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.

Garden Plans

I can tell that it's almost gardening time here in Seattle because, as Jeff and I take evening walks around our neighborhood, we see that people have been weeding their raised bed gardens. I've just ordered my seeds hoping that I'm not starting too late.

I spoke with our host family the other day asking what plans they have for their backyard garden this year. They said that it's completely mine to use since they expect to be too busy to work it. This is rather exciting news!... though it's also been a bit overwhelming because this will be my first real gardening project so I've needed to do lots of research.

Years ago I had a raised bed garden in California that measured 3'x6'. Sure I thought it went pretty well but I had simply bought some plants, placed them in the dirt, watered them and luckily they grew. This time I'll have an in-ground garden measuring 10'x24' to work with. Besides the increase in space, two major changes will be that I plan on preparing the soil before planting and will be starting with seeds as much as possible instead of just buying plants.

The two gardening books that I'll be using for reference are:

area specific: Maritime Northwest Garden Guide
by the Seattle Tilth which gives a month by guide as to what needs to be done in the garden and

production specific: The Postage Stamp Garden Book
by Duane Newcomb which addresses the issues of both organic and continual harvest gardening

I want a garden because gardening seems like a great way to get fresh, organic produce while also getting some exercise. I'm also curious if I can really lower my food bill, break even, or will spend even more by trying to garden year round. It's been difficult to decide what to plant.

I've chosen some of these vegetables because they're expensive to buy. For example, I enjoy eating heirloom tomatoes and red bell peppers, but since they aren't offered at prices that I enjoy paying, I usually pass them by for less expensive versions. I want to make sure that I'm getting my money's worth from the hard work that I'll be doing.

I've also chosen some of them because they're odd so it seems like they'd be fun to grow. Like the golf ball sized carrots, zucchini that are also small and round, the melon with the dark blue/green skin and some edible flowers.

If I find that I'm actually good at gardening then whatever we don't eat, or share with our host family, I'd like to sell at the local farmers market. I've also heard that several of the nearby neighbors always have gardens so I hope to get the chance to meet them, share gardening experiences, and to trade produce.

I've ordered more seeds than I think I'll need to give me extras to use in case of problems. I figure that the worst that can happen is that I'll either trade my extras or I'll have some leftovers for next year.

The vegetables and edible flowers that I've chosen are:

- beets
- carrots (golf ball shaped)
- microgreen mix
- cilantro
- mesclun (early lettuce)
- mache (lettuce)
- red bell peppers (bite sized)
- zucchini (ball shaped)
- heirloom tomatoes (4 types, 1 plant each)
- melon (a hybrid w/ dark skin weighing only 2 lbs each)
- soybeans
- borage (edible leaves and blue flowers)
- cucumbers
- peas (for Zoe!)
- nasturtium (edible leaves and flowers)
- pole green beans

In the coming months I'll be giving you updates and photos explaining what I've done and will also report monthly whether my gardening efforts have lowered my purchased food expenses.

At the end of the year
- I'll show the total that I spent setting up my first garden
- vs how much I would have spent if I'd purchased what I'd grown
- vs how much I'd been spending for food before gardening

If you have any gardening tips then please write me a comment...
especially if you're an experienced gardener living in the Seattle area. Thanks!

Eat Simpler, Save Money 3

My menu plan...

What I eat for breakfast:

1/2c uncooked old fashioned oatmeal **
1/2 to 3/4 of an apple, chopped
3 raw walnuts, broken into bits
4 raw almonds
1/8c raisins
tsp raw honey
tsp raw sunflower seeds
2tbs ground flax seeds
8oz yogurt or soy/nut/rice/oat milk

** I eat the oatmeal raw; I like the taste and texture just fine this way. Feel free to cook yours if you'd like. Sometimes I change the recipe by exchanging the raw oatmeal with 1/2c steel cut Irish oatmeal. Soak the steel cut oats overnight in water (pour off any excess liquid before eating) and you won't need to buy the yogurt or 'milk'. Other times I exchange the chopped apple for sliced banana.

I reuse small ziplock baggies that I fill once a week with my dry breakfast mixture. On a weekday morning I simply put some chopped apple in a bowl, sprinkle my dry mixture over the top, add the yogurt or fake milk, mix, then drizzle some honey on top.

Using raw, old fashioned oatmeal reminds me of cold cereal with milk. If I use the soaked raw steel cut oats then it has a coarser texture reminding me of slow cooked oatmeal. I eat these at room temperature but you could gently warm the soaked steel cut oats in the microwave then add the dry mixture, apple and honey. You could also choose to cook the old fashioned oats then stir in your favorite ingredients. Jeff doesn't like honey so instead he adds some real maple syrup to his.

For snacks:

* apple slices with nut butter
or
* orange with a palm full of mixed raw nuts
or
* banana sliced and mixed in a bowl with sunflower seeds and raisins

For lunch:

A huge salad with lots of different fresh vegetables, sliced avocado, nuts, seeds, raisins, some chopped apple, sprouts of any kind, a tbs of cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, and a sprinkle of some nutritional yeast flakes on top for some added flavor. Sometimes I add some soaked, raw lentils too. Get creative and you'll never be bored with salad.

For those of you who cook, you could eat salad for lunch and cook the vegetables in a stir fry or make a soup from them for dinner.

For dinner:

A green smoothie. I vary what I put in it depending on what I've bought that week. One week will include some broccoli, kale, apple, celery and carrot blended with water and the next week will be completely different. Google 'green smoothie recipe' and you'll find lots of variations.

Occasionally I actually take the time to make a recipe instead of simply eating a salad. My favorite raw recipes (surprisingly good and fun like a little science experiment) can be found in:

- The Complete Book of Raw Food by Julie Rodwell (if you buy only one 'raw' book, get this one)

- The Raw Food Gourmet by Gabrielle Chavez

Get creative and have a little fun with your food! There's no end to the way you could use the items on my food list while keeping meals quick, simple, tasty and inexpensive.

Eat Simpler, Save Money 2

On my blog entry titled "Eat Simpler, Save Money" I listed a sample of my monthly food shopping list. I explained how I eat healthy, home prepared meals and feel very satisfied while spending only about $4.50 a day per person.

To spend that amount, I changed the way that I interacted about food. I now eat only when I'm hungry and I stop eating before I'm full. I never feel hunger pangs or a drop in energy level because I eat 4 to 6 small meals instead of the traditional 3 large ones. I also carry a snack with me everywhere so that I don't spend unnecessarily on unhealthy, expensive impulse buys when I feel the need for a snack.

Most people don't want to eat like I do and I'm definitely not trying to convince anyone to change. Grant left a question under the comment section of my previous "Eat Simpler" blog entry this past week. He asked what sorts of dishes I prepare using the very simple ingredients listed, so I'm posting the answer as a new entry.

Like many other people here in the U.S., I was raised eating mostly processed foods, when I moved out of my parent's home I almost always ate out because I didn't know how to cook well (I took shop classes in school instead of home economics), then I learned how to cook but found that I didn't enjoy spending time in the kitchen. Now I'm mostly a raw vegan. About once a month I'll eat out and have some sashimi (raw fish). Sometimes I'll eat something with dairy or a bit of chocolate but will pay the price later because these are two foods that give me nasty allergic reactions.

I've been trying my best to eat raw vegan for about 2 years because of my food allergies. Since this change in eating, I enjoy spending less time in the kitchen, I feel more energetic, my skin is clearer, my allergies have disappeared, and surprisingly I also lost weight and am now at 120 lbs (just 5 lbs above my high school weight - finally losing 20 pounds of pregnancy weight that I gained 17 years ago).

The taste of a ripe piece of fruit, or a salad with everything in it (instead of just iceberg lettuce and some tomato smothered with pre-made dressing), became absolutely amazing once I stopped eating processed foods!

For the answer to Grant's question about what I do with the food I buy see my next post, "Eat Simpler, Save Money 3".

"So... how is living in the tiny house going?"

Our friends occasionally ask us, as if they expect the worst, "So... how is living in the tiny house going?"

The two of us have a total of about 120 sq feet of living space, not including the sleeping loft. The space is mostly open so when we are both here, the only way to get away from the other is to go for a walk, or use the restroom for a while. And yet, living in this small space doesn't seem to be causing us the friction that everyone expects.

So, just for fun, we thought we would address this issue in a post written by both of us.

Arlene: Last year I said that I wanted to drastically downsize so that we could get our living expenses as low as absolutely possible while Jeff is in school so I'd suggested that we get a studio apartment while in Seattle (I'd not yet heard of tiny houses).

Jeff: I said I couldn't live in a space that small.

Arlene: Yet we live in a space less than a third of that size now. I think that part of the draw to living in our tiny cottage is that we built it. It truly is a custom home that serves our needs so it doesn't feel small.

Jeff: We've joked for years that we do a 'kitchen dance'.

Arlene: This term describes what we've always done in the galley-style kitchens (long and thin with counters on both sides) in the places we've lived together. I'm at the sink.

Jeff: I'm at the stove.

Arlene: Then we change sides as he comes to get a plate from the cabinet while I put something into the frig.

Jeff: Then back again.

Arlene: But we never bump into each other. Now we laugh because it can feel like the 'kitchen dance' extends the length of the cottage sometimes. I imagine that couples who live on boats about our size have the same experience at times too.

Though we laugh at this 'dance', I don't feel stuffed into too small a space and this in no way feels like simply a 'crash pad' either. I have room for stretching out on the settee to read or watch the birds at the feeder outside the window and also have a space to sit and create artwork. We have had a couple of friends over at a time for social engagements and we both get out quite a bit to see performances, travel, attend club meetings and such.

Jeff: Spending less money on rent and utilities means more money available to do things that we enjoy. The tiny house fits our lifestyle and our values. "So... how is living in the tiny house going?"

So far, so good!

About the heat...

Hi everyone,
Our last post about heat, or lack of, got a lot of comments. I started to write a reply comment, but decided to just make it a post. All of the suggestions we received were pretty good, but...

We weigh 7600lbs on a 7000 trailer, so things that add weight are pretty much out. Also, while we love our location, it isn't necessarily permanent, so a trombe wall is out.

Our tiny house is pretty well sealed up. This is good. It means we don't have drafts. And that means we stay warmer. But it also means that using a wood stove would be a problem. Wood stoves suck air for combustion from there surrounding area. In a house with a bit of a draft and a lot of volume this is ok. In a well sealed tiny house, believe it or not, the stove would draw the oxygen out of your breathable air faster than new air would come in. So, you'd have to keep a window open when using it. And that might not be bad, but it might offset some of the gains of using it. A wood stove is also heavy and requires a lot of space around it. I'm not knocking wood stoves. I love them. But in this kind of small mobile space keep the trade offs in mind before installing one.

Refrigerators are another example of a small space fighting to hold its temperature against a larger space. Eventually, if the refrig is unplugged, the inside temperature will match the outside temperature. So you have to run the compressor to maintain the temperature. And we have to run our little heater to maintain our warmth. And actually, with our little stove we can get it up to 65 to 70 degrees, so it is ok. We just have to run it more than we thought.

I think one of the things Arlene wants to communicate is that if you are thinking of building a tiny house, be aware that it might not hold onto the heat as well as you might think. You do have to run the heater. Yeah, you could add more insulation, just be aware of what that might mean in terms of cost and weight and such. If you are in a very cold area, it is probably worth it to add a bit more insulation than we have. But up here we only have a few months of cold a year, and it isn't as cold as, say, Minnesota or Calgary.

In terms of heating, since September we have gone through one 5 gallon bottle of propane and are on the second. I figure that isn't too bad.

Heating a tiny house

Well, we followed the suggestions as to what insulation to use to build our tiny cottage (2" thick rigid foam planks sealed around the edges with expanding soy foam). But because of the ratio of exterior walls to interior volume, and that we have no air pockets like a heated hallway or closets, we are chillier than I had expected us to be.

I think because it's a very tiny home that takes less energy to heat, I expected it to be toasty inside all of the time. Oh, not so...

On average, we run a 20 to 25 degree difference compared the outside temperature without running the heat, or summertime fan, during normal working hours. (If we never turned on the heat at all this would not be the case.) It turns out that we're cooler in the heat of summer yes. But also cooler in the cold of winter.

There had been an unusually cold day (29F degrees) last month but then it quickly warmed up again. We were comfortable that night so I thought that if the cold weather lasted longer that we'd stay comfortable enough. This past week/current week the high was/is supposed to hover at 32F and the low will be about 22F. This has meant a steady cold and it's been much trickier to stay warm.

Last night we'd had the Newport 900 boat heater on for about 4 hours. At 9pm, the outside temperature was 33F, the inside was 67F with the interior humidity at 48%. This morning at 5am outside was 24F, inside was 52F, and (since we don't keep the dehumidifier on at night) the humidity was 59% . Not as toasty as I'd like to be inside. We were used to turning the heat on very infrequently before moving into the cottage, and we'd simply wear a sweater and slippers at home. In this place, we use more fuel to heat the place and we wear an extra sweater. (We've become quicker at getting dressed first thing in the morning too!) If producing less of a carbon footprint is the reason you want to live in a tiny house, you'll have to figure out how to use less fuel for heating even if this is less expansive than heating a larger space. Insulation is the key; I have no definitive answer as to what to use yet though.

We have winterized, and will continue to do more as we think of what else can be done. We know the following information for sure because (tech geek that he is) Jeff bought two scientific temperature rods that he hooks directly up to his laptop for digital readings:

In early November we started by buying honeycomb shades to better insulate our windows and they keep the inside warmer by 6 degrees. Yes, we bought Low E double pane windows and installed them properly. We have 10 windows plus one skylight.

The industrial felt floor cover feels warmer to the touch than the wood floor, but we've tested it against the wood floor and it doesn't help the inside temperature at all.

I have stuffed dense foam into the 'attic fan' vent louvers and the bathroom exhaust fan outside as well as stuffed the skylight area.

We bought a dehumidifier because we started to get condensation on the window interiors and we don't want mold to form. Before we had the gauge to measure the humidity, the first 36 hours the machine was on we filled the 12 pint reservoir. Since then we leave it on from 5am until about 8pm and it takes two weeks to fill. We now hover between 49% and 60% humidity (gotta breathe but we don't cook at home and we shower at the gym or indoor pool each morning after we workout). We like how the dehumidifier evens out the temperature in the cottage by blowing cooler air up so that the heated air is forced downward. We sit downstairs and want it warmer until we go upstairs to sleep. The sleeping loft area gets heated fairly quickly by the two of us breathing since it's about the size of a two person tent.

We bought a heated water hose from http://nofreezewaterhose.com and it works exactly as advertised.

We've thought about insulating drapes but have decided to wait on those. I need to do more research.

If we were to build another tiny home, or to make some suggestions, it would be:

• Buy more heating power than you think it will take if you live in a place that gets cold. (Will a radiant heated floor work in a tiny mobile cottage? I don't know.)
• Either buy a different type of insulation or beef up the 2" thick panels because it doesn't retain heat well since these structures are all exterior walls.
• I don't know if having a full loft, rather than a partial loft, would keep it warmer downstairs in the winter. It might, but it might also be much hotter upstairs in the summer. We like the air circulation and light. The high ceiling in the living area makes it feel larger so I'm not sure we'd change this design.
• Jeff suggests fewer windows.

We hope that you're staying warm this time of year.

Until Spring we'll be posting to this blog only once a month. Currently we're fine tuning the cottage to make it more comfortable so there's not much to post. As it warms up here though, we'd like to settle in a bit more by building a small deck and planting a vegetable garden.

Happy Holidays and have a very Happy New Year!