#buildingatinyhome

[doinglifetiny-blog]

We're Supposed to Build What...on THAT...How Exactly..?!

After buying the land, we contemplated many different house types eventually settling on a tiny house, built on a trailer. We chose a tiny house on wheels because it allows us to be mobile, if we needed, we completely own it, can build it ourselves and we want to downsize all of the materialistic things we've become irrationally attached to. Deciding on the trailer size was the first difficult decision (many more to come).

Enjoying a lovely evening on the land The trailer had to be large enough to feel comfortable with our two dogs, a royal Bahamian potcake named Koda and a pitty mix named Kietz. It also needed a large kitchen that didn't feel cramped, a bathroom that didn't feel cramped (especially the shower), a bedroom large enough for a king bed, a living room that is large enough for us to have our ridiculous gaming PCs (we love our video games!), all of which was seeming impossible to fit in a TINY house, without feeling cramped... See the trend in our thinking? To not be CRAMPED! HA! After doing some research online and tons upon tons of measuring in our current rental house deciding if a tiny house was even possible, we decided a 28 ft. trailer would be sufficient for our needs, even with the dogs. Then there was the next dilemma, buy a trailer or restore a trailer. There are benefits and drawbacks to both.

Kietz "helped" move some dirt too Initially we were going to purchase an old RV on Craigslist, rip it apart, restore the frame, then build it up from there. Sounds easy enough, especially since trailers specifically built for a tiny house are 3x-5x more expensive than just buying an old RV off Craigslist. The benefits of buying one second-hand were enormous, we would be able to re-use some of the pieces and parts from the old camper and we could pick one up the next day. The wait times for a tiny house trailer was 6-8 weeks out and we would have to travel about 18 hours to go pick it up.

30 tons of 3/4″- driveway gravel Though buying and restoring a used camper sounds fantastic, through many hours of research we decided to get a tiny house specific trailer. There were too many unknown factors while buying a used trailer plus the amount of work it would take to strip down to the frame and restore it. Plus, what were we supposed to do with all the scrap? Dropping it at the local transfer station would have cost hundreds.

There were just too many unknowns with the used RV options and we needed to get dried in prior to the snow flying! (supposed to be an epic ski season up here :D) We decided to purchase our trailer from a tiny home specific trailer company, with the flashing installed under the cross members. Purchasing a tiny house specific trailer was the first best decision!! (Spoiler: it has made building a hell of a lot easier! We couldn’t imaging building on a restored trailer; If you’re thinking of doing that, do yourself an enormous favor and just buy a specific one, it is so reassuring that it is new, certified and designed to handle the weight of a tiny house.)

Fire got a bit out of control, lighting the ground and a stump up After the order was placed for the trailer, we decided to get some plans started, after all we had 6-8 week before we could start construction. Both of us have some building experience but not nearly enough to build our own plans. So we found some online plans that were specific to our trailer size and we liked the layout and shape of the house (mostly, we rearranged it later). With the plans in hand (not really, they were digital) we decided to purchase windows and a door and start designing the house the way we saw our lifestyle would fit.

Spreading the driveway gravel During the whole trailer decision debacle, we were working on the land and preparing it for the trailer. This involved building the driveway, creating a flat pad for the garage, clearing trees, laying 3/4″- blue stone base layer and erecting a gate.

Digging gate post holes Read the full article

[doinglifetiny-blog]

Tractor Time!! Lets Move Some DIRT!

We still had tons of dirt to move and stumps to remove to create a driveway that allowed us to get on and off the build site. We also needed to build a pad for a garage and extend the driveway to the garage pad. What tool would be most useful for such a variety of work? A tractor!!!!

Is that tractor falling off a cliff? No, it's the driveway :( We rented a couple different tractors to get a feel for what our property needed. The first was a smaller 21 hp tractor that we initially thought would be enough to move the necessary dirt...

Puny little tractor After half a day of use, we decided we needed a bigger tractor. So we rented another larger tractor, and this one got some work done! The larger tractor got twice the amount of materials moved in half the time of the smaller tractor.

That's more like it Neither tractor was very well taken care of, as they were rentals, but the better of the two rental tractors was a well abused 59hp Kubota with a backhoe. It sounded like it had never been greased, as any bucket movement caused a terrible squeal.

House pad is done! Our logic in renting tractors was to get a feel for what size would suite our needs for caring for the land (clearing land, hauling logs, snowplowing, tree planting, fence post digging, etc.). There is a downside to renting, EXPENSIVE $$$$! The rentals were completely outrageous, with over $3,000 spent on 5 days, FIVE DAYS of work, PLUS they charged us to fill up the equipment at $6/gal!! (local price is $2.95/gal)! Definitely would have filled it up ourselves if we had realized how expensive their special gas was.

Smoothing out the driveway After contemplation of rental prices and what our future needs for the land are going to be, we settled on buying a tractor. Which was such an ordeal. Comment if you want to know more about the process of buying a tractor, what we looked for and what we ended up choosing. It’s fun, stressful and frustrating. We settled on a machine that was priced below it’s class but was little known in the area. Everything depended on getting a solid tractor to move forward with the property, it was the single largest hold-up in developing our land. http://www.doinglifetiny.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/16-1024x768.jpg Old car door found in driveway Since the land is across the street from an reclaimed dump, we found a bit of historic rubbish hiding in the brush and top layer of dirt (car door on the right in picture above plus a crushed camper from the 60’s or 70’s). http://www.doinglifetiny.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20190708_130313.jpg Driveway gravel being delivered Read the full article

[doinglifetiny-blog]

The Clearing Begins

Cutting down the trees was the easy part, clearing them, stumps and all the underbrush took far more effort. In order to speed this process up, we rented a mini-excavator for a week and set to work.

Stacking cut down trees with the mini excavator That little machine made quick work of all the fallen trees. Since time was our main concern, we opted to stack the logs in several piles to be dealt with later. The pile above quickly became the largest as it sits between the house site on the left and the driveway on the right.

Clearing the driveway We also used the little machine to start leveling out a house pad, though we still had no idea what type of house we were going to build. Britt loved operating that mini-excavator and it was just incredible how much work could be done with it.

Start to level the house pad area Level the pad proved to more of a challenge than excepted as we had to dig down the embankment between the pad and driveway (where the logs are piled in the picture above). In the end we had a roughly level 50ft x 40ft pad and dug 6ft down into the embankment.

A very stubborn stump In order to smooth out the pad, build the driveway and remove some stubborn stumps, we decided to rent a tractor. Read the full article

[doinglifetiny-blog]

We Have Land!... Now What?

So we bought six acres of dirt! No utilities, perc test passed, soil sample passed, title insurance (which was a pain) but it finally passed. A few signatures later and we had our land! And it was covered in a couple feet of snow...

Looking north east on the property

Looking north west on the property

Looking east on the property The deal seemed too good to be true (spoiler: it was but absolutely worth it). The pictures above is how we bought the property in February. It borders national forest on the back two sides and is going to be the last house on the road, there is only one other house on the road. AND right across the road is a reclaimed dump, basically an adult playground (amazing for biking, snow shoeing, snowmobiling, hiking, it's like a giant park). After the due diligence was complete and we officially owned the land it was time to get to work.

Looking west over the property from the road Our original plan was to build a geodesic dome, then a full size house, then an A-frame, then full size house, possibly a tiny house and back to the full size house. We changed our minds a lot...but one thing was for sure, we had to pick the perfect spot for the structure we were going to build. Read the full article

[saltytracks-blog]

I’ve been in search of stones ... Making up the pavement of less traveled roads ~ Jake Bugg ~ So we are slowly learning that sometimes seeking a different way of life challenges more than your own inhibitions and social acceptance. ~ Tiny homes in Australia are a legislative puzzle - local governments don’t have clear guidelines for their development; the banks bristle at the mention! ~ And why would they support space and energy efficient buildings that don’t drown you in debt. ~ Capitalism they said, it’ll be fun they said! ~ #jumpingthroughhoops #shouldntbethishard #livingoffthegrid #tinyhomeliving #buildingatinyhome #lovewherewelive #getoutdoors #connectwithnature #adventureparenting #takethekids #kidswhoexplore #beachbums #wilsoninlet #discoverdenmarkwa #theamazingsouthcoast #saltytracks #prettylittletrips #greatsouthernwa #localtourist #life_in_wa #australiassw #greatsouthernwa #tourismwa #trailswa #exploreparkswa (at Denmark, Western Australia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwlLVYDJzCJ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=y1mg4nev36in

[misstariana]

I have a shower! #tinyliving #buildingatinyhome