The whole interior needed to be as finished as we could make it, in order to get as much varnished as possible all at once. Kyle did a lot of sanding of both loft floors, and installed trim on 6 windows. I puttied and sanded the nail holes in the window trim and the wainscoting. I did a lot of work on the floor too, knowing that anything that was there was going to be there for the duration. Such as dings, scratches, off-color spots, etc.
This is a very good view of the sleeping loft, showing the slots where the lexan strips will go. The photo was taken from the storage loft; the lightbulb that may be seen is in the fixture in the center of the cathedral ceiling portion of the house.
Floor boards for the storage loft were recycled from pine shelves I inherited from the apartment dweller upstairs, and then disassembled and saved.
Preparing the wainscoting for varnish included installing the 12V outlet covers, custom-made by Kyle, P and M, who was helping with their production.
A sunny afternoon makes the tiny house interior glow, and my friend/host C was drawn in to absorb the sunshine. Everything was pretty ship-shape at this point, swept carefully and wiped down, so dust would not get trapped in the varnish.
A final view of the floor before it was to be coated with two layers of spar varnish. It was very satisfying to create the "boards" and vary their tone and grain, and I spent quite a few days getting it to this point.
It looks sunny in the photographs, but the weather was not being much more cooperative than it had been all winter. Even though we had the heater inside keeping the space at 55 degrees or higher for the proper curing of varnish, K the painter was concerned about the need to open the windows a fraction overnight (so the sashes could be properly coated and cured). The weather prediction was for below zero, and he was not sure what a temperature that low might do to the wet varnish! So he had us put plastic over the windows that would have to be left open, at least to prevent a breeze from sweeping in, however frigid the air on the other side of that plastic would be.
Here K prepares his bucket for varnishing window trim and wainscoting. Once that was coated, he would remove the drop cloth and roller the floor with satin-finish varnish.
This view shows the first coat of varnish going on my floor, shining wetly (and smelling strongly!). Later I eventually realized that, in another geographical misconception, what I (who come from the New England boating region) had assumed was true varnish, turned out to have been "sparurethane" and not varnish at all. The fumes have largely dissipated after two and a half months.... Anyway, it looks beautiful, and is incredibly tough. It is slippery under stockinged feet, but that is actually nice for sitting on the floor, and great for scooting around the loft.
In an attempt to tone down a little of the yellow "Jersey Cream" paint color, I had the ceiling painted with a lighter tone on the same paint chip page ("Crisp Linen"), but it made little difference, except to (slightly) clash with the yellow. I contemplate painting the ceiling with a plain ceiling white at some point, but not now. It is time to start building in the windowseat!
(Aside: As I named this post, I kept hearing in the back of my mind, "Doorknobs and Threshholds. Bedknobs and Broomsticks? Pitchforks and Tablespoons? No, Doorknobs and Threshholds!" There's a book title in there somewhere...)
I include this view of the construction site to illustrate the ambiance of many a winter evening as temperatures grudgingly and intermittently permitted work to continue for a full day and into the evening. Rain is on my windshield, and bright hospitable light shines out into the dark.
Look! To paraphrase (or corrupt) a famous saying: "This may be one small knob for the house, but it gets rid of a giant pain in the patoot for mankind" -- namely the little piece of corrugated cardboard we have been fussingly using to hold the door shut, lo these many weeks.
Cabinetmaker reaches for new doorknob, with great pleasure.
Cabinetmaker obligingly waits while homeowner takes photo of him opening the door! (Note: beneath his feet, the puttying of cracks in the floor continues, in preparation for further faux-finishing, the goal being to fool the eye that the plywood, grain running from port to starboard, is really hardwood tongue-and-groove floorboards, running from bow to stern.)
Retiring the pesky but invaluable door wedge, after a winter of service. Actually this is the third or fourth one, since we kept dropping them in the snow or sweeping them up in the trash. It is nice, actually, that doorknobs are so readily available these days, and inexpensive, and easy to install. Perhaps in the future my antique door/knob/lockset will be restored and in use at the entry, but until then, the entry has graduated from extremely primitive to relatively civilized.
The beautiful stained oak threshold extension came next, which allowed us to put the weatherstripping under the door and stop the breeze. (Note the improvement in the floor!!)
At this time much of the trim around the door was also installed and stained. It looks very finished now. I can work on painting on the blank white face of the door whenever I like. My thoughts are percolating...
Several of my wonderful Nepali friends drove all the way from Northern Cincinnati to see my tiny house. Here are S, T and me when we arrived.
Here are B, T, S, and D, lined up against their car, which B was happy to have been allowed to drive on the road trip. D had a lot of questions about building the house, and they all enjoyed seeing it, but I think the teenagers were secretly more excited about the long car trip on the highway across Cincinnati and down into Kentucky!
In this view, looking aft, may be seen two of my folding screens, which have been coming in handy for mocking up possible dividing walls. One in the foreground delineates the space on the port side for the kitchen area, under the only window on the port side, which here provides the light brightening the folding screen. The other allowed me to play around with squeezing in a skinny closet space to one side of the window seat.
Looking forward from the windowseat, a heavier duty folding screen may be seen mocking up the space for the loo, about 19" x 48" of floor space just forward of the entry door.
An event hosted by Brad Cooper and the People's Liberty Foundation was only a few days after the visit by my Nepali friends. Unfortunately I have no photographs from the "Size Matters" exhibit of cardboard "house" floorplans Brad and his colleagues constructed to demonstrate various small house sizes, but am proud to say I won a prize in Brad's raffle contest by guessing well at their square footages. (Naturally I could do this only by mentally laying out footprints and partial footprints of my own house.) This gave a friend and me a great meal at the nearby Firehouse Pizza immediately following the event.
Delicious pizza from a wood-fired pizza oven...
...and lo and behold! The discovery that the pizza business began as a "tiny pizzeria on wheels!" So another connection, based on my adventurous journey to build my tiny house. Fun!
It was a frigid afternoon (below 0 degrees F!) in mid-January when Brad Cooper and six of his friends and colleagues arrived to visit my tiny house. Kyle and I and my good friend C were ready to welcome them. The heater kept the house survivable at about 60 degrees, and though nobody took off his or her coat, a few of us warmed up sufficiently to remove our hats or gloves. One of Brad's colleagues was an administrator of Brad's grant, and she and everyone else was curious and had lots of questions.
I was happy to have folks climb the (temporary) step ladder to hang out in the "upstairs" -- the sleeping loft. It was fun to have folks crawling around up there and chatting, exploring the feel of the space.
The loft truly provides a lot more usable space because of the dormers than it otherwise would. Three of us were quite comfortable sitting and talking up there, and none of us seemed crowded too close.
Brad made a number of sketches -- his designs for the two small net-zero energy dwellings in Cincinnati are not yet under construction, so I like to think he enjoyed learning how Kyle and I had solved a few design problems.
I really enjoyed hosting the visitors, and tried to answer all their questions, though my interior design process is far from over and a number of variables are still flexible.
It was a little like have friends come over for a playdate, especially getting everyone up in the loft space. Fun was had by all.
As the group prepared to leave, I self-deprecatingly gave Brad a set of my "drawings", for his tremendous architectural edification I'm sure. At least they are comprehensible to me, at the level of detail I need, to help me remember what we did with the construction along the way, and where the wires are in the walls!
Brad has a clear vision of his project, and I think he has a good chance of making an impact on the quest for providing Greater Cincinnati with more safe, decent, affordable housing. Home-ownership is part of his plan, which might help strengthen the growing mixed-income community that already exists in the urban environment.
The group, comparing notes as they prepare to leave the neighborhood of big houses, after about an hour-long visit in a tiny one.
I first read about and then made contact with Brad Cooper, a Cincinnati architect intern who had gotten a grant from People's Liberty Foundation to build two tiny houses in Over-the-Rhine, a downtown neighborhood much in need of affordable housing. After a very interesting conversation Brad and I made plans for him and some associates to come down and see my tiny house. Once the date was settled, I decided to do some mocking-up of the interior layout of the house for their visit. Kyle's son D, and his friend W, gave me a hand carting down a few items from my apartment to the tiny house, so I could set the stage better.
I took the additional opportunity to move a couple of bookshelf units to my friend C's basement, where she has graciously allowed me to house my art books, adjoining the studio area we share.
D and W did a good job carrying the heavy particleboard bookshelves down my winding stairs. For the staging in the tiny house I also had them bring my disassembled futon frame, and several other shelf units, as well as a heavy 4-panel folding screen that I built years ago to display my picture frame moulding samples.
After one quick stop along the way to check the load, we made good time to my tiny house location, where the guys unloaded everything, and then stopped nearby to pick up puppy Token for a playdate with Kyle's dog Junior. (They bonded so delightfully that lucky Token got to go and live with his now-hero Junior and roam the fields and woods and riverbanks to his heart's content.) See two following photos:
Token in the foreground is about 9 months old; Junior is about a year older. Best buddies from the start.
Yay for the apparently indestructible dog flying disc given to the boys by their Aunt Laurie.
The view out the starboard loft window, from atop horsehair mattress and memory foam topper, installed upstairs on a trial basis, from wall to wall and edge to edge. It turned out to be just toooo big, like a sea of mattress, and the mattress topper a little strange.
Here's a view of the stern, the windowseat area ready for company. The burlap-covered folding screens I used to delineate forward areas of the house may be seen better in the photos taken on the day of the visit by Brad and friends -- next post!
Kyle installed this fixture so I would have one fixture to provide light once we got the 120V hooked up. P had gotten us to the point where we were almost ready to hook up to household current in C's garage, and test the circuitry in the tiny house. To make sure everything was safe to test, we got this fixture in first.
Then P finished installing the outdoor outlet on the stern end. All of the outside and inside outlets, switches and junction boxes have foam insulation gaskets between them and the wiring, hopefully allowing a bit more saving on future utility bills, and preventing a few more drafts or cold spots.
Here P is not aware of Kyle's covetous glance at her snake light, hanging around her neck, which is a terrific and handy way of lighting the micro-worksite right in front of her hands. Note glimmers of light coming through the slots in the loft floor. Lexan had been removed during the last of the interior shell construction.
As dusk fell, all was in readiness for the trial, and, drum roll, please...
3, 2, 1, contact! Kyle connected the two extension cords, thereby activating the wiring (half of it anyway -- the 120V system) in the tiny house.
And, triumph! P tested each outlet and all were in perfect order. Four switches, one fixture, and sixteen outlets, all functional! The 120V system will have two circuits once the breaker box is installed inside the shed.
Naturally we had not had a bulb when we had been preparing to throw the main switch, as it were, and after a near exhaustive search (one bulb we found proved to be burned out) we scored a 40W candle flame bulb, providing a modest but sufficiently exciting demonstration of the tiny house's new power! Hurrah!
After I saw the sunlight pouring in the loft windows, months and months ago, I realized that the downstairs kitchen and bathroom areas were going to get pretty dim once the loft floorboards were installed. I began brainstorming about piercing the loft floor in some way so as to take advantage, passively, of the loft daylight, or even lamplight. I thought it would be nice to have some light filtering down, if for no other reason than to avoid the necessity of turning on a light to go down to the loo at bedtime. Various ideas came to me, including one I really liked -- putting little diamond-shaped stained glass windows in rabbeted notches cut in the edges of the floorboards. However, stained (or fused) glass squares, I finally decided, would not actually let as much light through as would some totally transparent clear material. Then I found an inexpensive leftover piece of Lexan about 12" x 6' at the Covington Re-use Center. Eventually the current design was arrived at, and Kyle cut the slots and rabbets.
There won't be huge oceans of light pouring down, but I like the look of these rays of daylight, and it will definitely make a difference.
Here Kyle is measuring the slots after he screwed down the floorboards, checking to be sure of a little wiggle room in the slot-width, so the Lexan strips will drop in easily. Beneath him may be seen the folding screens I have brought over to up-cycle into partitions for the kitchen and bathroom areas.
Testing the fit of Lexan strips, and marking just one short portion where the strip was too wide for the slot. Note the pencil in Kyle's hand, yes!
This view shows the beautiful job of cabinetry-quality work that Kyle did on the skylights. We plan to leave the protective paper on the Lexan for some time, and I may decide to glue the strips down later. First I would like to see how it is to have them there and live with them.
One evening, as we were preparing to leave for the day, the only light was from a solar lantern I had brought in previously, and it was shining up through the Lexan strips, protective paper and all, as I looked down at the loft floor from atop the step ladder. Looks cool!
