Making My Bird House

Today I learned how to use a jig-saw by cutting the sides for my camper birdhouse! These are just a few pics from the experience...I'll start from the beginning.

 

(My plan for the birdhouse)

 

(As you can see, my dog is so helpful)

 

 

(That's me drawing...with the weird face)

 

 

(My finished, cut-out board)

 

(And of course I need a snack after my days work)

I also picked out a licence plate from the '80s for my roof So excited, but the one thing holding me back is sandpaper. We have none...thanks, Dad.

Follow My Friends!

Please, everyone, follow these awesome people!

Go Kart Go

This kid is amazing! He is building a go-kart from scratch, and he is hilarious! We both go to the same school, which brings me to the next awesome blog...

HoneyFern School

This is my teacher! She is the fabulous person who introduced me to tiny house movement and is allowing me to build a tiny house. She also has a blog...

HoneyFern's Blog

Vintage Teardrop Bird House

I just recently built my veggie oil heater as one of my small projects; my next small project is to build a bird house! I don't want to build a plain, cookie cutter bird house; so I decided to build one exactly like this...



I shamefully stole the design from this website, but I hope to build some with a few twists and sell them to raise money for my humble home.

Does anyone have any ideas for what my next small projects could be?

Completed Vegetable Oil Heater

This is my completed Veggie Oil heater! Enjoy!

ps. I got some great news today; I can't say more now, but stay tuned for details in the coming weeks!

Vegetable Oil Heater

Just started my veggie oil heater! Let  me show you how I did it in a few 'short' videos!

 

(Drillin' a hole like a boss)

 

 

Now here's me setting the can into a concrete base...

 

 

(My devoted father)



Gettin the Word Out

Thank you Mini House Builder for making my day.

In the morning, I wake up, get a cup of coffee, get some breakfast, and then I check my email and La Petite Maison. When I was checking how many views I got, I also saw where the views come from last, called trafficing sources. I saw a new source! Usually it's just Facebook and HoneyFern, But I saw a new site, Mini House Builder! I wasn't farmiliar with the site, so I clicked on the link, and it went strait to Austin Hay's blog! Austin started building his tiny house in 2010, you'll see him in We the Tiny House People, now he's 17 and his house is finished! He has open houses a lot, so check out his blog for the next upcoming one!

Jay Shafer says that Austin is the youngest tiny house builder that he knows of, I want to change that! Please, get the word out about me!

The Story of Stuff

I have some exciting news to tell!!! First of all, remember Howard's Wrecker Service? Well, we took the trailer (very rusted and homemade) to him and he told us he would put outriggers on! We first have to try and get some of the rust off by sanding it down, then we have to buy the steel for the out riggers, but we can go to shops where they have extra steel, maybe we could possibly get some of that scrap. Then the owner of Howard's will weld the steel in place, and he will give it a special finishing paint to stop it from rusting further. It is a wonderful thing!

Since that is about the only major thing that happened with my home, I will leave you with a moving video that will make you want to live simply too. It's called The Story of Stuff, and it helped me realize, we need to help our planet.

Resource Review

Latley I have been thinking, 'If I wanted to build a tiny house and I read this blog, I don't think I would be able to find many resources that would help me.' Well you are saved! This list will fill you on great resources.

We the Tiny House People 

This documentary by Kirsten Dirksen is amazing! I cannot reccomend it highly enough. It may not help you build your house; but it will give you idea on what to put in it. The documentary will also explain why people live in tiny homes. I cannot reccomend this video highly enough.

Deek Diedrickson

This guy is amazing! He is hilarious. Instead of building fancy tiny homes, Deek builds homes just big enough to lie down in out of recycled materials. These homes are perfect for little forts for kids, of for a camping trip. Maybe not necesarily to live in, but fun to build.

House Plan Guide

This is a wonderful site if you want to build a more formal home. This tutorial is for how to build homes that are 4,000 sq/ft; but you can easily adapt it to a 80 sq/ft home. That is exactly what I did.

Get Satisfied

This book is about how 20 people "just like us" simplify their life. This book is wonderful. The only think I don't like about the book is the last chapter.  Even when he realizes that he cannot live his life like he used to he ends up living in house that still is ginormous. I don't think he really simplified his life. This guy has a whole bunch of money, he has his own airplane, a ginormouse house, then he loses his job, he continues to say throughought the entire chapter he says, "You cannot understand how hard this was for me and my family." No, no I can't. He continues to try and live his fancy life style without a job. That is not going to happen.Post a comment on what you think about this guy.

Extra Extra, Read All About It!

 I have some GREAT news! Something that has currently come to my attention, my trailer is homemade. That means it's a little curvy; so I need outriggers (to make my trailer the same size all around) to be welded on. The problem is, my family doesn't own a welder, so we would need to find a machine shop to have the outriggers welded on. My father used to work as a tow truck driver for Howard's Wrecker Service (he now works at the Heartfield Jackson Airport for Infax). The shop that they fix the cars in happens to have a welder. Luckily we are good friends with the owner and employees at the shop. We went to their office on Tuesday and asked for their assistance. They were happy to offer it. (I just got a picture in my mind of 40-year-old men jumping up and down squealing like little girls out of happiness of helping me)

(Just like this, with the sunset and everything)

We are still unclear about how much the welding will cost, if there is a cost. Howard's needs to see the trailer first. Then they can assess what needs to be done.

My Materials... And a Little Extra

I know you've heard radio silence from my over the past week... but now your gonna wish you had that silence again. I'm comin' in hot, and you guys are going to be hearing alot from me.

I'm gonna start off with a photo gallery from the past week. I started on blueprints this week; I had no idea how to do them, but my fabulous mother found this website for me. Click here if you want to visit it and check it out. Blueprints are the last step; this website is also where I got all of the supporting steps following up to the blueprints. This gallery will show you all of my completed blueprints... and a few extra things. ;P

                              Front View

 

 

 

 

 

 



Double anderson window

 

 

My Bathroom Door

(with some cleaning up)

 

My Front Door

 

 

 

Metal Roofing Insulation

This is just a few funny happenings going on last week. Dont ask what the big poufy dress-skirt is for.

The excitment of building my house is almost overwhelming; it engulfs me and I am caught spending hour at a time consentrating so profoundly, that when I get pulled out, I'm aware that my stomach sounds like a dying wolf, my vision is blurred, and my legs are numb. I not aware of these things until I come back to reality. See the picture below? See the dog's eyes? See the bone? If this kind of laser focus continues on my part, My project will be done in two shakes of a lambs tail.

West Virginia

 Over Labor Day weekend my family and I went to West Virginia to see Luke, the organic farmer. He told me a few weeks before that he would give me a trailer. I was comunicating to Luke through my mother...you can see this is going in an unfortunate direction. At first I was told that my trailer was 6x16ft, so I completed my blueprints and floor plans and house model, thinking my house was going to be 6x16ft. Then I heard my trailer was 8x14ft. That was bad and good news; I was going to have to do all of my process again, but I had a much larger house. So I did my process all over again...

On Friday we drove the EIGHT grueling hours up to Luke's farm. Well, the next morning Luke told me that my trailer was 8x16ft. That means I'm going to have to redo my entire process AGAIN!!!

If my trailer size changes again (which is highly unlikly because it is sitting in my backyard) my head will literally explode. My parents will have to scrape my brains off the wall.

As soon as we woke up on Saturday, 6:00 AM, in the countryside, we (me, my father, my mother, Luke, Luke's farmhand, Dana, Luke's friend, Nathaniel, and Luke's son, Wyatt) were put to work attaching a roof onto Dana's soon-to-be tiny house. I got to see another tiny house go up in front of my eyes!

When the evening fell on Saturday, the banjo and guitar came out on the porch, and the howling began! The whole house was rocking with the vibration of all of our voices together. Nobody minded the slight chill in the air from the pouring rain. Everybody was wearing T-shirts and shorts, but I was the odd man out wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants. It was chilly outside.

On Sunday we (Dana, me, my mother, my father, Luke, Luke's wife Keveney, Wyatt, and Luke's daughter, Casey) were treated to a Sunday morning breakfast that consisted of bacon from their pigs, potatoes from Keveney's father's farm, eggs from HoneyFern hens, and fried cinnamon apples from Luke's mother's apple trees. The only thing I have to say about that meal is...wow. Just...wow.

Then Sunday night we got Sundaes on Sunday. Your choice of mint-chocolate chip or chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce, whipped creme and nuts, huh huh. I never thought a sundae could taste so good; maybe it's not the sundae but the environment and tradition behind it.

This just in: A young twelve-year-old's head has just exploded. It is not sure, but the authorities suspect the cause is a trailer size change. The girl's parents are now scraping her brains off of the wall.

(Just kidding about the explosion. Not the size change, though).

My House: Made of Masking Tape

Whilst sitting and contemplating life, my fabulous mother came to me with a splendid idea; she said, "Oh, apple of my eye, I do think you should outline your house with masking tape before you make your blueprints."

And I replied "Thou doth have a gift of brilliance."

And so, this is how my magnificent masking tape home... came to be.

 

 

 

 

(I suddenly felt the mood to talk all fancy. Comment if you want more...or don't)

The Question

Because of the need to get away from my parents, I started to research the topic of building a tiny house, but as I dug more deeply, I realized I was building my tiny house for the same reason pioneers moved west, away from their families: I want independence.

That is the American Dream, right? To have independance.

When I told my softball team I was building a tiny house, all of them said, "Why don't you just buy one?" I was apalled.

At first I thought,'I won't buy a tiny house because it would cost a lot of money,' then I thought, 'Because it would be fun!' But then I realized that those reasons weren't why. Buying a tiny house would mean I was dependent on a mega-superstore to build my house; I would be dependent.

Tiny houses, in my opinion, symbolize freedom and independence; you peel away all of the accumulated stuff (blog on stuff to come soon, you might want to set aside some time for that. I've got a lot to say.) and then there you are...the real you.

Why am I so caught up in this tiny little question?

Because I've always been dependant.

My dependance comes in many ways: my mother making dinner every night, my alarm clock every morning, my father for technical problems. I am always dependant! So the one time I try to be dependent...I get shot down by my friends(I can leave my family out of this because they support me 110% in whatever I choose to do).

But maybe not; am I really discouraged, or has this one question given me a driving force to complete my project? Sometimes the answer is in the question.


On a less deep and contemplative note, I am moving onto blueprints! And after that, material gathering! Shockingly, I might even get a major material this Labor Day; my family and I are going to visit one of my mom's BFFs, Luke Bair (he owns an organic farm and sells vegetables and heritage pork to the public, so look him up!),  on his 100-acre farm in West Virginia. He is generously donating a gently used 6'x16'(we think) trailer on which I will build my house and live happily ever after.

The

End!

Pour Mes Visiteurs Qui Français-Parlant

Je connais les monde francais sont regardent mon site Web, et je les aime.   J'adore Paris, aussi, et je voudrais decorate ma maison exactement cette une maison ou un apartement dans Paris ou France.

Merci, les visiteurs de France! S'il vous plaît offrir des suggestions sur comment décorer ma maison!

Au revoir!

Interior Model

 

Working on the interior model today; scale is one inch = one foot.

 

1/2 done:

 

 

(I am very proud. It took a couple re-modelings, but it is just how I pictured it. The blue pegs are my ladder to go up the loft, and during the day, they will close flush with the support beam. On the left is my closet/kitchen shelf/linen closet. This is a major structural feature and provides just the right amount of storage for one person.) 

1/2 to go:

 

 

(Looking good! Gotta add a few minor details, like a daybed in the bump, and then I am ready to draw blueprints and elevations!)

Bubble Plans

Alright! I am ready to rock and roll! Today was the first official day that I got serious about building my house.

I just made my plan of attack, and now I'm getting started. The first thing I did was to find my needs: find out who is going to be at my house(me, my mother, my father, and my friends) and what their needs are(for me, a place for reading, sun, and a kitchen; for my parents, a place to hangout and talk with me; for my friends, a place to hangout with a screen of some sort to watch movies with my friends. All of this will somehow make its way into my 6' by 16' tiny house; maybe each space will have a totally separate use along with those listed above.


Next I had to draw my bubble plan! To make my bubble plan I drew how I thought I might like my home to be laid out; I drew my kitchen as a bubble in the back of the house; obviously the kitchen will not be a bubble in the final product, but... I like the idea of it being in the back of the house. This is how it went for the ENTIRE HOUSE(which really wasn't that much of a house :P); I drew a plan for the bottom and the top, which I might add that while doing the top floor was a piece of cake, the bottom floor took time and effort; look at the comparison:

     The Bottom:

                                   The Top:

And of course, you have to have a snack when you're hard at work... building a house:

Next step: Use case scenarios and space planning!

Coming Soon!

Coming soon! Please follow for updates and pictures as I go!