April and May Build Update

My goodness hasn’t it been a time — feels like we haven’t written a post in a long time. Looking back, it’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown by. April and May seem like distant memories, and now, here we are, well into…July. But we haven’t been sleeping and not working — let me take you through the latest updates and progress we’ve made during these transformative months.

April: A Step Inside

April marked a significant milestone as we built our first (and only) internal wall. We’ve been using the wood that we salvaged from the shed and most recently, our stocks of usable wood are dwindling. Erny however, Erny has truly embraced his inner #dadoftheinternet, finding scrap pieces that fit perfectly. He really embodies this meme.

Jokes aside, the wall came together effortlessly, (almost too easily), allowing us to delineate spaces within the tiny house. With a new wall up, the space seems definitely smaller. The speed of its construction took us by surprise, with the wall going up in just a day. With this new-found momentum, we decided to start on our loft as well.

Making the loft, we discovered that toe nailing the joists was as strong as using joist hangers and a much better approach than end nailing. By placing the joists 45 cm on centre, we ensured they could support our weight and all the storage. The result is a remarkably sturdy structure. As an avid climbers - this excites us as we have more confidence to install a hangboard onto the loft joists now! Installing the loft quickly allowed us to see where the kitchen will be in the space. With extra time (for once, we were running ahead of schedule), we decided to press on installing the loft floorboards. In April, we completed a third of the loft floor (and subsequently finished the floor), and Erny and Lys even enjoyed hash browns sitting on our second floor! The addition of the loft and the bathroom wall has made the space feel smaller and cosy, yet it provides the much-needed context. Visitors are often amazed by how spacious it feels, which is quite deceiving! The tiny house is starting to feel like the 14 sqm that it’s measured to be.

Amidst the progress, Lys finds solace in the tiny house during her lunch breaks. It’s so peaceful, offering a tranquil escape from the work day. However, the process was not without problems — we found two corner leaks. Honestly, we weren’t too sure how to fix them — but we’ve given it a red hot shot. For one of them, we have silicone-d all the edges. Lys became a master of the caulking gun — which, honestly, is harder than it looks. For the second leak, Erny has taped the batten down with waterproof tape, but we’re not sure if that will be a sustainable long term fix. It’s difficult because our diagonal cladding wicks all the water down to that corner, we definitely did not consider that when we installed cladding at the diagonal!

May: Navigating Challenges and New Beginnings

May brought its own set of challenges. We started working on the bathroom floor and making detailed design plans. We hauled the shower tray out of the garage that we had purchase months ago for a steal at $150. It’s always very satisfying using up materials that we have purchased from an age ago. The bathroom floor posed a unique challenge as we wanted it to be at the same height as the floorboards. To achieve this, we created an inset plywood base, supported by small wooden structures and filled with insulation. Each square required the precise installation of four wooden pieces to fit like a puzzle. It was an incredibly finicky process, and we are still not sure if it will be worth the effort, but we do know that the floor is nice and level with a gentle fall to the drain grate.

Then, after weeks of hard work, we took a much-needed break and travelled to Adelaide, Singapore, and Indonesia. The trip provided a refreshing escape, and we even created a little video to share our adventures.

June: Refreshed and Ready

Refreshed from our holiday, this June/July we’re planning on bringing some professionals onto the build — namely James — one of Erny’s sparkie friends, as well as starting to build our own kitchen cabinets. It’ll be a lot of design work and reconfiguration. Erny, always the bargain hunter, found an incredible range hood on Facebook Marketplace that was unused from a renovation so we will be designing around that. This high-quality undermount range hood is a perfect addition to our kitchen.

While there’s still so much to do, working on the inside of our tiny house has been incredibly satisfying. Each step forward brings us closer to finishing! We can also work inside the tiny house when it’s raining, so Lys complains less about the weather. It has, however, been rather chilly with quite a few cold snaps, so we have struggled to wake up early to make maximum use of the Winter sun. Next post will hopefully focus on a June/July update — see you soon!

Catch ya later, Lys & Erny