Framing your life

tinywaysandhighways

Design changes. Like all things in life, we strive to improve. Sometimes while doing the improving, things get a bit messy for a bit. Framing your life to function within a very small space is quite a challenge. You have to make choices and find compromise within yourself.

Speaking of framing…the framing of the walls is now complete and they are now all up and in place on the trailer!

Using tin snips to cut the steel studs
Buckley wants to learn how to build a tiny house, too.
Look how light these are…er…I mean, look how strong Anderson is!
Getting the first wall up and leveled
All the studs are in place!! It’s starting to look like a Tiny House!!
Side view (we used the panoramic function so the walls/trailer look a little curved…I assure you, they are straight lol).

Quite a milestone if you ask us! However, this milestone probably should have happened a couple of weeks ago. This is where design change comes in. When we put our design into a 3D model in SketchUp, we realized the layout we had just didn’t quite work. So, we set out to come up with the perfect floor plan for us. A frustrating and arduous task. We, of course, approached this as humans do – we overcomplicated it. We began to add on and come up with ideas that were complex to see through. In the end, all we had to do was ask ourselves what we wanted in this house. What are the things that mattered most to each of us (and our dogs, of course). So we went back to the basics and a simple but unique design began to take shape.

 

Deep in the redesign process

This did take some extra time for sure. However, in the midst of this redesign, we had a small tragedy here on the farm. A beloved pet, Shasta, was hit by a car and killed in front of the house. Shasta was Buckley’s best friend and playmate, but more than that, she was a true sweetie and loved by everyone. This took a few days to recover from and get somewhat back to normal.

Shasta and Buckley playing together
Shasta really was the sweetest dog! She is, and will be, greatly missed by all of us. 

Then came a slight life design modification…we got wind of a litter of puppies that had been spotted in an abandoned building in town. We decided that we needed to at least try to find them and get them to good homes. Three were found and two now live on the farm – one with Amanda’s sister and one with us. Arliss and Arletta have been a joy, but, also a major distraction and time commitment. Sleep, and progress on the build, have not been easy to come by the last two weeks to say the least. Oh, and did we mention that we now have to redesign slightly for another dog?!

Rare moment captured of Arletta sitting still
Arliss (right) and Arletta (left) helping Anderson put the walls together
Nap time!
Play time!!
This is how you sleep on these things, right?
Mommy and Arletta

 

So maybe you can’t design every little detail in life perfectly, but you can go with the flow. In general, simpler is better. Addition by subtraction I suppose. Unless it involves sweet puppies, always add more puppies. We can do with less stuff to haul around in our tiny house.

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Published by tinywaysandhighways

7 thoughts on “Framing your life”

  1. So exciting! Congrats on the studs going up! I love watching it come together! And congrats on your new addition! Puppies!!! I’m so sad to hear about Shasta. What a sweet face! You can tell just from the photo that she was an awesome dog.

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  3. You guys are hilarious! How can you get anything done with puppies around?! I just found out that TrailerMade trailers will build a custom trailer for $5700 and frame your house w/ steel frames for $3600 more. Seriously considering. If there is any step that you’d pay someone to do, if you could, what would it be? Seems like your subfloor in the previous post was a little bitch.

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    1. It’s super hard to get anything done with all the puppies! We just want to play with them all day!!! As for which step we would pay someone to day, I’ll let Anderson answer that, since he’s the one doing most of the physical work. I will say, though, that I think $5700 is really high…I’ve seen many companies that will build them custom for under $5000. We had our trailer custom made for $4010 and the frame cost us about $350 just for the metal, and another ~$300 in supplies (screws, grade 8 bolts to fasten it to the trailer, wood 2x4s for extra support on corners and around windows, etc). So, if money is somewhat tight, I would say do it yourself. Something else to consider is that we already have all the tools we need, so, if you don’t, you should factor in the cost of that as well. For the frame, you would just need a good pair of tin snips and maybe a metal abrasive chop saw (we used that quite a bit, but, it’s not totally necessary…just makes it a bit easier). You will also need a pretty powerful drill to drill through the trailer frame. We used something like this (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-6-Amp-5-8-in-Corded-Hammer-Drill-HP1640/202265681). We also used a chop saw and circular saw for the 2x4s. And then obviously, a good impact drill.

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      1. Hi! Anderson here. Hard question for me. I work as a carpenter, rigger, and theatre electrician. So for me, I don’t think I would want to pay anyone to do what I can do myself. The subfloor was a little tough but for somewhat random reasons. Normally that would take me a day or two. Every person and every build is different so I would say do whatever you feel confident in. If you feel unsure about something, hire a pro.

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