Catching Everybody Up; Mother of All Posts So Far

Once the weather eventually warmed up, Kyle made progress lickety-split.  Here is a shot of the bow, with all the 3/8" plywood sheathing on.  There will be a shallow utility shed of sorts here, resting on the tongue of the trailer, but no windows.  Sheathing covers the framing of both the port window, forward of the wheel well, and the two port dormer windows.  Just before each window will be installed, the sheathing will be cut away from the rough opening for each window.  Looking ahead to this task, four small holes per window were drilled from the inside, at the corners of the rough openings, to make it easier to cut out the rough window openings when the time comes. It is not weather-proof yet though, so the onerous task of covering and uncovering the house with that hulking tarp continues. Next step is house wrap, roofing membrane, and self-healing flashing.

The certain advantage of having a builder who has a good sense of humor, and is always thinking.  My dad would have appreciated this.

I think the place looks BIG here!  I mean I remember hiding inside the old wooden doghouse by our garage, WITH my brother.  And his treehouse was about 6' x 8' as I recall, and we felt that was plenty big for a pleasant port in a storm. It was a bright sunny spring day for this picture, person for scale. The tarp was off the stern end, and the only openings in the sheathing were the fours holes at the corners of the rough openings for the stern double window over the window seat, the opening along the ridge which will be covered by the ridge vent system, and a bit of a crack between two sheets of plywood.  There was PLENTY of daylight, giving me a slight thought that with eight windows in the house, it would hopefully not be TOO bright! 

A close-up detail of a cornflower at a wonderful annual plant sale I have been to several times.  This time I went, and looked at all the beautiful vegetables, herbs, annuals, and perennials, and realized that I won't be planting anything much for a while.  Perhaps a window box or two, but big pots of good garden earth are too heavy to tow along the highway... 

As my tiny house really started to take shape, and Kyle's construction rounded a corner and began to look like it was in the home stretch, my mind kicked into higher gear on the inside design, causing me to get antsy to have the house a bit nearer to my apartment. I was excited to get my own hands on it, after a long winter of being little more than an observer.  The son of the artist I studied with for many years now owns the house and studio where I spent many happy seasons wrestling with Zen and Phenomenology and painting, drawing and sculpting.  He (the son of my teacher) has said I may use a part of the old studio space for a workspace, and set the house in his driveway area for about a month, so work can continue simultaneously on the inside and outside.  Kyle and I will both travel to this familiar and nurturing spot as he finishes the roofing, and I start on the built-in window seat.

Here's D, whom I have hired a couple of mornings a week to help me in the colossal task of shifting heavy things around in my life!  He is helping move a number of pine 1 x 10s from my storage unit to my new workspace. The boards were scrounged from the trash when my landlord was renovating the apartment upstairs from me, and have been reincarnated once already as shelving in the Over-The-Rhine clay studio I had for a year with three women artist colleagues.  Now they will be most of the loft floor, lighter than plywood and just as strong or stronger. 

The outline of the house is duct taped to the floor of the studio. The chair sits in the living room (or "great room" as Tumbleweed calls it) where a more comfy armchair will be.The dotted line is the edge of the loft floor which will be over everything that may be seen forward of it.  Chalk lines help me design the interior elements, and plan for their smooth and practical working together, down to the inch in many cases.  The swing arc of the entry door may be seen, showing how the door opens into the space.

Years ago, for an outdoor art show I was included in, I built these two 4-panel burlap-covered folding screens.  Made of 1" x 3"s covered with chicken wire, and then burlap, they provide for a number of possible configurations for a booth set-up, and lots of space to hang artwork.  They are very light, a very sturdy for their weight.  In my house they will be used as some space dividing walls, and will be removable if I need to use them again for a show.  Nifty idea I think.  Each panel is two feet by six feet, and that seems to be working well with a lot of the measurements of the tiny house, which is 79 1/4" wide on the inside (6' 7 1/4") and some 14' 3" long. At the moment they help a lot in visualizing the space I have to work with.

Moving back to Kyle's barnyard, this shot shows the stern as house wrap is all on, and roof membrane is being installed.  The house is not as small as it first appears -- the tarp is only pulled back for the job at hand.

My new friends T and P at the County Clerk's office help me wade through the oddity of registering my tiny utility-trailer-mounted studio/sculpture/gallery/house as a truck!  It makes me smile, thinking how unlike the huge semi trucks my little trailer is, until I realize that, since it is 13' 3" or so tall from the ground, I may be spending more of my time on interstates and at truck stops than on country byways and residential streets.  I will need as much clearance as many a semi, and I visualize trying to let the air out of the trailer tires to get under some underpass along the way to a friend's house. Hmmm.

Truck license in hand, I return home and find this baby mourning dove paused a bit worriedly at the top of my backstairs.  I feel like he or she seems to feel, not all that confident about flying into the new horizons opening in front of me.  Eeek.

Here is a photo from Kyle, who master-minded a test drive of the trailer around his hayfield, towed by a visiting uncle with a big SUV (with heavy-duty tow package).  It went fine, and now the house is parked by the barn, closer to Kyle's current workshop, and pointed up the driveway toward the road, and the big world.

Looking small and cute next to the big old barn.  And that tarp is almost ready to be retired.

Looking at the starboard bow.  Notice two dormer windows are in (actually all four are!), and several cedar trim boards and fascia are installed. The tongue is just visible forward of the house, and the forward starboard scissor-jack may be seen holding that corner stable and helping level the trailer.

A view of the port side; loft windows installed (I still have to re-purpose some screens to fit these four windows).  Another scissor-jack is visible, as well as a multitude of vertical nailing strips to which the cedar clapboards will be nailed.

And, last but not least, a new companion for me, a tiny kitty for my tiny house.  This five-year-old female was trapped somewhere in the storage facility in which I have my generous storage space, and to make a long story short, I convinced her to come out, and then took her home "temporarily".  The owner listed for her microchip number could not be traced, and so she has come home with me. With the previously given name of "Kitty", I felt it was permissible to add on some more splendiferousness in the moniker department. 

So, her full name, unless she vetoes it (she's napping just now) will be as follows:
Halupshe Howalel Fatah Mesita Minnie Kitty.  I've been calling her Min.   


And finally, today (June 8th) is the one year anniversary of the passing of my main man Misha, who will always be remembered, and missed, and be in my heart. 

A baby picture of Misha from 1996.  The original black and white photo was taken with a film camera, my trusty Rollei.

Magnificent kitty, in his 17th and final year, at home among my art supplies, forming the centerpiece of any tablescape.