Month: February 2016

Roofs for walls

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I really wanted my house to be filled with rescued/reused materials. I love the character and story that comes along with salvage. This metal came out of an old barn that we may or may not have had the okay to take stuff from. I mean, we didn’t technically steal it but we didn’t technically have permission to take it.And we rescued it from a slow, rusty death so I don’t feel bad.

This corrugated metal roofing had the perfect amount of rust and had pretty much all blown off the roof already. We picked it up from the field and woods around the barn, hosed it down and sprayed it with polyurethane to prevent it from rusting too quickly in the bathroom. I love the way it looks with the horse trough and it really adds a rustic touch to the house. Dare I say, it’s one of my favorite parts of my house?

Exterior Storage

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There’s a deck over the tongue of the trailer to hold the propane tanks that I use for heat, hot water and cooking. We built a box over the deck to help keep snow (which we have none of this winter) off the tanks, protect the electrical panel from moisture and provide extra storage space. It also was the abyss for everything we could possibly misplace while building. We rushed to get the box built in November so we could finish siding that part of the house but didn’t end up putting doors on it until December. By some sort of miracle – or, you know, climate change- we had a really mild December. I ended up painting the doors of the storage box in the middle of the night. Why would I paint exterior of my house in the dark? Because it was 50 freaking degrees!…In mid December…in the Adirondacks…and when the weather is that warm, you take advantage. Even if the only time you can do so is in the middle of the night.

Word of advice, try to avoid painting in the dark. It won’t look very good but it might look better than oatmeal colored primer.

More on walls

Chrissy Lou

The walls above 8ft are pine ship lap – a mix of rescued materials and new- with a whitewash finish. I found a big pile of used ship lap at ReSource Building Supply store but it wasn’t quite enough for the project so we supplemented with new. Some was rough and some was smooth. The rough stuff I stained dark brown and put it on the exterior. The smooth stuff was whitewashed and put inside. I like the way the interior and exterior subtly mimic each other. By choosing the ship lap for the higher parts of the walls, we were able to minimize waste and make the job a easier. Dry wall comes in 8 foot sheets and if we has decided to extend dry wall to the ceiling, we would have had to cut it to size and worry about a lot more seems. Same for the t1-11 on the exterior. Pretty much a win-win!

Walls make a house…

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…but love makes a home? Or something cheesy like that.

Seth and I hemmed and hawed for months over what to do the interior walls. I wasn’t really into the look of pine that so many tiny houses have, although I certainly recognized the benefits. If I had decided to go with pine, I would have just painted it and that seemed like a waste. Natural pine is beautiful, just not my style!

I wanted to use drywall but we were wary of cracks and on going maintenance. We thought maybe plywood that we would prime and paint-but how would we cover up the seams? Plywood was also pretty pricey compared to sheetrock.

Ultimately, we went with sheetrock. Why? Because that’s what they had in stock at the lumber yard the day we went. Perhaps poor planning on our part but we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for a shipment of plywood to come in.

We did pick up the few pieces of plywood that the had in stock, just in case. We ended up using the plywood in the bathroom when we ran out of sheetrock. The bathroom is at the end of the trailer closest the hitch and we thought this might give the structure some extra stability – bonus! And we came up with a really awesome solution for covering up the seams, which I’ll share later.

I’m happy to report that the walls survived transport with minimal cracking. We were fully prepared to mud every seam after moving but ended up not having to make any repairs. Some cracks were showing a little bit but they were going to be covered by furniture and the stairs so we left them. I’ve noticed they have gotten a little worse but I’ll deal with it in the spring. Overall, I’m happy with the drywall. Sometimes decisions are made for us and things turn out just fine.