If you’ve got the money, honey, I’ve got the time

Some people can afford to pay other people to build their tiny houses for them – and there ain’t nothing wrong with that – we, however, cannot. So, we are taking the DIY approach on a VERY tight budget. What we lack in funds, we make up with an abundance of time, mixed in with a healthy dose of naive gumption. About 6 weeks ago, in an effort to save a big chunk of cash, we decided to buy a massive bundle of 1” rough cut, green cedar planks (about 900 board feet) instead of pre-cut siding. We knew this would add quite a bit of extra work and boy were we right…and then some.

We’ll try to keep this short. The road to beautiful siding began with exactly that, driving to pick it all up. Those suckers were heavy (~4500 lbs) but our Ford 250 Super Duty 7.3 liter diesel pickup truck had no problem with it at all.

As we mentioned, these boards were “green”, meaning fresh cut. Wood has to get to a proper moisture level before using it or it can shrink, warp, split. You name it. Most wood you buy at a store has been kiln dried which isn’t really that great but it’s fast and keeps costs down. As soon as we got home we stickered the entire bundle and painted the ends with latex paint to help prevent split ends. There it would sit for a month with an industrial fan blowing air across it.

 

During that time, we got all the exterior wall/roof sheathing up! And windows, we have windows!! So, now it is actually starting to look like a house, well, a tiny house. We haven’t been spending too much time in the hay barn, as we’ve been working in the shop the last few weeks, but, every time we go up there, it kinda takes our breath away. It feels like such a huge accomplishment already.

Back to the cedar. After checking the moisture level every now and then we were satisfied that it would be good to now work with. We first had to take the time to sort them out by size (they came in varying widths) to be able to maximize their use. When we originally unloaded the wood from the truck we noticed the wood wasn’t really in the best shape. It wasn’t till we started really working with it, however, that we found out just how bad it was. A lot of boards were cracked all the way through, most were crooked, and nearly all of them were riddled with huge knots. We set out to make all the boards straight by attaching a self made straight edge jig to each one and running it through the table saw. Once one side was perfectly straight we removed the jig and ran the other side through, cutting off any curvy edges, of which there were many. We ended losing a lot of width this way.

Then comes the planing. Oh the planing. We need every board to be the same thickness, and to save a little more weight, we wanted to thin them out a little. We settled on 11/16 inches. After struggling with the planer for a day we switched the dull blades for sharp ones and it really started to go smoothly. Get it? Smoothly?

So, we are now in the last step of shaping the cedar planks – cutting rabet joints so that the boards will overlap and be an effective weather barrier. To do this, we needed to swap out the regular ol’ table saw blade for a “dado” blade. A typical saw blade is about ⅛ inch thick. The dado is basically a set of blades stacked together to make a wider cut. Using this blade we are able to cut a notch out of the top and bottom of each board.

This means running each board through the table saw again, twice. Needless to say, it’s been a lot of work, and has taken a lot of our time.

 

Something we didn’t totally anticipate was the incredible amount of sawdust we would be creating. We had planned on trying to save a big trash bag’s worth to use for our composting toilet, but, we have made about two pickup truck loads worth so far, and we aren’t even close to being done. We’ve actually had to use the tractor to carry it all away. Everything has turned pink – our clothes, the shop floor, the ground outside the shop floor, etc.

The last thing we will do to the boards before we attach them to the TH is a technique called Shou Sugi Ban – a Japanese weather treatment that involves charring the wood. So, basically, after doing all this work to the cedar, we are going to set it ablaze. This process, along with cedar’s natural weather/rot resistance can theoretically make this TH house last longer than we will be alive. Unless, of course, science actually gets it’s act together and figures out a way to keep these human bodies going forever.

In the middle of all this work, we took about a week off to drive 23 hours to CT. Anderson had his 5 year high school reunion to attend. Or was it the 10 year? The signs there did say 20 year reunion and all the other people who attended were pretty old but Anderson is pretty sure it’s only been 5 or 10 years since his glory days at Simsbury High. It was a good time but we missed the dogs and they definitely missed us. We also celebrated Anderson’s 25th birthday while we were their with some of his family. They were all saying it was his 39th but he’s pretty sure he’s only around 25 or 30. It was also nice for Amanda to experience her first New England fall. The changing leaves did NOT disappoint! We even went apple picking (can you get any more New England than that?)

 

They say time is money. And apparently, time is our currency. Though, we seem to be running low on both, what with winter drawing near and Anderson having to leave for a week in a few days, to work on a film festival (gotta bring home some of that other currency!). We are hoping to be on the road before Christmas. Fingers crossed!! Feels a little daunting at times.

Doggie update: Arletta is doing great, learning fast and growing faster. She is pretty much potty trained already! She will also sit on command….sometimes. She got spayed last week and has been recovering remarkably well. Buckley is learning how to tolerate a little sister. While he really enjoys the puppy playtime, the sharing-his-people thing has been a little ruff on him.