Sealing up the house

After putting the walls and roof up so quickly, progress on the house now can seem slow at times but it is steady- and any progress is indeed progress! With what time that we have available to sneak away to Dublin in between working full time, we have been doing bits and pieces to get the house weatherproofed. This week we acquired some fancy Swedish tape to seal up the seams in between SIP panels, to reduce the ability for moisture to enter the house. Next step after this tape is Tyvek housewrap on the walls, which will be next weekend’s task. This weekend we also got most of the Grace Ice and Water Shield installed on the roof, thanks to Randy and Jeremy’s efforts. This underlayment will protect the roof and then standing seam metal will be installed over it. Soon the house will be protected from the elements, yay!

We painted on a layer of primer to help the tape stick, and then we laid down and rolled the tape on with as few creases and stretching as possible. This was done on the horizontal panel seams at the bottom of the house and the top, as well as all vertical seams. Here’s Jeremy and Matt figuring out how this Swedish tape works. Brothers! Can you figure out who’s who?Check back later if you want to find out how the tape holds up over time:

Thanks to my mom, Ida, for visiting and chipping in. Even though we worked her hard, she seemed to have a fabulous time:

Here I am hiding under the tarp to get out of the rain, peering down through our sleeping loft window. I am getting much more comfortable working up on ladders, even though our house isn’t too tall compared to most:Jeremy and Randy did the hot and sticky work of installing the roof underlayment: And tada, most of the Grace Ice and Water Shield is installed:

Dormer Adorable

Building a tiny house is such a huge project for us, even though it’s still tiny. Like many people who decide to live tiny, we are complete construction amateurs and have chosen to build as much of the house as we can without professional help- along with lots of sweat equity from family and friends. At each step of the building process so far- from planning, designing, ordering materials, to putting the structure together- we have done lots of research and shopping around. It has been quite the exhausting source of stress and hard work, and at the same time it is absolutely rewarding. How many people can say that their hands built their entire home, and that they understand the intricacies and components of each part of their house? Someday soon when we are able to relax in our tiny home and really enjoy it, we will be able to say that. Until then, it’s long hours of hot work in the sun with frustrating moments, small and large triumphs. It’s so exciting to be in the thick of building our home, and to see progress being made every week on this project. By the end of this post you’ll see the structure of our home, which we completed this week.

The task ahead of us this weekend was to fill this gap in the roof of our house, by building a dormer on the roof:Like the rest of the roof, walls, and floor, we built this out of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs). Randy expertly cut an opening in the dormer panel for our tiny window, and we positioned this first piece of the dormer on the roof:After carefully placing the dormer front wall and small side walls onto the roof, it was time to hoist the dormer roof pieces up and install them:While I hate the strange chemical-ness of spray foam sealant, I also love using the stuff- it seals up all the little cracks in our house, and it’s a nice orange color. Plenty of spray foam has gone into the building of our home:Here’s my dad, looking happy that we finally got the dormer figured out and installed!While we were fiddling around building the dormer I started to question its worth, but once we got it done and I could see how adorable it is all the trouble felt worthwhile:And here’s the happy couple, exhausted after a very successful day building our home:  Next we’ll be getting ready to housewrap and weatherproof the house. Stay tuned, and leave questions or comments for us!

The roof is on fire!

We completely lucked out with the weather this weekend, and with excellent volunteer builders! We were able to install most of the roof panels, and the structure of our house is so close to being complete.

We started the weekend with the walls up but lacking top nailer 2×4’s, so that was our first task before the roof could be built. Here’s Randy eager to get going with the roof installation:

The roof panel install started in the middle of the house, at the roof ridge:After some heavy lifting by these strong guys, we continued bringing the 4 foot panels up to the roof. Each panel was installed using glue, spray foam sealant, nails, 8 inch panel screws, and some SIPs had cam locks as well:Here are the brothers, smiling out the bedroom loft window with the new roof above their heads:With the straightforward back portion of the roof complete, we moved on to the more complicated section around the dormer. You can see that as the roof is nearing completion, the house is looking very house-like!Now we’ve got a roof, complete but for an opening where the dormer will go (next week’s task!). We are really amazed and grateful that our little house has been going up so quickly, thanks to all the support and help we’ve had from family and friends.