Recycling

I have gained a great respect for people who build tiny houses out of reclaimed materials!  I decided to use the boxes that my last two windows came in for the shelves in my rolling pantry... Just getting the boxes apart and all of the giant staples out took a few hours.  Then I spent two hours sanding all the residual tape/labels off and filling in the staple holes etc...and that was only one box. I've got another one to go.  Each box yields four shelves, meaning that I don't have to buy two 1x6's. Saves me about $12.  But I also live by the motto "No money, but plenty of time."  

The box.

Here are two of the shelves, after scraping but before sanding/filling.

Here are a couple of shelves that actually are being shelves. All filled and sanded. Yet to be painted.

Walls?

Still working on the door...had to build up the side where the hinges are going to go because I am using strap hinges. Then had to wait for the expanding foam to expand and cure. Today I made the cured foam flat with the wall by cutting it with a bread knife, yes, a bread knife (the same one I've used on the insulation).  Then I cut my laminate flooring to the right length and I have a wall! The very first one to have a covering. Check it out!

Bare naked...

Only a bottom...let's keep this PG rated please.

Whew, got almost to the top...at least enough to put the door on. Still working on the door a little. Need to finish the edges, sand and paint. Then the door will go in! Wahoo!

Yes, there is more. I started one of the interior walls today, the one that will hold all the plumbing.  It is also going to have some shelves.  I wanted the shelves to be adjustable so I lined up the boards that will be the shelf section and drilled some holes for the shelf brackets.  I'm hoping they will line up well enough to actually have a level shelf.  If not, I just drilled a whole bunch for nothing.

So here is the wall so far.  The fat side on the left will hold the plumbing and the skinny side on the right will hold the shelves. Still need to cut the shelves, and get the right sized brackets.  I used the bracket size from my bookshelf, so I guess I'll need to take a bracket with me to make sure I buy the right size. After I posted this pic I realized that my reflection is in the window. Does that count as a selfie?

And here is the wall with shelves. I cheated a little and used screws for shelf brackets for the picture.

Windows installed, whew.

I like this picture. 

Window opening on the port side.

These were the procrastination windows of the century! I had good excuses though! Winter being the biggest one.  I didn't want to get halfway through putting in a window just to be snowed out for a week with a big hole in the wall.  Anyway, these were the replacement windows which I ordered by mistake. I looked high and low on the internet for information about how to install replacement windows in new construction only to find that there is a complete dearth of instructions. So I had to make it up as I went along. It worked out pretty well.  The two buggers are that these windows don't stick out of the outside wall as far as the other windows so trimming them will be interesting...haven't thought that far ahead yet. And second, there is no space for a window sill, which actually works out well because the counters will be installed at the height of a window sill anyway. Save me a little time on trimming out the windows. 

Port side window installed!

Both sides installed! Whew!

Port side from the outside

Starboard side from the outside. One trimmed and one untrimmed makes the smaller one look tiny. :)

Yay! Beat the rain!

Ok, I know I said in my last post that I wasn't going to spend any more money this month on the Bungalow...that I was going to finish the projects for which I already had the materials.  Well, I lied. This morning I purchased some shingles for the porch roof.  I figured I could handle spending $30 to have it finished.  Only needed one pack of shingles and I got white instead of the dark gray from the shed, of which I didn't have enough.  All roof surfaces are now covered! Whew. And two hours later it is still not raining, yet.

The finished porch roof! 

After finishing the shingles, I also sealed the window and the bottom edge of the siding which sits on a drip edge.  Used lots of sealing-type junk today.  Unfortunately that hasn't kept the spiders at bay. I stood up at one point to go down to get another pile of shingles, and a very large brown spider took off running down the white drip edge. I was so shocked that I didn't even have time to think about squashing or stepping on, but then I realized I have a very large brown spider living in Ticklebelly Bungalow.  Hmmmm.

The rain came and so did this amazing rainbow! I just happened to look out at just the right moment. I got Mom to the back door to see it and within a couple of minutes it had disappeared. Only wish I had a wide enough lens to catch the whole thing at once. 

Weekend progress

This past week I've been in quite a quandary about what I should bump to the top of the to-do list.  It seems that each time I decide on something, I realize that I need to do five other things before it.  I have a digital list of to-do's, but for some reason my brain doesn't organize digital to-do's the same way as paper/pencil to-do's. (I know I'm weird. I find the same thing is true with reading text books.)  So I took out my notebook and wrote down a few pieces of the puzzle.   Also, I'm determined to work on pieces for which I don't have to purchase any new materials.  I have quite a few things I can do with the materials I already have.  So on my list are: install the outlets, finish/hang the door, last two windows, interior walls (might need some materials depending on other factors), and finish the porch including trim, drip edge, and shingles.

The last couple of days I put in the outlets including the outside outlet, put the dog door and speakeasy in the door (it isn't hung yet), and put the trim, drip edge and roofing felt on the porch.  There were some shingles in the shed when we moved into our house, probably from the last time the roof was redone and I thought there were more, but I only had enough to do 1/2 of the porch roof.  So I didn't put the shingles on.  I did, however, put the roofing felt on.  I decided to do shingles on the porch roof for a couple of reasons. First, I really don't like cutting the metal roof; second, one roof panel is not wide enough to cover the porch, and two panels would leave A LOT of metal left over; third, when barrelling down the road at 65 mph the porch will be fairly protected from the wind blast; and fourth, the porch is not square (the rest of the house is, but the porch is very unsquare, and I don't want to take it apart and start over). I think it would be much easier to shingle the unsquareness rather than cut the metal to the unsquareness. :) 

Supposed to rain again the next two days, so the inside projects will get bumped to the top, which means interior walls. I'm pretty sure I have enough materials to do the wet wall, but the other side will need to wait until I buy more lumber.

One little miracle I must mention...as I was fitting the drip edge on the front of the porch, I put the left side on first and had to do some cutting to get it the right length/angles etc., but the right side was the right length already and I didn't even need to cut angles! The little lip at the bottom edge fit snugly over the lip on the left side like it is supposed to, and all I had to do was attach it to the roof.  So easy!  It was really nice to have one little easy miracle thing!

I think it looks much more finished...I like it.

Bathtub....hehe

Here we are again...got a few things accomplished today.  Sealed the downstairs windows and one of the wheel wells with Great Stuff, need to get some more so I can finish the other side wheel wells and upstairs windows.  I also bought my bathtub. Yes, as you can see in the pic below it is a 2x3x2 water trough. And yes, it is big enough to take an actual bath in if I wanted to do that (see the second pic below).  Having my bathtub means I can frame the interior walls (all two of them) and be sure that my tub will fit in the bathroom. Progress, progress, progress!

The Tub

The selfie of me in the tub.

  PS. No silliness allowed!

PPS. As you can see in this selfie, as in the other selfie on the roof, I'm wearing my tiny house building uniform of jeans with a hole in the knee and my blue fleece...and of course my hair hanging over my left shoulder. It just wouldn't be the same without the hair over the left shoulder. ;)

The DOOR! part 2

Another gorgeous day, with some big fluffy white clouds hanging around.  Mom sat outside while I moved some of the laminate floor from my bedroom, where it has been living, out to the loft.  I figure that maybe this week I can finish up the lofts while waiting for the door hinges.  The dog door, speakeasy, and latch arrived.  I had only planned to move the laminate, but the door bewitched me and I had to finish it. So I finished attaching the t&g to the inside side of the door and framed the doorway.  Then I realized that I need a threshold before I can really size the door properly. So another thing to look for and learn about.  A little bit of progress, but I'm super happy about how things are going.  With all the rain we've had (and continues to be in the forecast), I'm feeling like the job for tomorrow will be ensuring that the wheelwells are insulated and sealed.  Some water got into the port side with the rain we had this last week.  Luckily it didn't get into the insulation in the floor. So that moved to the top of the list for tomorrow.