First Step Towards a House!

The building has finally started!  I guess it didn't take me all that long (5 months from discovering tiny houses to the first nail being driven), but tiny houses are just such a neat and brilliant idea that its almost unbearable to live in anything else once you see your first.

I went to Dickinson Equipment in Fredericksburg to pick up my custom built Bri-Mar right before Hurricane Irene hit Virginia.  I explained to the gentlemen there that I was going to be building a house on the trailer, thus explaining why it didn't have full floor decking, but I'm not sure they understood the full concept.  On the way back to my Aunt and Uncle's, Irene was flinging itself on us full force.  Less than a half mile from their house, I saw a wall of green descend upon the road.  A red pickup shot out from under it, but the 15 in. poplar tree crumpled the cab before it was able to escape.  Thankfully, everybody was fine, but it did make me painfully aware that my brand-spankin' new $4700 trailer was at the mercy of the storm!

My dad came down for a weekend early September to help me start building.  We established a minimum goal of completing the floor by Sunday afternoon.  While I had purchased plans from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., we had to make some adjustments to accommodate for the dimensions of the trailer.  Not everybody has such a "BEAST TRAILER", so the wheels were positioned a bit farther back and were significantly taller.  Working steadily, we were able to frame the floor Saturday...

and insulate and deck Sunday!  To my surprise, insulating was one of the more difficult aspects.  It takes a lot of work to cut through a 2 in. thick sheet of foam board in a straight line.  Box cutters proved to be too short, so we used a cheap Walmart pocket knife, but the handle cut into the hands just about as much as the knife cut the board.  So...I'll be looking into some sort of "hot knife" that can melt and slice through the next 40 sheets of this stuff for the walls and ceiling.

It feels great to finally be started!  I don't have a house yet, but I think I can honestly claim that its the "Finest Portable Dance Floor This Side of the Mississippii"!

Disco Dave doing some moves