This will be a fairly short (but informing!) entry. First off, I am on my spring break for the next two weeks. So I will be dedicating these next two weeks to finishing the design, budget, materials list, and making a list of retailers to buy everything we need. Since we are making the cabinets, couch, shelves, composting toilet, and shower ourselves, we don't need a whole lot of materials aside from screws, nuts, washers, and lumber (with a few exceptions). My next post will include a detailed materials list and the finished designs for the tiny house AND for the cabinets, etc., and our budget. I finally put the budget I had written down and (poorly) organized into an excel document, and it has REALLY helped. For everyone embarking on this journey, I definitely recommend using excel to help organize the lists. It can get pretty hectic with a notebook full of lists, although if you'd rather do that, go for it! My next step now is to make a really detailed materials list with amounts of everything to buy, and to learn SketchUp to finish up my hand drawn designs. I highly recommend drawing the designs before putting them into SketchUp or any other blueprint program. It really does make things simpler.
The last thing that I am still deciding on is insulation. I was originally going to go with fiberglass, but that is really sensitive to moisture and in a tiny house, that is a bad thing. Next I looked into foam board. That seems promising, but you need to buy spray foam for the edges, and can get pretty expensive. That lead me to spray foam. It is expensive, but has a REALLY high R value per inch, and deals better with moisture and keeping heat/cold out than all of the other types of insulation. I am leaning towards this, although I am also still trying to figure out how I will put in the insulation. I have found some really good DIY kits for under $400, with enough insulation to do the whole house with 3.5", but have also heard some horror stories about doing it yourself. My next step is to call around to a couple of contractors to get a quote. Wish me luck on that! The only person that I have contacted (builder, contractors, etc) that was interested and wished me luck was Sid at Kaufman Trailers. The rest shoot you down with, "Seriously? That will never work," or, "You'll get tired of living in such a small place," "How will you ever start a family in that?" My own family, with the exception of my amazing husband (I had to trap him in the car while driving somewhere to get him to listen to me) and my dad (although he was not sold at first, my persistance that he help just kind of wore him down and now he is interested), have even shot me down. I am hoping everyone that looked down on this will be enlightened when we finish.
As promised, I will share the top 3 blogs and websites that have helped me get this far (more will be added later, I promise) and that are worth checking out for inspiration, ideas, and just general help and encouragement. Finding other people that are doing this or have done that will success really helps to push forward with thick skin when it seems like the whole country is against you in this.
Macy is seriously awesome. Not only is she an inspiration, she is a great person to talk to and get questions answered, or just to help you figure out why you are doing this.
This couple is also great. They create tons of posts that touch on subjects that so many tiny house people wonder about. There is a tutorial about building tiny house stairs, and a tour of their house that includes a lot of useful information about how to build a tiny house to be as sufficient and open as possible. Their house is really great, too. Check it out!
This is a really great source for seeing lots of tiny houses that have already been built. I used this for inspiration on the design of my home. They are always putting out new posts.
Okay, so this was longer than I intended, sorry. Stay tuned for the finished designs, materials list, and budget!
Regards,
Mollie
Check out my website, Teeny Tiny Home!
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