Wednesday, July 30, 2014

All The Little Things Add Up...

We spent the week finishing up little things here and there.  All the little things sure do add up to a good amount of work.

We left framing in the wall under the bed platform for last.  We knew we would have to build the wall complete with siding painted and all.  Due to the support steel beams, it had to be installed from inside.




Backside of the wall.













Front side with the siding installed.









We built it to be a very tight fit.  We had to knock it into place with a sledge hammer.











We bolted it in 3 places to the upper steel frame of the bed platform.




We bolted it the floor in 3 places as well.












We sealed in the gaps between the frame and the siding with Great Stuff.  After it hardened, we trimmed it flush and taped the Tyvek together over the foam.









It's fun to watch this stuff expand and grow.  :)

















Trim came next.  We cut out around the beam so it was a solid
piece of trim. 














It's a bit hard to see but we used galvanized flashing under the siding to prevent water from splashing up and getting into the house from under the wall.  We pop riveted it down to the trailer on the outside. 












A better picture of the flashing before we riveted it
into place.








Now all we have to do to the exterior is build the door and finish the trim around it.  That will be a bit down the road since we still have to move in appliances and such.

On to the interior!  Bracing that is.  :)




We used all-thread to tie the walls down to the frame.  It goes from the top rail of the wall all the way through the bottom of the frame of the trailer.  We used locking nuts and a connector in the center to tighten it down tight.















We did this in all the corners and in the half way point of the walls.













This was an extra step we took to insure the walls would stay fastened and tight to the frame during hauling. 














That's the bottom of one of the pieces peeking through the trailer frame.  We trimmed them up a bit to keep them from getting caught on things. 












We plan to have some exposed brace beams in the house. Since our trailer is much longer than most tiny homes, we wanted something supporting the walls in the center of the trailer.
The beams across the rafters will be finished and painted to match the ceiling. 














The cross beam brace is 2 2x4's that we notched and glued together.  They run from the wall, just above where the kitchen counters start to the roof rafters.  They will be finished and painted to match the interior. 









And finally, we got the end caps up on the roof.  We couldn't find any manufactured end caps that went well with our roof.  The Hubby took a piece of flashing and bent a small one to the specs he wanted it to be.  We have a great local steel source we have used for all our trailer steel. 
http://www.jcsenterprises.net/default.htm

JCS Enterprises has been wonderful.  They were able to bend the end caps to our specs. And we love them!





End cap profile.











Front view.




Side view.

We are ready for the Arrango Insulation Co. to come out and spray the interior! YAY!

The electrical and plumbing will come later.  We plan to run both in pipe on the exterior of the wall.  That way we can easily access it if we need to fix anything or add circuits down the road. With the house being mobile, we worry that connections might loosen up or break.  Accessing either through a wood wall would be a pain in the you-know-what! 

So what do you all think so far?  Leave me some comments and thoughts on the job so far.  We would LOVE to hear from you! :)


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Problems, Delays and General Life Interuptions!

It's been awhile since we have worked on Tiny.  Close to a month now.  Life will find a way to interrupt when it can!

1st - Our 3 month old Dewalt table saw died on us. We went to work one day, plugged it in and went to turn it on and ....... nothing!  We took it apart and checked connections, looked for clogs and zip..nothing we tried worked.  My husband thinks it was either bad brushes on the motor or the motor itself.  So we called Lowes, where we bought it and luckily they have a 90 day return policy.  We had kept the original box and everything because we planned to sell it on Ebay after we completed Tiny.  We were a bit over but since we had all the original stuff, the manager was willing to take it back for us.  Bless you Lowes!  It wasn't a cheap saw!  So we got a new saw.  Went with a Porter Cable this time.  Plan to break it in this weekend.


2nd - The Hubby's sister bought a new house and it needed a bit of electrical work and various other minor things.  So, Hubby went to Virginia for a week to help her work on it and get it ready to move in.  She was extremely happy for the help and getting to spend some time with him.  We don't get to see her as much as we all would like.  They got her new home all squared away and it saved her a ton of money since she didn't have to hire someone to do the work.  Hubby was paid in lots of fresh coastal seafood.  Happy days for all!


3rd - My Dad was having some heart problems and trouble breathing.  His doctor ordered a Heart Cath to determine what needed to be done.  So we were off again, this time to North Carolina.  They found an 80% blockage in one of his arteries but good news is they got a stint in and it looks good.  The rest of his heart was in good shape the Doc said.  He stayed overnight and was home the next day.  It is amazing how they can do things so quickly and without major surgery now.  He was breathing better and everything after.

While we were there, the Hubby noticed how rotten their front porch was.  It was bad when they bought it, about a year ago and gotten worse.  It was done cheaply and not even attached to the house.  So while we were all at the hospital, he rebuilt the deck and stairs.  And it is now attached to the house with bolts.  It turned out amazing.  I wish I had taken "Before" pictures so you could see how bad it was.  I did take "After" pictures though!




Mom plans to make a decorative concrete walkway up to the porch with a poured pad in front.  It looks so much better now!  And the haze in the picture is from the humidity that morning.  It fogged my camera lens up a bit, that's how humid it was.  Nasty to work in. 


We are back home and ready to start work again on Tiny this weekend.  We have our new table saw and received word that our custom bent end caps for the roof are ready for pick up.  Hoping that weather permits us to get quite a bit done.  Here's hoping for good weather!  Keep your fingers crossed for us!  :)