Cold Feet

It's been interesting living in our tiny cottage since the beginning of September because we've experienced temperatures between 95F and 29F.

Recently it's been getting cooler so our wood floors have felt uncomfortably cold to me. I tried wearing a couple of pairs of socks to keep my feet warmer but that didn't seem to help. I bought slippers to wear over a pair of socks but that didn't seem to help either.

So I went sneaking off to look for other solutions. I say sneaking because Jeff and I agreed when we first started construction on our cottage that since we love the look of wood floors, we would not to carpet it. Rugs cover the beauty and we also didn't want off-gassing materials in the cottage.

I figured that if I bought an area rug, that we could still see the wood grain around the rug so I wouldn't be actually going against what we'd agreed upon, right? Since I'm the type that prefers to ask for forgiveness, rather than to ask for permission, I snuck off to find a solution that would appeal to both of us.

In our relationship, I have found that when I look at something (like our 'new' used settee) that I can imagine what the end result can look like but I'm not always good at explaining my vision to others. I bought the settee knowing that if Jeff'd been with me that he'd have thought it was too ugly and could never look any better. I could see it's potential though, and we really needed something to sit on, so I went for it. Since it's been recovered and restyled he really likes it. I figured I would try this with a rug...

I looked at both new and used options. I figured that a used rug had off-gassed already so that was what I searched for first. I looked in the better furniture consignment places near us but found nothing in our size or color so I went to four big box stores that carry area rugs then to rug warehouses... and found something that I had never thought of as a solution.

My needs were:
natural fiber
no off-gassing
fairly inexpensive
visually appealing (or at least not too bad to live with for the cold months)
insulating
warm to the touch

My final choice was industrial wool felt. It's 1/2" thick, light grey, has no scent, is soft and warm underfoot. At only $1US/sf I was able to cover the living room and kitchen floors for about $60. I found it at a carpet remnant warehouse but any carpeting store will have it. They sell it as carpet padding.

I explained to Jeff what I wanted to do after the purchase. He saw it rolled and wrapped (and didn't look excited about it) and said he'd be willing to give it a try. When he came home the evening that I had installed it, he stood at the front door and said that it looked a lot better then he'd thought it could. He stepped onto it and liked that it was warm and soft too. It has received a thumbs up so far.

I'm not sure yet how it will wear underfoot but we have had a no-shoes-inside policy (to preserve the soft douglas fir flooring and now to keep the felt clean) and I have put what look like tacks covered with teflon under the legs of the chairs so they glide across the felt. The felt may be a great solution.

It's been only a few days so far, it's been about 30F to 50F, but it seems to be noticeably warmer feeling inside the cottage to both of us. I'll let you know in a month or two if it really is the solution to the cold feet problem...

Thoughts About Building a Custom Home

Jeff and I have designed homes that we would build ‘someday’ since we were kids. We each have our own ideas as to the aesthetics and components; sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t. Designing and building our tiny cottage has been an interesting exercise in communication, cooperation, compromise and construction.

Because of this project I’ve thought about not only us building a tiny livable structure, but also others who go through the process. Each custom house has something of the designer/owner/builder in its design. Each home will have its own unique qualities because, although we’re all human, we’re each shaped by our life experiences and have different needs and personal preferences.

For example, I tried to get Jeff interested in building a tiny home that was not only healthy to live in, but also completely off-grid, and very inexpensive to build. We both compromised. (Of course, if we were building a tiny home to live in alone, neither of us would have had this experience.)

Healthy: We did agree on this. I’ve been doing research so that we will use as many healthy building products as we can find. I might miss something but I’m trying my best not to. We’ve heard stories about the FEMA trailers that were used after hurricane Katrina and that so many people became sick while living in them. We don't want that.

Off-grid: Ok, yes, I admit that my favorite vacation was a three week trip in Death Valley. Two Jeep Wranglers, four people, no refrigeration, no electricity, no roads. Jeff and I would take walks just after sunrise, we’d eat simply, use hot springs to wash off and we’d all dance under the stars to Frank Sinatra or Etta James. Sure I’D live in a home that had gravity fed water, lanterns for lighting, more sweaters/blankets/cuddling for heating, didn’t have a frig and used a compost toilet. Jeff doesn’t want to 'camp' everyday though. We will have a compost toilet but we’ve compromised on the other things. We’ll use a garden hose for water pressure for the on-demand water heater, we'll have some battery powered lights, an LP gas heater and will use an extension cord for a small frig. We do expect to use a rainwater cistern / grey water system and agreed to run some conduit in the framing so that if we choose solar power at some point it can be easily installed.

Inexpensive: Since we didn’t have a place to build ahead of time, and didn’t have free storage space to stockpile salvaged windows or a used trailer, we ended up renting a small warehouse to build in which raised the cost of building right away. It wasn’t a choice to pay extra for the space but we want to live in a tiny home so we do what we need to now so we can have the end result. We also didn’t find a used trailer that fit our building needs when we needed it so we bought a new one. Although we paid more for the trailer, we know that we won’t have to worry about whether the brakes work or whether the trailer is capable of hauling what we need it to. This saved us repair time, hassle and worry.

We could have simply bought an older Airstream trailer or a retired school bus, gutted then customized, but we both agreed that we wanted a home that looked like a home on the outside as well as on the inside. We want to build a place to live that has a warm and inviting personality; a place that we build together. Part of building a tiny cottage for us is the appeal of sharing this experience.