It has been over a month since I moved into my house and I can't believe how fast the time has passed! After an intense weekend of moving, I pretty much took the first week off from working on house projects to focus on my job and volunteer projects. Once I had regained some creative energy, I decided to focus my efforts on building storage for my things so I could get them off of the floor in order to continue working on plumbing and to be able to plan the electrical. It's interesting how those two things keep getting pushed farther out depending on other higher priority tasks. I have been thinking about and planning both since August but so far have only started a little of the plumbing.
Luckily I have access to a shop building next door which has a bathroom and running water and also outside faucets for water when temps have been above freezing. I paid for a community center pass the first month primarily to shower and to use the hot tub but also for classes. The classes, however, never really worked with my schedule, the hot tub wasn't always accessible and most of the time, the showers were room temp or cold so I decided to find a different shower option. A friend I met volunteering reminded me about the Kennedy School soaking pool and more importantly that the bathrooms there have showers! Since I have been hard on my body from the time the build began and haven't treated myself to regular massages, this sounded like a great idea. And it has been :) Next month is my birthday month so I think I'm going to treat myself to a rock gym membership where I can shower and get back into climbing. And we are going to be building a shed with a shower and laundry on site in the next month so that is exciting.
As for the electrical, I have been running an extension cord with a three-way splitter for power. I have a great, inexpensive lamp from IKEA with up light and directional light plugged in and also an awesome mirrored glass table lamp up in my loft. Recently, I added batteries to two small motion sensor lights and set them on the window sills below my loft, one for the kitchen and one near the closet. I think I will eventually put them in the bathroom since I haven't quite figured out how I want to light that space yet and also run power there. I have a power strip in my loft mainly to charge my laptop and phone. It's actually been helpful to live in the space while planning the electrical layout because it's easier to have an idea of where I am actually going to want outlets and switches. I decided earlier that I am going to mainly have outlets in my house to plug things in and then have a couple of switches to power a fixed light on the ceiling of my "great room" which will also provide light to my loft. So far I am glad I have chosen a surface mounted electrical system because it has provided me time to consider all of these things. We will see how things go in the next couple of months when the time comes to finally install the system.
And now, back to storage. Living in while working on a tiny house has definitely been a spatial challenge. I am really glad I installed the flooring and trim before I moved in so I wouldn't have to worry about getting everything off of the floor to work, having excessive amounts of sawdust covering things and airing out the polyurethane I used to coat the trim. I tried to take some photos along the way to capture the spatial changes in working space which was continually adapting to projects.
Here is a list of the storage projects I have been working on:
*Shoe rack from extra flooring material
*Closet shelves from extra trim and loft plywood
*Closet rod from scrap at wood shop
*Kitchen wall storage from IKEA rods and hooks and some temporary wood shelves from scraps until I make some welded ones
*Kitchen storage from two used water heater stands stacked on top of each other and some new wire organization basket/shelves, made mobile by a base made from scrap plywood and trim with used castors. (Once I learn how to weld, I'm planning to modify this arrangement.)
*Craft storage from another water heater stand and the same castor base as kitchen storage
*Great room wall storage via used and painted shelf brackets and Fir T&G seconds, some fruit crates and coat hooks from IKEA (This is all temporary since I want to weld some cantilevered shelves, add more crates, drawers, small cabinets and other found items to create a more textured wall similar to walls in my inspiration album.)
*Hammock re-hanging (I had it up earlier during framing and exterior work until I put up the interior wall sheathing.)
*Loft crates for books, movies and art created by myself and others
Check out my flickr for more photos!
Luckily I have access to a shop building next door which has a bathroom and running water and also outside faucets for water when temps have been above freezing. I paid for a community center pass the first month primarily to shower and to use the hot tub but also for classes. The classes, however, never really worked with my schedule, the hot tub wasn't always accessible and most of the time, the showers were room temp or cold so I decided to find a different shower option. A friend I met volunteering reminded me about the Kennedy School soaking pool and more importantly that the bathrooms there have showers! Since I have been hard on my body from the time the build began and haven't treated myself to regular massages, this sounded like a great idea. And it has been :) Next month is my birthday month so I think I'm going to treat myself to a rock gym membership where I can shower and get back into climbing. And we are going to be building a shed with a shower and laundry on site in the next month so that is exciting.
As for the electrical, I have been running an extension cord with a three-way splitter for power. I have a great, inexpensive lamp from IKEA with up light and directional light plugged in and also an awesome mirrored glass table lamp up in my loft. Recently, I added batteries to two small motion sensor lights and set them on the window sills below my loft, one for the kitchen and one near the closet. I think I will eventually put them in the bathroom since I haven't quite figured out how I want to light that space yet and also run power there. I have a power strip in my loft mainly to charge my laptop and phone. It's actually been helpful to live in the space while planning the electrical layout because it's easier to have an idea of where I am actually going to want outlets and switches. I decided earlier that I am going to mainly have outlets in my house to plug things in and then have a couple of switches to power a fixed light on the ceiling of my "great room" which will also provide light to my loft. So far I am glad I have chosen a surface mounted electrical system because it has provided me time to consider all of these things. We will see how things go in the next couple of months when the time comes to finally install the system.
And now, back to storage. Living in while working on a tiny house has definitely been a spatial challenge. I am really glad I installed the flooring and trim before I moved in so I wouldn't have to worry about getting everything off of the floor to work, having excessive amounts of sawdust covering things and airing out the polyurethane I used to coat the trim. I tried to take some photos along the way to capture the spatial changes in working space which was continually adapting to projects.
*Shoe rack from extra flooring material
*Closet shelves from extra trim and loft plywood
*Closet rod from scrap at wood shop
*Kitchen wall storage from IKEA rods and hooks and some temporary wood shelves from scraps until I make some welded ones
*Kitchen storage from two used water heater stands stacked on top of each other and some new wire organization basket/shelves, made mobile by a base made from scrap plywood and trim with used castors. (Once I learn how to weld, I'm planning to modify this arrangement.)
*Craft storage from another water heater stand and the same castor base as kitchen storage
*Great room wall storage via used and painted shelf brackets and Fir T&G seconds, some fruit crates and coat hooks from IKEA (This is all temporary since I want to weld some cantilevered shelves, add more crates, drawers, small cabinets and other found items to create a more textured wall similar to walls in my inspiration album.)
*Hammock re-hanging (I had it up earlier during framing and exterior work until I put up the interior wall sheathing.)
*Loft crates for books, movies and art created by myself and others