Preparing for Tiny Open House

Kyle took two interesting panoramic shots, while the house was almost empty in readiness for the varnishing. Once the varnishing was complete, I could spend time basically mocking up the interior again, to have a tiny open house and test the gallery/gift shop/art sale/house tour idea.  Lots of details could be caught up on for this event, which I used as a deadline for a few long-put off tasks.

Kyle did a great job of cutting down the back of my futon frame, to reuse it for my windowseat/guest bed.   Here he is marking cutting lines so he will end up fitting these new ends back into their old slots on the frame.  I found the futon frame, which is rock maple, in pieces out on the street, awaiting garbage pickup, back in 1993.  I spent $4 at that time for what turns out to be standard "futon hardware" at a futon store, used it in my living room for 22 years, and am now happily transforming it to continue its already long life.

The hinge is up and closest to view at this angle; the main seat will be screwed to the board that may be seen already attached to the aft wall, under the double window. When finished, the front flap will flip up to level and create a standard single-bed-sized sleeping place.

The two three foot by five foot sheets of 1/2" wedi material have been slapped up in the shower stall, in preparation for the many questions I foresee being asked at my tiny open house.

Naturally I wanted to be sure the "utility trailer" registration was up-to-date for the event.



 

And how delightful to think all the wiring on the outside of the trailer itself would be complete, instead of being merely roadworthy according to the rules.  All the signals and lights will be installed.

Of course having an open house also meant I would have to dig through boxes and root around in packing material for artwork to present at the event!   This small ceramic sculpture is one in a series of trees carved and sculpted from a brown clay body, and glazed with a crawling glaze to suggest the gnarly bark of a tree. Each piece has its own gesture and personality, and the whole "clan" works together well too.

 Here a youthful inspector rates the fun quotient of the loft bedroom area.  It got high marks. We almost didn't get her back down the ladder.

I put silk flowers in several of the gaps left by the paneling process in the interior of the house; over time I will be adding a shallow shelf along here, but for the open house I wanted to hide the gaps, and liven up the interior a little too.

I took a photo of this announcement card and emailed and texted it to as many people as I could, after spending a long time with the stamps and some markers, and the layout of the piece.  Very fun! 

Insulation Inching Toward Completion

This shot gives an idea of the jigsaw-puzzle-like result of efforts put forth by me and my friend C, as we insulated around the wiring in the loft bow wall.  For these last insulation tasks, 1" rigid polyurethane foam was used; I was not interested in cutting up little pieces of the polyiso for this application -- those fiberglass fibers in the tar paper facing are too irritating.  So this space will end up with three inches of insulation, with lower r value than the polyiso, and gaps around the wires too.  Luan facing over this area will probably allow me to get back in with spray foam if I feel it is needed later, but I will wait and see.

There are really three layers of jigsaw puzzles when this rigid foam is installed, because the wiring is not always in the same plane as the sheathing -- it was a sort of mesmerizing task, potentially ever more nit-picky with regard to filling ever smaller empty spaces, but satisfying. This is the first floor bow wall, where both 120V circuits and all the 12V wiring comes together to go through the wall into the shed, where my 120V electrical panel and 12V fuse block will be installed.

The last frontier -- the shower stall stud walls -- has to wait until the spar varnish is on and dry, so the heater can be moved and the insulation bays may be reached.  "The weather outside is frightful," to quote a popular song!  [Note:  Due to the laxness of my blog editorial deadlines, this work was actually done probably in January or February 2014.  All the painting had to be coordinated around the overnight temperatures, and then everything else coordinated around that!]

After three inches of rigid polyurethane foam were installed, it turned out there was a half inch of depth left, so...



 

I installed some reflective insulation as well.  I can't wait to get the last areas of exposed insulation covered up with luan, beadboard, and wedi board!