Saturday, August 16, 2008

Tub? Check. 10,000 Lb Winch? Check.

VoilĂ . La baignoire de clawfoot:


If you haven't noticed, our progress has been slow of late, as we have been a bit more occupied procuring things for the house than working on the house. Last weekend, we drove up to San Francisco to get a clawfoot tub. Though the tub was a little larger than we were expecting (a full five feet), we decided to go ahead. Standing in the garage looking at it in person, it became clear just how small 48" or 55" inches would be. The whole thing came with fixtures, including the screw-on shower pipe. The woman we bought it from said that it had been re-porcelained when she purchased it originally, and knowing from researching recently and a few years ago with my mom what it costs to get new porcelain on a tub, I figured $300 was an excellent price.


I mentioned in the last post that we were trying to get a winch. The plan, which frankly is a little fuzzy to me, is to use the winch to pull the house up the hill. The house, I believe, will be rolled over logs or some type of rounded beam (isn't this how the pyramids were built?). When we went in to get the 10,000-pound winch last week, they were out of stock. So yesterday, we went back and they honored the sale price.


Additionally, we just found a 20-inch propane stove around Berkeley and are on our way up tomorrow to get that. Have a lead on a tankless water heater, so once we get that, we just might have all the main elements needed to get the plumbing done. If only we knew something about plumbing...


The layout continues to be updated. We drove down to Irvine with Tyson's family for his grandmother's 90th birthday on Sunday, then back on Tuesday, so we had a lot of time to look over the plans and decide how we wanted to handle our 60" tub. So, a few changes have been made to the bathroom layout, and we've reduced the depth of part of the right kitchen counter to reclaim some of our lost space. Here's a somewhat cleaner floor plan for you.


Besides our lack of knowledge about plumbing, one of the main issues we're trying to tackle right now is what to do about interim living. We'd like to get the house up the hill as soon as possible, but if we do that, it's not nearly as easy to work on it. But, once we get the house up, we can begin work on the road (and by we in this instance, I mean Tyson and his dad). Without a better road, there's no way to get a 2-wheel drive vehicle up there. And as much as I love my Honda, it just won't cut it, maybe even with a better road. Best not to think of these things, just focus on the tub...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The tub is great! And did I mention how adorable your bangs are? Good luck with the winch-ing!
~Laura

Kim said...

Hi! I have no idea how I wandered over into your blog, but I love your project. (Oh, yeah. Your pictures of Tiny Texas Houses brought me here.)

I just wanted to say that I think it's well worth the space to have one of these great, deep old tubs in your tiny house. Something that brings that much sensory joy is well worth the extra square feet!