Raising the Roof!

Hello Blog Readers, Today at the tiny house we took down our crappy awning and have replaced it with a more permanent roof structure. Our goal is to add more living space to our tiny house and will be complete once we finish building the attached deck.

I have built the roof out of pallets I got for free and the corrugated iron was left over from building the tiny house. I purchased three used rimu timber posts to support the roof from the ground, and some roofing screws. The total cost of the roof was about 40 dollars. We had help from our awesome land owners to lift the roof into place with his loader. Thank you so much!!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the composting toilet and the deck!

-Pat and Cori

Tiny House Slideshow- Interior

Sorry for the terrible quality!

Tiny House Slideshow- Exterior

Mounting the Solar Panels

Hi Everyone, This weekend at the Tiny House we mounted our solar panels to the roof. I had help from a good friend from work and it went really smoothly. We installed two 265 watt solar panels and two 12 volt 325 amp hour batteries to create a 24 volt system. Our goal from the beginning of our build was to be free of electric bills. We are now generating our own electricity and it is amazing to see the whole thing finally come together.

Thanks for reading! Next up- water, deck and a toilet.

-Pat and Cori

Moving Day!!

Hello everyone, Today we shifted our tiny house to its final location. The new location was only about 1 minute up the road in a great big paddock with some sheep. The move went really well and the Terrano towed it surprisingly well. The next step is to build a nice big deck on the front so we have a nice place for our grill and additional living space.

As soon as we got the tiny house lined up at the gate all the llamas just had to come over. Nosey pricks.

The llamas were very excited to finally see the Tiny House move! They all came over for a visit.

Pat just took off as soon as the coast was clear.

Into the paddock it goes.

It looks so tiny! We feel so much better now that we safely moved it with no issue. Now we can actually start putting things on shelves and organizing our lives. Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more tiny house action. And also we should address the common question, "So is it done yet?" the answer is no, It will probably always be a work in progress. But for the time being our goal is to get it livable. We need a toilet, water, electrical and gas. Everything is tested, all we need to hook everything up!

Also shout out to all my wellesley girls/badonderz/CFYM and our family and friends, thank you for your interest and excitement, I (cori) had a great time at home and miss everyone already.

LOVE LOVE LOVE to everyone!

-Cori and Pat

Book Shelving & Kitchen Drawer

Hello Everyone, Things are starting to finish up at the tiny house. We just have a few items left on the list and we can finally call it home.

Today I decided to build a shelving unit to go around the television. I used one of the crates we got for free and some left over scraps we had laying around. I also quickly built a small kitchen utensil drawer  out of some left over materials. It is nothing fancy but it will work.

Hope you like!!

Finishing the Bed and more

Hello everyone, Today I worked on finishing the pull out bed. I found a old door in the rubbish and cut out a good section to use as the front. I also pulled up all the protective floor covering to expose all the beautiful flooring that has been under cover for a long time now. I also added a bunch of other updated photos. Hope you enjoy!!

Pull out bed and other things

Hi, Today Cori and I worked on our under floor pull out bed and I welded four little tabs on the kitchen sink to support a cutting board to give us some more counter space. We also finished off a few other little things. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

This is for pillow storage at the head of the bed.

Now here's a video of Cori.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGvXMo4i2sA&w=420&h=315]

We installed some bathroom shelves using old apple crates.

Trim for the bathroom window.

As Pat would say "Sweet."

-Cori and Pat

Prepping for Eco Week

Hello!

This coming week is ECO WEEK, sponsored by the Canterbury Sustainability Department. We were asked to participate by hosting an tiny house open house. Check out the website: http://www.sustain.canterbury.ac.nz/ecoweek/!

There will be a few visitors to the tiny house this Tuesday, so we made a big push to get a lot of stuff done (plus cleaning!). Enjoy.

BATHROOM

TRIMMING MISSION: Cover up the fact that our plastic wasn't long enough to reach the floor...

CORI CUT ALL OF THESE (FYI, I do more than just take pictures.)

ALL DONE! Now on to the light and fan!

And now to clean up the look of the sink. First we peeled back the plastic and then came up with this brilliance! 

Just an old suitcase with an attitude, came free with an old newspaper from 1975!

Next up: Kitchen!

A nice curtain rod in anticipation for an actual curtain!

We needed some more storage!

And EVEN MORE STORAGE!

Why so SERIOUS???

We also finished some trim if you can tell. 

 

We also installed our bench top. And added some hinges and protection.

I know you have seen our letters but we finally finished all the electrical in the house today! All we have to do is test and mount our solar panels.

This is the cleanest we could get the house!

Thanks for reading!

-Cori and Pat

Butcher Block

Hello blog readers, I have been working on building a homemade butcher block from completely recycled materials. Thank you Tom and Maria for the beautiful rimu timber. I bought a 5 gallon bucket of used wrenches for 40 dollars and used them to build the frame. The end product has one coat of stain and three coats of polyurethane. The only new material I bought was the wheels. I hope you enjoy.

Trimmyity Trim Trim! (and a door)

Hello blog followers, We got a lot accomplished at the tiny house today. The trim around the entrance door and kitchen windows is complete. We were able to use the rimu we got for free from some friends. We cut all the pieces to size and stained them before brad nailing them into place. We also installed a barn style door to the entrance of the bathroom only using some recycled materials we had laying around. I love it when things come together!

Now watch as Pat explains his recycling magic! 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxjD0k7ICXo&w=420&h=315]

It Moves!

Hello everyone, Today at the tiny house we did a bunch of little things including trim, kitchen lighting, vinyl in the cabinets, and some decorating. We also lowered the trailer off the four blocks its been resting on for over 7 months. We hooked the trailer up to our truck to test the lights and towing capabilities. After filling all four tires on the trailer with air we shifted the tiny house with no worries. Success! Watch the drama unfold!

Below is the first long distance photo that we have been able to take without a fence in the way!

Nice view!

Pat getting ready to try it out!

Finally got the kitchen lighting up.

I found these in a store in Wellington, three for $12! It took us a while to decide where to put them.

If you look closely you will see the vinyl that we glued to the shelves of the kitchen cabinets. It makes it look so much better!

This thing is really coming together huh?

FINALLY some trim!

I am embarrassed to say that this took me a good 30 min to do!

So it doesn't going flying open while we transport our house!

We also have a few videos if you are interested!

Inside a Moving Tiny House!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vf6ZXasg_8&w=420&h=315]

Towing the Tiny House

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kK_c4IvfcU&w=420&h=315]

https://youtu.be/XsTZm70acEc

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsTZm70acEc&w=420&h=315]

Painting & Trim

Hello bloggers, It certainly is spring. This is the second weekend we have been rained out, making things at the tiny house difficult. We have still managed to get things done though.

We painted our lockers, storage cabinet, and kitchen cabinets. I also have been hooking up some of the electrical outlets and switches as I go along.  We did the trim above the kitchen all out of recycled timber. At this stage it is really difficult to use recycled materials to do the finishing work because their imperfections make it difficult to be satisfied with the result. This is new territory for the both of us and we keep losing our patience. Building a tiny house is hard work but we had a unexpected visitor today which boosted our morale.

And that's All Folks!

It doesn't seem like much but it is coming along. We did some more major clean up because our tiny house is going to be a part of Eco Week! A sustainable themed week long series of events hosted by the University of Canterbury. Following Eco Week we will be moving our tiny house to our newly rented lot in Christchurch. Everything is happening so soon! Stay tuned for more ;)

Pat and Cori

Paint, Bathroom Progress and Electrical

Hi Readers! Last weekend was one of the first weekends we worked on the tiny house that was cut short by bad weather. But Pat still managed to paint the beige walls (you probably can't tell from the pictures but the walls were scratched and dented). So this weekend we made a huge push to make up for our lost day!

This Saturday we lined our bathroom with plastic we got for free from a friend. We didn't have enough to cover the ceiling as well so once again we used up some scraps! At least our whole house (inside and outside) matches! We also had time to install our sink that had been lying dejected in our shower for ages!

This is the floor I did a while back, finally you can see it ! Previously we had used cardboard to protect the flooring but this weekend we brought the vacuum cleaner along with us. 

We spent the rest of the day cleaning, laying down blue plastic and checking on our bathroom walls.

Sunday was a later start. We got began by hooking up our plug outlets and our lights. Check out the difference it makes!

We finished up the day by finally putting a door on our storage cabinet (we also shortened it!)

  

It def needs some tweaks but it is on its way! We had a great weekend with lovely weather and our house looks and smells brand new!

Thanks for reading, next weekend hopefully we will have a couch installed and some more trim!

Please enjoy our first attempts at using the panaromic feature on Pat's phone ;)

Signing off!

Pat and Cori

Saturday Tiny House Work

Hello blog followers, Today at the tiny house we finished off the door for the utilities box, secured the last bolt fixing the house to the trailer, removed our kitchen cabinets to sand and repaint, and built a small shelf for the kitchen out of some free items we had laying around. The weather turned out to be really nice!

Ceiling Insulating and Covering

Hi everyone, Today at the tiny house we insulated and covered our ceiling. It has felt like forever that the ceiling has been not finished, but today we got it done! Some really good friend of ours had some extra polystyrene laying around. We took what they gave us and bought what we needed and today got around to finishing our ceiling. That stuff sure does make a hell of a mess but in the end it worked out well.

After the insulation was up we calculated that we had enough left over roofing material for our ceiling. The rust, holes, scratches, and all kinds of minor imperfections gives it a good rustic look.

We also had time to build a door for our utilities box completely out of scraps we had left laying around.

Hope you like it!

Think I am looking kind of stiff haha!

Just a bunch of stuff

Hello blog followers, Today at the tiny house I got started by finishing the LPG gas piping running to the water heater and gas cook top. Then we moved on to mounting our television wall bracket and designed some under floor storage. We cut a hole in the upper floor to make room for lots of storage space for shoes and things.

Bits and Bobs

Hello blog followers, Today at the tiny house the weather was not very nice. We had a early start and got a few things finished. We worked on laying carpet inside our storage crates, interior walls around the bathroom, and cleaning up around the tiny house. We got the carpet for free from a dumpster right next to our house. Next week we will be taking a break, heading up to Auckland for a romantic weekend not thinking about the tiny house. We will update the blog in two weeks time. see you soon!!

Tiny House Budget

Hello! We knew when we started building that we didn't want to spend a crazy amount on our house. In order to do this we have been keeping track of every penny we have spent. We have made an effort to save every receipt during our tiny house build. This turned out to be a good thing not only for keeping within our budget but also when we were trying to prove to Immigration NZ that we are a couple with long terms plans of staying together, what better way than by overwhelming them with hundreds of receipts and pictures of our tiny house! Spoiler alert: It worked and Pat now has his permanent residency!

We have saved so much money by getting free materials and also buying recycled and used materials when possible. Our goal is to stay under $15,000 NZ dollars, so far we are on track.  This price includes the purchase of our trailer and all of our household appliances (fridge, hot water heater, gas cook top, shower, faucet, etc..).

As you have probably noticed we haven't included our solar panels or batteries. We consider these to be investments for long term utilities (they will pay for themselves eventually with how much we can save). For two solar panels (260watts) and the controller inverter battery charger we spent $1600, and we still have to get our batteries! It is expensive to be off the grid, at least in the beginning.

Interior Walls

Hello blog followers, This weekend we worked on covering up some of the interior walls. We had left over metal wall cladding from the exterior and decided to use some on a few of the walls including the kitchen. its light weight, durable, and water proof so its great for the kitchen area.