 2 coats.

Plumbing is almost done. Just need to finish hooking up the water tank in the bathroom. But here's the water heater, filter and manifolds under the kitchen counter.

Built out a double shower niche.

Installed all of the cement board in the shower.

Added way too many coats of Red Guard to waterproof/crackproof the shower walls. Next step will be to tile (but I'm probably going to ignore that for as long as possible).

This is what it looks like to power sand the loft at 11 at night. One step closer to moving my bed in!

And then at the very last minute I decided to drive down to Kentucky for a week with Koti and Tim Murphy. We booked an airbnb and climbed in the Red River Gorge for the week. The weather was perfect and the climbing was super fun. 

It was my second week of work, so it was a bit of a difficult decision to make, but my boss seemed okay with the idea. I just worked a little each morning and night as well as in the car driving to and from the climbing areas. All in all it worked out really well and I'm very happy to know that my schedule really is fairly flexible (at least until I potentially take on more work).

The Red River gorge is a massive geological feature in Kentucky comprised entirely of sandstone. Throughout the gorge is hundreds of overhung falls full of pockets and huecos. The walls are tall and overhung so the climbing is super physical and enduring. 

It only rained on the first day and the storm passed us within a half hour. Since the walls are so steep, we were able to continue climbing without ever getting wet.

I'm back home now so I suppose it's time to get back to working on Tiny McBoatface!

Chugging Along

Is it Spring yet?

Survey says no.

But all of the walls excluding the bathroom are installed. So I went ahead and put up the first coat of paint. Looking pretty good. Definitely adds brightness to the interior.

Finally committed to buying a shower pan. Was hoping to find one used on CraigsList or Facebook, but it's an unusual size (36"x34"). Found a fairly cheap one at Lowe's so I picked it up. I padded out the interior wall to fit the shower pan. Christian and I drilled out the hole for the drain then I installed the pan with some spray foam underneath for support. Then I installed the shower mixing valve.

Plumbing is chugging along still. Went with a new layout per Christian's recommendation. Trying to take up as little space as possible is certainly a challenge. This should work just fine.

Worked on the door for the electrical box on the back of the house. Started by recutting the plywood to fit better, then framing it out with some 1x2 to provide rigidity. Then added the piano hinge to the bottom.

Once I determined it was a good fit I added siding to the outside to match the rest of the house then added a couple slide latches to hold it closed. Looking good, just ignore the fact that I still haven't finished the trim, soffit and siding at the top of the walls.

And a small but satisfying detail: the exterior light next to the door. Sometimes it's the smallest updates that feel the best.

And on a side note: I have finally returned to the working world. After 3 years and 7 months of funemployment, adulting time has come. I got pretty lucky and was connected to a small consulting company that provides development work for companies using Rally, which is the software I was heavily involved with at my last job at Optum. The company was started by a former architect on the Rally team. I'll be working fully remote and work will be fairly flexible. Couldn't have asked for a better opportunity! Will most likely be starting Monday, if not sooner. Looking forward to getting back to the grind. This house isn't going to pay for itself!

McBoatface Gets A Ceiling

Finished up all of the insulation so it's time to cover it up!

Picked up some tongue and groove cedar paneling to install in the ceiling. The paneling is incredibly thin and delicate thus making it a real pain to install, but I got into a groove and made some good progress.

Here's what I decided to do to provide some additional support around the recessed lights. Seems to work pretty well.

After finishing up the loft I tackled the cathedral ceiling.

Almost there.

And here's the finished product. Super happy with the results. Another step closer towards looking like a home. I temporarily wired up the lights to a couple of batteries to test them out. It's nice to be able to use the wall switches and have those work lights out of the way.

And now I've been working on the walls. We decided to go with a 5mm pine underlayment. It's fairly light and inexpensive and it won't crack like drywall when the house eventually needs to be relocated. The plan is to paint it white once it's all installed.

Hoping to finish installing the walls in the next few days so my brother can come back and help finish up all of the electrical. Almost time to move in!