Living in a Dollhouse

Floorplan

Well, here is the floorplan.  This is the space my partner and I will live in.  It will be a total of 192 square feet on the main floor.   We have plotted out several nice windows.  I have already bought three of them.  One off Craigslist, and the other two courtesy of the Habitat for Humanity store.  I plan on building the front door myself.  It will have a round top, for maximum hobbitness.  I will get to have that whole loft space for my work area.  I've never had a work area all to myself like that before. 

I have taken this image and put it on a bulletin board near my desk at work.  I really dislike my day job, so it helps to remember that I'm working it so I can have money to finish this house.  I could get a job I like better, but I can't get one that pays better, and I really need the funds to finish this house.  This house is my way out of all of that.  It will let me do my art to live.  And it will give me skills that will serve me well outside of offices.  

I am so glad I am actually doing something, rather than just talking about it.  I spent many years just dreaming of the life I want.  Now I'm building it. 

Flooring

Here is a sample of our flooring.  We are going to use torn up brown paper, stuck onto the floor with a mixture of glue and water and coated in polyurethane.  It was really easy to lay down this test patch in the corner of the trailer. I got the idea from an article on Recyclart.  We will probably add a bit of black Rit dye to the glue, to turn the paper black.  Using paper ought to break up all the wood we will have inside, visually.  We are planning on using beetle-kill pine tongue and groove siding, both inside and out.  With a black floor, it ought to look nice and goth.  I am really looking forward to doing the whole thing. 

Four Walls

Two walls.  But wait, there is more!

Four walls!  We got all three walls that we needed to do done!  You can really start to get a feel for the space now.  It went so smoothly and we got all of this done in a few hours.  Indeed, we might have done more, but we were out of the wood I bought for framing.  I am starting to get the feel for how it is done.  My dad says he will probably leave me to do the interior stuff mostly on my own.  That means building things like the walls for the bathroom and the loft by myself.  I feel like I will be able to do that. 

My dad and me.  I am so grateful to him for all the help he is giving me with this project.  I would be unable to do it without him.  And look at us!  We are standing in our house!

Back into the Tiny

Due to popular demand, I am starting up this blog again.  I am a bad blogger, sometimes, and I have a hard time even keeping up with my doll blog.  But my dad has told me that people have been asking about the tiny house, and about this blog.  So here we go.

After about seven months of work, and more money than I want to think about in dump fees, we successfully stripped the trailer all the way down to the frame.  At the moment, I am still not feeling certain that buying a full travel trailer was the way to go.  It was really gross to to deal with, and dismantling it took forever.  But I did get a bunch of hopefully usable stuff out of it, like the water heater and tank and the appliances. 

And now we are working on the frame!  We are making vertical progress!  The horrible demolition stage is over.  For a while there, I was feeling like it would never be done.  I was even starting to think about just selling it as a flat bed and giving up.  But, eventually, it ended.

Framing this first wall took us a whole day all by itself.  It was really frustrating.  We were tired that day and kept messing up.  When we went home, my partner and I just felt frayed and tired.  But we were pleased we had a wall.

 

So we are back!  Keep your eyes open for more posts soon.  And things in the tiny house are going to start looking better and better!

The first Steps!

Well, here it is!  The foundation for my tiny house!  It is a 1983 Great Divide 28 foot trailer.  I have never bought anything like this before.  But, there it is.  A proto-house.  All hulking and hideous and begging for transformation. 

It comes with lots of salvageable stuff.  Although I do hope the former owner got that bicycle out of it before he delivered it. 

Fake wood panelling galore.  It is going to take a fantastic amount of work to strip this down and rebuild it.  I don't think I'll be finished any time soon.  But it is wonderful to know I am working toward a future, and that I'm doing it without waiting for things beyond my control.  The next step will be to begin stripping it and to really start figuring out the design.  I didn't want to start finalizing anything until I knew what I would be working with.  This weekend, I will pick up some work gloves that fit me. 

Welcome to the Dollhouse

For a long time, I have been trying to figure out how to drop out of this messed up industrial, capitalistic society we've gotten ourselves into.  I have been hampered by the necessity of having a secure place to live.  I require enough stability that taking a backpack and hitting the road is not a good option for me.  But, I have been following the tiny house movement for a while and now I am in a position to begin building one.  And I am lucky enough to have a father who is knowledgeable and willing to help me.  Indeed, he is excited.  So the time has come.  The year of the end shall be the year of my beginning.

Currently, the plan is to buy a hideous camper trailer from the 70s or 80s, strip everything out of it, remove the walls, and build something from that foundation.  We will salvage whatever we can from the mechanics of the original trailer.  This will probably be cheaper than buying an empty tow trailer, especially in the size I would like.  I am building for both myself and my partner, so the more space I can manage, the better.  I don't know why I have not found anyone else who has taken a 70s camper trailer and stripped it, the way I'm going to.  It is a good idea.

I plan on being as energy independent as possible.  I will use solar panels and a compost toilet.  My goal is to be able to tell the owner of the land where I will park it that I need access to their hose occasionally, but that is all.   I hope to be in a fairly urban area since I cannot drive myself and walking is my primary mode of transportation.  Also, it is easier for me to make and keep friends in the city.

My dad and my partner also have access to this blog and I hope they will post here sometimes as well.  I am so excited to begin this project!