Our House: A Summary

Supplies total: $3,769
Labor total: $3,497
 =$7,226

Supplies breakdown: 
Lumber: $1,227
Nails and screws: $317 (we did not use every one…maybe had 20% left over)
Metal roof: $255
Straw bales: $80
Windows and Doors: $172 (used)
Insulation: $372
Flashing: $202
Other: $1,144
(tools, weather stripping, lath, extension cords, gutters, stain, paint, lath, fabric, lime)

Missing from estimate: Sand, some additional labor, our own labor, the circular saw we borrowed from my dad, runs to the store to pick up more of something, door knobs, and electrical wiring (surprisingly, I think these unexpected costs probably add another $800).

In summary, it cost about $8,000; half went to labor, half to materials.

Note that there is no kitchen or bathroom in this structure yet (there is a composting toilet hidden under the table, a water cooler, and a hot plate).

Things we learned:

• NEVER build a house in a hurry.  
• We compromised on quality in order to be speedy. 
• The exterior lime was not done properly, reducing the lifespan and integrity of the entire building. 
• I never finished the floor properly, meaning it will need to be resurfaced much sooner than normal.
• Some of the upstairs walls are stuffed with DRY STRAW which is a stupid fire hazard. 

• Spend money on the things that matter the most. 
• I wish I had done all the exterior lumber in cedar. Especially the siding.
• A few of the pine boards I ordered were damaged by rot on the ends, but I used them anyways. I'm thinking that was not a good idea.
• We found a great salvaged door, but it is ruined now due to exposure to the elements. I should have built an overhang to protect it right away. 
• A bigger porch would have been better, since we spend so much time outside. 
• Next time, if I build something more than one story, I will hire professionals. Even doing the loft (making my home 1.5 floors) was difficult and terrifying.

• Building a house is a social activity! 
• My family chipped in a lot, and we became good buddies with our builders. People often wanted to talk about my house, and I was glad to do so!

•  Building is an outdoor activity.
• This may be a "duh" for some of you, but our work was slowed by freezing rain, or just freaky cold temperatures (and we live in North Carolina!). I consider myself quite outdoorsy, but I was not happy out in that cold weather, elbow deep in wet straw. 

• Flexibility is Required.
  • Shit happens. Especially on your very first house. Don't expect exactly what you envision.
  •  I bought a giant window to be a super long window seat, but structurally it wasn't safe. So I did two small window seats. I also added windows I hadn't planned for.
   
• Stick to the plan.
• The building was supposed to be 12'x12' so it could legally be a shed. I added an extra foot at the last minute, because my rough cut 12 footers were actually 13 footers. Now it's a source of worry that it will prevent me from retroactively permitting it. 

• Build the house to code. 
• For us, the stress of building an under-the-radar house is absolutely not worth it. I'd rather pay the $500 to get the plans looked over by an architect next time. 
• Building a house that works for yourself is fine, but building an alternative house that others would want to live in too is more valuable. 
• Modern green building materials are getting more and more affordable, giving less and less reasons to build a cheap, secret green house like we did. 
• Building on someone else's land is a great low-cost solution, but you are at the mercy of their life and their luck. If they leave, your house will have to be moved at great expense... or left behind. 

Dome Houses: A Review

Last week, we got to spend the night in a dome house in Marietta, South Carolina. We met these folks at the Home, Garden, and Green Living Show in Asheville, NC a few weeks ago. Scroll down to the bottom for a video tour.




 We were interested in alternatives to the options we had seen so far. One option is building tiny houses out of conventional materials (usually on a trailer, to get around building codes). Another is building them out of 100% natural materials (the most green option, but labor intensive and difficult to navigate with building codes).

These dome homes claimed to be tornado proof, low maintenance, and highly efficient. But most importantly, they are more affordable than conventional structures of similar size. An often-ignored aspect of sustainability is living within your means.

 These homes are built by US Dome Builders (their facebook page). If you browse around, you can see MUCH larger structures are possible, as are structures of various building materials and multiple stories. The design aspect is quite customizable.



The domes are made of two layers of concrete, with a layer of foam insulation in between. I am aware of the environmental concerns with concrete so I asked them about limecrete. You could use limecrete instead of stucco inside and out as a finishing material, but building codes will not allow the structural part of the dome to be made of anything but concrete. As for alternatives for insulation, I'm unsure about any replacements that would work with the curve of the dome. However, there is a type of spray foam insulation available which is made of soy instead of artificial materials.

The doors, windows, and interior walls of this structure were done conventionally (with wood, dry wall, etc) but this could be replaced with cob, straw bale, light clay straw, wattle and daub, etc. This would make the domes 100% fire and termite proof (the dome itself is fire and termite proof, but not the conventional materials). With more natural materials, they would need bigger overhangs over the doors and windows than is seen here to protect from water damage.




There was space for a full size fridge and full size stove in the kitchen. The stove vent is a real one which doesn't recirculate the air, and there was a proper vent in the bathroom, too.




There were few windows, but it didn't feel dark since the room sizes were so small. You can put dome skylights in for more light, without losing your R value.

Side note: because of the interior walls, there are plenty of places to hang your artwork!






 PROS:

• Tornado/hurricane proof 
• Just make sure you've done a good job with your drainage! 
• Seriously, why do we all live in houses that don't protect our very lives?? I would never pay money for a home that could squash me in my sleep. 
• Meets or exceeds all FEMA standards. 
• Termite/rot proof 
• The window, door, and interior framing is still done with wood, but that's not structural and is easily replaced if need be... or you can use the natural materials I suggested above.
• Low Maintenance 
• If you want, you can repaint it about as often as you would give a conventional home a new roof, but even that's not necessary.
• Fairly quick 
• Can build a 1-2 bedroom house in about 2 months
• Can bury underground 
• This could add protection from radiation
• Careful of radon! Digging down could release it from certain types of rock.
• Long lasting 
• Will stand for many centuries, hypothetically.
• Completely sound proof 
• Cannot hear most exterior noises with windows/doors shut.
• Ideal for those cheap lots, next to the busy roads and highways. 
• Energy efficient 
• Insulation is R-30... with all the thermal mass, it behaves more like R-60+.
• High ceilings make small spaces feel BIG!
• This is why they make good tiny houses; for example, the curved wall pushes the toilet out into the middle of the room, which means it feels like you have tons of space when you're sitting on it, even though the bathroom is tiny (fits a full-size shower, though!)
• Fairly affordable 
• This one bedroom, 453 sq. ft. model would be about $45,000.
• Lower insurance costs
• Can't confirm this personally, but their website slideshow claims this is true with some staggering examples.
• Playing music in there sounds awesome!
• Can be hooked up to electric, sewer, septic, solar, AC/heat, whatever you want!

 CONS:

• Concrete and foam insulation are not very environmentally friendly in their manufacturing... and in the post-300 year period when the house will hypothetically need to come down.
• Indoor echo 
• Sort of like what you hear in a new house void of furniture... only the furniture is all there. 
• Might be possible to get rid of this... any sound engineers reading?
• Even the carpeted bedroom had a weird echo affect going on, if you were facing the curved wall.
• Might be awkward for the super-tall or super clumsy 
• My 6'2'' husband did not feel he was in danger of hitting his head, but I hit mine one time when backing up to take a photo.
• The curve of the wall starts at about 6 feet, so most people would be under that, no problem.
• Challenging floor plans
• This one was cut in half, but diagonally to the door, which I thought was not ideal... but there are many ways to slice a pie!
• Completely sound proof 
• This depends on your perspective... if you like listening to rain on your roof, you might want to build a porch with metal roofing to get your fix. You can't hear your neighbor's shotgun, but you also can't hear the bugs and birds.

Click the photos above to see more photos.

Oh, and if you decide to talk to these guys about building a house... make sure you tell them Giovanna sent you!

Snowmagedon 2014

Link to photos of the interior.

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: