Moving toward sustainability
Time to work on the loft’s walls. I’m deviating from the original plans in order to provide more room in the loft. Originally, the roof was going to slope down to meet the loft floor, creating a tight space along the sides.
To fix this, I’m installing dormers—short walls to open up the loft and make it more roomy. The added benefit is the loft will have 5 windows instead of 1!
You can see an example of a dormer on the second floor here:
We got the CS 14 strapping installed all the way around the house and it is looking great.
As with many things in his project, it involved some compromise and flexibility. When I laid out the blocking (the wood between the studs), I neglected to get them exactly lined up with one another, so when it came time to install the CS 14, it was obvious it wasn’t going to match.
As with everything else that “went wrong,” I had to remind myself that any job worth doing is worth doing poorly.
Coming to the master bedroom’s window, I had to cut the CS 14 to make it work.
It turns out that tin snips don’t work, but an angle grinder does the job nicely. So with that out of the way, it is time to work on the loft.
Tiny homes are a little different from conventional construction in that the house needs to handle movement, such as when driving down the road. To help with this, we add some steel to the wood.
The kiddo wanted to help, so the key to keeping him interested and engaged is to give him a task he can complete, along with the opportunity to use power tools. 😄 I asked him to install corner brackets on the door frame and he had a blast.
I got a spool of 14 gauge steel strapping to wrap around the house.
It will provide stability to keep the studs from moving around when we’re bouncing around the highway. Or weathering a Cat-5 Hurricane (well, maybe not that part).
It has been long, too long for sure.
Running out of funds cascaded through my situation, and I’ve only just now been able to crawl out far enough to poke my head above water. With the new year comes a chance to restart.
I purchased some wood for the loft about a month ago; sadly twenty of my 2x4s were stolen. At least they left the loft rafters and floorboards! I’ll take this as a lesson-learned: use the wood ASAP; don’t leave it lying around!