An update on the interior

I really want a cottage feel to our interior so I painted it a creamy white (Freshaire Choice non-VOC, 'Poetic Light').

I like the effect of the lights at night bouncing off the walls and ceiling, and even on a grey day, it's much brighter inside even without the lights on.

Progress Update - Oct 25

In the last couple of weeks I have definitely been busy... although, at times, I have strayed from original to do list.

I have:

• finished the paneling and trim around the interior of the front door
  

• completed attaching the paneling on the new bi-fold bathroom door

• installed a shelf above both kitchen windows

• found, bought, refinished and reupholstered an antique settee (since the big toolbox wasn't really comfortable to sit on)

• made a trailer skirt out of old ikea shelf supports and leftover exterior redwood siding

• bought a few outdoor bushes and a (very) small fern for inside

• and we finally hooked up the propane since it's been getting colder recently. (For more new interior pictures, click the link that says 'More build pics are here' at the top left of our blog.)

This week, if the rain will give me a break, I'll finish the porch. I have a couple of more floor boards to add as well as a plaque that I made. On a rainy day, I will fix up an old trunk for storage under the settee. I also plan to add the rest of the interior trim and putty the nail holes so that I can paint the cottage interior the second weekend of November.

Currently, when you walk into our cottage ALL you see is wood, which is nice, but we agreed that we'd like a bit more visual contrast. Besides, the rainy season has begun so we'll have a few months of grey days. We'd like it to feel brighter when inside even if it's grey outside. The skylight has been helpful, but grey is grey. I have a no-VOC paint (Freshaire Choice). The ceiling will be 'distant star' and the walls will be 'poetic light'. Both are a creamy white with the ceiling a couple of shades lighter than the walls which, I have read, is supposed to make the ceiling feel higher. Even though it's simply visual 'space', I'll give it a try.

Since I'm winding down on the bigger things that need to get finished in order to feel more settled in our new home in a new city, this coming week I'll be making more of effort to find a job. I get quite antsy if I have nothing to do and I have been losing track of days since I don't have an office to go to. I've been working 7 days a week on finishing up the house so there hasn't been a difference between Wednesday or Saturday. I'm really ready to go back to work...

The first move

I've finished putting in the pipes for the propane system. All of the inside knotty pine is done (well, all that we'll do for now). The outside siding is done, but there is a bit more work to do on the porch. So I spent yesterday getting the tiny house ready for it's first move.



Several folks have asked us if our roll up door is tall enough to get the tiny house out of once the roof is on. The answer: nope. The roll up door is 12 feet high and the top of the tiny house, when it's done, will be 13' 6". Give or take.

Before we signed the lease for our build space we had an invitation to build our tiny house on some friend's property. But their house is nearly an hour and a half away. So we planned to to do the majority of building here, then tow the house to their place to put the roof on.



So I've screwed in some 1/2 inch, 4x8 sheets of plywood across what will be the opening up to the loft. I've also put a temporary door in place. We'll be moving the thing on Saturday.



Once the house is at it's new home, we'll put a roof on, make the door and the cabinets, and finish things off. We may not get to the painting till we get to Seattle. In fact, there maybe several finishing touches to do it once we're there.

Plan ahead

I'm usually pretty good about planning ahead, but occasionally I miss stuff. The three photos below illustrate this.



In the first, look between the two windows on the right and you see the vapor barrier over insulation. In the next, you see paneling up to the window level, the vapor barrier torn aside and me installing 2x2 framework. In the last one, the paneling is done.

What happened is that I had put paneling up just a bit higher than in the second shot and remembered we were going to put our heater (lower left of the second photo) on this wall. Then I wondered what it was going to attach too. Then I got the heater out and read the instructions. Then I started ripping stuff apart to put a framework in place to attach the heater too. Of course it worked out fine, but took time I'd rather have not spent this way.



The thing that is time consuming - besides ripping stuff out and rebuilding it - is cutting all the notches around windows and outlets.