Venture Tiny House

Wow. It's been crazy around here for a while; between working (on the river and driving shuttle) and the house I definitely haven't gotten much rest. But it's looking so good! I've definitely made some mistakes, but as on my "consultant" Brad said, "You didn't bone it up too bad."

I mostly want this to be a chronicle and guide to building a tiny house, so I'm going to describe my process thus far. I'll also post a full itemized materials list with prices.

I had my plans all drawn in Rhinoceros when I started, but I've had to make innumerable changes. The most significant was in window sizing. I bought my windows at a couple of local window companies, where I asked for mis-sized windows that they had lying around. There's a lot of windows in the house (eight, I think?) and my total price was around $450. Most single windows cost that much. Score.

I bought a PAD Tiny Home trailer from Iron Eagle Trailers in Gresham, OR. It mostly seems bombproof. Among my few gripes are the really chintzy jack handle that came with the trailer and that the rim-joist bolt holes were drilled slightly off-center.

Using those off-center holes, I bolted on rim joists to the long sides of the trailer, then hung the rest of the floor joists with hangers. I had the subfloor filled with closed-cell foam insulation.

Building the walls was an adventure, as I had never framed a wall before. I made some strange decisions and mistakes, but ultimately didn't do anything unusual. The one adaptation of typical framing techniques I made was to carry a single beam along the entire length of both long walls; I have so many windows that headers almost spanned the length of the wall anyway, so I just connected all of them with one beam. Essentially, my headers and top plate are the same piece. This allowed me to carry a cantilever off both the front and back, enlarging the sleeping lofts and bringing the overall trailer length to 24'.