Update- we moved!

An update: we unfortunately had to leave our tiny house. We moved to the mountains of NC.  I had to accept full time employment where I could get it, and my husband is considering going back to school in this area. We miss it every day! But it will be there when we somehow save up enough money to go back and finish it properly.

There is still a small section on the exterior (south side) that I have not finished! But the lime has been curing for months now, so it should be ready and waiting when we go back for Christmas break. Unfortunately, after doing more research, I realized that I did not do as good of a job on my lime plaster as I should have. I will likely have to redo the exterior in the future. Mainly, I didn't let the lime cure long enough, and I didn't keep it moist enough while it was drying. Chicken wire is also questionable to use under lime.

That is a valuable lesson I have learned, and I will say it again: NEVER build a house in a hurry!

I promise once I finish the exterior, I will take more pictures and paste my final list of expenditures here. I will also try to write down the number of work days and the preexisting tools we borrowed. Those are "hidden costs" not as easily added up, but every bit as valuable as a dollar when building a "cheap" tiny house.

There is a Tiny House Conference in April in Charlotte! Some of my favorite Tiny House Bloggers will be there. Unfortunately, it is ridiculously expensive and I make minimum wage. I'm disappointed that I will probably not be able to go.

On the mold issue: it turns out it was not the house's fault. I left a bottle of water sitting on a window sill and it started the huge, nasty mold colony which then infested the whole house. I left the water sitting on the window sill because it was catching bees and wasps and all those nasty stinging things! But dead bees in water are going to grow some creepy stuff. It's my fault for being lazy and not dumping it out earlier.

On the bees: they all died. It looks like some sort of tiny insect infested the hive, which weakened them. Something unknown was not right in addition to that. As with a lot of the bees in this country, ours have perished under semi-mysterious circumstances.

... and we're back!

We took everything out, cleaned it, and have moved back in. We have taken all food out of the house except the canned goods, so hopefully the mice will leave. We will bring the food back when we finish the addition. Until then, we eat and cook at my parent's house. I got a full time job in western NC, so we will be leaving soon. I'm sad to have to leave my tiny house. So sad. Hopefully I can finished the exterior plaster before I leave in two weeks! I will post pictures here when I finish...

Also, I have a correction: the butterflies on our Joe Pye Weed were not Spicebush... I didn't know that the female Eastern Tigers are dark in color! Which makes me wonder.... why all the males? Was it the rain? I have heard that temperature can determine sex in some species, before the eggs hatch.

Issues

I knew there would be consequences to not finishing the damn thing before living in it. My house not only has a mold problem but also has a mouse problem. Since the walls and floors are totally solid, I'm guessing they somehow climbed up the whole 15 feet into my ceiling (I thought I heard something up there), and were just waiting for me to go on vacation to come down and destroy everything. We turned on a dehumidifier in there before we left, but it must have shorted out and got turned off, because there was MORE mold when we got back. I'm emptying the whole house of all my stuff and disinfecting everything with vinegar. I clearly need to finish the exterior!! The interior ceiling has fabric, but that's not mouse proof, so I will have to buy plywood to finish it off. But it will have to wait until I am done teaching summer camp (next week). My poor house!

Bounty

We have had many many pounds of blackberries off of only two small plants! They have wicked thorns though; it's quite a challenge to get to them. Which is why the deer have missed out on them, I think...




 The bees are being lazy. We hope it's just because it's been so rainy, but we have put out some simple syrup for them just in case they need a little boost.



 We have seen dozens and dozens of swallowtails (Tiger and Spicebush) on our Joe Pye Weed!




They are beautiful and more fun to watch than television. They are also all over the butterfly bush. In the future, I will plant those two things right outside my living room window or my front porch!



 Makin' music on the front "lawn":


And here are some ants getting creative with a cracker, turning it into an ant hill! Aren't they tempted to eat their home? Or maybe I'm being silly, and they're just dismantling the thing so they can eat it later.

Lime Plaster

Hydrated type-s lime soaked in water: 2 parts.
Mortar sand: 8 parts.



Halfway through and it still looks/feels like dry sand, so I'll add more water!



Done mixing... I think I added a tiny bit more water after this, just because it was so much easier to apply when on the wet side.



It took three batches that size to cover this portion, which is about 30% of a wall that is 12'x 12'x 12'. The plain straw area needs way more plaster than the straw covered by the chicken wire.

spring blossoms and bee hive

Please note that the giant deck does not belong to my tiny house. that is my parent's much bigger house on the same property. :)

One wall of exterior plaster up...

Cedar bench for porch:



And this is what happens you mix your plaster with 1:3 lime to sand instead of 1:4.



Here is my shitty utility sink. The big metal sink came from the scrap yard for $25. The white racks are those things they sell for closet shelves, also from the scrap yard. I figure, why have a counter when your counters can be dish strainers? Right now I just have a big bin to catch the water since it isn't in its permanent location (then I will dig a gravel-filled pit for the greywater to leech into).





Interior shots with our new futon from craigslist for only $75:

Life in the Little House

These photos are by my sister Alyssa, who is visiting this weekend.













There is a certain type of quiet in this house that I have never experienced before. Maybe it's because it has earthen walls and floors, but we seem to be surrounded by this force field of peace when we enter and shut the door. It feels cozy and sheltering, but open, bright and cheery as well.

With no bathroom and no kitchen, it feels a bit stressful in the way that camping can feel. You are out in the woods and it's dark and it's cold, and you realize something very important/convenient is very far away. But as soon as you relax a little and find a proper substitute, you realize you might never have needed that item to begin with. This unraveling of necessity can be a bit unnerving.

First night in the house!

Greg and Mike came out for one last day and finished the floor. They also did some staining of the exterior siding.





The floor had 4 coats, with time to dry in between.

Coat 1: 100% linseed oil
Coat 2: 75% linseed, 25% mineral spirits
Coat 3: 50% linseed, 50% mineral spirits
Coat 4: 25% linseed, 75% mineral spirits


Apparently some people do it with just the linseed oil, but the mineral spirits help thin the oil so it really soaks in deep. We heated the linseed oil (NOT to a boil, you could have let it sit in the sun on a hot day), removed it from the heat, and then stirred in the mineral spirits.

Even though the floor wasn't quite dry yet, it was fine to walk on so we moved in more of our stuff. Then we decided to just go for it, set up the bed, and spend the night!

Lucky for us, a major rain storm blew through just as we were falling asleep, so we were lulled into slumber by the sounds of rain on the tin roof.







We had a too-small space heater, but were plenty comfortable under our two comforters. Downstairs was quite chilly but upstairs was quite cozy (duh, heat rises). The super-long extension cord was having a hard time running the space heater. I'm thinking next winter, we will upgrade to solar power and a more energy efficient thermal mass heater. It's going to be bellow freezing every night this week so we're not sure if we're staying out there again.





We had a bucket with a lid at the bottom of the ladder for middle of the night pees, which actually worked fine despite the rustic (and maybe disgusting) imagery. This morning we mixed water in with the pee, and then poured it over our compost pile.

We're moving in on Monday!

The interior floor and walls are done! (Except for a layer of linseed oil.) We can start moving in our stuff.