Nuts and Bolts

When we last left off, Tyson and I were, as he says, "having an inventure," chasing a tiny house around the area. What you didn't know was that during that time, I was also packing up my tiny apartment to move to Aromas with Tyson. We moved last Sunday and have spent the last week adapting to our new location - a trailer right next to our house. Much like our house, the trailer has no bathroom or kitchen, so we are relying on the generosity of his parents to share their facilities with us for a nominal rental fee while we spend the bulk of our money on the house.


What we have done in that time is almost finish stripping the rafters (see above) and basically pin down our layout. Here is the working floorplan as it stands right now:


We decided a few days ago, just as we were about to set off on a wild goose chase up to Berkeley for a 4 1/2-foot clawfoot tub, that it might just be smarter to refigure our layout and save the hundreds of dollars we would have to spend to get an extra-small tub, and expand the bathroom at the expense of the kitchen to allow for a standard 5-foot tub. Here are the other decisions we've made as they stand right now:

We will have a composting toilet.
We want some kind of pale wood paneling, probably knotty pine.
For flooring, at least in the living area, we're leaning toward a dark hardwood, reclaimed would be great, as would this kind of sustainable bamboo flooring.
Though we had recently changed our minds from gas heater to wood stove in the living area, after researching the cost and necessary space of wood stoves, we have gone back to our original plan of using a wall-mounted propane boat heater.
We're probably going to get a propane-powered tankless water heater, which will likely be one of our first big purchases.
For cooking, though we had toyed with the idea of saving under-counter space by having a cooktop and a portable solar stove, we have since returned to our original plan of a 20" gas stove, (also outfitted for propane) to make up for the counter space we're eliminating by enlarging the bathroom.

Because both Tyson and I are broke, we're approaching the renovation as a multi-draft process. If we can't afford paneling at first, we're going to use burlap or fabric to cover the walls. If it's still going to be a while before we can put in kirei countertops, we'll make do with the one Tyson found at a job site. And, of course, if the clawfoot tub is a bit too steep, we'll start out with a modified stock tank instead.

It's amazing at this stage how often we go into the house to work or get in the car to procure something house-related, and end up spending two hours talking about what to do instead. Tyson found a $400 winch a few days ago which will likely be purchased this week to help get the house up the hill. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a photo I took of Tyson this morning, dressed up for watering some old and also newly planted trees (note the belted boxers and socks tucked into belt...he's always good for a laugh):