Tiny House Building through a Texas Winter of RAIN pt 1

Rain and more Rain in Austin these weeks giving me time to write about our Tiny House building these past months.

In leu of floor plans, John and I's first steps were to build a teeny Tiny house made of cardboard. Our first construction had little movable parts including a tiny Tahila with her arms outstretched.

I made lists of what I wanted, felt were my "need to have's", in my space. Windows prominently fill the wall space. I like to sit on the floor so floor space for seating is important and space for stretching, turning and dancing. We decided the wall could fold down for a work table or as needed. That meant space for movement :)

Out on the farm the ducks all came around to watch us as the sun came up and the day began.















We strive to keep wood from going to the dump and the following days were spent taking apart pallets (labeled HT, meaning not chemically treated).

And removed many many many nails
Baby Chicks were born and I went to sleep and woke listening to them peep peeping.



The oak pile grew and grew from the older pallets and the planing began. Our days of sunshine ended a day into this process and then the remaining time we spent in sleet. Texas weather has been abnormal this year and unpredictable.
                             

John

Rodney

Me

It was all worth it for the beauty we found as the layers pealed away.

These will be placed carefully on the Trailer bed to become my floor!

House cleaning of the mind in Gratitude

“And then a man came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses

… But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed. 

Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. 

It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye. 

You shall not fold you wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. 

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living. 

And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. 

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.”

- Kahlil Gibran, from 'The Prophet'

Without much amazement this morning, I see clearly that a "flushing out" is needed. An internal purging and balancing must take place, as I work through a similar filtering system of my external life and possessions in preparation to move in my Tiny House.

As asked on a tiny house blog for house prep....or in zen texts:

What is essential to me?
What do I no longer need to hold on to?
What is the too much?

Tiny House Project - 3D dreaming

Something like a month ago I watched part of a documentary about a boy building a tiny house.  The following day I off-handedly asked my good friend, John..."Would you think it would be fun to build a Tiny house on a trailer with me?"

"A what?"

"A Teeny Tiny House, a piece of our art work, an opportunity for me to learn more wood working and construction from you.... We finished building the darkroom last week, New Project!"

"ok! I've got lots of pallets of wood for us to have plenty of free wood" he said with a smile and no idea from either of us what we were getting into.

We began searching blogs, pintrists and craigslisting for trailers.

With our promise to a seller of a couple of of John's sheep and $1,200 I had a trailer, a DIY trailer ... We were going to build!!!

Our strategy for the environment and my pocketbook was to utilize as much rescued materials as we could. A huge amount of wood and other things go to the dump each year, each day. We are constructing the house out of as many things we can that would be discarded otherwise.

As an adjunct photography professor and an artist, my income leaves much to the imagination. My parents were both Gypsies in their own right. My father's home is still a converted school bus, as it has been for a majority of my life. My mother and I moved over ten times before I was 8, drove across country often, lived in tents for some months and always had a passport handy for any last minute travel arrangements. That was normal to me. My father continues to travel to set up kitchens for  disaster relief, for activism and for native american ceremonies. My parents have taught me that a transient life in a small space gives great potential for freedom, from bills and from holding on to tightly to anything and becoming stagnant...

I welcome you all to follow as I learn and we build and we make, hopefully not too many, mistakes...