Flooring!

So this past week we found out that the house we are renting is in the early stages of foreclosure! Nothing better than news like that to motivate us to get La Casita done as quickly as possible. This weekend Cedric and I put in the flooring for the loft. It is looking super great and we'll have pictures of it posted this week. It took about 5 hours and we did it in our own unusual way. We drilled it in to the downstairs beams rather than stapling it across the way you would normally do flooring. We'll be doing it the "right" way once we get started on the flooring downstairs. It looks really lovely and we'll be oiling the underside since it is visible from downstairs and we'll be doing some sanding to the top. Reclaimed flooring tends to have a LOT of splinters and rough edges! This week I'll continue to do some insulation so anyone who is interested in helping please let me know.




We've been getting a lot of nods from folks who've seen the City Paper article and we just want to say THANKS again to our friend Nikki Seibert for getting us published! It's been really fun meeting new people and talking up La Casita. Everywhere we go people seem open and excited about the undertaking and we are so glad to know there is so much community interest and support in the Charleston area for the tiny house movement. It's really the best time to be building this house and every day we feel so lucky to have been given the chance to do it! So please come on out to the warehouse if you haven't already (or come a 2nd or 3rd time!) and let us show you what La Casita is all about!

Happy October!

While Cedric is out of town I will be getting insulation put in. I was hoping to have a good start on this week but then I got a virus. Yuck. I'm feeling much better now and plan to hit the warehouse hard next week. If anyone is interested in coming out and helping I could sure use it! Any day after five o'clock and Saturdays 10-2 I'll be at the warehouse a workin' so send me a message if you can come out one day! That would be mighty fun! I'll even bake up cookies if you like!

We've pretty much have all the materials we need to finish the tiny house except a stove and a fridge! It's looking like we are going to be having our roof raising at Thanksgiving so all those who will be hanging out in Charleston for the holidays we'll keep you posted on the date (once it's decided).

Crunch Time!

What with all the redesign of the interior space we've lost about a week of work on our timeline. Cedric leaves for work in a couple weeks and is working hard to get the electric and plumbing finished before he's gone for six weeks! It's not easy to decide on a design, build it and then rethink everything. Cedric has had to tear our and redo a lot of previous work but he's done so with great enthusiasm and I'm so grateful for his positivity! The space is much better organized now and our changes are going to really add space and a sense of privacy to our home. I'll be stepping in at the warehouse more often and look forward to completing the insulation process and painting of the windows. I'll need lots of help so please contact me if you'd like to come out to the warehouse on the weekends beginning in October.

In other news, our house is officially named! You may have noticed references to 'La Casita' in some of our previous posts. So much of our inspiration for this project has come from our time spent in Spain. We both love the Andalusian and Catalunian styles of architecture, especially when moorish influence is present. Trying to incorporate these styles into a 6' x 16' space can prove challenging but we thought we could at least provide a spanish name for it! La Casita simply means 'the little house'. Casa=house and when you + -ita, which means little, you drop the -a and end up with an endearment.

Roof Raising Postponed

Update: Hurricane Irene is headed to the Carolina coast so we've decided that it would be best to move the date for the roof raising to another weekend. We talked about it and since hurricane season lasts through October we will keep the house in the warehouse and complete all the interior jobs first. Roof raising will be in November sometime (we'll keep you posted). Cedric bought green tin roofing today that was leftover material from a job out in Ravenel, about 30 minutes down Highway 17. Cedric starts work on the bicycle tours at the end of September til mid-October so progress will be considerably slowed during these weeks. We've started some interior work and are working on finding materials for the details (like having hot water!). Pictures to be posted soon!

Tiny House Talk

It seems everywhere we go people wanna know about tiny houses! It's really exciting to be in the midst of a movement that is taking off! Check out this article in The New Yorker.
It's a short article laying our the bare bones of the movement, how it started and whose doing it. I'd like to expand on it with our own motivations and goals.

We fall into 2 of the 3 categories described in the article, one of which being young people who want to own a house without being imprisoned by debt or even a set physical space and we want to live more lightly upon the earth. With the economy quickly receding (once again!) we find ourselves excited about our personal choice to build a tiny house and help inform those who are interested in living in more economically sustainable ways! Hard times can forge incredible paths to alternative living and we can't wait to see the movement continue to gain momentum as more and more folks move from the consumer-centric mindset to a more frugal and, personally for us, more enriching lifestyle. We want to be able to support those who are just coming into the movement by possibly hosting a south eastern conference for those individuals and businesses that are striving to create the change that needs to happen in our societal mindset. We hosted a discussion at this year's Permaculture Gathering in Celo, North Carolina and met several people in the area building tiny houses or who were interested in starting a project. It felt really energizing to talk and exchange information with knowledgeable folks and be able to share what we've discovered as well!

If you want to see it all in action, come out next Saturday, August 27 from 10-2 to help us raise the roof on our tiny house! Refreshments will provided and tours of the The Sustainable Warehouse will be on-going. See you there!

Housewrap and last windows

The housewrap and most windows are in. Still working on the Dutch door for the side door, so not ready to finish the
Tyvek on that section.

Each window is flashed, making a tight seal between the house envelope and the window frame. On the inside, some Great Stuff insulates the windows and seals them tight to the frame.

After much searching, we now have all the windows we will need for the house. Two little awning windows I got out of a deconstruction project will go into the dormers, providing great cross-ventilation of our loft bedroom.

The Beginnings: Part deux

Up until yesterday afternoon I had only seen the tiny house in pictures and drawings. Cedric and I went to the warehouse and I stood on the 2ftx2ft space that will eventually be our doorstep. Reality really hit me and I stood facing a space that surprised me with it's size. When we said tiny house, boy did we mean tiny! I had a moment of apprehension which was promptly flooded with excitement. Cedric showed me the windows and the wood he's found for the house and we discussed several details, including the layout of the kitchen and the dimensions of the bathroom. We plan to have workdays on the weekends when I am available to help so that I gain some understanding of the construction and what is going in to the house. Standing on the threshold of that soon to be doorstep, and my imagination, I recalled all the reasons for my choice in this venture with Cedric.

For some years now I have been coming in to an expanded awareness of my complete abhorrence of the environmentally damaging living patterns of my society. I am most interested in living off the land in a way that poses the least possible damage to the planet. A tiny house greatly reduces the footprint I make upon the world. With our goal of 90% reclaimed lumber and materials (windows, doors, fixtures, ect.) we hope to further diminish our impact by reusing materials that would otherwise go to the landfill. Our friend Rebecca is vital to this goal. We also envision the majority of the house powered with solar and wind energy, a composting toilet that requires no plumbing and the application of water catchment methods to provide a water supply. I can not imagine a better way to live up to my ideals. A smaller space is not only less of a burden environmentally but economically it is extremely frugal. No rent, hardly any bills and minimal maintenance are among other tantalizing reasons to choose this style of living.

After living and working on organic farms and realizing the impact my living makes on the land, I knew that the American style of suburban living and use of excessive resources was not what I wished for my life. I can not in good conscience continue to live in a way that destroys mother nature and my life goals include educating the next generations on the importance of changing our lifestyles. The population of the earth only continues to grow along with serious environmental impacts accompanied by resource conflicts and disastrous effects upon land and sea. I don't want to be a part of this cycle any longer. I want to wane my dependency on oil and the energy grid in this country. I find mining to be a deep offence to the earth and nuclear could be a viable and efficient option if disposal methods were properly conducted, however, we know that not to be the case. Why not use what is naturally given to us? Why not become more independent and less destructive? I can't find a reason not to so here we go, Cedric and I, on a journey to try and live a new consciousness, one that provides us with a deep sense of contentment that what we do in this lifetime reflects what we hope future generations will come to find enriching and rewarding lifestyles that respect the earth as well as provide rich experiences to the human race.