A Tiny House Picnic

One of my old childhood friends, Emily, had a job interview in Richmond last week, so we arranged to have dinner with her friend, Brian.  The weather has been fabulously pleasant around here, so I got the great idea of having a picnic at the tiny house instead of going to a stuffy restaurant.  Since the whole plan was last minute, I just stopped by Ukrop's after work to load up on picnicey things.  After going up and down the aisles, I had a basket full of iced tea, cookies, Pringles, sub sandwiches, and four different types of salad.  I was feeling pretty excited about the delicious feast we were about to have until I walked out to the parking lot and remembered the I had ridden my motorcycle, which has a bit less storage room than my truck!  Thankfully, I was able to pack everything into my bag, although the salads lost their uniqueness and became one container of "tossed salad".

All in all, it was a wonderful evening!  The patches of siding and fresh coats of paint have the place looking spiffy, so it was fun showing it off.  I think having dinner out on the front/back porch really reinforced to me that this is a house.  There are few things I enjoy more than sitting outside with some good food and great friends, but being at a home built with the help of friends and family took the experience to a whole new level!

A couple days later, I continued working on the siding around the wheel wells.  I had read many stories of frustration on other blogs about this project, so I was prepared to dedicate the whole weekend to the task if necessary.  Fortunately, it wasn't all that difficult.  Clifton had made the suggestion earlier that I take a scrap of siding and make test cuts to determine the slope of the wheel wells.  I followed this advice and was able to quickly determine that they are welded at a 20 degree angle, which is easy to set up on the mitre saw (I can only imagine how long it would've taken using a circular saw!).  Cutting the pieces to go on top of the wheel wells was a little trickier, but I fortunately had already made a template of the well curvature, so it was just a matter of measuring and cutting with the jig saw.

I put off doing more siding so that my brother David and I could visit our uncle Don, who's being treated for leukemia.  But, on the way back I was able to get David to help me put up some 16' long pieces of siding and install my remaining two loft windows.  Now if I can just finish my plumbing and electrical and cabinets and counters and porch roof and walls...well, you get the point.  There's plenty more projects to tackle!