Tiny Cabin

Tiny Cabin Update

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A lot of people have reached out and asked, “How’s the cabin going?” so it’s definitely time for an update. The short version: the rafters and cabin are still where we left them, kissed by alternating rain and shine.

The next step: roofing. As much as I’m ready for the cabin to be “in the dry,” especially with all the rain we’ve had this year, I’m not looking forward to roofing.

For starters, there is a chance, based on the way the rafters are sitting in the hangers, that the OSB boards won’t line up perfectly at the top. We certainly don’t want our cabin to leak! In the words of a friend, we’re going to have to go forward before we know whether or not we’ll need to go backward.

We rushed with the rafters because we knew six days of storms were coming. Now, in order to take our time, we may need to wait until the semester is over in five weeks. We’ll lose many gorgeous 70-degree days, but right now we don’t have as much time or energy as we feel we need to keep moving forward.

April is perhaps too soon for a 2016 retrospective, but a year’s worth of ups and downs have squeezed themselves into three months. An immediate family member was diagnosed with cancer, we’ve lost a friend and two relatives, and we’re facing a challenging situation with a family member who is struggling with mental illness.

Yet 2016 has been surprisingly bright and beautiful as well–a trip to Washington state for a conference and to visit friends, a yoga retreat with Kevin Gardiner, an exhilarating Springsteen concert, and wonderful moments with loved ones.

The journey to building our own cabin began nearly a year ago, and we are more resolved to finish it than ever. We’ve learned about construction, patience, and as The Boss would put it, “the ties that bind.”

 

Tiny Cabin: Fire and Rain

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One week we’re burning the brush pile in 39-degree air; the next, we’re sweeping water from the cabin floor in a humid 75 degrees.

Completing the rafters last Saturday was a high point in our cabin building. My brother-in-law came to help, and by afternoon all 18 rafters were up. The day could not have been more beautiful, even if the sun left its mark on our bodies.

We knew that six straight days of rain were ahead, so we covered the cabin with a tarp and put some plastic sheeting over the floor. The rain began Tuesday night, and when we went Wednesday afternoon, the land surrounding the cabin was a lake.

The water went past our ankles and soaked Chuck’s pants to the knee. Luckily, I had my rain boots on, though I discovered the left one has a hole.

In spite of our bungee cords, the tarp had blown off one side and rain was pouring in. There were already several inches of water on the floor. Using a long pipe as an extension, we were able to move the tarp over the rafter peak and re-secure it. We splashed back to the car knowing that five more days of rain lay ahead.

There was a possibility that the water would keep rising until it engulfed the cabin floor. In that case, we decided we would haul in more dirt and rebuild. Though we would like a cabin built on land, we also considered that we might have to build on a trailer bed. We decided that at some point we would have to cut our losses and run—how many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours are we willing to spend on a thorny Bradford pear plantation?

Thankfully, the waters receded and we didn’t have to act out any of our worst-case scenario plans–at least not yet. More rain is forecast for tonight, and we will have to see how well the floor dries out this week.

 

Tiny Cabin: Building the Bathroom Walls

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I surprised myself by nailing together the bathroom walls in less than thirty minutes. However, we immediately realized that the 8′ studs were so tall that our loft would be cramped. (Though we are following a set of plans, we have made modifications, which indirectly affect other things…)

Bathroom wall

The walls came apart quickly. Chuck trimmed them down once we had settled on the best height. I put them back together, undaunted–time was on our side. Or maybe the act of banging nails was so deeply satisfying that I didn’t care.

In fact, later, as Chuck went to buy the 2′ x 6′ boards for the loft, I nailed down an additional sub-floor. The OSB we originally used had too much give, so we decided to add a layer.

We raised the bathroom walls and connected them with a small metal plate. One of the bathroom walls will brace the 2′ x 6′ loft boards in the middle. No bigger than the loft is, the boards (which will be nailed into the studs of the front and back of the cabin) would have held us without the additional support. Still, it certainly can’t hurt, and we like the aesthetics of it.

Bathroom wall upBoth bathroom walls up

Building the bathroom frame has inspired us to do more research into how we will get water to the bathroom. We have vague ideas of how to catch, filter, and heat it, but soon we will need to fine-tune our logistical plan. Luckily for us, so many others have solved these problems and generously shared their experiences. We know that it isn’t a question of if, but how.

A <2 minute video on off-grid plumbing

An article on tiny-cabin plumbing

Rain was in the forecast, so we spent nearly an hour getting the tarp over the walls. With tired arm muscles, such a task is all the more challenging.

Tarp covering the tiny cabin

Tiny Cabin: Four Walls!

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Chuck and I knew that putting up the walls on the tiny cabin was (ideally) a three-person job, but until minutes before heading to the land, we thought we would be alone in our pursuit. In fact, we were debating if we should even try–it was all four walls or nothing. We didn’t want a repeat of the front wall falling over in a wind gust.

As it turned out, my father-in-law beat us to the cabin site!

The walls have been finished since December, but good weather plus time off work have not been synced. We finally had our chance: last Saturday was a nearly 70 degree day. What’s more, this week is Chuck’s spring break, so we knew we would have time (and, luckily, good weather) to continue working on the cabin after the walls were up.

I have to say–my father-in-law really knows what he’s doing. Not that we don’t have some idea, but we occasionally we hit a snag that causes us to question ourselves, which takes up time.

In a matter of hours, all four walls were up, complete with California corners and additional supports. We still have some windows to finish framing, but time, for a change, is on our side. We left when the sun began to slant below the horizon, tired yet triumphant.

 

A Few of My Favorite Things…for the Tiny Cabin

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I’m the kid that collected scores of stuffed animals and named each one. I had a rock collection, a stamp collection, and to this day I have my threadbare Blanky. I still regret my decision in 3rd grade to sell my Care Bear collection in a garage sale. As I grew up, I continued to surround myself with things that were special to me, whether a postcard, a painting, or a pressed flower.

My astrological sign is Cancer—the crab with pinchers. I like my shell and, by extension, my home—it’s a reflection of who I am and the things I value. I need that space to be a place of rejuvenation or else the pinchers come out.

My senior year of high school, our house caught on fire. I didn’t lose my possessions, but the experience made me ask what was really important. Had we lost everything, what would I have wanted to save? Aside from the obvious answer, my family, there weren’t very many things that made that list—a Swedish plate my grandmother gave me for a watercolor palette, my grandma’s handwritten book of poems, my mother’s quilt.

I’ve spent a lot of energy over the years sifting through my possessions and paring them down. It’s hard to choose what isn’t making the cut; it’s much easier to decide what is.

In a tiny cabin, there will only be room for the essentials and a few of my favorite things. Here’s what is on that list:

My grandmother’s oil painting on barn wood of two bluebirds.

Oil Painting of Bluebirds - Jackie Guerin

A wooden cup from my dad.

Wooden Cup with Colored Pencils

The antique jewelry box from my mother.

Antique Jewelry Box

My grandma’s glass blown “Bluebird of Happiness” by Arkansas artist Leo Ward.

Bluebird of Happiness - Leo Ward

Against these things, the rest fades quietly in the background.

Front Wall Down

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While the front wall held up in spite of storms and six inches of rain at the end of November, this time we weren’t quite so lucky. We had hoped to have the side walls framed out and the walls up by December, but the work was going slowly. I often wished I had paid more attention in high school geometry, though thankfully I hadn’t forgotten everything. I think it’s all still in my brain somewhere, beneath fifteen years of other information.

Chuck, meanwhile, figured out how to use the saw to cut boards at a 45 degree angle. But in spite of our successes, the measurements were off for our side walls. We noticed this when the studs were slanting toward each other at the top. We then realized that the base was 2″ wider than the top (116″ vs. 114″), which meant that the boards for the roof pitch were too short. We used the mallet to try to beat one of the side walls into shape, only to have the wall fall apart.

In these situations, it’s better to start over anyway. We figured out where we had gone wrong, and now we just needed to know how much longer the top boards should be. We needed Pythagoras.

Luckily, the sands of time had left the Pythagorean Theorem unburied in my mind: a^2 + b^2 = c^2 .\,  Since we had the distance for “c” (our hypotenuse) and knew that “a” and “b” had to be equal, we were able to calculate the length needed rather than “guesstimating.” 116″ x 116″ (“c” squared) = 13,456 divided by 2 = 6,728, the square root of which is 82″. For some reason, we came up with 82.5″ that day, and it worked.

The walls are nearly finished. We still have to frame out a couple of windows, but then we will be ready to raise the walls. As a precaution now that winter has begun here in Arkansas, we left the front wall down and stacked the other walls on top of it. To ensure that rain would not fill the ruts between studs, we placed OSB board on top and then the tarp.

What we need next are several nice days during which we can finish framing the windows, raise the walls, and start nailing the rafters up to support the walls. Chuck’s Spring Break is seven weeks away, but there’s no guarantee that the first week of March will be lovely, or even remotely conducive to working outdoors. Last year we had a late snow that week.

Until then, we can cut grooves in the rafters, continue planning, and rest up for our next chance!

The Grasshopper and the Ants

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As a child, I watched Disney’s Silly Symphony (1934) based on Aesop’s fable and learned that the ants had it right: be prepared so that you don’t find yourself hungry and cold when winter comes. In other words, be industrious in anticipation of impending doom. The grasshopper was lazy, I was told, and only cared about himself. The ants mercifully took him in, but the Queen declared he must play his fiddle to earn his keep, a deal the grasshopper gladly accepted.

Being a productive member of society should mean contributing something. Often, however, being “productive” is translated as earning money rather than finding a vocation. Earning and spending money is the best way to contribute—keep the movement going, the motor running. Never mind the beauty passing along the way.

But for me, the greatest commodity is not money, but time.

Earning money is only “worth my time” insofar as it pays my bills and keeps me from defaulting on my debt. Because I value my time, earning money for the sake of having money to spend doesn’t feel like a good trade. I would rather not spend money in exchange for more time.

People who know me well see that I struggle with balancing the industrious ant and the creative grasshopper. Can one be both? Is the grasshopper’s laid-back attitude the very material from which his music is made? Were he more industrious, would the music be as sweet?

Sure, the ants took in the grasshopper and fed him with food they had worked hard to gather, but when it was snowy and too cold to go outside, when it was impossible to leave and gather and be industrious, who do you think was entertaining the ants with his fiddle? The grasshopper provided a valuable service—something that could enrich the ants’ lives.

I suspect that the fable presents two extremes. One group suffers a spiritual hunger, the other a physical. It takes both groups to satisfy the needs of the whole.

I’ve never been afraid of hard work, but I am drawn to something simpler. Life in a tiny cabin will mean less expense and less debt. With less house to maintain and less pressure to earn earn earn, I’ll have more time—more time to notice, more energy to love, more space to write.

Tiny Cabin: First Wall

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We had three days off before Thanksgiving, and the weather was promising. The flood waters had receded, and our cabin had weathered it all. Schedules cleared, we set our alarms for five thirty each morning and drove an hour to the cabin site. The sun crested the God-forsaken Bradford pears to warm the 36 degree air.

The other days weren’t as cold, but they were breezy and sunless. Warming up wasn’t hard with plenty of gravel to shovel around the foundation. Six more inches of rain would soon be on the way.

Our days began and ended in the dark, a rhythm that my body actually welcomed. We were home by six with just enough energy left to eat, bathe, and fall asleep.

The first order of business was nailing down the sub-floor. If I had it all to do over, I’d buy the more expensive, sturdier boards. However, once the sturdy pallet wood floors are down, we won’t know the difference.

Morning Light on Frost
Building Materials
Nailing Together the Wall
Subfloor in Progress

After buying 70+ boards, we began assembling the walls. Luckily, Chuck pays attention to measurements and drawing straight lines. I gave that up a long time ago…

We realized that the 2 ¼” nails weren’t cutting it—nailing one end loosened the other. I’m not sure why we thought they would; the directions were clear: 3 ½” nails. No problems there.

Nailing together the frame took only a matter of minutes. Framing the door and windows, however, required finesse. We had to consider not only the size, but also the placement and height, which meant we needed to know the floor plan. Anticipating this, we had already taped off the size of the cabin in our current living room. That’s right—the tiny cabin is smaller than our current living room!

Two Halves Make a Whole
Half Wall
It’s Level!
Cabin Floor Plan in Living Room
First Wall!

We spontaneously decided that each door would have a transom window. We built the back wall as well, but we’re waiting to put it up. We covered everything with a 20’ x 30’ tarp and didn’t want it to invite a pond between the two walls.

The hard part now is coordinating time off with good weather. Three consecutive days should be enough to finish the shell, but that depends on forces beyond our control.

Flooding and the Tiny Cabin

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Some people romantically refer to their home as a “castle.” While our 10′ x 16′ space is not exactly palatial, we do now have a moat.

IMG_5566 (1) (2)

I can view my glass as either half-empty or half-full. On one hand, the land we purchased is and always will be low-lying. We did receive an excessive amount of rainfall in a short period of time and a number of counties were under a flash-flood warning, but Arkansas is no stranger to strange weather. This won’t be the last time something like this happens.

IMG_5565 (2)

On the other hand, the area of the house is not flooded. Our moving dirt with a rented Bobcat and our hours of shoveling gravel paid off. And unlike our first drive onto the land back in May, our car did not get stuck. Yes, the yard is one big mud puddle, but it isn’t quicksand.

IMG_5567 (2)

I foresee more gravel in the future, and possibly a dock made out of pallet boards…but first, four walls and a roof.