Insulation, Some New Walls, and an Addition to the Family

My family has been rather busy this month, so I've been forced to get some gumption and press on with projects by myself.  First on the agenda was finishing the insulating of the walls and ceiling.  To date, I've spent well over 50 working hours purely on insulating, which I imagine sounds rather nauseating and boring.  Well, yes, it is a tad tedious, and it catches up to you when you realize you've just spent your whole weekend inside a tiny house with a jigsaw and chunks of dandruffy foam in your hair.  But, the advantage is that its a pretty simple task, and you really don't need more than one person to do it, so its been perfect for these solo weekends.

Seeing my walls slowly transform from a yellowish-tan to Pink Panther rose has been exciting, but there are so many other little but complicated projects that need to happen before I can move in.  So, after getting a quick five hour dose of insulating this weekend, I pulled some 2x2s from the loft and got to work on framing the bathroom walls.  I needed these walls to be extremely narrow so they wouldn't take up gobs of space, but I of course wouldn't mind them being a bit rigid and strong so they won't fall over when I stumble into them while trying to find the bathroom in the dark.  I was a little nervous about the wood splintering and things not aligning correctly, so I bought a brand new Makita hammer drill to ensure that I was properly equipped for the job.

Well, it was actually a case of the drill was a really good deal (came with a free angle grinder too!), and I wanted something to replace my dad's trusty Craftsman.  I was already borrowing my brother's new DeWalt, but that's beside the point.  I wanted a new drill, so I thought about it for 72 hours and bought one.  Welcome to my family of tools Makita!

Anyways, framing the bathroom walls gave me the opportunity to test my new drill (I was pleased with the results :).  To add some rigidity and squareness to the whole thing, I attached most of the pieces together using about a dozen little 90 degree Simpson Strongties.  For $7, I figured they would be the easiest way to work  with those fragile 2x2s.  After a couple hours of work zipping with my shiny new Makita, I had some walls framed up!

They still have to be secured and covered with finish material of course, but it does give me a much better sense of the space and parameters I have to work with.  To be honest, I'm a little blown away by how spacious the place feels!  I'm sure it will fill up once I start adding shelves and furniture, but I think I could have done a smaller house and been rather content...

I'm still hunting for a home for my house.  I have some leads, but everything's still very uncertain and up in the air at this point.  I did read a recent blog about another tiny house dweller in Michigan (Jonathan's Summer Project) who bought some land in the country to park his house, only to receive a zoning violation five months later and be forced to move.  I'm trying to avoid that, so if you have any suggestions, holler at me!

P.S.- I had my first snow storm in the house Saturday afternoon!  It came up without warning- thunder sounded and the winds rolled in with a driving snow.  I was warm and dry inside though :)