My House on Wheels: February 2009

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Vancouver Workshop

A couple weeks ago I signed us up to go to Jay's Tiny House Building Workshop. For those of you how don't know, he is pretty much the definitive tiny house on wheels guy. So this is pretty exciting. I'm planning on holding off on any large house purchases until after the workshop in May. I wouldn't want to do anything stupid.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Let's Pretend!

My sister helped me put some of my ideas into her Home Design Studio program. This is the rough product that we came up with. These are the screen shots. It has really helped me sort out the rubbish and it all feels a bit more real.

First Floor

Second Floor

View from the front.

The front wall removed.

The house without the front closets.

My favorite view with the three windows.

The kitchen and stove.

The Story

The heater clicks on. I'm plopped on the outdated foam bed in my bedroom/kitchen in a 70's Argosy reading profiles. These women are the wives of truck drivers, just like me. Drew was not a truck driver when we met or when we got married on a Saturday afternoon in the mountains next to a river without cell service. A year later he left and now for every six days he is gone I get him home for one. Ultimately it is still better than being single. Single people worry about being alone forever, whether or not a relationship is going somewhere, and renting endlessly.

Several years ago I discovered a secret. There are two branches to being financially successful. You need to make more money and spend less money. In these trying times it is difficult for a twenty-something to drastically make more dough. So I focused on the spend less money part of the deal. Since so much of budgets go to rent or a mortgage, I researched alternative housing options. There was one quiet guy named Jay Schaefer out there building tiny houses on trailers meant for transporting cars. I was hooked.

April 14, 2009 (pre-Drew) I bought two axles with an 8' x 16' bed attached that would be transformed into a home. The house got framed then I moved, worked at camp, met Drew, got married, and worked cooking at jail. Three years later; sick of working in confined spaces with government employees, commuting fifty minutes a day, and living essentially by myself in the woods; we moved back to my parents to finish the house. By the end of the summer I should get it done and I can't believe we have come this far. Construction is not a career I want to continue pursuing, but I do love a good chop saw and nail gun. For about $12,000 we should have a portable place for us and our cat,Juno, to live... until we definitively outgrow it.

My House on Wheels

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Vancouver Workshop

Monday, February 2, 2009

Let's Pretend!

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