Tiny House as it Sits

Unfortunately, this will be the last post about my tiny house for quite some time.  I moved across the country, but the tiny house is still sitting in my parents’ backyard in Illinois.  The time it took us to re-work the siding took so much time away from other things, such as completing the interior, that it still isn’t livable and it would not have made sense to move it at this time.

As it sits, the exterior is nearly complete, wiring is done for about 1/5 of the interior, and the floor of the loft is sanded and stained.  From the outside, it looks great, but it sits as basically a shell of a house, although we have many of the materials needed to complete it.  We are only lacking the time to work on it.

In sanding and staining the loft, it took many times sanding it and 3 coats to stain it.  we had 4-5 passes at sanding because the boards were uneven, so I had to sand across the grain to make each board level with the one next to it.  Then there were 3 passes with increasingly fine grit to make the floor smooth.  Staining took 3 coats because the wood absorbed so much of the stain.  It also took about 12 hours between each coat because the stain was oil based and it took that long to dry before I could brush on another coat.

The exterior looks great now that it is mostly completed.  The newly stained and sealed siding looks beautiful, and the trim suits the house very well.  Around the windows my dad made frames out of Honey Locust he had at the golf club.  The trim at the top of the house is made out of solid Oak golf club display racks the club was throwing out, and the corner trim are Pine boards which were also to be disposed of.  It’s amazing how much would have been wasted, which I have been able to incorporate into my house.  Even all the English Elm siding I have was going to either be turned into firewood or wood chips, but on the house it is beautiful and great in terms of insect repellant and weather resistant.

Here are some pictures of the loft, and the tiny house as it sits.  It’s been a great time working on it and updating the world through this blog, and I have learned a lot through this process, but for the time being it will sit until I get a chance to get home to work on it.  Unfortunately I do not know when this might be and will be paying rent for an apartment until such a time as I can move my tiny house and live in it, which costs more than a parking spot for the tiny house would.