(tiny)HOUSE(building)PARTY

What. a. weekend.  House building weekends are normally hectic and tiring, but this one topped them all!  To celebrate New Years, I invited my friends over for house tours, some building, and a barbeque/campfire.  Saturday morning started out slow enough.  My friend Danielle showed up from Pittsburgh, and we worked on flashing around the wheel wells to seal water out of the walls.  This wasn't my first attempt at this project, so I was a little reluctant to try again.  Originally, I tried crimping standard aluminum flashing and sealing it with caulk, which was a disheartening mess.  This time, I simply gave Danielle a roll of self-adhering PVC flashing and asked her to figure it out, which she did!  Thanks Danielle!

After lunch we continued with the flooring project that Clif and I had done some prep work for.  Unfortunately, to finish, we needed some more boards sanded down, a task that I had gotten my fill of.  Thankfully, Eric showed up just in time for a tutorial and crash course in floor sanding!

Erin jumped into some coveralls and skillfully finished hammering the windows in place and painted the frames Mesa red:

By dusk we had nailed down about half the floor, but appetites were growing so we made a quick trip to the main house to pick up the dinner provisions.  When we pulled back into Betty's driveway, two men in coats and hats came walking towards us.  I started thinking that maybe a mob or gang had taken offense to my house, until I realized it was my friend Daniel and his buddy from my young adult group.  Power tools and lumber were still scattered around the yard, but dinner was calling so we started charcoal for the tiny house sized grill. 

One of the problems with having two residences is that your possesions cannot bilocate.  Mainly, kitchen utensils cannot bi-locate.  Upon realizing that I had forgotten a spatula to flip burgers, I asked Eric to run back to Castlebury Drive and pick one up...which would have worked great if I had remembered to give him my keys.  They stopped at the Dollar Store and bought a cheap one, but as soon as he got back to the tiny house, we realized that the ladle was missing for the tomato and artichoke soup!

My original plan had been to finish the floor and install the toilet Saturday afternoon.  For the build thus far we have been forced to make trips to the neighborhood park up the street whenever we need to use the restroom.  While its a nice break, it takes up a fair amount of valuable building time.  Since we were spending New Year's eve at the tiny house, I really didn't want to put my celebrations on hold everytime somebody needed to go to the bathroom.  So, sometime around nine o'clock at night we installed a toilet!

I'll admit that if we had another three feet of pipe, that toilet would be mounted in the loft right now (who wouldn't want an Attic John?)  To ensure that the fixture would be positioned properly in the bathroom, we developed an architectural simulation technique:

As midnight approached, the temperature kept dropping.  But, the cold was quickly remedied by some spiced cider and a tiny house dance party.  Buying an extra heavy-duty trailer was definitely a wise decision!

By 3 a.m. it was finally time for bed, so we bundled up in sleeping bags and blankets and had the first tiny house sleepover.  Unfortunately, the cold kept most of us up for the night, so installation of the front door and fireplace have moved up on the building agenda.

Thank you to all of my friends who helped celebrate this milestone in the project!  Happy New Year!

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