On Monday, dad and I finished the floor! 

View of the trailer from the “back” of the house.

View of the trailer from the “front” of the house. The open area will eventually be the front porch.

As usual, Noah sat contentedly beside the trailer and posed with his ball.

Now that the floor is finished. . . it’s time to consider framing the walls and roof.

First, however, we took a day off on Tuesday to recuperate and do some calculations. It was necessary.

Framing wouldn’t normally be a difficult thing to do, but we will have to change the pitch and shape of the roof to meet RV specifications to be able to move this sucker around without needing any special licensing in order to do so. The trailer height specified in the plans is intended to have a height of 20 inches from the ground to the top of the flatbed, and the plans build a trailer that is 13’11”. My trailer, however, is a full 25″ from the ground to the top of the flatbed, and put us at 14’4″. Since the limit for an RV is 14′ at it’s full height, we had to do a little thinking. 

This is one of those moments (and there are many) when I’m profoundly grateful for my dad’s building and engineering expertise and experience. We first determined that we could loose 2″ of height by making the floor from 2×4’s instead of 2×6’s without compromising much in the way of stability, strength, or R-value in the insulation. The next step was to alter the pitch of the roof to save a further 2″.

Those of you who know either my father or who know the house I grew up in will recognize the roof shape! It’s the same one he’s put on nearly every home he’s ever built: a “hip” roof. They look, in short, like a barn. 

Dad hard at work on calculating the pitch and dimensions of the new roof.

There will be more on the roof as we go along, I promise. 

We also had to calculate how much lumber to buy in order to frame and sheathe the house.  Once calculated, we decided the best option was to call a local lumber company for an estimate. The price at a “box store” (i.e.: Home Depot, etc), as we estimated it, was going to be around $1,000-$1,500.  Old Monroe Lumber (http://www.omlumber.com/) could do it for $790.66, including tax and delivery. We called them on Wednesday morning, and they promised our order for us on Thursday morning. 

Old Monroe Lumber delivering to the site.

They tried to back in for the drop on the way “up” the hill. . .

. . .and, as we found when we moved the trailer into position on site, it was better to go up and turn around to make the drop from the “downhill” angle.

The delivery person was extremely patient, skillful, and even managed not to harm the little dogwood tree shown here, precariously close to the truck. Amazingly, he even managed to drop the wood without blocking the driveway, either. It took a lot of maneuvering, however, to do that. 

Just one of the multiple attempts to get the wood into position without it protruding into the driveway and without harming the dogwood tree.

Although my father wasn’t too concerned about the tree being harmed, the driver was, much to my relief. Neither of us was concerned about needing to move or re-arrange the lumber if it ended up in the driveway, but, again, the driver was. He just continued until he was satisfied with the angle, patiently and calmly. When he left, I gratefully called the lumber company to let them know the kind of person they have on their team.  

The plans we’re working from can be found here: http://www.thesmallhousecatalog.com/, and are for “The Moschata Rolling Bungalow”.

One thing I’ll say is that Shawn, the owner of the company and the designer/builder of the plans/house, is a really good guy. After purchasing his plans and contemplating potential safety concerns raised by another tiny house company I had contacted on another matter, I emailed Shawn with a heap of questions in a state of anxiety. Not only did he offer great reassurance as well as excellent advice, but he also refunded the cost of the plans to donate back to my project. (The plans are now part of a freeshare on his site, so they are available to everyone!)

After a great deal of further research, I chose to go ahead with my original intention to use Shawn’s plans. I now feel pretty confident that the competing company likely had either an axe to grind or had hopes of luring me in as their customer. An anxious woman who is building a house for the first time, who is also transparent about her resulting fears and concerns, lays fertile ground for an enterprising business man to take advantage of the situation for his own benefit. There is simply no substitute for doing your own research, being willing to question the information/advice offered, and trusting your own instincts, and where someone is willing to stick their neck out to be kind to you, it’s important to acknowledge their contribution with respect and gratitude.

Shawn — you ROCK, dude. 

Today we’re going to start cutting and assembling roof trusses.